Svetla SLAVEVA Literary Form and Philosophical Exegesis:Plotinus' Utilization of Plato's Cosmology

 John Dillon begins his article "Plotinus at Work on Platonism" with a quotation from the Enneads V 1.8: "These teachings [the true doctrines] are, therefore, no novelties, no inventions of today, but long since stated, if not stressed; our doctrine here is the explanation of an earlier, and can show the antiquity of these opinions on the testimony of Plato himself." In the treatise "On Numbers" (Enneads VI.6), Plotinus refers to the Timaeus directly on two occasions: 1) in On Numbers 4.12, he mentions Plato's understanding of the origin of Number as an alternation between Day and Night (Timaeus 39B-C and 47A); 2) in On Numbers 4.20, he clarifies Plato's own understanding of "true number" by referring to Socrates' concept of truth as perceptible only to the thought (Timaeus 37-40). If we consider the paucity of Plotinus' direct references to his sources throughout the Enneads, these two occurrences bear considerable significance.

Plato's myth of the creation of the Universe in the Timaeus and Plotinus' explanation of the structure of the Universe in On Numbers characterize the seemingly incongruous relationship between the "dogmatic" Plato and the "aporetic" Plotinus. However, the two works provide a unique example of Dillon's definition of "Plotinus at work on Platonism." Written in a conversational form, the Timaeus represents Plato's understanding of the origin of the Universe. Plato eases the difficult nature of the philosophical account by interweaving the theme of the structure of the best city-state as a mortal prelude to the main topic--the divine origin of the Universe. In contrast, On Numbers is written in a dense, contemplative literary style of philosophical exegesis which unfolds Plotinus' concept of the origin of the Universe. While, in the Timaeus, Plato relates his cosmogony in a descending order (from the Demiurge to the Universal Living Being, to the heavenly bodies, to the gods, to the human soul and to the body), in On Numbers, Plotinus relates his cosmology in ascending order (from Infinity, to Multiplicity, to Number, to the Complete Living Being, and to the One). The thematical ascent, in On Numbers, from the sensible to the intelligible is built upon the philosophical descent from the divine to the material in the Timaeus. This subtle reconstruction of Plato's cosmology allows Plotinus to explicate his original understanding that the sensible and the intelligible "tend to their origin--the One." Thus Plato's cosmogony becomes Plotinus' cosmology and Plato's descent from the Demiurge becomes Plotinus' ascent to the One.