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
The categories of place and time are just as unable to figure among the
primary genera. To be in a place, is to be in something foreign; which
implies two consequences:[319] a genus must be single, and admits of
no compositeness. Place, therefore, is no primary genus. For here we
are dealing only with veritable essences.
As to time, does it possess a veritable characteristic? Evidently
not. If time be a measure, and not a measure pure and simple, but the
measure of movement,[320] it also is something double, and consequently
composite. (This, as with place, would debar it from being ranked
among the primary genera, which are simple). Besides, it is something
posterior to movement; so that it could not even be ranked along with
movement.
ACTION, EXPERIENCE, POSSESSION AND LOCATION ARE SIMILARLY
UNSATISFACTORY.
Action and experience equally depend on movement. Now, as each of
them is something double, each of them, consequently, is something
composite. Possession also is double. Location, which consists in
something's being in some definite way in something else, actually
comprises three elements. (Therefore possession and location, because
composite, are not simple primary genera).
NEITHER ARE GOOD, BEAUTY, VIRTUE, SCIENCE, OR INTELLIGENCE.
17. But why should not the Good, beauty, virtues, science, or
intelligence be considered primary genera? If by "good" we understand
the First, whom we call the Good itself, of whom indeed we could not
affirm anything, but whom we call by this name, because we have none
better to express our meaning, He is not a genus; for He cannot be
affirmed of anything else. If indeed there were things of which He
could be predicated, each of them would be the Good Himself. Besides,
the Good does not consist in "being," and therefore is above it. But if
by "good" we mean only the quality (of goodness), then it is evident
that quality cannot be ranked with primary genera. Does this imply that
Essence is not good? No; it is good, but not in the same manner as the
First, who is good, not by a quality, but by Himself.
It may however be objected that, as we saw above, essence contains
other genera, and that each of these is a genus because it has
something in common, and because it is found in several things. If then
the Good be found in each part of "being" or essence, or at least, in
the greater number of them, why would not also the Good be a genus, and
one of the first genera? Because the Good is not the same in all parts
of Essence, existing within it in the primary or secondary degree; and
because all these different goods are all subordinate to each other,
the last depending on the first, and all depending from a single Unity,
which is the supreme Good; for if all participate in the Good, it is
only in a manner that varies according to the nature of each.
IF THE GOOD BE A GENUS, IT MUST BE ONE OF THE POSTERIOR ONES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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