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The-Flixter·17hin Staff
Tier 0:Nominal Perfection
Nominality (names or references) is no longer applicable in such a state, nor is the semantic signification of anything relating to or referring to Tier 0 applicable. Tier 0 does not hold any fundamental propositions or truths; all truths are fundamentally non-fundamental and are absent (in the sense that they were never there and were simply a misattribution of the intellect; it's the limit and prior to everything while being transcendental to everything), as the ground of being is not subject to any predication, negation, affirmation, or privation.
Everything is in the one as it is the complete unity it cannot be differentiated (everything happens within the one).
"Since the substance which is generated [from the One] is form... the One must be without form. But if it is without form it is not a substance; for a substance must be some one particular thing, something, that is, defined and limited; but it is impossible to apprehend the One as a particular thing: for then it would not be the principle, but only that particular thing which you said it was. But if all things are in that which is generated [from the One], which of the things in it are you going to say that the One is? Since it is none of them, it can only be said to be beyond them. But since things are beings, and being: so it is beyond being. (V.5.6, 2-11)"
In fact, the One does not move nor is it resting (standing still), but instead, it is the source of all movement and all resting (Should be a requirement for tier 0 in the sense of undifferentiated-ness):
he is One for he is simple and the first, in that he is the Principle for all things come from him: from him comes the first movement (for it is not in him); from him comes rest, because he had no need of rest: for ‘he does not move, nor does he stand still’; for he has no place to stand still in and no place to move in. (V.5.10, 11– 13)
Emanationism should intrinsically require Tier 0s to have always been undifferentiated and unconditioned (It means not reliant on another existence/not situated in any lower potential/actuality):
….but it [the One] is without need, sufficient to itself, lacking nothing, the measure and bound of all things, giving from itself intellect and real being and soul and life and intellectual activity. (I.8.2, 5)
The pre-intellect (sometimes substituted with the form of the good or the inchoate intellect) is given by the exteriority or the externality of the one, which is an effect of the interiority of the one, which is an overflowing of essence, which causes a lower essence to be formed, which is later completed as the intellect, which is a trace of the form of the One, which is a trace of the One. I call this stage Low-Apeiron. Most of the time, this tier is characterized as having complete undifferentiated-ness, only second to the one due to the nominal aspects, but it suffices in a full-scale emanation-based ontology.
This, we may say, is the first act of generation: the One, perfect because it seeks nothing, has nothing, and needs nothing, overflows, as it were, and its superabundance makes something other than itself. This, when it has come into being, turns back upon the One and is filled and becomes Intellect by looking towards it. Its halt and turning towards the One constitutes being, its gaze upon the One, Intellect. Since it halts and turns towards the One that it may see, it becomes at once Intellect and Being. Resembling the One thus, Intellect produces in the same way, pouring forth a multiple power–--his is a likeness of it--just as that which was before it poured it forth. This activity springing from the substance of Intellect is Soul, which comes to be this while Intellect abides unchanged: for Intellect too comes into being while that which is before it abides unchanged. (V.2.1, 7–18)83 [italics added]
Note: A good metaphor for this is the sun (the one) and the rays or sunlight (external), which cause stuff to happen. Also, we describe this in thought and the language of causation/temporal events and effects when this process of emanation is completely outside of temporality and thought simply because this is the only way we could possibly substantiate the process.
In the plotinus version of emanationism, the external act or the effect of the internal act cannot exist without the internal act, and the internal act is not affected by the external act as it is completely separate. The One passively emanates everything, as its external act is always in motion and ever in atemporality (the trace of the internal activity).
