Enneads III 8: Nature, Contemplation, and the One

[sdi]

Here, Plotinus revisits the core idea of his philosophy—emanation and the One—but in a little bit deeper detail.

III 8: Nature, Contemplation, and the One

All things are fundamentally consciousness. Consider by way of analogy a young man entering the workforce: a sharp student may be satisfied with simply thinking about things, but even a dull student who takes to manual labor is directed in his actions by his mind. And too, after he had done a good day's work, does he not rest satisfied with his work? And is not satisfaction also in the mind? So we can see that action is the byproduct of thought, beginning in thought and ending in thought.

Let's take a step up from the man and look at Nature generally as another example. It may be unreasoning in how it procreates, but Nature is simply following the forms that exist in the mind of Nature's Ideal. And there the Ideal rests, thinking it's many thoughts, and Nature as a result fills the universe to the brim with the expression of these thoughts in their varied forms, so that the thoughts may be—so far as possible—endless.

We can repeat this and sketch how it is so all the way up to Soul Itself. But what is the limit? Things far from the source act limply and blindly as it were, carrying out their source's knowing without realizing it, but the closer one gets to the source, the greater the unification of Knower and Known. We see the highest form of this in the Ideal, which contemplates only Itself. But even this is divided, ever so slightly: it has a subject to do the thinking and an object to be thought of. There must be a perfect Unity which has neither and therefore transcend knowledge. But being so, there is nothing more we can know or say about It.

I like how a natural consequence of Plotinus' "unification of Knower and Known" principle implies how meditation is the way to return to the source: self-knowledge is that most like the Ideal.