Plotinus on founding freedom in Ennead VI.8[39]
It is commonly assumed that Plotinus was not particularly interested in ethical and practical matters and that the goal he set for the achievement of happiness was essentially contemplative and otherworldly. We owe this assumption to a selection of some passages in Plotinus’ Enneads and also to a very influential article by Dillon, “An Ethics for the Late Antique Sage” (Dillon 1996b; for Plotinus’ ethics, see Schniewind 2003). The impact of such a reading of Plotinus is that the metaphysical part of his philosophy (broadly speaking, the two first hypostases: the Intellect and the One) is often taken as having little or no significance regarding the way a sage, in his view, should act “here below”.1
If there is one text among the central texts of the Enneads that challenges the above interpretation,2 or at least the unfortunate consequence one may draw from it that a metaphysical enquiry is of little help for our understanding of more mundane matters, it is certainly Enn. VI.8[39].3 Its official topic, according to its title, is “the voluntary and the will of the One”. So, right from the start, we are confronted with a curious mélange de genres where the questions of the voluntary and the will, traditionally confined to ethics, are here being ascribed a new domain, that of the One, which is in Plotinus the very first metaphysical principle of everything.
Although the first chapter of the treatise, in line with its title, asks whether one should ascribe to God (the One) or the other gods (presumably lower gods4) such things as “what is in one’s power” (to eph’ hēmin; cf. Enn. VI.8[39].1.1–11) or, more generally, freedom (eleutheria), it quickly becomes obvious that such an enquiry is not the final goal of the treatise but rather the path one has to follow in order to found our human freedom. Indeed, not only does Plotinus start his enquiry with the case of human beings, but the reason why he is at some point bound to address the question of freedom in the case of the Intellect, and subsequently in that of the One, is because these hypostases are principles in which human freedom appears eventually to be founded. The point is well made by Sylvain Delcomminette, who is developing an interpretation initially put forward by Trouillard:
The foundation in question here is not an external foundation of freedom, but rather its centre, that animates freedom from within. Indeed, gods are not for Plotinus entities foreign to us: although radically transcendent to our common experience, they are at the same time what is the most within us. In Plotinus, as wrote Trouillard, the problem of transcendence “is not the problem of the other (de l’autre), but that of ‘being selfer than oneself’ (plus soi que soi)”. For our self (notre moi) is itself laid out in tiers (étagé), and coincides at its upper levels with the founding principles of everything else. Therefore, to enquire into the freedom of the gods is to enquire into the very heart of our freedom.
(Delcomminette forthcoming)
The whole enterprise of Enn. VI.8[39] should therefore be dubbed “foundational” and its main interrogation spelled out as follows: in what principle(s) should human freedom be founded for this freedom to be possible?
My purpose in this chapter is not to provide a full review of Enn. VI.8[39], but rather to try to clarify the main features of the doctrine of freedom that Plotinus is presenting there. I have chosen to present Plotinus’ position within a broader context, in order to show what he owes to the Greek philosophical tradition (in particular to the Stoa) that has somehow paved the way for his own understanding of freedom. Finally, I shall reflect on the reasons why, according to Plotinus, the One must eventually be thought as remaining beyond freedom and why freedom should be located in the Intellect rather than in the One.
TWO ANCIENT CONCEPTIONS OF FREEDOM
Before entering into the details of Plotinus’ doctrine of freedom it may be useful to try to locate it on a broader map. In the ancient philosophical tradition, one can distinguish between two main conceptions of freedom: one libertarian and one (more or less) deterministic. In his remarkable introduction to Alexander’s de Fato, Sharples noted that “for the Stoics and the Neoplatonists, [contrary to what is the case for Alexander and the Peripatetics,] freedom is located not in the possibility for alternatives but precisely in choosing the most rational course of action” (Sharples [1983] 2003: 22). The affinity between the Stoics and the Neoplatonists (in particular Plotinus), which Sharples rightly acknowledges here, is significant indeed and may eventually help us to understand better Plotinus’ own particular stance on freedom.
From a libertarian point of view, one endorsed by Alexander and which Plotinus clearly rejects,5 freedom6 is something utterly incompatible with determinism and takes the form of a power or capacity for opposite courses of actions:7 one is free only if, at least at some early point in one’s life,8 one has been able to make a free choice between, say, following goodness and virtue or following vice.9
For the Stoics, on the other hand, who were determinists who held that everything happens according to fate,10 freedom is not hindered by external or even internal determinations.11 Indeed, in their view fate is nothing but God himself, who happens to be also assimilated to providence on account of his essential goodness and of his concern regarding everything that is part of the world (particularly human beings). Because God is also for the Stoics both immanent to the world and identified with right reason, everything that happens to men (i.e. fate) is to be taken as “what is best”, even if the good of it might not be immediately obvious to them. One can, for instance, initially fail to see what good there is in falling severely sick or in having one’s best friend taken away from you. But if one understands, the Stoics say, that everything that happens is the most rational thing that can possibly happen, and that rationality is goodness, then one should also welcome these apparently unfortunate events. This is the famous amor fati doctrine, to which we shall return in the course of the next section.
One difficulty with the Stoic doctrine is to understand why I should feel that what is good for the whole world is also good for me. Indeed, it may be part of God’s plan that I shall fall sick and die young for the sake of the good of the world itself (God may work in mysterious ways but at least I do not doubt they are the best), but why should I take the good of the whole to be relevant to me? The question raised here and which will be of central importance to Plotinus, as will be revealed later, is that of the relationship between one’s particular and individual good and the good of the whole. In a nutshell, the Stoic reply to that difficulty consists in reminding us, first, that we are parts of the world and that the good of the parts ultimately lies in the good of the whole in the sense that parts are for the sake of the whole.12 Second, since the world itself is nothing but God and God is right reason, then men, being parts of God, have also a share in God’s perfect reason. Thus the Stoics said that man’s reason or hēgēmonikon is a “detached fragment” or apospasma of God (cf. Diogenes Laertius 7.143). In that sense, not only are we parts of God, but we do share the very same nature, namely reason. For these reasons there is no essential difference between the good of the whole and our particular good.13
KNOWLEDGE, MASTERSHIP AND THE WILL
Now where exactly does Plotinus stand in regard to these two conceptions of freedom? In order to make a non-superficial assessment, we need to focus on some notions that Plotinus himself recognizes as essential to what he thinks freedom is. From the very beginning of Enn. VI.8[39], we see him putting the emphasis on three notions, namely knowledge, mastership and the will. Introduced in the first chapter, they regularly reappear throughout the rest of the treatise and, as will be shown below, can all be traced back to the Stoic doctrine of freedom. This, of course, does not make Plotinus’ account of freedom a Stoic one, but helps to show with which philosophical tradition he sides on this subject.