But, how, when that abides unchanged, does Intellect come into being? In each and every thing there is an activity which belongs to substance and one which goes out from substance; and that which belongs to substance is the active actuality which is each particular thing, and the other activity derives from that first one, and must in everything be a consequence of it, different from the thing itself: as in fire there is a heat which is the content of its substance, and another which comes into being from that primary heat when fire exercises the activity which is native to its substance in abiding unchanged as fire. So it is also in the higher world; and much more so there, while the Principle abides ‘in its own proper way of life’, the activity generated from the perfection in it and its coexistent activity acquires substantial existence, since it comes from a great power, the greatest indeed of all, and arrives at being and substance: for that Principle is beyond Being. (V.2.2, 21–37)
The sun, too, is an example since it is like a centre in relation to the light which comes from it and depends on it; for the light is everywhere with it and is not cut off from it; even if you want to cut it off on the one side, the light remains with the sun. (I.7.1, 27)94 [italics added]
The external image can be compared to a mirror in that the mirror image does not have any effect on the the thing itself (i.e., the internal act). The internal act is not changed by the external act.95 The internal remains or abides the way it is:
just as the image of something, like the weaker light, if cut off from that which it is, would no longer exist, and in general one cannot cut off and make exist separately anything at all which derives its existence from something else and is its image, these powers also which came from that first could not exist cut off from it. But if this is so, that from which they derived will be there simultaneously where they are, so that again it will be present itself everywhere all at once undivided as a whole. (VI.4.9, 36–40)
The distinction here is quite important; the internal act is completely self–contained whereas the external act is completely other-directed, toward the internal, as it were. As Plotinus explains:
But peace and quiet for Intellect is not going out of Intellect, but the peace and quiet of Intellect is an activity taking its rest from other activities, since for other beings also, which are left in peace and quiet by other things, there remains their own proper activity, above all for those whose being is not potential but actual. The being, therefore, is activity, and there is nothing to which the activity is directed; so it is self-directed… For it had to be first in itself, then also directed to something else, or with something else coming from it made like itself, just as in the case of fire it is because it is previously fire in itself, and has the activity of fire that it is able to produce a trace of itself in another. (V.> 3.7, 13–25) 60
The internal act (the one) is completely independent of its external act (the intellect). Emilsson argues in the passages of V.4.2.27–39 that the emanation is more of a double activity done in succession, as the external act intrinsically happens due to the internal act rather than being two separate events, hence a double activity.
When, therefore, the Intelligible abides “in its own proper way of life”, that which comes into being does come into being from it, but from it as it abides unchanged. Since, therefore, it abides as Intelligible, what comes into being does so as thinking; and since it is thinking and thinks that from which it came–for it has nothing else–it becomes Intellect, like another intelligible and like that Principle, a representation and image of it. But how, when that abides unchanged, does Intellect come into being? In each and every thing there is an activity which belongs to substance and one which goes out from substance; and that which belongs to substance is the active actuality which is each particular thing, and the other activity derives from that first one, and must in everything be a consequence of it, different from the thing itself: as in fire there is a heat which is the content of its substance, and another which comes into being from that primary heat when fire exercises the activity which is native to its substance in abiding unchanged as fire. So it is also in the higher world; and much more so there, while the Principle abides ‘in its own proper way of life’, the activity generated from the perfection in it and its coexistent activity acquires substantial existence, since it comes from a great power, thegreatest indeed of all, and arrives at being and substance: for that Principle is “beyond being”. (V.4.2, 27–39) [emphasis added]
internal and external acts are separate events in which the internal is accomplished and then through an “extra effort” the external is accomplished, a second, new act:
For when it [Intellect] is active in itself, the products of its activity are the other intellects, but when it acts outside itself, the result is Soul. And since Soul acts as genus or specific form, the other souls act as specific forms. Also the activities of these are double. (VI.2.22, 26–29)100 (italics added)
And
But it is false to say that the image is unlike the original; for nothing has been left out which it was possible for a fine natural image to have. The image has to exist, necessarily, not as the result of thought and contrivance; the intelligible could not be the last, for it had to have a double activity, one in itself and one directed to something else. There had, then, to be something after it, for only that which is the most powerless of all things has nothing below it. (II.9.8, 20–25)101 (italics added)
