The Plotinian One - The formation of number

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• published: 10 Oct 2015
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The Plotinian One – The formation of number – And the emergence of the Intellect Behold the bounty of fecundity; through digital animation the intellectual productivity of a creative imagination can be envisioned, so, by way of allegory, let us explore the metaphysical ramifications of the Neo-platonic or Plotinian concept of the One. “Everything moving has necessarily an object towards which it advances; but since the Supreme [One] can have no such object, we may not ascribe motion to it: anything that comes into being after it can be produced only as a consequence of its unfailing self-intention.” – Plotinus, Ennead V,1,6 "This unity-in-diversity is the most perfect possible image of the absolute unity of the One, whom Intellect in its ordinary contemplation cannot apprehend as He is in His absolute simplicity. It represents His infinity as best it can in the plurality of Forms. Intellect is itself infinite in power and immeasurable, because it has no extension and there is no external standard by which it could be measured, but finite because it is a complete whole composed of an actually existing number of Forms, which are themselves definite, limited realities... " PLOTINUS - Volume I: Porphyry on the Life of Plotinus. Ennead I - Trans by Armstrong The symbolic ‘circumradiation’ around the point ‘may be compared to the brilliant light encircling the sun and ceaselessly generated from that unchanging substance.’ (V, 3, 6) 'The light of the body is the eye: therefore when your eye is single, your whole body also is full of light.' “The order ideas-mathematicals-sensibles is by no means arbitrary. Mathematicals mediate between ideas and sensibles in that they share changelessness with the former, multiplicity with the latter. Thus, if ideas are themselves designated as numbers, these numbers must differ from the numbers belonging to intermediate mathematicals. Perhaps the term idea-numbers or ideal numbers would indicate this difference. One of the characteristic qualities of ideal numbers [1 to 9] would be that each is unique and does not consist of unities [Ex: 24.983], so that ideal numbers would be qualitative rather than quantitative and therefore inaddible.” THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF LATER GREEK AND EARLY MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY - Edited by A. H. Armstrong - © Cambridge University Press, 2008 - Page 16 The perfect contemplation of the One, however, must not be understood as a return to a primal source; for the One is not, strictly speaking, a source or a cause, but rather the eternally present possibility -- or active making-possible -- of all existence, of Being (V.2.1). According to Plotinus, the unmediated vision of the 'generative power' of the One, to which existents are led by the Intelligence (V.9.2), results in an ecstatic dance of inspiration, not in a satiated torpor (VI.9.8); for it is the nature of the One to impart fecundity to existents -- that is to say: the One, in its regal, indifferent capacity as undiminishable potentiality of Being, permits both rapt contemplation and ecstatic, creative extension. These twin poles, this 'stanchion,' is the manifested framework of existence which the One produces, effortlessly (V.1.6). The One, itself, is best understood as the center about which the 'stanchion,' the framework of the cosmos, is erected (VI.9.8). This 'stanchion' or framework is the result of the contemplative activity of the Intelligence. http://www.iep.utm.edu/plotinus - By Edward Moore "What then is the intelligible line, and where does it exist? It is posterior to number; for unity appears in the line, since this starts from the unity (of the point), and because it has but one dimension (length); now the measure of dimension is not a quantitative (entity). Where then does the intelligible Line exist? It exists only in the intelligence that defines it; or, if it be a thing, it is but something intellectual. In the intelligible world, in fact, everything is intellectual, and such as the thing itself is. It is in this same world, likewise, here is made the decision where and how the plane, the solid, and all other figures are to be disposed. For it is not we who create the figures by conceiving them. This is so because the figure of the world is anterior to us, and because the natural figures which are suitable to the productions of nature, are necessarily anterior to the bodies, and in the intelligible world exist in the state of primary figures, without determining limits, for these forms exist in no other subjects; they subsist by themselves, and have no need of extension, because the extension is the attribute of a subject." Ennead VI, 6, 17 Mandala Trance - Numinous http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0