The requirement of knowledge
First, like the Stoics,14 Plotinus holds that freedom is achieved only through right reason; that is, knowledge. Significant here is Plotinus’ critique of Aristotle’s understanding of what is voluntary (hekousion). According to the latter, in order to be “voluntary” an act must be done in the awareness of the particulars that are involved (cf. Aristotle, EN 3.1.1110b33–1111a1). For instance, one cannot say that I voluntarily murdered my father if I was not aware that it was actually my father. Plotinus, clearly resorting to Socrates’ conviction that no one does wrong voluntarily, claims that the knowledge one must have is not simply a particular one but also a more general and even universal one:15
Certainly the knowledge involved in a voluntary act must not only apply in the particular circumstances but also generally. For why is the action involuntary (akousion) if one does not know that it is a close relative, but not involuntary if one does not know that one ought not to do it? Is it because one ought to have learnt that? [But n]ot knowing that one ought to have learnt it is not voluntary, nor is what leads one way away from learning.
(Enn. VI.8[39].1.39–44)
There is no reason, Plotinus explains, that one should say an act is not voluntary when it is done in ignorance of the particulars (here, not knowing that the person murdered was in fact a close relative) but voluntary when the ignorance concerns more generally the fact that one ought not to murder another person. One may object that “one ought to have learnt” that in the first place, in the sense that it is one’s responsibility to learn such a general knowledge. But for that, Plotinus says, one would have had to know that one had to learn it and failing to know that is also involuntary (see Delcomminette [forthcoming] for further comments). This criticism of Aristotle’s concept of hekousion plays a major role in Plotinus’ more general account of freedom, as it will eventually lead him to show that freedom lies in (universal) knowledge, hence that it should be essentially located in the second hypostases or Intellect (cf. Enn. VI.8[39].2.35).
The requirement of mastership
Technically speaking, however, Plotinus continues, we should remark that an act that is voluntary is not necessarily an act that is in “our power” (eph’ hēmin). The difference between the two is that when we say that something is in our power, we mean that we are masters over it:
For what is voluntary (hekousion) is everything that we do without being forced to and with knowledge, whereas what is in our power (eph’ hēmin) is what we do when we are also masters (kyrioi). And both may often coincide, even if their definition is different; but sometimes they might be discordant; for instance, if one were master of killing [another man], it would not be a voluntary act when one did so if one did not know that this man was one’s father.
(Enn. VI.8[39].1.33–8)
According to Plotinus, what is hekousion, even when it is correctly understood as requiring universal rather than simply particular knowledge, is insufficient to account for what is eph’ hēmin. Indeed, freedom is not only a matter of knowing but also of mastering. In order that my killing of my father is voluntary, I need to know that it is my father that I am about to kill and that killing is indeed a bad thing to do. But even if nobody forces me to commit this act and I have the right knowledge about it, there is no way I can carry it out if I have no mastership over (killing) my father. If, for example, my father is protected and hidden on a remote island and I have no access to him, I am in no position of killing him: he is simply out of reach and killing him is not in my power.16
As is plain from the rest of the treatise, Plotinus takes “master” (kyrios) as the opposite of “slave” (doulos). The idea of presenting moral freedom in the light of the master/slave relationship is certainly not infrequent in ancient texts, but it is fair to say that it is in the Stoa that it was initially developed.17 It is actually at the heart of the Stoic conception of freedom: “The Stoics say: only he [sc. the virtuous man] is free (eleutheron), but the bad are slaves (doulous). For freedom is exousia over one’s own business (exousian autopragias), but slavery is the privation of one’s own business (sterēsin autopragias)” (Diogenes Laertius 7.121, my translation).
As will be discussed in the final section below, the Stoics define freedom as an exousia, the domain of which is autopragia. Autopragia is a rare word in ancient philosophical texts and is mainly used only by the Stoics.18 It is loosely translated as “autonomous” (Garnsey [1996] 2001) or “independent action” (Erskine 1990). Commentators generally ignore the fact that the word was initially used by Chrysippus as a synonym for Plato’s minding-one’s-own-business (to ta autou prattein).19 We should therefore read the prefix auto- in autopragia as referring not simply to the autonomous capacity for action, but also to the special and limited domain over which humans are masters and in which only they are indeed free. This limitation and its recognition are the key of Stoic freedom as documented in Epictetus’ presentation of eph’ hēmin, which encapsulates the essentials of the Stoic original:20
Of things that are, some are in our power (ta men estin eph’ hēmin), and others are not (ta de ouk eph’ hēmin). In our power are judgements, impulsions, desire, aversion, in a word, whatever is our own business; not in our power are the body, property, reputation, offices, in a word, whatever is not our own business. And the things in our power are by nature free, not subject to restraint nor hindrance; but the things not in our power are weak, slavish, subject to restraint, alien.
(Ench. 1.1–2, my trans.)
