The Freedom of the One

Abstract

Readers of Plotinus Ennead VI 8 1391 have thought the treatise to be very different from Plotinus' other works and indeed to be something of a revolution in the history of metaphysics. In this treatise Plotinus refers to the ultimate constitutive principle of all things, the One, as absolute liberty, as absolutely unrestricted self-will to be what it is. This, it seems, is quite different from what we usually hear about the One in the Enneads and is, in the history of Greek philosophy, a completely new way of thinking about first principles. Some have found here the beginnings of a 'Willensmetaphysik' whose representatives include Marius Victorinus, Augustine and Schelling. The ideas developed in Ennead VI 8 appear to have been provoked, in part at least, by the need to argue against a thesis introduced in ch. 7 that the One 'happens to be as it is and does not have the mastery of what it is' (7, 12-13). What inspired this 'daring statement', as Plotinus calls it? Where does it come from? Although much discussed in modern scholarship, these questions remain open. We do not know, it seems, why Plotinus wrote treatise VI 8, what led him to produce one of his most original philosophical works. Georges Leroux's new book' puts us in a much better position to explore such matters. He reprints the Greek text of Ennead VI 8 given by P. Henry and H.-R. Schwyzer in their editio minor (Oxford, 1982; = H-S2) and provides a facing French translation which is on the whole good. In a number of places Leroux prefers the text given in Henry-Schwyzer's earlier editio maior (Bruxelles, 1973; = H-S'), which means that his translation does not correspond sometimes to the Greek text it faces2. The translation is followed by a long commentary consisting of brief summaries of each chapter of the treatise) and