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Over the next three chapters, I present the salient features of Plotinus’s negative theology, an apophasis that, in certain respects, I take to be the most extreme case of such practices.29 I hope to sketch an interpretation of Plotinian negative theology that articulates the deepest reasons why Plotinus emphasizes that we can neither say, name, think, nor know the One. There are, to be sure, numerous hermeneutical keys that one might employ in explicating Plotinian negative theology. One could, for example, analyze Plotinus’s statements concerning the One in terms of their specific grammatical, semantic, and linguistic features.30 Or perhaps one may wish to argue that Plotinus’s negations and denials issue from some phenomenological characteristic(s)—or lack thereof—of the mystical experience of the One: for example, the ineffability of the experience itself.31 One could certainly adduce passages in support of such readings. To do so, however, would occlude the deeper reasons which motivate Plotinus to make such radically negative claims where the One is at issue. So, for any examination of Plotinian negative theology, while it is necessary to take account of mystical union with the One, and of the language and grammar of Plotinus’s statements, it is also necessary to understand something of the basic, metaphysical structure of Plotinus’s view of reality. For it is ultimately the unique and peculiar metaphysical status of the One—including the relationship between the One and its sequents—that leads Plotinus to make such radical negations. Only in this context, therefore, can we begin to understand the content and function of such negative statements in Plotinus’s thought.

It is ultimately the explanatory role that the One, or the Good, plays in Plotinus’s cosmological, metaphysical scheme—as the unconditioned condition of all things not itself—that generates the series of denials/negations with respect to the One: specifically, it is Plotinus’s conception of the One’s radical, undomesticated aseity/independence that impels such denials and negations. Plotinus’s way of giving a philosophical account of reality, however, is situated in a concrete context defined by many factors: among other things, his self-understanding as a follower and faithful interpreter of Plato; his own life experience; and his disagreements with philosophers whom he regards as wrongly holding views opposed to that of Plato.32 While these facts are well worth acknowledging, for the purposes of the present project, I want to avoid posing questions concerning the genesis of Plotinus’s conception of the One.33 In so doing, I want to delimit the scope of examination by treating only of the particular role that the One plays in Plotinus’s reflections, and thereupon, deal with Plotinus’s statements concerning the One.

With the above comments in place, the order of exposition will be as follows. In chapter 1, I establish the fundamental conceptual context from within which Plotinian apophasis with respect to the One is generated: first, the basic metaphysical structure of dependence; second, the tripartite structure of “higher” reality; and finally, the broader context in which rational discourse about the One functions not only to explain but also to enable the soul to begin a process eventuating in mystical union with the One. In chapter 2, I analyze in some detail Plotinus’s statements concerning the One. The task of this chapter is first of all to understand Plotinus’s statements and his conception of the One. Here, understanding Plotinus’s metaphysical and explanatory project provides the key to exhibiting the rationale and internal logic of apophasis with regard to the One, as well as the way in which Plotinus’s conception of the One must finally be understood in extremely negative terms. Finally, in chapter 3, I present what I take to be the heart of Plotinian negative theology: why I view Plotinian apophasis to be so radical. Plotinus’s conception of the absolute simplicity and independence of the One leads him to argue that the One is, in a way, not the origin of all things: in effect, he is asking us to conceptualize the One as abiding completely alone, utterly unrelated to everything else produced by it, even though it is in fact the source of everything else. I close the chapter by discussing the role of negation in respect of the soul’s ascent to mystical union with the One, part of which involves explicating Plotinus’s extreme injunction to negate negations, and “take away everything!”

1.1 The Basic Structure of Dependence

in Plotinus’s View of Reality

Plotinus understands the structure of reality in broadly Platonic terms. To understand any given entity is to understand the conditions of its dependence. What or why an entity is is explained by those conditions, and in particular, by the relations that constitute such dependence.34 Understanding the nature of dependence conditions will, more importantly, enable us to understand why Plotinus believes that the One cannot be spoken, named, or known. Any given sensible, concrete particular—such as a particular human being—is understood, for example, in terms of (1) its relationship of participating in some paradigmatic Form that defines its quiddity and qualia, and (2) its being a compound of constituents—for example, (a) soul and body, or (b) hyle and morphe.35

In the first case (1), the participation relation [P] is understood in terms of both dependence and likeness: For A to be like F = (i) for A to resemble F and (ii) for A to depend on F for that resemblance. Plotinus explains, however, that there are two kinds of resemblance/likeness:

[O]ne requires that there should be something the same in the things which are alike; this applies to things which derive their likeness equally from the same principle. But in the case of two things of which one is like the other, but the other is primary, not reciprocally related to the thing in its likeness and not said to be like it, likeness must be understood in a different sense; we must not require the same form in both, but rather a different one, since likeness has come about in this way.36

The first type of likeness [L1] obtains between any two things that share an attribute, such that that attribute can be predicated of both items. In this way, the fact that both things are alike is due to the prior37 fact that the property in question derives from the same principle: namely, the Form in which both objects participate. So A is like B and B is like A, because A and B depend on and resemble F. The second type of likeness [L2] characterizes the participation relation [P] discussed above. In addition to dependence and resemblance, Plotinus further articulates participation by (iii) emphasizing the non-reciprocity of the relation: For A to participate in F is for A to depend on and resemble F, but not for F to depend on or resemble A. Plotinus seems to draw this distinction in order to avoid the problems of an infinite regress and of self-predication with respect to the Forms raised in the Parmenides.38

The consequences of this view are significant: for example, someone is virtuous on account of resembling and depending on the Form of virtue, by “the presence (parousia) of virtue.”39 On the one hand, insofar as that person possesses the property of being virtuous—i.e., participates in the Form of virtue as an imitation—she possesses virtue.40 On the other hand, insofar as the Form itself is concerned—that is, as eternal, immutable archetype, apart from its being participated in—it is not virtue.41 The Form of virtue is distinct from any of its instantiations, even though those instantiations are like the Form of virtue, and thereby, are like one another. Put differently, the Form of virtue is different from any of its instantiations, even as it explains the likeness between (3) the instantiations themselves and (4) between any/all instantiation(s) and the Form that it/they resemble(s). In this way, the Form of virtue is the principle and proximate source of virtue in any/all of its participants, without itself being like virtue as it inheres in any/all of its participants.42 Speaking of the double metaphysical status of the Form of virtue, Plotinus puts it this way: “this one and the same reality which when we possess it as an imitation is virtue, but There, where it exists as an archetype, is not virtue.”43 The Form of virtue (Fv) does not possess virtue (fv); nor is it virtuous (fv). Rather, it is something like the rational criteria according to which its participants are virtuous (fv).44 Therefore, we can call the Form because of which any particular entity A possesses the attribute of virtue—and on account of which we predicate of that entity that it “is virtuous,” or state that it “has virtue”—“the Form of virtue” (Fv), but what we mean by such a locution is that it is the principle and proximate source of virtue (fv) in that particular entity (Afv).