Here we can distinctively see how Epictetus’ to eph’ hēmin is grounded in the recognition of a distinction between two domains: there are things that are ours and it is our business to care about them; and there are things that are not ours (they are called “alien” by Epictetus) and it is not our business to mind about them. The secret of happiness and freedom is to never confuse these two domains: for only things that are ours are by nature free, whereas things that are not ours are by nature hindered and slavish. The domain of things that are ours is eventually called prohairesis by Epictetus, which he takes to be what each of us truly is.21
We can observe a similar train of thought in Plotinus who, in Enn. VI.8[39], progressively circumscribes the domain of freedom to what is internal to us and finally to what we truly are. One first important step of this approach is his recognition that actions are external to us (exōthen, Enn. VI.8[39].4.9), and therefore that we should exclude them from the domain of what is in our power (the same is done in regard to the body, as discussed below in relation to Enn. VI.8[39].12.4–7). This leads Plotinus to conceive of virtue, held by Plato to be adespoton or without master, as essentially contemplative, actually “another intellect”:
In what way then are we saying that being good is in our power and “virtue has no master” (adespoton tēn aretēn)? … Because when virtue comes to be in us it provides us with freedom and with being in our power (to eleutheron kai to eph’ hēmin) and does not allow us to be any more slaves (doulous) of what we were enslaved before. If then virtue is a kind of other intellect, a state which in a way intellectualises the soul, again, being in our power does not belong to the realm of action but in intellect at rest from actions.
(Enn. VI.8[39].5.30–37; cf. Plato, R. 617e)
Like Epictetus, here we find Plotinus distinguishing between two domains, one within us, and one without, and locating (see Enn. VI.8[39].1.36–7) freedom and what is in our power within ourselves, namely, in his case, in the intellect.22
In Plotinus, intellect is not simply a faculty but a principle or hypostasis of our soul. This means that it is not simply something that we possess, along with other faculties, but what we truly belong to, even what we are. Much influenced by Aristotle, his conception is that Intellect is essentially identical to its object, namely Being or ousia.23 Therefore, by making the Intellect the domain of human freedom, Plotinus also asserts that freedom lies in Being; that is, in what we truly are:24
Each one of us, in respect of his body, is far from ousia (porrō an eiē ousias), but in respect of the soul, that is, of what we most are we participate in ousia (metechomen ousias) and are a particular kind of ousia (esmen tis ousia), which means that we are in some sense a composite of ousia and difference (syntheton ti ek diaphoras kai ousias). We are not then ousia in the strict and proper sense (oukoun kyriōs ousia) or absolute ousia (oud’ autoousia); and for this reason we are not masters of our own ousia (oude kyrioi tēs autōn ousias). For in some way ousia is one thing and we are another (ousia kai hēmeis allo) and we are not masters of our own ousia (kyrioi ouch hēmeis tēs autōn ousias), but ousia, the very thing itself, is master of us (ousia auto hēmōn), given that this also adds the difference.
(Enn. VI.8[39].12.4–11)
In this passage, Plotinus makes two apparently different claims about what we truly are. In one sense, what we are is soul rather than body, but, in another sense, it is ousia itself. The reason for this is that the realization that we are not our body does not simply lead to the recognition that soul is what we most are, but to a form of purification of the soul itself until we reach what the soul really is. Such purification means that we should not identify ourselves with the lower irrational part of the soul. We should not, therefore, make ours the desires of the spirit and of the appetitive parts. For these lower irrational parts of the soul are so because they partake in the body. We should therefore rather identify ourselves with the upper part of the soul, and in particular with the intellect.
Similarly to what we have seen in Epictetus, as long as we continue to identify ourselves with what we are not, namely the body, we remain in a state of slavery. Indeed, instead of being master of ourselves, hence of our ousia, it is rather we that are enslaved to it. But how are we exactly to understand such enslavement? In a manner that recalls the famous image of the god of Glaucus in Plato’s Republic,25 Plotinus presents the compound of soul and body as the result of the addition of a difference to the original ousia. The difference in question has a double meaning. On the one hand, it is presented as a logical (or specific) difference, one that if added to a given genus, produces a species. Hence Plotinus’ presentation of the compound of soul and body is as “a particular kind of ousia” (tis ousia). But this understanding of what the added difference is is insufficient and even misleading, because it suggests that, by being a particular kind of ousia, we are also therefore ousiai. But Plotinus says that we are not: “We are not then ousia in the strict and proper sense (oukoun kyriōs ousia) or absolute ousia (oud’ autoousia).” Diaphora in the present context, then, must also have the sense of otherness: the addition of the difference (namely body) to the original ousia produces a form of estrangement or alienation;26 because of the difference, we are not any more what we truly are.
It is only if we identify ourselves with our soul rather than with the body that we can free ourselves and therefore become masters:
But since in some way we are that which is master of us (kyrion hēmon hēmeis pōs esmen), in this way, all the same, even here below we can be called masters of ourselves (autōn kyrioi). For27 what is absolutely, what is ousia in itself, and which is not other than its own ousia, is also master of what it is here below, being no longer referred to something else, in that it is and in that it is ousia.
(Enn. VI.8[39].12.11–16)
Plotinus here makes the important point that the freedom that is being achieved by our identification with our soul is not some otherworldly freedom. The only way we can gain our freedom and become masters ourselves “here below” is by identifying ourselves with what truly is, namely ousia. Indeed, we saw in the previous passage that it is the ousia that masters us, and by “us” Plotinus meant the very compound of soul and body. So, by recognizing ousia as our true self and therefore identifying us with it, we similarly become masters of ourselves.
The requirement of a will
Let us now come to the third and most important notion, that of will.28 It is actually the first of the three to be introduced by Plotinus, as a conclusion to a passage where Plotinus tries to decipher what we really mean when we speak of what is in our power:
What then do we have in our minds when we speak of “being in our power” (to eph’ hēmin), and why are we trying to find out? I myself think that, when we are pushed around among opposing chances and compulsions and strong assaults of passions possessing our soul, we acknowledge all these things as our masters (kyria) and are enslaved to them (douleuontes autois) and carried wherever they take us, and so are in doubt whether we are not nothing (ouden esmen) and nothing is in our power (oude ti estin eph’ hēmin), on the assumption that whatever we might do when not enslaved to chances or compulsions or strong passions because we wished it and with nothing opposing our wishes, this would be in our power. But if this is so, our conception of what is in our power (ennoia tou eph’ hēmin) would be something enslaved to our will (boulēsei) and would come to pass (or not) to the extent to which we wished it.