Emanationism (Motion and Atemporality):
In Plotinus, the double act is considered a single movement that is instantiated by two descriptions (which reflects how he believes two descriptions can describe the same movement; almost identical to Aristotelian causation). The internal act is a complete activity and an absolute motion, which Plotinus identifies a single movement that is instantiated by two descriptions (which reflects how he believes two descriptions can describe the same movement; almost identical to Aristotelian causation). The internal act is a complete activity and an absolute motion, which Plotinus identifies as being freed from the necessary conditions of a telos or an end goal (which every activity needs to achieve in order to be considered completed) and not requiring an outside object interference (actualities); in other words, it is already completed without any more time (instantaneous) needed to complete it, hence timeless or atemporal, a process devoid of telos. Whilst the external act is only applicable to the a-temporal and simultaneous causality aspect:
But if someone were to say that movement was an incomplete active actuality, nothing would prevent us from giving active actuality the priority and subordinating movement to it as a species as being incomplete, making its category active actuality, but adding the “incomplete”. For the incomplete is said about it, not because it is not also active actuality, but it is altogether active actuality, and it also has the “over and over again” not that it may arrive at active actuality--it is already that, but that it may do something, which is another thing subsequent of itself…. Walking, for instance, was walking from the beginning…. For certainly the man who is in motion has already moved, and the man who is cutting, cut already. And just as what is called active actuality does not need time, so neither does movement. (VI.1.16, 1–6,9,15–17) (emphasis added)
Let us grant that movement, to describe it sketchily, is the passage from potentiality to that which it is said to be the potentiality for. For one thing is potential because it can arrive at a particular form, potentially a statue for instance, and another because it can arrive at an activity, the activity of walking for instance, and when one progresses to a statue, its progress is movement, and when the other is engaged in walking, the walking itself is movement. (VI.3.22, 9–12)
So what does this mean? Any version of Emanationism should ATLEAST have these:
I.The Internal act is self-contained and does not intend the external act.
II. The external act and internal act are both happening at the same time and atemporal/instantaneous
Traces (Emanationism)
The trace is referring to the external act of the hypostases. ex. The intellect contains a trace of it. The generative power of the one has always happened before anything took "place." temporally, internal and external activity simply take place within the one and are not separated. The only time something begins to exist is in the material world. Check below on forms (NOT THE QUOTE BELOW).
For Intellect needs the Good, but the Good does not need it; hence too, when it attains the Good it becomes conformed to the Good and is completed by the Good, since the form which comes upon it from the Good conforms it to the Good. A trace of the Good is seen in it, and it is in the likeness of this that one should conceive its true archetype, forming an idea of it in oneself from the trace of it which plays upon Intellect. The Good, therefore has given the trace of itself on Intellect to Intellect to have by seeing, so that in Intellect there is desire, and it is always desiring and always attaining, but the Good is not desiring--for what could it desire? (III.8.11, 19–25)
How did we come to be then, and what are we to think of as surrounding the One in its repose? It must be a radiation from it while it remains unchanged, like the bright light from the sun which, so to speak, runs round it, springing from it continually while it remains unchanged. All things which exist, as long as they remain in being, necessarily produce from their own substances, in dependence on their present power, a surrounding reality directed toward what is outside them, a kind of image of the archetype from which it is produced: fire produces the heat which comes from it. (V.1.6, 28–33)
LOW APEIRON (FEATURE):
LOW APEIRON
…but if one distinguishes the intelligibles (from the Good) one will say that the place of the Forms is the intelligible beauty, but the Good is that which is beyond, the “spring and origin” of beauty; or one will place the Good and the primal beauty on the same level: in any case, however, beauty is in the intelligible world. (I.6.9, 37–40) (italics added)
The good is implied to be beyond beauty both in the sense of perfection and undifferentiated-ness and as a more direct emanation of the one. In other words the Intellect and the ground of being (Spring of beauty/the form of beauty) is second to the Good (What all long to be) in terms generative power (which is below and IN the one). A brief definition of low-apeiron is that its generative unity is greater and precedes the ontological perfection of h1t+ in the sense of participative ground; it's ineffable and undiffrentiated, but not to the extent of semiotical referents (Sassure) and names; however, it is indeed beyond being in the sense that the ground of being in itself is within such a ground.
Beauty is shown to be secondary because this passionate love for it is secondary and is felt by those who are already conscious…. Good itself does not need beauty, though beauty needs the Good. (V.5.12, 19, 34) The Good, then, is beyond the Beautiful, yet they are both participating in the One.
