Plotinus ENNEADS - THE SIXTH ENNEAD Complete

Translated by Stephen MacKenna and B. S. Page.

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THE SIXTH ENNEAD:   1) ON THE KINDS OF BEING,   2) ON THE KINDS OF BEING ΙΙ,   3) ON THE KINDS OF BEING ΙΙΙ,   4) ON THE INTEGRAL OMNIPRESENCE OF THE AUTHENTIC EXISTENT,   5) ON THE INTEGRAL OMNIPRESENCE OF THE AUTHENTIC EXISTENT ΙΙ,   6) ON NUMBERS,   7) HOW THE MULTIPLICITY OF THE IDEAL-FORMS CAME INTO BEING: AND UPON THE GOOD,   8) ON FREE-WILL AND THE WILL OF THE ONE,   9) ON THE GOOD, OR THE ONE

128 pages - You are on Page 96

6. Granted, it may be urged, that these observations upon the nature of Substance are sound, we have not yet arrived at a statement of its essence. Our critic doubtless expects to see this “Sensible”: but its essence, its characteristic being, cannot be seen.

Do we infer that fire and water are not Substance? They certainly are not Substance because they are visible. Why, then? Because they possess Matter? No. Or Form? No. Nor because they involve a Couplement of Matter and Form. Then why are they Substance? By existing. But does not Quantity exist, and Quality? This anomaly is to be explained by an equivocation in the term “existence.”

What, then, is the meaning of “existence” as applied to fire, earth and the other elements? What is the difference between this existence and existence in the other categories? It is the difference between being simply — that which merely is — and being white. But surely the being qualified by “white” is the same as that having no qualification? It is not the same: the latter is Being in the primary sense, the former is Being only by participation and in a secondary degree. Whiteness added to Being produces a being white; Being added to whiteness produces a white being: thus, whiteness becomes an accident of Being, and Being an accident of whiteness.

The case is not equivalent to predicating white of Socrates and Socrates of white: for Socrates remains the same, though white would appear to have a different meaning in the two propositions, since in predicating Socrates of white we include Socrates in the [whole] sphere of whiteness, whereas in the proposition “Socrates is white” whiteness is plainly an attribute of Socrates.

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