(Enn. VI.8[39].1.21–33)
The passage makes heavy use of the master/slave relationship which we have recognized above as indeed essential to Plotinus’ idea of freedom. Being free or having things that are “in our power” is only achievable through us being (or becoming) masters. We have seen that freedom thus understood converges towards our true nature and somehow the same seems to be implied here when Plotinus is equating having nothing in our power (i.e. not being free) with being nothing. The assumption is that we are only as long as we are free precisely because what we are coincides with the very domain of our freedom.
Now, knowing that freedom requires mastership is one thing and knowing what in us should master is another. The function of this passage is precisely to provide an answer for this distinction: what should master is our will (boulēsis). What helps us to get to this recognition is that when we dread that we are nothing (that nothing is in our power) is when we feel that our will is unable to exercise itself. In other words, we have this preconception (ennoia), according to Plotinus, that freedom is essentially a question of will and that if there are to be things that are in our power, they must be somehow “enslaved to our will”; that is, they must be in a position where nothing can prevent us from mastering them.29
Before entering more into Plotinus’ account of the will, let us compare his passage with the opening lines of Epictetus’ On Freedom: “Free (eleutheros) is the person who lives as he wishes and cannot be coerced, impeded or compelled, whose impulses cannot be thwarted, who always gets what he desires and never has to experience what he would avoid” (Dissertationes 4.1, trans. Dobbin). It is difficult not to see the striking similarities between Plotinus’ennoia of freedom and this central text of Epictetus. In both cases, freedom is defined as living “as one wishes”, and is presented as the opposite of being coerced or thwarted in any possible way, which is another way to assert that freedom lies in being a master as opposed to a slave.
Epictetus’ placement of freedom in our will is probably original to him, even if there are precedents going back as far as Zeno, who is reported to have emphasized the incoercible nature of the sage’s will: “Sooner will you sink an inflated bladder than compel any virtuous man to do against his will anything that he does not wish.”30 Furthermore, Epictetus’ decision of making the sage’s will the very place of freedom is to be understood as a natural development of the well-established Stoic doctrine that the only way one can avoid being compelled and thus become free is to wish that “everything that happens” actually happens. And everything that happens, as we have already explained, is only another way to refer to fate, hence to God himself. This thesis (the amor fati doctrine) was famously expressed by the Stoics through the simile of a dog tied to a moving cart:
They too [Zeno and Chrysippus] affirmed that everything is fated, with the following model. When a dog is tied to a cart, if it wants to follow, it is pulled and follows, making its authority over itself coincide with necessity, but if it does not want to follow, it will be compelled in any case. So it is with men too: even if they do not want to, they will be compelled in any case to follow what is destined.
(Hippolytus, Haer. 1.21 = SVF II.975, trans. Long and Sedley; cf. Cleanthes, apud Epictetus, Ench. 53 = SVF I.527)
The passage emphasizes that it is actually through our will that we can avoid the constraints and limitations of the nonetheless unavoidable determination of fate. Both Epictetus and the first Stoics also connect such a will with the sage or good man only. In other words, the will is the location of freedom only if correctly oriented: that is, in order that one may achieve whatever one wills and thus be free, one must will what God has ordained.
Now, there is maybe a further explanation of why Epictetus chooses to present freedom in the form of a will and that is because the Stoics appear to have attributed a will to God himself by positing that “everything that happens happens according to God’s will”.31 Also, they do not qualitatively differentiate between man’s reason and God’s. It is therefore likely that Epictetus attempts to mark off a further correspondence between man and god by granting men a will that is in some sense the same as God’s. And indeed he is famous for asserting that “not even Zeus can conquer my will (prohairesin)!”32 By that, he certainly does not try to weaken God’s will, only to reaffirm that our human freedom is as incoercible as that of God. And if it is so, it is precisely because our will (if we are sages) is nothing but God’s.33
I think the above analysis is sufficient for us to understand what Plotinus’ essential link between freedom and will ultimately owes to the Stoics. Like them, he also eventually ascribes a will to God himself (i.e. to the One as will be discussed below), and makes the One’s will the very principle of freedom. We shall, however, see that one must somehow qualify this connection between the One and freedom since, truly, the One is beyond freedom, hence beyond will itself. In any case, one cannot but see that Plotinus’ own decision to ascribe (if for the sake of persuasion, Enn. VI.8[39].12.2) a will to the One accounts for the very recognition that our freedom, defined in terms of a will in the first chapter of the treatise, must ultimately be founded upon God’s will.
Now why is it exactly so? Why should we take freedom, our freedom, as a will that is founded in God’s or the One’s will? To answer this question, we must first understand better the role played by the One in Plotinus’ conception of freedom. Contrary to the Peripatetic view of freedom advocated by Alexander, Plotinus’ freedom is not a matter of being able to choose freely between two opposite courses of action, one good, one bad, but a matter of seeking after the good and ultimately possessing it. Indeed, for Plotinus there is no way one can be free if one chooses the wrong, evil path:34
That is enslaved (douleuei) which is not master of its going to the good (ho mē kyrion estin epi to agathon elthein), but, since something stronger than it stands over it, it is enslaved to that (douleuon ekeinōi) and led away from its own goods. For it is for this reason that slavery is ill spoken of, not where one has no exousia to go to the bad, but where one has no exousia to go to one’s own good but is led away to the good of another.
(Enn. VI.8[39].4.17–22)
Typically, a master/slave relationship supposes that the slave is called so because he is prevented by his master from attaining his own good; indeed, when one is a slave, the good that is sought to secure, is not one’s own, but the master’s. A slave never achieves his own good because his desires are ill-directed; that is, not directed towards his own good. Conversely, one is free if one both correctly directs one’s desire and eventually gets one’s own good. Now, in Plotinus, the One is not simply the first principle of everything, it is also the Good of every subsequent being. Of course, the One could not be my own good if it were alien to me and this is why it is said to lie at the very inner centre of my being, even beyond the Intellect:
If we ever see in ourselves a nature of this kind (i.e. the One’s) which shares nothing with the other things which are attached to us35 by which we have to experience whatever happens by chance (for all the other things which belong to us are enslaved to and exposed to chances, and come to us in a way by chance), but this alone has self-mastery (to kyrion auto) and authority over itself (to autexousion) by the act of a light that has the form of good and is good, and is greater than that which belongs to Intellect. And this act does not possess its superiority over the Intellect on account of something brought in from outside. Surely, when we ascend to this [light] and become this alone and let the rest go, what can we say of it except that we are more than free (pleon ē eleutheroi) and more than independent (pleon ē autexousioi)?