However The Good seems to precede the Beauty even more and consistently. In the end though they are still within the one.
The cause of the error is that both [the Good and the Beautiful] participate in the same and the One is before both, and that in the higher world also the Good itself does not need beauty, though beauty needs it. (V.5.12, 31)
There are, however, also passages that speak of the absolute Beauty as first, such as Enneads VI. 7.
For love is not limited here, because neither is the beloved, but the love of this would be unbounded; so his [the One’s] beauty is of another kind and beauty above beauty. For if it is nothing, what beauty can be? But if it is lovable, it would be the generator of beauty. Therefore, the productive power of all is the flower of beauty, a beauty which makes beauty. (VI.7.32, 29)
THE FORMS:
The intellect, or nous, is outside the soul. It is the ground of being before the originary ONE; it's divine unity is only second to said latter. All things arise and exemplify the intelligibles, which are perfect and unchangeable.
The soul, then, when it is purified, becomes form,41 and an expressed principle, and entirely incorporeal and intellectual andwholly divine, which is the source of beauty and of all things that 15have a kinship with it. Soul, then, being borne up to Intellect, becomeseven more beautiful. And Intellect and the things that come fromIntellect are soul’s beauty, since they belong to it, that is, they are notalien to it, because it is then really soul alone. For this reason, it iscorrectly said that goodness and being beautiful for the soul consist in 20 ‘being assimilated to god’,42 because it is in the intelligible world thatBeauty is found as well as the fate of the rest of Beings. Or rather,Beings are what Beauty is and ugliness is the other nature, primary evilitself, so that for god ‘good’ and ‘beautiful’ are identical, or rather theGood and Beauty are identical.43
This further backs up the sentiment above of being originary/unity and prior to being while containing all forms that are not subject to the duality of subject/object while being exemplified by multiple discontinuous particulars. The forms in themselves are of the intellect, and such forms are perfect, unchangeable, aspatial, and atemporal; they are not subject to change or corruption; they are beyond the determinate and distinctions; they are the trace of the one whilst having the generative capabilities of the internal and external act. The unity of the forms is the intellect, all of which are generative and ontologically perfect (to be unconditioned, no longer subject to any lower causes, both actual and potential).
If, then, intellection is of that which is internal to Intellect, then the Form is that which is internal.46 It is the Idea itself. What, then, is this? Intellect and the intellectual Substance, with each Idea not being different from Intellect, but each being Intellect. And Intellect is wholly all the Forms, and each Form is Intellect,47 just as 5 the entirety of scientific understanding includes all theorems, each part of the whole not discriminated by place, but each having its own power in the whole. This Intellect is, then, in itself and holding itself in stillness, always full. If, then, one supposed that Intellect were prior to Being, one should have said that Intellect, in being actual and in thinking, perfected and 10 generated the Beings. But since Being must be supposed to be prior to Intellect, it is necessary to posit that the Beings reside in that which is thinking, whereas the actuality, that is, the intellection is an addition tothe Beings – as in the case of fire, the actuality of fire is an addition to it –15 in order that they would have Intellect as the unity that is their own actuality. But Being is also actuality. There is, then, one actuality for both, or rather both are one.
Being and Intellect are, then, one nature. For this reason, so are the Beings and the actuality of Being and an Intellect of this sort. And so acts of intellection are the Form or shape of Being, and its actuality. They are considered by us as one before the other, since they are divided by us. For the dividing intellect is one thing, but the undivided Intellect does not divide and is Being and all things.
Higher forms like good and beauty are reflected onto lower forms such as fashion, taste, and justice (technically a higher form due to nomology); all lower forms reflect higher forms in the sense of complexity to simplicity (in varying degrees). like how the sun emits rays and some materials reflect better than others. This is just in the sense of generative power; they are all the same in essence. The forms, in other words, are eternal and unchanging as they reflect the one's lower lights, and depending on the form, the degree varies, but in essence, they're all the same, and the hypostases aren't a temporal event but rather represent the reflection of the degree of the emanationism or the directness of the emanation to the one.
The One - Apeiron
The Good - Low Apeiron
The Beauty or Intellect/Being - H1T+
