Plotinus--On
the Intellectual Beauty
Plotinus defends
art against the Platonic charge of being 3x removed from reality
(and therefore not only useless, but dangerous). In his view,
despite the removal, or distance, of art from the One (the
source of ideas/forms) it is "not to be slighted on the
ground that they [the artists] create by imitation of natural
objects." Instead, the art objects "give no bare
reproduction of the thing seen but go back to the
reason-principles from which nature itself derives."
Art may actually improve upon the natural world:
"they [art objects] are holders of beauty and add where
nature is lacking."
Plotinus
compares the function of the One as the ultimate source of all
things to the function of the artist as a "maker":
"All that comes to be, work of nature or of craft, some
wisdom has made: everywhere a wisdom presides as a making."
The artist is not simply imitating objects which are themselves
imitations of the ideas springing from the One. The artist has
some concept of the idea available to him: "the artist
himself goes back, after all, to that wisdom in nature which is
embodied in himself." This statement sounds much like
the biological justification made for the Jungian formulation of
psychological archetypes; the natural world is itself a
reflection of the ideas of the One--we are part of that world,
and therefore we are a reflection of the ideas of the
One. The artist need not merely copy a bed made by a craftsman;
he has the concept of "bedness" available to him
already, not through philosophy, but through his very being, his
participation in nature.
In Plotinus,
ultimate knowledge lies in the soul's ability to contemplate and
grasp the world of forms. OK, here we are still with Plato. Here
is the essential difference: Plato sees the world and its
products as being separated from the One, mere copies of the
ideas of the One. Plotinus--if I am understanding him--sees the
world and its products as being part of the One, thus not
separated from the One and not to be regarded as valueless
distractions from the One. In fact a contemplation of the
world's beauty can be the first step toward an eventual
contemplation of, and union with, the One. The philosophy is
ultimately one of transcendence which does not reify that which
is transcended. Art--including poetry--can be a perfectly
legitimate path to transcendence.
The Plotinian
metaphysic is hierarchical. Matter emanates from the Soul, which
in turn emanates from the realm of intellect or nouV (nous); at
the source of all of these things is the One. Matter, as it
looks away from the realm of soul, tends to become disorganized
matter (the Plotinian roots of Teilhard de Chardin's
evolutionary theology are clear to me now); when matter is
subject to the direction of soul, it exemplifies harmony and
order to the highest degree it is capable of attaining (this is
why the physical world is not to be despised in the Plotinian
system). To the extent that the soul's attention is focused on
matter, it tends to forget itself and become wrapped up in
physical desires; but to the extent that the soul turns its
attention to the realm of intellect, it is drawn away from
merely physical concerns and becomes absorbed in contemplation.
The soul, by looking to itself (and here the point Plotinus
makes about the artist looking to the forms already present
within himself becomes clear) and discovering its higher nature,
is led away from the realm of matter to matter's source--the
One. |
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