(Enn. VI.8[39].15.14–23)
Continuing Glaucus’ theme that what is truly ours is what lies within us beyond any external and thus alien addition (Enn. VI.8[39].12.4–11), here Plotinus locates the One in our inner self, making it not simply a good, but our very own good, one that we must seek after if we want to free ourselves from what ties us to external and enslaving conditions.
One important fact about the foundational role of the One regarding human freedom is therefore that the One is our own good (rather than somebody else’s) and that, since one is free when one is able to seek after one’s own good, then the One becomes an essential condition for our freedom: it is the very object of our will.36 But there is more than that. Plotinus’ insistence on presenting our freedom in terms of a will and his ascription of a will (if only for the sake of persuasion) to the One strongly suggests that the very possession of the good (through our inner ascent to the One) is a matter of having our will coincide with God’s will. The One is not simply the object of our will but must also be a kind of model for the will itself. This, I believe, is confirmed in the following: “If we were to grant acts to him, and ascribe his acts to what is like his will – for it does not act unwillingly – and his acts are like his being, his will and his substance will be the same thing” (Plotinus, Enn. VI.8[39].13.5–8).
Since the One is beyond any form of multiplicity, one should not ascribe to it anything that may produce, by its very addition, a duality. However, if, for the sake of persuading a refractory soul – like the one addressed in Enn. VI.8[39].12.2 – we concede to grant acts or activities (energeiai) to the One, then we have to grant to the One what is like (hoion) a will too: indeed, if we are to represent the One acting in some way or another, his acting cannot be unwilling. Now, we have seen that what the will wants or desires is the good. But the One is the good: what is like (hoion) his being, which is a pure act (i.e. an act unmixed with potency), is the good. Contrary to the Intellect, however, the One does not simply eternally possess the good but is actually fully identical to it: what is like his will and what is like his being are one and the same. The will of the One (i.e. the sort of will that the One somehow embodies) is a will of oneself where there is no difference left between the will and the self:
It is not possible to apprehend him without the will to be by his own agency what he is: coinciding with himself, he wants to be himself and he is what he wants. His will and himself are one (hē thelēsis kai autos hen), and his unity is not diminished since there is no difference between, on the one hand, himself happening to be as he is, and, on the other, what he would have wished to be. For what could he have wished to be except this which he is? For even if we assumed that he could choose to become what he wished, and it was possible for him to change his own nature into something else, he would not wish to become something else, or blame himself for being what he is by necessity, this “being himself” (autos einai) which he always willed and wills. For the nature of the Good is in reality the will of himself, a self not corrupted nor following his own nature, but choosing himself, because there was nothing else at all that he might be drawn to.
(Enn. VI.8[39].13.28–40)
The will of the One is a will that is directed to oneself in such a way that there is no difference, no otherness left between the will and the self. Such a perfect will is free as it supplants any form of alienation, such as being what you are by chance (Enn. VI.8[39].13.32), by necessity (Enn. VI.8[39].13.36) or by nature (Enn. VI.8[39].13.39).37 Indeed, any of these forms introduces a disparity between what one wishes to be and what one actually is: since it is in the nature of the will to be a master (as shown above), a will cannot ever be satisfied with something that ultimately is not in his power.
We can now see that the foundational role of the One regarding our freedom is not limited to that of being the object of the will: the One is actually the will itself, the perfect expression of what a free will must be. This double function can be seen in the following passage: “As long as each individual did not have the Good, it wished something else, but in that it possesses the Good, it wills itself. And neither is this kind of presence by chance nor is its being (ousia) outside its will, and it is by this Good that its being is defined and by this that it belongs to itself” (Enn. VI.8[39].13.20–24).
On the one hand, one can see that the One is the object of our will, since the One is the Good and the Good is what our will wants. At the same time, identifying ourselves with the One (possessing the good that we will) is achieved only through a certain form of will, a will that is directed to ourselves. In other words, our will can be fulfilled only if we somehow imitate the will of the One, a will that never seeks after what is alien and outside. Our identification with the One, by which we finally come to possess our own good, is ultimately a matter of recognizing what we truly are, what defines us, as opposed to what we mistakenly think we are. We are not our body. We are not any action that we may undertake. We are not anything that is external and material and, in that respect, what we are is our will, since the will is what is most immaterial and inner, like the One.
FREEDOM AS BEING MADE FREE
Plotinus’ attribution of a will (hence of freedom) to the One is always qualified. We should speak only of what is like (hoion) a will when we discuss the will of the One, exactly as when we speak of what is like (hoion) his ousia. The reason is that, strictly speaking, the One is beyond freedom. In Plotinus’ view, the true realm of freedom is not that of the first principle, but of a lower principle: the Intellect (we have seen that knowledge is indeed a requirement for freedom). It is important to reflect on this distinction. What difference does it make for our understanding of what freedom is to locate it ultimately in the Intellect rather than in the One? The following passage, in which Plotinus explains how the Intellect has been made free by the One, gives us a decisive clue: “For, again, it (i.e. the Intellect) has been let go into self-mastery in that it is primarily related to Being. That (i.e. the One), then, which has made Being free, which is clearly of a nature to make free and can be called free-maker (eleutheropoion) – to what could it be a slave, if it is even in any way permitted to utter this word?” (Enn. VI.8[39].12.16–20).
The essential point here is that if we cannot imagine the One to be enslaved in any sort of way, it is not because the One is free, but rather because it is the principle of freedom. Strictly speaking, the One is not free, rather what makes other things free. Among these things, one finds first of all the Intellect itself, because the Intellect is primarily related to Being or ousia, and we have indeed seen that freedom is a matter of finding out what we truly are.