Hence, a further set of corollaries follows from the explanatory role of these archetypal Forms. The Form (Fx) is “present” to—i.e., participated in by—all of its participants insofar as, and as long as, they possess the corresponding property or attribute (fx). That is also to say, as possessed by particular, spatially-locatable objects, it must be present “everywhere” there are such objects that participate in it.45 Yet as archetype (Fx), it must also be separate from—that is, transcend—any such instantiation (fx), and therefore, cannot be spatially or temporally located. Qua paradigm, the Form (Fx) must persist immutably in order for it to account for its various instantiations. Cristina D’Ancona Costa correctly observes that the “permanence of this principle”—that is, what Plotinus speaks of as the Form’s remaining in itself (=Fx)—is what is required if the Forms are to function “as the ‘formula’ of all its different kinds of instantiation.”46 In Ennead VI.5.8, Plotinus goes on to explain that what it means for a Form (Fx) to remain in itself is its “not being scattered,” its “being one thing.”47 What Plotinus wants to avoid suggesting is that the participation of multiple entities in a Form (Fx) somehow divides up that Form in piecemeal fashion. Instead, it is the very indivisibility and unity of the Form (Fx) that somehow accounts for all of its various instantiations in particular entities (Afx, Bfx, Cfx, etc.). Plotinus’s view here is an expression of the deep intuition that the many are explained by appeal to a one—i.e., a unity. As we will soon see, this one-over-many intuition also finds expression in the second way in which, for Plotinus, we are to understand entities in terms of the conditions of their dependence.

Unfortunately, there is an ambiguity in Plotinus’s construal of participation [P] just at this point: given the double status of the Form (Fx and fx), what is the relationship between Fx and fx? Plotinus sometimes speaks of parousia or presence in these situations, but it is never perspicuous how parousia explains the precise nature of the relationship between Fx and fx.48 The relation of A participating in Fx is supposed to explain why the particular entity A has the attribute in question: because, insofar as it participates in Fx, A is like Fx and A depends on Fx for fx. So, insofar as Fx is present to A—i.e., insofar as A participates in Fx—A “has” or “is” fx, and therefore depends on and is like Fx. But Fx is distinct from, unlike, and independent of Afx—i.e., the particular entity that participates in Fx.49 My point here is that Plotinus’s appeal to the notion of parousia does not resolve the ambiguity concerning the precise relationship between Fx and fx.50 Rather, I suggest that the notion of presence metaphorically represents something like the power, influence, or “causal” efficaciousness of the Form with respect to any of its instantiations.51 Conversely, the notion of presence also highlights the dependence of entities on their corresponding Form. More importantly, we can already discern that participation [P] relations call for dialectical ways of thinking and speaking. As we will later see, it is the non-reciprocity of P relations that Plotinus appeals to when explaining the relationship of dependence between the One and its sequents.52

The second, more commonly discussed formulation (2) of dependence germane to understanding Plotinian negative theology is based on the view that any entity is a composite of constituents. As with (1) above, this second formulation is an expression of Plotinus’s conviction that the many are explained by appeal to a one. A basic statement of this view is that the “elements from which an individual thing is composed are prior to it.”53 There are, however, several, crucial points underlying and following from this notion. First and most important, any and every composite entity is dependent upon the things of which is composed.54 Hence, the priority of constituents over composites includes the orders of both explanation and metaphysical dependence. Any given entity’s components explain what it is and why it is what it is. As such, the entity is dependent on those constituting elements in various ways, both distributively and collectively. Second, some of those components will be constitutive of the entity essentially, without which it would not be what it is. The entity, its properties, and its very existence are, therefore, dependent upon its constituents. In the case of a particular human being, for example, such components will be understood in terms of soul/body, or more abstractly, in terms of various forms shaping some chunk of matter. In the case of non-material elements, the entity—e.g., a given particular human being—will possess its components in virtue of participating in, among other things, various eternal and immutable Forms.55

On this line of reasoning, the components of a compound are simpler, and therefore less dependent, than the compound that they constitute. Although they are relatively more simple and less dependent than the composite that depends on them, such constituents are nonetheless not what ultimately explain the nature and basis of reality. For Plotinus, “everything that is in something else or [in] any kind of compound also comes from something else.”56 Plotinus’s point is that any component of a composite is derivative of something prior to itself and upon which it depends. This idea takes us back to the first construal (1) of dependence above in terms of participation: specifically, the relationship between a given Form (Fx) and an entity (Afx) that resembles that Form (Fx) on account of participating in that Form (Fx). That the entity Afx possesses the feature fx in question is due to the fact that A participates in Fx. The further point is that the constituents (e.g., fx) of a compound entity (e.g., Afx) are likewise derivative of and dependent upon something prior to them (e.g., Fx). The crucial implication, therefore, is that whatever is ultimately simple—such that it is not a compound or complex of any sort, nor is it a constituent of something else—is also absolutely unconditioned and independent. As we will soon see, it will turn out that the One, for Plotinus, is such as to be absolutely simple, unconditioned, and independent, and thus, what ultimately explains and grounds everything else.

1.2 Plotinian Cosmologico-theology:

The Tripartite Structure of Higher Reality

In the preceding section, I sketched the two primary formulations of dependence fundamental to understanding not only Plotinus’s negative theology, but also his view of the basic structure of sensible reality. Distributively and collectively, however, all of sensible reality derives from, and is dependent on, a higher, divine reality. On the one hand, the distinction between a lower reality and a higher one resolves into the Platonic distinction between sensible and intelligible realities, where intelligible reality consists in the realm of the eternal, immutable Forms, which is also to say, the realm of true being. On the other hand, the picture is somewhat complexified at this point because, for Plotinus, all paradigmatic Forms exist in and are unified in a transcendent, divine mind: Nous.57 In fact, Plotinus understands this “higher reality” in terms of three different but nonetheless related realities:58 in ascending order of independence, simplicity, value/excellence, and reality are Psyche (Soul), Nous (Intellect/Mind), and the One/Good.59 The One is the ultimate source and arche of all reality: from the One “flows” Nous, Psyche, and then everything else whose being/existence is ultimately grounded on the One.

