This new annotated translation of Plotinus’ Ennead I.5 is part of a series that seeks to make Plotinus’ Enneads accessible to contemporary readers. As John Dillon and Andrew Smith write in their introduction, its aim is to show that “Plotinus has something to say to us today” (p. 10). This is the challenge taken up by this book, which hopes that “Plotinus’ words on human happiness remind us of the abundance we have yet available to us right now and for always” (p. 12).
Like each volume in the series, this one contains a treatise by Plotinus, introduced, translated and commented on. There is also a selected bibliography at the end of the volume.
The introduction offers a clear and precise synthesis of Plotinus’ major thesis that well-being and temporal life are mutually exclusive. First (“1. The Inner Disposition of the Soul”), Danielle A. Layne shows how Plotinus uses the notion of disposition (diathesis) to make an “inner disposition, our life at the level of Nous” the true cause of well-being (p. 20). This disposition does not designate a passive state but the activity of contemplating (theorein) real beings, and this activity is itself the realisation of a “desire towards absolutely real being” (p. 24). Well-being therefore resides in a “noetic life that ascends to contemplate the radiations of the Good” (p. 29), and not in a practical habitus. But far from being dogmatic, Plotinus’ intellectualism is demonstrated: it is because only the intellective life is perfect (see I.4.3, 25-40, quoted p. 29), i.e. lacking nothing, that happiness belongs to the wise, and that the wise lead a contemplative life.
From this idea (the contemplative life lacks nothing), Layne creates a bond between I.5 and III.7 (On Eternity and Time). She shows (“2. Eternal vs. Temporal Life”) that eternity is precisely thought of by Plotinus as an intellective life: the life of Intellect, a “Life simpliciter… a state of stability and constant lack of extension” (p. 33). One text is crucial in this respect, defining eternity as “the disposition and nature of Intellect (III.7.4, 44: diathesis, physis)” (p. 34). The disposition that makes us happy is therefore the very disposition through which the divine Intellect exists in a complete and unrestricted way. Since well-being resides in a perfect life, since the perfect life is a life of contemplation, and since the contemplative life is an eternal life, happiness excludes the temporal life.
In the same way, the introduction shows with great clarity that happiness (well-being) exists at the price of the deactivation of a certain type of memory (see “3. Memory”). Reminiscence (anamnèsis) abolishes time, whereas memory (mnèmè) implies awareness of a temporal difference between past and present. To this extent, the happy life is a life without memory. Does this mean that it is without pleasure? Plotinian ethics is often presented as arid, made up of privations. Yet section 4 (“Pleasure”) shows that, even if the happy life cannot be said to be pleasurable (see VI.7.30, 18-23, quoted p. 43), “a kind of ‘glad-tiding'” (p. 44) accompanies union with the intelligible. In a similar vein, I would point out that Plotinus speaks elsewhere of the serenity of the wise man[1]. In any case, pleasure presupposes the memory of a past lack. Not so contemplation, where there is no more memory and a serenity superior to pleasure, more satisfying than it. Plotinus does not condemn pleasure. He knows that there is something better than pleasure. The last part of the introduction shows that self-sufficiency defines the happy life[2].
By the end of the introduction, readers will have understood why Plotinus maintained the following equation: well-being = contemplative life = eternal life = self-sufficient life. They understand why happiness is incompatible with temporal life, memory, and a certain type of pleasure (linked to lack). The reader is ready to face up to the difficult text of Ennead I.5.
Layne’s translation is clear and closely follows the Greek text. The choice of translating eudamonia as “well-being” is justified by the fact that, for Plotinus, eudaimonia should not be confused, as Aristotle does, “with the life well-lived” (p. 63). Eudaimonia designates the disposition in which the human being achieves perfection, which is why it must be translated as “well-being”. This translation is already an interpretation, but it has the merit of drawing attention to Plotinus’ desire to decouple the biographical life (the temporal life, dependent on external circumstances and luck) and the happy life (a state of ontological perfection).
Each chapter of the treatise is then commented on in detail. The author quotes texts by Plotinus, Stoics, Aristotelians, and Epicureans with great precision, which are very useful for understanding the context and the debate and what is at stake in it. The commentary on chapter 7, the most difficult of the treatise, is very enlightening. Layne clearly shows how Plotinus conceives of time, not as a number, nor of happiness as something that can be counted, but both as “forms of life” (p. 102). All the necessary references (to Timaeus, Parmenides, Aristotle, etc.) are provided.
Finally, the author offers a Select Bibliography which will be useful to anyone wishing to deepen their knowledge of Plotinus, Neoplatonism, and his conception of time. In short, Layne’s book is useful for anyone who wants to understand the links between happiness and time, and between philosophy and temporality, in Plotinus and even, more broadly, in ancient philosophy, so numerous are the references to ancient thinkers.
For specialist readers, it seems to us that Layne allows us to investigate a little-explored avenue of interpretation. When Plotinus defines time and eternity as lives, or “forms of life”, he establishes a link between metaphysics and ethics. It is not just a question of understanding what eternity and time are, but of learning to live with them, and to live from eternal life. In this sense, we can insist, with the author, on the importance of the possibility, for Plotinus, of living eternity ‘now’ (see p. 48, for example). In the same vein, it would be interesting to compare this desire to make eternity accessible to us, “us who are in time”, with Plotinus’ vision of the Gnostics. Indeed, Enneads II.9 presents the Gnostic as a being of waiting, a “procrastinator”, always postponing the moment of becoming accomplished, perfect, i. e. eudaimôn[3].
In our opinion, this new annotated translation of Ennead I.5 has all the qualities needed to become a standard reference on the subject.
Notes
[1] See I.4.12, 5-10.
[2] There is a typo here. Section 5 (The Self-Sufficiency of the Inner Disposition: Contemplative vs. Practical Life) is numbered 4.
[3] See for example II. 9. 15, 22-27.