The reason why the One is not, in a strict sense, free, but rather the principle of freedom, has also to do with the way in which Plotinus conceives freedom and which once again recalls the Stoic understanding of it, as will be demonstrated below. Freedom is mastership. But mastership is a contrary term, opposed to slavery. In other words, it is not possible to conceive freedom as a simple term, since it is always at the same time negatively defined by its opposite. Each time we think of being free, according to Plotinus, we think of it as being a master of some subjected and enslaved other thing. Remember how Plotinus defined the eph’ hēmin: “our conception of what is in our power would be something enslaved to our will” (Enn. VI.8[39].1.31–2). The essential connection of freedom with mastership makes the notion of freedom unsuitable to the One, since the One is beyond any form of otherness and difference.
But is there not a difficulty here? How can Plotinus conceive true freedom as mastership and locate it in a secondary principle like the Intellect? How can the Intellect be truly free if it is not the first principle? Should we not say that the One, superior to the Intellect as it is, is the master of the Intellect, hence that Intellect is enslaved? No. For mastership is not just a matter of power (dynamis). One can have limited power and still be free. In fact, mastership precisely supposes the idea of a limited realm of power, since mastership is only achievable over oneself (as opposed to other things). It is only when we have detached our self from external inessential additions that we reach what we truly are or ousia, which is Intellect. The One is not a master in regard to Intellect. Rather, it is the good that the Intellect always possesses and on the account of which is free:
And even if Intellect does have another principle (i.e. the One), it is not outside it, but it is in the Good. And if it is according to the Good, it is much more in its own power and free; since one seeks freedom and being for the sake of the Good. If then it is active according to the Good, it would be still more in its power; for it possesses already the object of his sight, towards which it is directed and from which it comes, while remaining in itself, which is the best way for it to be in itself, if it is directed towards it.
(Enn. VI.8[39].4.32–40)
The superiority of the One over the Intellect does not make the One a master of Intellect or the Intellect a slave of the One. It is rather a condition for the Intellect to be free: by directing its sight (i.e. its will) towards the One, Intellect is in fact concentrating itself on its own good and is then freed (in anticipation, so to say) from other possible enslaving conditions into which Intellect would necessarily fall, if it were to direct its sight in the opposite direction.
The characterization of the One as a liberator or a free-maker and the reluctance of Plotinus to ascribe freedom and eph’ hēmin to it shed some light on his general understanding of freedom. It teaches us that freedom, in his view, is always the result of liberation (be it anticipatively or not) and that only he who has been made so is free. Here again, it is important to acknowledge what Plotinus owes to the philosophical tradition with which he sides on this subject. For the Stoics, too, freedom is something that is granted or imparted and thus always implies some superior principle that is ultimately responsible for it. Let us return for a second to their definition of freedom as exousia autopragias and try to elucidate the meaning of the term exousia, a word that is also used by Plotinus (in Enn. VI.8[39].4.20 and 7.38) and which is present in the important notion of autexousia he constantly employs.38 A testimony from Origen shows such an exousia, for the Stoics, to be divinely bestowed upon men: “According to what they say, … the wise man alone and every wise man is free and has received from the divine law a licence over his own business (exousian autopragian), and they define this licence a lawful power of administration” (Origen, Commentary on John 2.16.112.4–8 = SVF III.544).
Exousia is a certain power, or rather a certain authority, and thus we could translate exousia autopragias as the authority one has over one’s own business. But since it is bestowed by divine law, that is, by God himself,39 it is better to render it by licence, a word that advantageously captures the essential link of the Stoic exousia with freedom. By definition, a licence is a legal authorization bestowed to somebody by a superior authority. Now, this understanding of freedom as a sort of licence shows that for the Stoics, as for Plotinus, freedom cannot be conceived without a superior authority or power responsible for its bestowal. Freedom cannot be ascribed to the first principle or God who is responsible for granting it.
There is no reason to suspect Origen of Christianizing the original Stoic doctrine, for we find in Epictetus a perfect illustration of the same idea: “the gods”, he says, “have put in our power (eph’ hēmin) only the supreme and most masterful thing, the power of making correct use of impressions”, a power thanks to which “one will never be impeded, never thwarted” (Dissertationes 1.1.7–13).
Like Plotinus’ One, Epictetus’ Zeus is depicted as the principle responsible for human beings to be (ontologically) free, not in the sense that he makes us once and for all free, but in that he endows us with a power to free ourselves, the power which the early Stoics called exousia or licence. The only condition for its fulfilment is that we care for what is ours and flee from what is alien and external. The key to freedom lies, for Epictetus as for Plotinus, in finding out what we truly are; that is, in our identification with this part of the divine that is in us and which defines us.40
CONCLUSION
Plotinus’ doctrine of freedom, although undeniably extremely original and perfectly in tune with the main principles of his own metaphysics, is nevertheless deeply rooted in the Greek philosophical tradition that preceded him. I have tried to show how the three main concepts Plotinus uses to characterize the ennoia of freedom or to eph’ hēmin, namely knowledge, mastership and the will, all point towards the Stoic conception of freedom. These, I believe, are not simply superficial contact points between two systems of thought but, quite the contrary, uncontroversial signs of a deep and general agreement regarding the very nature of freedom: that it lies in goodness and in knowing oneself. I have recalled how the Stoic doctrine of freedom historically came to embody one of the two main ancient Greek conceptions of freedom, the other being the one defended by the Peripatetic school, in particular by its most powerful advocate, Alexander of Aphrodisias.41 Given that Alexander’s main opponents were the Stoics, one can see why Plotinus chose to side so willingly with them in order to defeat a view about freedom which he uncompromisingly rejected.42
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My very great thanks to Sylvain Delcomminette, Svetla Slaveva-Griffin and Pauliina Remes for reading the first draft and for their helpful suggestions. I also thank an anonymous reader for detailed and valuable comments.
NOTES
1. For instance, in Enn. I.2[19].3, he endorses the famous “assimilation to God” notion of the Theaetetus (176b), according to which the philosopher’s telos is to flee from earthly concerns and concentrate only on contemplation. He also dedicates a full treatise to the question of contemplation: Enn. III.8[30].
