Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 3: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four PeriodsPlotinus
Philosophy
Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 3: In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods
Plotinus
Plotinus
If then, considering the constitution of the relative relations as a
generic form, it be admitted that it constitutes an unity, it forms
a classification; consequently it constitutes an existence and a
form in all things. But if the reasons (or, relations) be opposed to
each other, if the above-mentioned differences obtain among them,
they do not constitute a class, and everything must be reduced to a
resemblance, or category. Now, even if we admit that the things of
which we have spoken can be reduced to a unity, it does not follow that
all the things gathered under the same category by the Aristotelians,
could be reduced to a single sort. Indeed, they lump together into
the same classification, both objects and mere statements of their
absence, as well as the objects which derive their appellation from
them; as, for instance, doubleness itself, and the double object.
Now how is it possible to reduce to the same classification both a
thing and the mere lack of it, as, for instance, doubleness and the
non-double, the relative and the non-relative? This is as absurd as it
would be to gather into the same classification the living "being,"
and the non-living "being." Worse yet, how could one assort together
duplication and the double object, whiteness and the white object? Such
things could not possibly be identical.
3. QUALITIES.[260]
10. We are now to consider quality, on account of which a being is said
to be "such." What can be the nature of this quality that it exerts the
power of deciding of the phenomena of objects? Is there a same, single
quality which is something common to all qualities, and which, by its
differences, forms classifications? Or are the qualities so different
that they could not constitute one and the same classification? What
is there in common between capacity and disposition[261] (that is, the
physical power), the affective quality, the figure, and the exterior
form?[262]
THE LACK OF POWERS CANNOT BE SUBSUMED UNDER THE SAME CATEGORY AS THE
POWERS.
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