These three realities are metaphysical principles with relatively distinct explanatory roles, accounting for various features and facts of the sensible world.60 Plotinus believes, for example, that Psyche is the proximate source and principle of life and animation of the world “below” it.61 Nous, as I mentioned previously, is the divine Mind, which contains and theorizes—i.e., engages in theoria of—the eternal Forms even as it contemplates itself.62 It is also the principle and proximate source of everything below it, including Psyche. Because Nous “contains” the immutable Forms, it is the realm of true being: “Intellect and being are one and the same thing; for Intellect does not apprehend objects which preexist it—as sense does sense objects—but Intellect itself is its objects.”63 The objects of Nous are the intelligibles—that is, the Platonic Forms—which “give” being to individual entities by giving form and determinacy to them. The eternal Forms themselves, like the things they inform, are defined, delimited, and determinate.64 Furthermore, it is the reflexive, cognitive activity of Nous—which includes theorizing the Forms—that somehow brings about the existence of all entities derivative of it.65 For Plotinus, anything that exists and has being is also defined and determinate; conversely, anything that is defined and determinate exists and has being. Hence, not only the Forms themselves, but Nous as well, understood now as Being itself, is determinate.

Unlike Psyche, which relates to things sequentially,66 Nous abides eternally, and eternally “thinks” itself and the Forms totum simul.67 In just this respect, Nous is less complex than Psyche, and therefore, “superior to [S]oul which is of such great excellence.”68 Plotinus conceives of Nous as a kind of self-enclosed unity: a divine mind contemplating itself as it contemplates the eternal Forms, which are somehow one with itself. It is not entirely clear whether the unity of Nous and the Forms is grounded on the fact that the Forms exist, so to speak, “in” Nous, or whether there is a condition approaching ontological identity between thinker, thinking, and object of thought.69 In the end, Plotinus seems to want to understand the unity of Nous in both respects. More importantly, however, Plotinus continually emphasizes that Nous and its eternal contemplation are, with one specific exception, self-directed (reflexive) and self-enclosed.70 Because it does not look to anything outside of itself in order to “accomplish” or “achieve” its eternal [self-]contemplation, Nous can be understood to be self-sufficient.71

An important consequence of this view is that all knowledge and truth are ultimately grounded in and derivative of the self-enclosed unity of Nous, its self-contemplation, and its intelligible objects.72 For Plotinus, Nous is the supreme knower, precisely because it is everything it knows.73 Because all of its objects of knowledge—i.e., the intelligibles/Forms—persist “in,” and ontologically coincide with, itself, Nous knows immediately itself as well as anything and everything that truly is.74 Several other, significant implications follow from this conception of Nous. First, extreme skepticism regarding truth, knowledge and their basis is averted, because the objects of Nous’s eternal contemplation are “internal” to Nous: there is no epistemic gap to be bridged between knower and object known. Second, as I mentioned previously, Nous’s mode of cognition is immediate and comprehensive, and with respect to its objects, totum simul. Third, because Nous and its objects—that is, the Forms—are determinate, all knowledge is likewise determinate in character. Therefore, because everything/anything that has being or exists is determinate—whether it be Nous, the Forms, or some particular entity—all genuine knowledge is knowledge of what exists/has being. The final, key implication is that, strictly speaking, what is not determinate (i) does not exist/has no being, and (ii) cannot be known.

If Plotinus postulates Nous as a source that accounts for the existence and kind(s) of entities in the world, why is it necessary to locate a source of reality explanatorily prior to Nous? After all, Nous, its contemplation, and its intelligible objects are a self-directed, self-enclosed unity. Has Plotinus not arrived at the conclusion that Nous is self-sufficient? In various ways, everything derivative of Nous is dependent upon Nous. Psyche, for example, is produced as the outflow of Nous, and thus possesses a derivative mode of intellection because it participates in Nous. Particular entities exist because they flow from Nous—via Psyche—and are what they are because they participate in the Forms “internal” to Nous (as well as, in some cases, participating in Psyche and Nous themselves—e.g., human beings). Here, however, a few concerns need to be raised. Most important is Plotinus’s conviction that the self-sufficiency attributed to Nous be qualified.

But that which is altogether simple and self-sufficient needs nothing; but what is self-sufficient in the second degree, but needs itself, this is what needs to think itself; and that which is deficient in relation to itself achieves self-sufficiency by being a whole, with an adequacy deriving from all its parts, intimately present to itself and inclining to itself. For intimate self-consciousness is a consciousness of something which is many.75

It turns out that Nous’s self-sufficiency is relative to several factors. First, while it is not a compound of components—for example, the way in which a particular human being is composed of various, ontologically distinct constituents—Nous is nonetheless something complex. Depending on the question at issue, Plotinus characterizes the multiplicity or complexity of Nous in a number of ways. As Plotinus explains in the passage above, it is the reflexive, noetic activity of Nous itself that somehow “makes” it complex: in the eternal act of self-contemplation, Nous as knower is distinct from itself as object of knowledge.76

Second, the fact that Nous looks to itself, so to speak, in self-contemplation implies that, qua knower, Nous depends on itself as object of knowledge: the rationale, simply put, is that in order to think/know itself, Nous needs itself to be an intentional object of self-knowledge. Although Nous does not need an external object to “achieve” or engage in self-contemplation—and is, on this account, self-sufficient “in the second degree”—it nevertheless needs itself, as it were, to be and do what Nous is and does. Hence, because it is not absolutely simple, Nous is neither unqualifiedly independent nor “altogether” self-sufficient.77 Consequently, only what is absolutely simple can be absolutely independent and unconditioned; and only what is absolutely independent and unconditioned can be what ultimately grounds and accounts for everything else that depends on it.