2. For an attempt to show that the perfect life of the Plotinian spoudaios includes both contemplation and action, see Collette-Dučić (2011–12).
3. The edition used is Henry & Schwyzer (1983). English translations of Plotinus’ text are from Armstrong (1966–88), amended or adapted. For a full commentary of Enn. VI.8[39], see Leroux (1990). For a critical review of Leroux’s work, see D. O’Meara (1992). An excellent French translation and helpful notes are provided by Lavaud (2007). On freedom in Plotinus, see Leroux (1996) and Ousager (2004).
4. In chapter 1, the identity of these other gods is left unspecified, but in the course of the rest of the treatise it seems that he has in mind some sort of intermediary gods, in which one finds the Intellect (and maybe also therefore the multiple particular intellects that compose it).
5. See in particular Enn. VI.8[39].4.17–22, discussed below.
6. One must be warned here that, contrary to what the above quotation from Sharples may suggest, Alexander’s doctrine is not directly concerned with freedom, but rather moral responsibility. However, it is likely that other philosophers have interpreted his stance about the conditions for human responsibility as also a stance on the question of human freedom. This has to do with the shift of meaning of the expression “eph’ hēmin” which, in Aristotle and Alexander, refers primarily to human responsibility whereas in Stoicism, starting at least with Epictetus, it refers to human freedom (see below, note 20). Plotinus’ use of the expression in Enn. VI.8[39] is in line with Epictetus. For Sharples’ use of the word “freedom”, see his own clarification ([1983] 2003: 9).
7. Cf. Alexander of Aphrodisias, Fat. 196.25 [Bruns] and, more generally, ch. 12. For this kind of “indeterminist freedom”, see Bobzien (1998: 278).
8. This qualification is added by Alexander to prevent the obvious objection that it would be impossible for the good person to choose anything but the right course of action or for the bad person the opposite. What matters, explains Alexander, is that the person that has now become good or bad (which are stable if not irreversible features of his nature) has initially had the capacity to make a free choice: “Granting to them [the Stoics] that virtues and vices cannot be lost, we might perhaps take [the point] in a more obvious way by saying that it is in this respect that dispositions depend on those who possess them, [namely] in so far as, before they acquired them, it was in their power also not to acquire them” (Fat. 197.3–7 [Bruns], hereinafter trans. Sharples).
9. The choices in question do not necessarily have to be between good and evil actions, but the contrast with the second sort of freedom is clearer if presented this way.
10. In antiquity, the Stoics were taken to hold a very strong and materialistic version of determinism according to which each event is determined by an antecedent cause and “the movements of our minds are nothing more than instruments for carrying out determined decisions since it is necessary that they be performed through us” (Calcidius, in Ti. clx–clxi = SVF II.943, trans. Long).
11. For the issue regarding the compatibility of determinism with freedom and moral responsibility in Stoicism, see Long ([1971]1996b). For the Stoic doctrine of fate, see Long & Sedley (1987: 333–43) and Salles (2009).
12. Alexander, Fat. 192.25–8: “Fate itself, Nature, and the reason according to which the whole is organised, they assert to be god; it is present in all that is and comes to be, and in this way employs the individual nature of every thing (χρωμένην ἁπάντων τῶν ὄντων τῇ οἰκείᾳ φύσει) for the organisation of the whole (πρὸς τὴν τοῦ παντὸς οἰκονομίαν).”
13. Cf. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.8.4.1–4, who urges us to “consider the doing and perfecting of what the universal Nature decrees in the same light as [our] health” (trans. Long 2002).
14. The Stoics notoriously asserted that only the virtuous man is free (cf. Diogenes Laertius 7.33) and that virtues are themselves sciences (cf. Plutarch, de Virtute Morali 2.441a = SVF I.201).
15. See, for instance, Plato, Prt. 352c2–7 and 358b6–c1. For an analysis of this doctrine, see Segvic (2000).
16. Of course, I supply much here. Plotinus only speaks of “being master of killing”. Could he not simply mean that I am not competent in the field of killing other people? (This is actually how Armstrong understands and translates kyrios here.) But if so, it would go somehow against the distinction he aims to make, i.e. that knowledge is not enough to account for what is in our power. In fact, if we look at the other numerous occurrences of kyrios in the treatise, we see that a master is one that has power over his subject, who is free to do whatever he wills with his subject. Conversely, one who is the subject of a master is in many respects his slave: he is helpless and cannot avoid anything that may happen to him because of his master. Examples of that over which we have no mastership are phantasiai, occurring to “children, wild animals and madmen” (Enn. VI.8[39].2.6–8), and the success or accomplishment of one’s actions (Enn. VI.8[39].5.5). Even if this understanding of kyrios can also account for one’s competence in a given science or art, Plotinus’ example is certainly better served if we understand that it is not simply the knowledge of killing that one ought to “master”, but the intended target of the killing itself.
17. Cf. Bobzien (1998: 340): “All testimonies on Stoic freedom (eleutheria), without exception, belong to ethics and politics. ‘Freedom’ and being ‘free’ are typically contrasted with ‘slavery’ (douleia) and being a ‘slave’ (doulos), and the philosophical use of the concepts in ethics seems to have taken its origin from the analogy with politics and public life, as in Zeno’s Republic. … Most sources make the point that the sage is (truly) free whereas common mortals are all (truly) slaves.” On this topic, see also Erskine (1990: 43–63) and Garnsey ([1996] 2001: 17–19, 128–52).
