Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 2: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four PeriodsPlotinus
Philosophy
Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 2: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods
Plotinus
Plotinus
30. What about intellectual conceptions? Are they also preserved by
imagination? If imagination accompany every thought, and if later it,
as it were, preserves its image, we should thus have the memory of the
known object; otherwise some other solution will have to be sought.
Perhaps reason, whose actualization always accompanies thought, has the
function of receiving it and transmitting it to imagination. Indeed,
thought is indivisible, and so long as it is not evoked from the
depths of intelligence, it remains as it were hidden within it. Reason
develops it, and making it pass from the state of thought to that of
image, spreads it out as it were in a mirror, for our imagination.[151]
That is why we grasp (the thought) only when the soul, which always
desires rational thought, has achieved a thought. There is a difference
between thought and the perception of thought. We are always thinking,
but we do not always perceive our thought. That comes from the fact
that the principle that perceives the thoughts also perceives the
sensations, and occupies itself with both in turn.
THE TWO KINDS OF MEMORY IMPLY TWO KINDS OF IMAGINATION.
31. If theory belong to imagination, and if both the rational and
irrational souls possess memory, we will have two kinds of imagination
(intellectual and sensual); and if both souls are separate, each of
them will possess one kind of imagination. The theory of two kinds
of imagination within us in the same principle would not account for
there being two kinds of imagination; and it would leave unsolved
the question to which of them memory belongs. If memory belong
to both kinds of imagination, there will always be two kinds of
imagination--for it cannot be said that the memory of intelligible
things belongs to the one, and that of sense-things to the other;
otherwise we would have two animate beings with nothing in common. If
then memory equally belong to both imaginations, what difference is
there between them? Besides, why do we not notice this difference? Here
is the cause.
OF THE TWO IMAGINATIONS ONE ALWAYS PREDOMINATES OR OVERSHADOWS THE
OTHER.
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