If the complexity and qualified self-sufficiency of Nous demand further, regressive analysis, then, given the structure of Plotinian explanation, what will ultimately explain and ground everything else will have to be absolutely, metaphysically simple: this, Plotinus designates “the One” or “the Good,” that arche and reality which is so utterly simple that it is completely unconditioned and independent of anything else.78 On this conception of simplicity, the One has no parts whatsoever, no constituents upon which it would otherwise be dependent. Indeed, unlike Nous (or any other entity), there is nothing about the One such that internal distinctions of any sort can be made. Based on the account as I have presented it thus far, we can also go on to say that the One is not a component of something else (roughly analogous to the way in which, for example, a Form Fx remains distinct from its instantiation fx in a particular entity Afx—though they remain somehow intimately related). Moreover, the absolute simplicity of the One entails that the One somehow be “outside” of being and existence: the One neither has being nor is a being. Correspondingly, the One is indeterminate, and hence, remains “outside” the realm of anything knowable. Finally, the One does not think or cognize at all, for doing so would compromise its simplicity: indeed, on Plotinus’s view, the One could not even be aware of itself without thereby being complex.79 In fact, because the One is absolutely simple, it is absolutely independent, so much so that “it will not need thinking.”80

1.3 Problematizing Plotinus’s Conception of the One

In the previous two sections, I sketched the basic features of Plotinus’s understanding of the structure of reality, focusing primarily on the line of thought whose conclusion calls for an unconditioned condition of all things not itself: the One. As it turns out, given Plotinus’s fundamental metaphysical commitments, there ought to be very little to say about the One. At best, one would expect to see a series of negations and denials, and indeed, this is what we observe: the One is not complex in any way; it neither has components, nor is a constituent of something else; it neither exists, nor has being; it is not determinate; and it is not knowable (and does not think/know itself or anything else). In Ennead III.8.10, for example, we find Plotinus explicitly denying of the One any property or attribute: “It is certainly none of the things of which it is origin; it is of such a kind, though nothing can be predicated of it, not being, not substance, not life, as to be above (hyper) all these things.”81 Yet, even a cursory examination of the Enneads will show the reader that Plotinus says quite a bit about the One. So what precisely is Plotinus doing? Is Plotinus simply contradicting himself? Is his view inconsistent?

Although Plotinus’s views are not without some very deep tensions—some of which I will have reason to point out where germane—they are far from being self-contradictory or inconsistent. In many respects, the greatest difficulty Plotinus has to work through philosophically arises from the methodological demand to balance the two poles of explanation: {1} how and why all else is ultimately dependent upon the One; and {2} how and why the One is absolutely independent of all else. Plotinus must address the first requirement {1} by discussing the various ways in which the One is understood as the ultimate source, ground, and goal of all else. If the One is the source of the great diversity and multiplicity of everything that exists, then there will likewise be a great diversity and multiplicity of relationships in which entities stand to the One. These relationships of dependence, of participation, of being generated/produced et al., comprise the foundation of our understanding, thinking, and speaking about the One. Indeed, it is on account of these relationships that anything positive can be said or thought at all about the One. If this is the case, however, what does such thought or speech amount to, given Plotinus’s insistence that the One cannot be known, spoken, or named? Furthermore, the very need to respond to difficult questions concerning the cosmos—for example, whether everything exists, and events occur, arbitrarily82—will force Plotinus to characterize the One in ways that run counter to the way(s) in which the One’s independence must be strictly and emphatically maintained {2}: given that they are applied to entities on the basis of the determinacy of being,83 how can any attribute be ascribed to the One if it (the One) is indeterminate, unknowable, and abides outside of being, beyond anything that exists?

For reasons stated at the outset, I have framed my exposition thus far primarily in terms of Plotinus’s metaphysics: for it is the unique metaphysical status of the One—in particular, its absolute simplicity and independence—that, at bottom, drives the series of negations and denials. Although I will continue to emphasize the metaphysical dimension of Plotinus’s conception of the One, I will now also attend to what Plotinus actually says, positively and negatively, about the One. In order to ameliorate the various tensions formulated in the paragraph above, I must show, among other things, that the semantic content of Plotinus’s statements cohere, even though such statements may, grammatically for instance, have the form of contradiction or paradox. If, as Plotinus claims, the One cannot be known, named, or spoken, then what does Plotinus take himself to be referring to in, or by way of, such statements? Does the injunction to negate all attributions to the One apply to negations of the One? Plotinus says, in Ennead VI.8, that all statements concerning the One must be qualified by “as if” or “so to speak.”84 Does Plotinus really mean that everything one says about the One should be so qualified? Correlatively, then, do negations even need to be qualified by “as if” or “so to speak”? What, furthermore, is the status of positive descriptions of the One? Why do positive or negative statements not provide us with any knowledge of the One? Perhaps even more crucially, I will also go on to argue that Plotinus’s statements need to be understood in terms of their performative/pragmatic function: both positive and negative discourses concerning the One are context-sensitive and have more than one functional role to play in Plotinus’s thought. The question one might pose here is: In speaking of the One, does Plotinus’s take his statements to do more than just explain?

1.4 The Broader Context of Plotinus’s Project

Concerning the One

As a step towards establishing the broader context of Plotinus’s project concerning the One, one might proceed by asking why it is important for Plotinus to write, speak, ponder, and understand the One. What is at stake in any discourse concerning the One? Why pursue an understanding of the One?

But all the same, even now we must speak of it for a little, starting from that [experience] but proceeding by rational discourse. The knowledge or touching of the Good is the greatest thing (esti men gar e tou agathou eite gnoosis eite epaphe megiston), and Plato says it is the “greatest study”, not calling the looking at it a “study”, but learning about it beforehand. We are taught about it by comparisons (analogiai) and negations (aphaireseis) and knowledge of the things which come from it and certain methods of ascent (anabasmoi) by degrees, but we are put on the way to it by purifications (katharseis) and virtues (aretai) and adornings and by gaining footholds in the intelligible and settling ourselves firmly there and feasting on its contents.85

I will say a bit more later concerning the grand, cosmological dynamic of Plotinus’s metaphysical vision of reality: all things proceed from (proodos) from and return/revert (epistrophe) to the Good/One. As Plotinus explains in the passage above, the project of what he calls “knowing” or “touching” the One transpires as part of the larger movement of an “ascent” to the One—which, most broadly understood, is one modality of the return/reversion of the soul to the One. Within that broader context, the “greatest thing” for a human being to pursue and accomplish in via is to “know” or “touch” the Good. For Plotinus, the “knowledge or touching of the Good” is the end and result of one modality of the soul’s reversion to the One: namely, the mystical union of the soul with the One.86

