Body's Approach to Soul: An Examination of a Recurrent Theme in the Enneads

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Kevin Corrigan, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 1985-12
• Publisher: Dalhousie University
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: Dalhousie University
• License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): https://ojs.library.dal.ca/dionysius/article/view/6179/5488
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Dionysius
• Volume: 9
• Start Page: 37
• End Page: 52
• Keywords: Plotinus; Enneads; capacity; Aristotle; Being; undiminished; relation to soul; self-dependent; approach
• Research Categories: Philosophy

Abstract

In VI,4-5 Plotinus' theory of the omnipresence of all Being, self-dependent and undiminished in itself, leads him to develop the notion of the 'capacity of the recipient'. In particular, he uses the image of body's approach to soul - or rather, to be precise, the notion of an external nature which approaches and wraps itself around an intelligible core. This external nature comprises everything from the whole sensible man, as sensible, to the bare notion of body as body. Since this function of the Recipient is found in treatises other than VI,4-5, and since the image of 'approach' is in fact only one of a family of metaphors, it is of the greatest importance to any understanding of Plotinus' view of body (and thus its 'relation' to soul) to examine what is meant by 'approach' and to provide some firm basis of reference for the usage of these related metaphors in the Enneads.