Privacy and Solitude in Plotinus

Plotinus' conceives the soul as an intelligible entity rooted in the world of the Forms
(Ennead IV.8). The psyche is described as an "amphibian" which lives a "double life"
(IV.8.4.19) between the intelligible world of Nous and the perceptible world of the
senses (IV.8.8). Plotinus’ psychology is also marked by his theory of dual-aspect
selfhood: (a) soul's intelligible self (related to the higher part of the soul and the
intelligible world) and (b) the composite soul-body self (related to the lower part of
the soul and the perceptible world). Plotinus particularly emphasizes soul's inward
turn to its intelligible self (epistrophe pros heauton) and its quest for self-
apprehension of its divine origins, internal self-determination, and its ultimate unity
with the One. (Enneads I.6.8; VI.8.1-7; VI.9.11).

Plotinus’ conception of the soul's inner self plays a significant role in the
philosophical development of the notion of privacy. In particular, Plotinus’
inwardness of the soul influences Augustine’s thought (Confessions VII.16) and his
concept of the inner self as a “private space”. Philip Cary in his study Augustine’s
Invention of the Inner Self underlies the importance of the Plotinian inwardness in
Augustine. Augustine adopted and modified Plotinus’ epistrophe of the soul to
conceive the notion of “private inner space”. Cary particularly suggested a distinction
between the Plotinian and the Augustinian inwardness: the Augustinian inward turn
requires a double movement of the soul (first in then up), which is not found explicitly
in the Enneads. For Cary, as we move from Plotinus to Augustine, “we find the world
shrinking”, the inward turn reduces soul’s divine intelligibility and horizon, from the
divine inner self of Plotinus, to the individual inner self of Augustine and finally to
the enclosed self, described as a “dark room”, in John Locke (Cary, p. 5). As Remes
maintains, divinity and reality are progressively externalized from soul’s inner realm;
this is “a process of privatization, and it leads to the Western understanding of the self
as an inner and private space.” (Remes, p. 6-7, n. 21)

The aim of this paper is to revisit Plotinus' notion of privacy in light of two
interrelated theories of his philosophy: (1) soul’s conscious apprehension of being and
(2) soul's inwardness. The first is discussed with reference to what Plotinus conceives
as the middle region (to meson) of the soul, "in-between" the higher reality of
intelligibles and the lower reality of the perceptibles (Enneads I.1.8.1-8, 11.1-15;
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VI.1.25-28, V.3.36-45). The second is analyzed in terms of soul's experience of
solitude (monos pros monon) and soul's unity with the One (Ennead VI.9.11).

Plotinus distinguishes between the inner and the outer man, as for the inner and the
outer soul: the inner man is not immediately recognized as the higher part of the soul,
the awareness of anthropos starts from the middle region (inwards) and discursive
reasoning (dianoia) and then moves higher (upwards) to the contemplative
intellection (noesis) of the higher self (Enneads III.2.15.47-50 and I.1.7.14-24).
Soul's inner privacy is not conceived in spatial terms or in terms of disclosure and
individuation. The soul is purely an intelligible entity and its inward turn is a
movement to a non-spatial region of intellection. Soul’s inward turn purifies the soul
in an inner private intelligible place of undisrupted contemplation and self-
determination (Ennead VI.8.1-7). The private space of the soul is the "holy sanctuary"
of its inner self (Ennead I.6.8.2), an intelligible region where the soul apprehends its
universal and hypostatic homogeneity with all other souls. The soul recognizes the
power of self-determination in pure inwardness and realizes in solitude its unity with
the One (Ennead VI.9.11).

Particularly, in Ennead VI.9 [9] 11.35-51 On the Good or the One, Plotinus describes
soul's ultimate unification with the One. The soul recognizes its relation to the
supreme unity beyond any form of plurality and complexity. The soul progressively
becomes "alone" in its noetic ascent until the final “communication” (prosomilei)
with the One. For Plotinus, the “return journey" begins with soul's inwardness to its
intelligible self, continuous upwards to the contemplation of Nous, and completes
with a final return of the soul to the One in a "flight of the alone to the alone" (monos
pros mono). It is suggested that soul's inwardness and solitude signify a non-spatial
private region of the soul where the intelligible self apprehends and contemplates the
One in pure self-determination.

I shall argue that Plotinus’ inward turn of the soul does involve a "double movement",
first inwards to the middle region of the soul, and then upwards to the higher region of
the divine Nous. The inward turn of the soul is an intelligible return, an intelligible
"journey" from the corporeal to the incorporeal in a progressive ascent and not an
immediate deification. Plotinus inwardness passes from different stages of
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purification; a first inward turn in soul's apprehension of being (middle region) and
then an upward turn in soul's pure completion of the Forms (higher region). It is
suggested that the double movement of the Plotinian soul, first inwards to its middle
region (conscious apprehension) and then upwards to its higher region (pure
contemplation), anticipates the Augustinian double movement of the soul and the
conception of the inner self as private space. Plotinus' notion of privacy and soul's
inwardness offers a fruitful insight of the notion of privacy as a necessary value for a
person to develop a concept of the self as purposeful and self-determining agent. The
Plotinian approach of soul's inner privacy entails further discussions on human
freedom, autonomy and selfhood.

Selected Bibliography

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Chiaradonna, R. (2014) ‘Plotinus on sensible particulars and individual essences" in
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Magrin, S. (2015) ‘Plotinus on the Inner Sense’, The British Journal for the History
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