Plotinus goes on to invoke Plato’s authority in support of his own position by citing a passage from the Republic, in which, according to Plotinus, Plato commends to his [Plato’s] students the “greatest study”: endeavoring to learn about the Good.87 In so doing, however, Plotinus contextualizes Plato’s comment, ordering it within his [Plotinus’s] own schema: learning and studying about the One “beforehand” are a means of preparation for mystical union with the One. The further implication is that such study and learning take place, for the most part, within the medium of rational discourse. More specifically, there are three ways in which one learns about and studies the One: by analogies; by negations and abstractions; and by knowledge of the things which flow from the One. These three ways of studying or understanding the One are to be combined with other forms of practice that enable one (or rather, one’s soul) to ascend from the sensible realm to that of the intelligible—i.e., Nous—and finally, from the intelligible realm to the One: that is, “certain methods of ascent,” “purifications,” “virtues,” and “gaining footholds in the intelligible.” What is utterly crucial about Plotinus’s discussion in the passage cited above is that it implies the following: the various forms of practice—including that of rational discourse and the study of the One—can and do serve both narrower and broader ends, and therefore, have more than one functional role to play in Plotinus’s project, at least where the One is at issue. 88

Hence, more narrowly construed, rational discourse and the three ways of “understanding” the One serve the twin philosophical enterprises of explanation and argumentation. As I take Plotinus to understand it, explanation involves inquiry into, and the giving of an account of, things and the way things are; while argumentation involves both evaluation and persuasion. As an example of the former, Plotinus states that “every inquiry is about either what something is, or of what kind it is, or why it is or if it is.”89 As an example of the latter, Plotinus offers the following disclaimer with respect to one section of discourse about the One: “[B]ut now we must depart a little from correct thinking in our discourse for the sake of persuasion.”90 In addition to rational discourse and the three ways of learning about the One, Plotinus also provides descriptions that speak of the One’s greatness, excellence, and capacity in order to evoke awe, some [descriptions] of which he seems to submit as documentary descriptions of mystical union with the One.91 Taken together, these discourses function to inspire the listener/reader by provoking wonder (thauma), esteem, and thereby desire for the One: “But if you take away being from it, you will be filled with wonder. And, throwing yourself upon it and coming to rest within it, understand it more and more intimately, knowing it by intuition and seeing its greatness by the things which exist after it and through it.”92 Indeed, even learning about the One through a “knowledge of the things which come after it” serves to exhibit the greatness of the One—particularly relative to its products—and in so doing, generate esteem for the One.

More broadly construed, then, rational discourse and the three ways of learning about the One also serve the goal of the soul’s ascent to, and mystical union with, the One.

Therefore, Plato says, “it cannot be spoken or written”, but we speak and write impelling towards it and wakening from reasonings to the vision of it, as if showing the way to someone who wants to have a view of something. For teaching goes as far as the road and the traveling, but the vision is the task of someone who has already resolved to see.93

Although the One cannot be spoken or written, Plotinus argues that he speaks and writes so as to impel his audience (and himself) toward the One, and in so doing, transition from reasoning about the One to seeing it. Although this is not the context in which to present an argument for what I am about to claim, I believe that what Plotinus describes above as seeing the One is either one “moment” or aspect of the soul’s mystical union with the One, or simply one way of metaphorically depicting what transpires during mystical union (or perhaps both).94 On Plotinus’s view then, the discursive practices of speaking and writing about the One help to motivate his audience, waking them from slumber and inspiring them to esteem, desire, and pursue a mystical vision of the One. Furthermore, Plotinus suggests that his speaking and writing about the One also function in part as a kind of map directing one to the destination of a scenic viewpoint: in this case, a vision of the One. The conclusion, however, is that although learning and being taught about the One are undoubtedly key steps on the way to mystical vision and union with the One, they only get you so far, as it were.

Indeed, Plotinus identifies two, serious limitations of rational discourse where learning about the One is concerned. The first limitation will be addressed in the next chapter: discourse, whether in the medium of thought or that of speech, cannot reflect the simplicity and independence of the One. The second limitation has to do with the ways in which rational discourse—metaphysically speaking—hinders the soul’s ascent toward an eventual union with the One. This is how Plotinus describes the latter difficulty.

The perplexity (aporia) arises especially because our awareness of that One is not by way of reasoned knowledge or of intellectual perception, as with other intelligible things, but by way of a presence (parousian) superior to knowledge. The soul experiences its falling away from being one and is not altogether one when it has reasoned knowledge of anything; for reasoned knowledge is a rational process, and a rational process is many . . . One must therefore run up above knowledge and in no way depart from being one, but one must depart from knowledge and things known, and from every other, even beautiful, object of vision. For every beautiful thing is posterior to that One, and comes from it.95

Both reasoned knowledge (and ipso facto, rational discourse) and noetic awareness (of intelligible objects) are, of themselves, inadequate to a mystical vision of the One. Of course, one of the reasons that this situation is aporetic is the fact that while reasoned knowledge and intellectual perception are necessary conditions for mystical union with (or mystical awareness of) the One, they are also of themselves—ironically—hindrances to such union/awareness. In the case of reasoned knowledge, the soul is—metaphysically speaking—in a condition of multiplicity when it understands anything by discursive reasoning. One of the things that Plotinus presupposes here is that the successiveness of the cognitive states of the process of discursive reasoning is what in fact “makes” the soul to be in a condition of multiplicity.96 Hence, when the soul reasons or discourses, it is either falling way from a prior condition of unity or it is just not “presently” in a condition of unity (or both). Plotinus is drawing a contrast between two states of the soul: on the one hand, the soul’s being in a state of something like union with the One; on the other hand, the soul’s state “outside” of that union, which is one of being multiply or complexly constituted. The issue here is a bit more complex in that the fundamental, metaphysical condition—that explains why a mystical union is possible at all—is that the One is the ground and source of that soul, and that the soul, in being so grounded and sourced, participates in the One: thus, the soul can have an awareness of the One by way of a presence (parousian) (of the One to the soul) that is superior to knowledge.97 What is most important to take note of here is Plotinus’s conception of the various functional roles that rational discourse—and by implication, negation—plays in the broader movement of the soul’s reversion to the One.

In the following chapter, we will examine Plotinus’s understanding of the role of rational discourse concerning the One in respect of explanation and argumentation. Subsequently, in chapter 3, we will examine the role of negation insofar as it bears on the mystical union of the soul with the One. What I hope to illustrate, once again, is the radicality of Plotinus’s negative theology: first, as such apophasis is exhibited in the mode of explanation and argumentation; and second, as such apophasis serves the goal of mystical union with the One.

