knowledge of the things which flow from the One. These three ways of studying or understanding the One are to be combined with other forms of practice that enable one (or rather, one’s soul) to ascend from the sensible realm to that of the intelligible—i.e., Nous—and finally, from the intelligible realm to the One: that is, “certain methods of ascent,” “purifications,” “virtues,” and “gaining footholds in the intelligible.” What is utterly crucial about Plotinus’s discussion in the passage cited above is that it implies the following: the various forms of practice—including that of rational discourse and the study of the One—can and do serve both narrower and broader ends, and therefore, have more than one functional role to play in Plotinus’s project, at least where the One is at issue. 88
Hence, more narrowly construed, rational discourse and the three ways of “understanding” the One serve the twin philosophical enterprises of explanation and argumentation. As I take Plotinus to understand it, explanation involves inquiry into, and the giving of an account of, things and the way things are; while argumentation involves both evaluation and persuasion. As an example of the former, Plotinus states that “every inquiry is about either what something is, or of what kind it is, or why it is or if it is.”89 As an example of the latter, Plotinus offers the following disclaimer with respect to one section of discourse about the One: “[B]ut now we must depart a little from correct thinking in our discourse for the sake of persuasion.”90 In addition to rational discourse and the three ways of learning about the One, Plotinus also provides descriptions that speak of the One’s greatness, excellence, and capacity in order to evoke awe, some [descriptions] of which he seems to submit as documentary descriptions of mystical union with the One.91 Taken together, these discourses function to inspire the listener/reader by provoking wonder (thauma), esteem, and thereby desire for the One: “But if you take away being from it, you will be filled with wonder. And, throwing yourself upon it and coming to rest within it, understand it more and more intimately, knowing it by intuition and seeing its greatness by the things which exist after it and through it.”92 Indeed, even learning about the One through a “knowledge of the things which come after it” serves to exhibit the greatness of the One—particularly relative to its products—and in so doing, generate esteem for the One.
More broadly construed, then, rational discourse and the three ways of learning about the One also serve the goal of the soul’s ascent to, and mystical union with, the One.
Therefore, Plato says, “it cannot be spoken or written”, but we speak and write impelling towards it and wakening from reasonings to the vision of it, as if showing the way to someone who wants to have a view of something. For teaching goes as far as the road and the traveling, but the vision is the task of someone who has already resolved to see.93
Although the One cannot be spoken or written, Plotinus argues that he speaks and writes so as to impel his audience (and himself) toward the One, and in so doing, transition from reasoning about the One to seeing it. Although this is not the context in which to present an argument for what I am about to claim, I believe that what Plotinus describes above as seeing the One is either one “moment” or aspect of the soul’s mystical union with the One, or simply one way of metaphorically depicting what transpires during mystical union (or perhaps both).94 On Plotinus’s view then, the discursive practices of speaking and writing about the One help to motivate his audience, waking them from slumber and inspiring them to esteem, desire, and pursue a mystical vision of the One. Furthermore, Plotinus suggests that his speaking and writing about the One also function in part as a kind of map directing one to the destination of a scenic viewpoint: in this case, a vision of the One. The conclusion, however, is that although learning and being taught about the One are undoubtedly key steps on the way to mystical vision and union with the One, they only get you so far, as it were.
Indeed, Plotinus identifies two, serious limitations of rational discourse where learning about the One is concerned. The first limitation will be addressed in the next chapter: discourse, whether in the medium of thought or that of speech, cannot reflect the simplicity and independence of the One. The second limitation has to do with the ways in which rational discourse—metaphysically speaking—hinders the soul’s ascent toward an eventual union with the One. This is how Plotinus describes the latter difficulty.
The perplexity (aporia) arises especially because our awareness of that One is not by way of reasoned knowledge or of intellectual perception, as with other intelligible things, but by way of a presence (parousian) superior to knowledge. The soul experiences its falling away from being one and is not altogether one when it has reasoned knowledge of anything; for reasoned knowledge is a rational process, and a rational process is many . . . One must therefore run up above knowledge and in no way depart from being one, but one must depart from knowledge and things known, and from every other, even beautiful, object of vision. For every beautiful thing is posterior to that One, and comes from it.95
Both reasoned knowledge (and ipso facto, rational discourse) and noetic awareness (of intelligible objects) are, of themselves, inadequate to a mystical vision of the One. Of course, one of the reasons that this situation is aporetic is the fact that while reasoned knowledge and intellectual perception are necessary conditions for mystical union with (or mystical awareness of) the One, they are also of themselves—ironically—hindrances to such union/awareness. In the case of reasoned knowledge, the soul is—metaphysically speaking—in a condition of multiplicity when it understands anything by discursive reasoning. One of the things that Plotinus presupposes here is that the successiveness of the cognitive states of the process of discursive reasoning is what in fact “makes” the soul to be in a condition of multiplicity.96 Hence, when the soul reasons or discourses, it is either falling way from a prior condition of unity or it is just not “presently” in a condition of unity (or both). Plotinus is drawing a contrast between two states of the soul: on the one hand, the soul’s being in a state of something like union with the One; on the other hand, the soul’s state “outside” of that union, which is one of being multiply or complexly constituted. The issue here is a bit more complex in that the fundamental, metaphysical condition—that explains why a mystical union is possible at all—is that the One is the ground and source of that soul, and that the soul, in being so grounded and sourced, participates in the One: thus, the soul can have an awareness of the One by way of a presence (parousian) (of the One to the soul) that is superior to knowledge.97 What is most important to take note of here is Plotinus’s conception of the various functional roles that rational discourse—and by implication, negation—plays in the broader movement of the soul’s reversion to the One.
In the following chapter, we will examine Plotinus’s understanding of the role of rational discourse concerning the One in respect of explanation and argumentation. Subsequently, in chapter 3, we will examine the role of negation insofar as it bears on the mystical union of the soul with the One. What I hope to illustrate, once again, is the radicality of Plotinus’s negative theology: first, as such apophasis is exhibited in the mode of explanation and argumentation; and second, as such apophasis serves the goal of mystical union with the One.
29. Broadly speaking, I use Plotinian “apophasis” and “negative theology” to refer to the practice of negation and denial—discursive, cognitive, and otherwise—where the One is concerned. Although Plotinus does use the term “theos” or “god,” I realize that stricter speech might exclude the use of “theology” with respect to Plotinus’s understanding of the One. It may be, then, that stricter speech calls for the use of a locution such as “apophatic henology” or “negative henology.” For our purposes, I will avoid the neologism “henology” and continue to use the more conventional term “theology.”
30. See, for example, Sells, Mystical Languages, 14–33.
31. For a relevant passage in the Enneads, see V.3.7: 133. All subsequent references to the Enneads will cite Ennead number, treatise number, chapter number, and lastly, following a colon, for direct quotations, the page number(s) of Armstrong’s Loeb Classical Library translation.