18. For a fuller account, see Collette-Dučić (2011). For the meaning of autopragia, see also M. Frede (2011: 68–9).
19. Plutarch, de Stoicorum Repugnantiis 20.1043a–b [Cherniss]: “The work on Ways of Living is a single treatise in four books. In the fourth of these [Chrysippus] says that the sage is unmeddlesome (ἀπράγμονά) and retiring (ἰδιοπράγμονα) and minds his own business (τὰ αὑτοῦ πράττειν). These are his words: ‘For I think that the prudent man is unmeddlesome (ἀπράγμονα) and unofficious (ὀλιγοπράγμονα) and that he minds his own business (τὰ αὑτοῦ πράττειν), minding one’s own business and unofficiousness being alike matters of decency (ὁμοίως τῆς τ’ αὐτοπραγίας καὶ τῆς ὀλιγοπραγμοσύνης ἀστείων ὄντων)’” (trans. Cherniss). Cf. Plato’s definition of justice in R. 433a–b: “And further, we have often heard it said and often said ourselves that justice consists in minding your own business (τὸ τὰ αὑτοῦ πράττειν) and not meddling in the business of others (μὴ πολυπραγμονεῖν)” (trans. Lee).
20. Epictetus’ to eph’ hēmin is not to be confused with the use of this expression by the first Stoics. In Epictetus, the notion is essentially ethical and linked to freedom, whereas in the Early Stoa it is used in the context of moral responsibility. On this, see Bobzien (1998: 276–90, 331–8, 341–3) and Gourinat (2007). For a comparative study of the meaning of to eph’ hēmin in Plotinus and others, cf. Eliasson (2008).
21. See Epictetus, Dissertationes 3.5.1–3, where prohairesis and hēgemonikon (the leading part of the soul for the Stoics) are equivalents. In other contexts, prohairesis refers to one’s essential occupation (epitēdeuma) (Dissertationes 3.23.4–6). On these occurrences and the meanings of prohairesis in Epictetus, see Sorabji (2007) and Gourinat (2005).
22. See also Enn. VI.8[39].6.4–7: “[We claim that] virtue and the intellect have the mastery (κύρια) and that we should refer being in our power and freedom to them.”
23. For a good assessment of what Plotinus owes to Aristotle’s conception of God as Intellect (in Metaphysics 12), see Nyvlt (2012: 215–32). Cf. Enn. V.3[49].5.21–3: “Contemplation must be identical to what is contemplated and Intellect to the intelligible.” On the historical background of this doctrine, see Armstrong (1957) and Pépin (1956). For a good recent treatement of this doctrine, see Emilsson (2007: 124–75).
24. On selfhood and inwardness in Plotinus, see Remes (2007, 2008a).
25. R. 611c6–b6: “We see [the soul] in the state of that of Glaucus the sea-god, and its original nature is as difficult to see as his was after long immersion had broken and worn away and deformed his limbs, and covered more like a monster than what he really was. That is the sort of state we see the soul reduced to by countless evils.”
26. In Plotinus, soul’s fall into the body is understood as a form of particularization, literally a process of “becoming a part”. For attachment to the body as the reason behind this fall, see Collette-Dučić (2010) and O’Brien (1977).
27. Contrary to many translators, I do not follow Theiler’s emendation (οὗ instead of ὅ, Enn. VI.8[39].12.14) that splits the whole passage in two and leaves the first line unexplained. My reading owes much here to Lavaud (2007: n. 219).
28. An excellent analysis of this notion is provided by M. Frede (2011: esp. 19–30, 66–88, 125–52).
29. Ennoia in the sense of notion or preconception is of Epicurian and Stoic origins: see Long & Sedley (1987: vol. I, 252–3).
30. Apud Philo of Alexandria, Quod Omnis Probus Liber sit 97 (trans. Garnsey [1996] 2001: 133).
31. Cyril of Alexandria, Contra Julianum III.625c (= frag. 3 [Grant 1964]; cf. Alexander of Aphrodisias, de Providentia 5.1–9 [Ruland 1976]).
32. Cf. Epictetus, Dissertationes 1.1.23. We should note that the word prohairesis (sometimes also translated by “choice”) used here, a word that plays such a programmatic part in Epictetus’ philosophy, was initially defined by the early Stoics as a kind of will (boulēsis): cf. Stobaeus, Anth. II.7.9a, p. 87.14–22 [Wachsmuth] = SVF III.173, where prohairesis is defined as “a choice before a choice (αἵρεσιν πρὸ αἱρέσεως)”, and a choice defined as “a will that results from a reasoning (βούλησιν ἐξ ἀναλογισμοῦ)”. For a commentary of this definition, see again Gourinat (2005).
33. On the importance of the identification of our will with God’s in the history of thought, see M. Frede (2011: 126).
34. On Plotinus’ criticism of Alexander’s conception of freedom, see M. Frede (2011: 142).
35. The phrase συνήρτηται ἡμῖν somehow recalls the use of προστίθησιν in Enn. VI.8[39].12.11.
36. Enn. VI.8[39].6.38–9: Ἡ γὰρ βούλησις θέλει τὸ ἀγαθόν (“the will wants the good”).
37. These three forms of alienation are already mentioned in Enn. VI.8[39].1.21–33.
38. Some Plotinian scholars have defended the view that Plotinus’ use of exousia is related to his controversy with the Gnostics. See in particular the arguments of Narbonne (2011: 139–41).
39. For the identification of God and Law in the Stoa, see Diogenes Laertius 7.87–9.
40. Since the condition of our liberation is the recognition that the exousia we have been granted with is only a licence over things that are ours (i.e. over ourselves), then it is understandable why, in the expression of freedom, the term exousia seems to have been historically more or less supplanted by that of autexousia. For the connection between the two terms, see Bobzien (1998: 335–6).
41. Plotinus’ criticism of Alexander’s thought in Enn. VI.8[39] is well recognized; see in particular D. O’Meara (1992) and Lavaud (2007).
42. By saying that, I do not mean that Alexander is the only (unnamed) target of Plotinus in Enn. VI.8[39]. Some have argued that the main objection (the so-called tolmēros logos) brought up against Plotinus’ own doctrine of freedom, in chapter 7, is of gnostic origin. The most recent advocate of this interpretation is Narbonne (2011c) and the hypothesis is well discussed in Leroux (1990: 106–23). I do not feel competent enough to pass judgement on this identification. I do think however that not enough has been done to clarify the many ties Plotinus’ account of freedom has with the Greek philosophical tradition in general, and I hope this essay will be helpful in this respect.