29. Broadly speaking, I use Plotinian “apophasis” and “negative theology” to refer to the practice of negation and denial—discursive, cognitive, and otherwise—where the One is concerned. Although Plotinus does use the term “theos” or “god,” I realize that stricter speech might exclude the use of “theology” with respect to Plotinus’s understanding of the One. It may be, then, that stricter speech calls for the use of a locution such as “apophatic henology” or “negative henology.” For our purposes, I will avoid the neologism “henology” and continue to use the more conventional term “theology.”

30. See, for example, Sells, Mystical Languages, 14–33.

31. For a relevant passage in the Enneads, see V.3.7: 133. All subsequent references to the Enneads will cite Ennead number, treatise number, chapter number, and lastly, following a colon, for direct quotations, the page number(s) of Armstrong’s Loeb Classical Library translation. Though not a treatment of his negative theology, one recent, interesting approach to understanding Plotinus’s texts has been via the conceptuality of non-discursivity. See, for example, Sara Rappe. Reading Neoplatonism.

32. For example, Aristotle, various Stoic philosophers, and Gnostic thinkers. In identifying this generic group of thinkers as those with whom Plotinus disagrees, I do not mean to imply that Plotinus rejects monolithically what he takes, for example, Aristotle to hold with respect to any given doctrine. Even Plato must be critically engaged and correctly interpreted: see Ennead VI.7 in reference to the making of the material universe by the demiurge of the Timaeus. See Plato, Plato: Complete Works, 1224–91.

33. It is, for instance, a commonplace in Plotinus scholarship to trace the notion of the form of the Good beyond being [epekeina tes ousias] back to book VI of Plato’s Republic (Book VI, 509). See Plato. Plato: Complete Works, 1130. Two further points. On the one hand, what I want to avoid are the kinds of genetic questions that can be construed as arbitrary: such as, why did Plotinus adopt Plato’s notion of the Good beyond being? On the other hand, I want to avoid posing questions which, while extremely important, are more suited to a study devoted strictly to Plotinus: such as, in what way(s) is Plotinus’s conception of the One indebted to his interpretation of Plato’s Parmenides?

34. For a fascinating passage germane to Plotinus’s understanding not only of the terms of explanation but also of something like self-identity, see Ennead VI.8.21: 297, where, speaking of the One, he says, it “is only itself and really itself, while every other thing is itself and something else.”

35. See Ennead VI.7.2–3: 89–97 and VI.7.5–7: 101–9. Of course, a sensible, concrete particular would also be defined by other characteristics (qualities, for example, which would also be explained by appeal to some relation to a Form) and by its being individuated: “individuality and specific difference and some added attribute” (V.5.13: 195–97).

36. I.2.2: 131–33.

37. Prior in the order of explanation.

38. Two points. First, by “infinite regress,” I refer to what has been called the “Third Man” argument in the Parmenides. See Plato, Plato: Complete Works, 359–97. And second, although Plotinus does not explicitly say so, perhaps the non-reciprocity of L2 or P relations may be explained, on a more primitive level, by the non-reciprocity of dependence relations.

39. I.2.1: 131.

40. I.2.2: 131.

41. I.2.2: 131.

42. I.2.1: 13: “But if that in which the soul participates was the same as the source from which it comes, it would be right to speak in this way; but in fact the two are distinct. The perceptible house is not the same thing as the intelligible house, though it is made in its likeness; the perceptible house participates in arrangement and order, but There, in its formative principle, there is no arrangement or order or proportion. So then, if we participate in order and arrangement and harmony which come from There, and these constitute virtue here, and if the principles There have no need of harmony or order or arrangement, they will have no need of virtue either, and we shall all the same be make like them by the presence of virtue. This is enough to show that it is not necessary for virtue to exist There because we are made like the principles There by virtue.”

43. I.2.2: 131. I have cited this passage from Armstrong’s translation exactly, in which he capitalizes the term “There.”

44. On this point, see Costa, Cambridge Companion, 372.

45. See Costa, Cambridge Companion, 360.

46. See Costa, Cambridge Companion, 360.

47. VI.5.8: 345.

48. Though we understand why Plotinus believes they must be distinct.

49. Alternatively, Fx is distinct from, unlike, and independent of fx as it inheres in A.

50. To be sure, Plotinus is unclear on the precise nature of a relation itself.

51. On the one hand, although I speak loosely of “causal efficaciousness,” the Form is not, strictly speaking, an Aristotelian, efficient cause of its instantiation. On the other hand, for Plotinus, a Form seems to be more than what Aristotle defined as a formal cause. With respect to the idea that the presence of the Form is a function of, or expression of its power (dunamis/dynamis), see Ennead VI. 5.12: 357: “How then is it present? . . . [L]et him call to mind its power, that there is not a certain quantity of it, but if he divides it endlessly in his discursive thought he always has the same power, endless in depth.”

52. Broadly speaking, I follow Christina D’Ancona Costa’s analysis concerning the “causality” of the One: namely, that Plotinus’s understanding of the “causality” of the One follows, in part, from his view of participation relations between a given Form and the particulars that participate in it. See Costa, Cambridge Companion, 356–85.

53. VI.9.42: 309.

54. II.9.1: 225.

55. See (1) above: the first formulation of dependence in terms of participation. On a different point, Plotinus also seems to think that even the intelligible realm is, in its own way, constituted materially. See, for example, Ennead II.4.2: 109. Given the limitations of this project, however, I cannot deal with the details of Plotinus’s doctrine of matter.

56. II.9.1: 225. Bracketed gloss mine.

57. See Ennead V.3, V.4, and V.5.

58. On the relation between, for example, the One and Nous, see V.3.12: 117: “For what [Nous] comes from him [the One] has not been cut off from him, nor is it the same as him, nor is it the sort of thing not to be substance, or to be blind, but it sees and knows itself and is the primary knower” (italics and bracketed gloss mine). On this topic, see also John Bussanich’s now classic study, The One and Its Relation to Intellect in Plotinus.

59. See Ennead V.1 and V.2.

60. To be sure, as I discussed above, the sensible world includes entities—such as human beings—which are metaphysically amphibious: human beings have souls capable of cognition and intellection, and thereby function at the levels of both intelligible and sensible realities. Because of the limitations of this project, I cannot deal with the distinction between what Plotinus sees as distinct modes of awareness and knowledge: for example, dianoia, noesis, theoria, etc.

