Emanationist Powers

Abstract

This chapter addresses some fundamental approaches to upper (spiritual) and lower (natural) powers within a range of emanationist frames in the Greek, Islamic, and Jewish contexts of Plotinus (3rd century CE), the Theology of Aristotle (9th century CE), and Ibn Gabirol (11th century CE). Starting with Plotinus on upper powers, the chapter lays out some of the most central emanationist insights about emanation in general and in relation to powers in particular, and then turns to some of the shared and different details and implications of upper powers in each of the Theology of Aristotle and Ibn Gabirol’s Fons Vitae. After explaining the sense in which, within an emanationist context, natural powers are what one might call the “afterlives” of spiritual powers, the chapter goes on to explore the relation of upper to lower powers across the three text traditions. The chapter ends with a consideration of emanationist powers vis-à-vis Platonic realism, reflecting in particular on how the perspectival details of Plotinian philosophies of language ought to caution one against too quickly categorizing Plotinian powers alongside any number of other Platonist—or other metaphysical—claims about powers.