Unconsciousness and Quasiconsciousness in Plotinus

Abstract

According to Plotinus, when a man enters the physical world a second man or self attaches itself to the primary man, the higher self. We tend to direct all our attention to this second self and lose sight of the higher self which, nevertheless, continues to operate as nous without ceasing. It is the philosopher's duty to rediscover this higher self which lies within and to return to it through contemplation. Plotinus has two general approaches to the problem of our relationship to our higher self. Sometimes he sees the aim of contemplation to be the turning of the lower man towards the higher self. In this case the lower self is aware of the higher self, is turned towards it and away from the material world. This spiritual direction is described in terms of awareness or consciousness and the seat of consciousness seems to be identified with what we might term our normal empirical consciousness. Most of these ideas may be found in Ennead v. 3. But in the same treatise their inadequacy is also expressed. If we wish to rediscover and truly know our higher self it is not sufficient merely to direct the attention of our empirical self towards it since in this way we stand outside the object of knowledge and know it only by image. True knowledge comes only when we are identical with the object of knowledge. True self-knowledge comes, then, only when we become identified with our higher self, when we transcend our empirical self and live at the level of the higher self. If the higher self never ceases thinking, why, Plotinus frequently asks, are we not aware of it? Usually he answers that although we may all possess a higher self we do not all turn towards it. In an important passage (ch. 4) of Ennead i 4., the treatise on Well-Being, he again poses this question but surprisingly declares that it is not a necessary condition of our spiritual well-being that we be aware of our higher self. Even in v. 3., where Plotinus rejects as inadequate the simple turning of the empirical self towards the higher self and advocates a higher stage of contemplation, he does not go so far as to say that the empirical self need not be aware of this contemplation. Now in other passages what we are asked to turn towards is our higher self considered as a permanently active nous. Our spiritual improvement depends on our becoming aware of its presence. In i. 4, however, Plotinus is concerned with the stage of contemplation which, as stated in v. 3,