61. See Ennead V.1.2. Though not important for the purpose of this project, Plotinus thinks that there are two levels with respect to Psyche: a higher level that is the immediate outflow of Nous, and a lower level that is understood to be a world-soul.

62. See Ennead V.3, V.5, and V.9.

63. V.4.2: 149.

64. See Ennead V.1.7: 37: “[A]ll things [in Nous] come from him [the One]. This is why they are substances; for they are already defined and each has a kind of shape. Being must not fluctuate, so to speak, in the indefinite, but must be fixed by limit and stability; and stability in the intelligible world is limitation and shape” (bracketed gloss mine).

65. V.3.17: 131–33.

66. And thus cognizes things discursively: V.1.3: 21.

67. V.1.4: 23; and V.3.5: 85–89.

68. V.1.3: 21. Brackets and capitalization mine.

69. V.4.2: 149: “[I]ntellect itself is its objects.” See also Ennead V.9.6: 301.

70. Plotinus also says that Nous gazes, so to speak, upon that from which it derives: The One. Sometimes, Plotinus intimates that Nous is somewhat Janus-faced, so to speak: eternally contemplating itself and the Forms, while simultaneously in contact with, and gazing upon, the splendor of the One. Furthermore, in other passages, Plotinus seems to suggest metaphorically that Nous is the product of the One’s “activity”: as if the One’s attempt to cognize itself—its superabundance and exceeding greatness—resulted in a kind of fragmentation of itself into Nous (and the multiplicity/complexity “contained” therein). Such an “act” could not remain self-enclosed and so poured itself out, as it were, to become something complex: that is to say, Nous (with the One remaining ever simple, inert, and in itself). On this latter point, see Ennead VI.7.15: 135–37.

71. V.3.17: 131–33.

72. V.3.5: 87; V.5.2: 161; V.5.3: 163.

73. V.3.5: 89.

74. For the sake of clarity, the objects of Nous’s contemplative cognition are the eternal Forms, and not the particular, spatio-temporal entities whose quiddity and being are grounded in the Forms and in Nous’s contemplation thereof. Nous does not traffic, so to speak, with spatio-temporal particulars, since doing so would make it subject to the change and becoming which so characterize the physical existence of sensible reality.

75. V.3.13: 119.

76. In some passages, Plotinus characterizes the complexity of Nous in terms of the multiplicity of Forms/Intelligibles “internal” to Nous. In other passages, Plotinus seems to intimate that Nous is complex because its cognitive acts are, on some level, individuated by the multiplicity of objects it contemplates (see, for example, V.3.10; and by implication, see VI.7.39: 209). In both cases, it is the complexity of Nous so understood that calls for explanation by appeal to a one: namely, the One/Good.

77. For a superb discussion of the varying conceptions of divine simplicity in medieval philosophical theology, see Professor Marilyn McCord Adams’s study, William Ockham. Adams, William Ockham, Volume 2, 901–60. For this student, what is particularly fascinating in reflections on divine simplicity—whether in Plotinus, Pseudo-Dionysius, Aquinas, Bonaventure, Scotus, or Ockham—are the different criteria according to which something qualifies as metaphysically simple: whether absolutely simple, or, in some cases, “sufficiently” simple to fulfill the specific explanatory requirements at issue.

78. See II.9.1: 225–27; V.3.12: 113; and especially, V.4.1: 141: “For there must be something simple before all things, and this must be other than all the things which come after it, existing by itself, not mixed with the things which derive from it, and all the same able to be present in a different way to these other things, being really one, and not a different being and then one . . . for that which is not first needs that which is before it, and what is not simple is in need of its simple components so that it can come into existence from them. A reality of this kind must be one alone.”

79. For a statement of this view, see Ennead V.3.13: 121: “But if this is so, if anything is simplest of all, it will not possess thought of itself: for if it is to possess it, it will possess it by being multiple. It is not therefore thought, nor is there any thinking about it.” Even self-perception, if construed as distinct from self-cognition, cannot be ascribed to the One (VI.7.41: 215).

80. V.6.4: 209: “Again, if the Good must be simple and without need, it will not need thinking; but what it has no need of will not be present with it: since nothing at all is present with it, thinking is not present with it. And it thinks nothing, because it does not need anything else.”

81. III.8.10: 397.

82. On this crucial question, see Ennead VI.8.

83. That is, on the fact that anything that exists, or has being, is determinate: entities exist determinately, for example, as the Form of human being, or as this particular human being. Among other things, what distinguishes a particular human being from the Form of human being, however, is the fact that it is individuated. So, particular entities are both determinate and individuated; the immutable Forms are determinate but not individuated.

84. VI.8.13: 271.

85. Vl.7.36: 199. A brief hermeneutical aside. Notice, in the opening statement of the block quotation, that Armstrong inserts an interpretive gloss placed in brackets: “that [experience].” The gloss “translates” a section of the statement that reads: “archomenois men ekeithen.” More particularly, Armstrong’s gloss seems to refer to “ekeithen,” which might be rendered or understood as “there” or “thence.” The interpretive decision to employ the gloss “that experience” is interesting, and could be contextually significant, if he (Armstrong) is accurately translating and communicating Plotinus’s thought(s) in the opening statements of VI.7.36. Yet, it is not entirely clear whether Plotinus’s use of “there” or “thence” refers to (1) Plotinus’s discussion in the preceding section or paragraph (e.g., VI.7.35) or (2) the subject of Plotinus’s discussion in VI.7.35. If the former, then Armstrong’s use of “experience” could be considered unwarranted. If the latter, however, then his use of the gloss “that experience” may have some warrant. For in the latter case, the “there” or “thence” would refer to the soul’s ascent that eventuates in mystical union with the Good/the One. One might then go on to read Plotinus to say that although he is speaking of the One by way of rational discourse, his speech and discourse have their basis in an “experience,” so to speak, of the One—which is to say, in a union with the One. And if that is the case, then perhaps Plotinus’s statement might suggest that there is a relevant and significant distinction to be drawn between discourse and speech grounded on a union with the One and discourse and speech not so grounded. Given that Plotinus immediately goes on to speak of knowing and “touching” the One in the next sentence (lines 4–5 of VI.7.36), I am inclined to accept Armstrong’s gloss. It is an altogether separate question whether “experience” is the best manner of terminologically glossing that passage, one that I will not address.

86. On Plotinus’s view, the soul’s reversion to the One can be temporarily achieved while still living an embodied existence. This temporary return is what takes place in the soul’s mystical union with the One.

