Plotinus about an Infinite Power of the One in the Context of Emanation

Abstract

The main purposes of this article were to reconstruct the philosophical logic in the issue of emanation and to show the role of the concept of the infinite power of the One in this context. One way to talk about the problem of the First Principle of thought and being is to describe the process of emanation of beings from the One. When Plotinus described this process, he often used metaphors. The question why Plotinus used the metaphors is controversial among the scholars (Armstrong, Gerson). The author makes the assumption, why the use of metaphors fitted the discussion of the emanation. The article also shows what notions Plotinus used to solve the aporia of transcendental beginning theoretically, i.e. energeia and dynamis. Using the method of historical and philosophical reconstruction based on a comparative analysis of the texts of Plato, Plotinus, Aristotle, the author concludes that Plotinus developed the concept of the infinite power of the One as a solution of emanation’s paradoxes. By its very nature, the One is an inexhaustible source of intelligible and physical life, because the One creates the world of ideas. Each idea is the completeness of physical things following it, because it is their aim and end. Ideas cannot be calculated, because there is no such soul, which can calculate them. So power of the One is infinite, unlimited. As Leo Sweeney said in his article “The Infinity in Plotinus. Part Two – infinity and power”, the evidence of infinity of power is the infinity of its creations, especially the Mind. In this interpretation Plotinus adheres to the Aristotelian notion of the power as an action: the better and more perfect things the action creates the more perfect this action is. For example, the better house was created by the builder, the higher and the better is his craft as a builder. If the One gives rise to all diversity of the world, the sensual and intelligible, this indicates his power as perfect, unbounded and infinite. Moreover, it is not only infinite, but indivisible, as the One itself is indivisible. As Plotinus says, the One is indivisible not because of its smallness, but, on the contrary, because of its greatness and superiority. The indivisibility of its nature causes the indivisibility of its power, which is a consequence of this nature. This indivisible power cannot be bounded by anything, nothing is opposed to it, that is why it is infinite. It extends down to the last and the weakest of beings – creatures of corporeal nature and formless matter.