However, it is, as I put it, only one modality of reversion, since mystical union nonetheless represents an anticipation of the final, post-mortem separation of the soul from the body. It is not clear whether or how Plotinus would have us distinguish the actual state of union with the One as achieved in via as opposed to that achieved post-mortem. See Ennead I.7.3: 273: “But if life is a union of soul and body, and death is their separation, then the soul will be adapted to both. But if life is good, how can death not be an evil? Life is good to those for whom it is a good, not in so far as it is a union but because by virtue it keeps away evil; and death is a greater good. We must say that life in a body is an evil in itself, but the soul comes into good by its virtue, by not living the life of the compound but separating itself even now.” Italics mine. See also Ennead I.8.7: 299, where Plotinus recalls Plato’s recommendation to win virtue and separate oneself from the body as a way to escape evil and be among the gods.

87. VI.7.36: 199, note 1: I cite Armstrong’s reference here to Plato’s Republic 505a2 (on the Idea of the Good). See: Plato, Plato: Complete Works, 1125–26.

88. Although the specific question of Plotinian negative theology in the present chapter deals primarily with the three ways enumerated above in connection with mystical union, it will nevertheless be helpful to understand something of the role of the other forms of practice that comprise—“beforehand” as it were—conditions for the soul’s ascent to and [hopefully] eventual union with the One. In the passage above, the various [what I call] practices serve to move one along the path of ascent toward eventual union with the One. Although he does not schematize the practices he enumerates in that passage, there is reason to think that there is a kind of pattern or order to the movement of ascent. This order, I believe, can be viewed from two points of view. Based on his statements above, the first perspective can be described as more ordered and linear, incorporating all of the practices above—both stated and implied—to the following, schematic effect. On the one hand, one learns about the One through rational discourse, by means of the three ways outlined above. But on the other hand, rational discourse is primarily discursive and “theoretical,” and thus is to be distinguished from a form of practice which is in fact a form of praxis: the life of purification and virtue (see Ennead I.2.6: 143, where Plotinus distinguishes between theoretical wisdom and practical wisdom). By cultivating the life of purification and virtue, says Plotinus, one is actually “put on the path to it [the One]” (bracketed gloss mine). Of course, rational discourse ostensibly puts one on the path to it as well. How so? Like other Platonists, Plotinus’s basic conviction is that one becomes like unto divine things by doing divine things: one participates in, and becomes like, Justice by performing just actions. The deeper principle operative here, as well as in Plotinus’s overall conception of the ascent to the One, is Platonic: like is known by like. Hence, in order to “know” or “touch” the One, one must become like the One. What this implies is that the process of ascent towards the One involves/entails a progressive simplification, so to speak: very crudely put, one proceeds from (1) studying about the One in rational discourse and [and=in conjunction with] living the life of purification and virtue to (2) contemplation (theoria) of the eternal Forms by way of Nous’s self-contemplation, and finally to (3) mystical union and contact with the One.

The second perspective can be described, for want of a more felicitous term, as pluralistic. By “pluralistic,” I intend to highlight the diversity and plurality of ways in which Plotinus, in other passages, seems to suggest that one might ascend to the One. For example, Plotinus’s statements in Ennead I.2 intimate that one might ascend to the One by pursuing the life of purification and virtue to its ultimate source and goal: which is also to say, becoming the One. Likewise for the lover of beauty (See Ennead I.6). One may begin by an appreciation of sensible beauty through aisthesis. As s/he seeks genuine beauty, s/he moves from appreciating copies to a contemplation of originals—that is to say, to Nous and the eternal, intelligible Forms (See Ennead V.8). To pursue beauty to its source, however, requires a shift from contemplating the Forms to “touching” the One. Somewhat humorously, Plotinus seems to think, however, that philosophers are “by nature” in the best position both to begin and finish the ascent to the One (See Ennead I.3, esp. I.3.3: 157). On the one hand, Plotinus observes that there are, for instance, lovers of beauty who remain captivated by—and so, in “bondage” to—visible beauty, and thus never rise above the sensible realm. On the other hand, the philosopher’s inquiries into and reflections on the principle(s)/origin of things inevitably lead him/her beyond the sensible to the intelligible, and finally to the One/Good.

89. VI.8.11: 261. Plotinus speaks of his “investigation” and “enquiry,” respectively in Ennead V.3.10: 105 and V.3.15: 123. See also V.1.9: 43, where Plotinus criticizes Anaxagoras for failing to give an “accurate account.”

90. VI.8.13: 267. See V.1.10: 45: “It has been shown that we ought to think that this is how things are, that there is the One beyond being, of such a kind as our argument wanted to show, so far as demonstration was possible in these matters.” See also VI.9.5: 319–21: “This multiplicity all together, then, the intelligible universe, is what is near to the First, and our argument says that it must necessarily exist, if one says that the soul exists.”

91. On the latter issue, see Enneads VI.9 and V.3.

92. III.8.10: 397. See also VI.7.39: 209: “But he [the One] will stand still in majesty” (bracketed gloss mine).

93. VI.9.4: 317.

94. Clearly, what I propose here applies equally to Plotinus’s statements about “touching” the One.

95. VI.9.4: 315–17.

96. Clearly for Plotinus, unlike Enlightenment/post-Enlightenment views, there is no impermeable boundary between, for example, the order of being and the order of knowledge.

97. Two key points.

[I] Clearly, the notion of presence (parousia) raises again certain difficulties, some of which were addressed previously. On the notion of participation in the One, see Ennead VI.8, where Plotinus says, “all the other things that exist are held together by this [the One]; for they exist by some kind of participation in him, and it is to this that their origin is to be traced” (VI.8.21: 297; bracketed gloss mine). See also Ennead III.8: “For there is something of it in us too; or rather there is nowhere it is not, in the things which can participate in it” (III.8.9: 391). Finally, see Ennead I.7.1–2.

[II] Although I cannot engage the fine details of Plotinus’s view here, it will be beneficial to note a couple of the following conceptual and interpretive ambiguities. First, Plotinus’s view implies a distinction between something like an empirical, embodied self/soul versus a real, non-embodied self/soul which is ultimately rooted in the One. Second, is the movement of simplification that culminates in a mystical union with the One merely regressive, in that one sheds the inessential and arrives at the essential and real? What then would be that which is essential and real with respect to the self/soul: the individual soul or its being grounded in the One?