Harvard Divinity School

Apophasis in Plotinus: A Critical Approach Author(s): Michael Sells Source: The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 78, No. 1/2 (Jan. - Apr., 1985), pp. 47-65 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity School Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1509593 Accessed: 24/08/2010 14:52
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HTR 78:3- 4 (1985) 47- 65

APOPHASISIN PLOTINUS:A CRITICALAPPROACH* Michael Sells HaverfordCollege

To most modernsensibilities, Gnosticism a strongand even has underothernames,butNeoplatonism appeal, dangerous frequently moves anyonein our time. William Jamesreacted the to scarcely Absoluteor God, the One and the Good, by saying Neoplatonic that "the stagnant own perfection moves felicityof the absolute's me as little as I move it." No one is going to arguewith James now. Harold Bloom' Is apophasisdead? Can there be a contemporary apophatictheology, or critical method, or approachto comparativereligion and interreligious dialogue? If such approachesare possible, then a resource of virtually unfathomable richness lies largely untapped. I suggest that apophasis has much to offer to contemporarythought and that, in turn, classical apophasiscan be criticallyreevaluatedfrom the perspective of contemporaryconcerns. Plotinus was not only a founder of apophasisin the West, but also the author of what remain some of the most challenging and radical apophatic passages. This essay is simultaneously a reinterpretationof those passages and a reconsiderationfrom an apophaticperspective of contemporaryissues in languagereference and the generation of meaning. Such a discussion must enter into the world of Plotinian language, a world of constantly shifting reference and perspective, of radical,
*This paper was presented at the panel of the InternationalSociety for Neoplatonic Studies, AmericanPhilosophical Association, WesternDivision (Chicago,25 April 1985). The initial researchwas aided by an Andrew Mellon grantand by the hospitalityof Stanford University'sdepartmentsof Religious Studies and Classics. I owe special thanks to BernardMcGinnfor his carefuland challengingreadingsof earlierdrafts. I HaroldBloom, Kabbalah Criticism and (New York:Seabury,1975) 18.

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sometimes violent, alterations of linguistic structure, of a continual movement from paradox to paradox; in short, a world in which the ground continually falls out from underfoot as one walks. Despite its initial strangeness, I will argue that this is an interpretive world very much our own. Regress from Reference
"The beyond-being" does not refer to a some-thing since it does not posit any-thing, nor does it "speak its name" (Plato Parm 132 a 3). It merely indicatesthat it is "not that." No attempt is made to circumscribe it. It would be absurd to circumscribe that immense nature. To wish to do so is to cut oneself off from its slightest trace. (Enneads5.5.6.11-17)2

For Plotinus, "being" implies form and therefore a delimited entity (horismenon, 5.5.6.1-11).3 He is thus led to call the unlimited the "beyond being" (epekeina tou ontos). However, it is not only being that implies delimitation. The very act of naming delimits. A name's
2 All references are to Plotinus, Plotini Opera (ed. Paul Henry and Hans-Rudolf Schwyzer;3 vols.; Paris:Descl6e de Brouwer;Leiden: Brill, 1951, 1959, 1971), cited by standardEnnead,treatise, section, and line number. Plotinus speaks of his first principle with the personal, masculinepronoun (autos), and with nonpersonalterms such as the Good (to agathon), the One (to hen), and the beyond-being. In order to emphasize his effort going beyond delimitation, I vary between masculine and neuter forms in my translations. In composing the translationsused in this study, I have tried to preserve the distinctivetone of the version of Stephen MacKenna(Plotinus[5 vols.; London:The Medici Society, 1921-30]), sometimes echoing a MacKennanturn of phrase. Though MacKenna'stranslationhas been supercededby the Englishof A. H. Armstrong (London and Cambridge,MA: LCL, 1966-85), the French of E. Brehier (Paris, 1924-38), the Italianof V. Cilento (Bari/Laterza: 1947-49), and the German of R. Harder (Hamburg, 1956-62), its lyricalintensity is often unique in expressingdeeper Plotinianresonances. Even as newer translationsbased upon modern editions replace it in scholarly discussions, MacKenna'swork continues to stand forth as a remarkableliteraryachieve(by ment, and a compellinginterpretation translation)of Plotinus. There is a largemodern literatureon Plotinus, and it would be long to cite it all fairly. This essay is based upon readingsof the passagescited, and other similar passagesthat lend themselves to a rigorous apophaticreading and defense of Plotinianapophasis. I should point out that Plotinus's passagesvary in degree of apophatictension. Some pasmore rigorous than others. This treatmentfocuses on the most sages are apophatically purelyapophaticpassagesin Plotinusand does not attemptto give a comprehensiveview of his corpus. 31 translatedto on and ousia throughoutas "being," and ta onta as "beings." For the Plotinus, "being" is primarily object of a reference, and thus any form of referential entification.

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referent is, by the act of naming, marked off in some manner from those things which it is not. It is a tode ti, a some-thing, a delimited entity. If denomination and reference are necessarily acts of delimitation, how is it possible to refer to the unlimited (aoriston)? Names such as "the One," or "the beyond being" cannot refer to the unlimited since, insofar as they refer, they delimit. "We find ourselves in an aporia,agonizing over how to speak. We speak of the ineffable; wishing to signify it as best we can, we name it" (5.5.6.23-25). This agony (odis-the term can also mean birth pang) resulted in a new discourse with its own genre conventions, logic, and semantic and symbolic structure. The initial aporiaor perplexitywas harnessed and made the central principleof this new discourse, a discourse of "mystical dialectic" that was to have enormous impact on Greek, Jewish, Christian,and Islamic thought. Plotinus called his strategyfor dealingwith the referentialaporiaapophasis (speaking away), a term often translatedas the "negative way" (via negativa), though Plotinian apophasisis very different from simple negation. More confusingly, the term has been applied to two very different kinds of writing. Formal apophasis acknowledges the ineffabilityof the transcendentbut continues to use normal, discursive reference. The formal apophaticmight place a warningat the beginning or end of the discussion to the effect that no name or predictioncan be made correctlyof the unlimited, but during the discussion such qualms are largelyforgotten, and the languageis used with little questioning of its normal referential structure. Plotinian or rigorous apophasis takes the aporiamore seriously and uses it like a magnet to transformfixed reference into an open, ever changingsemantic movement. In discussing rigorousapophasisone is caught in Plotinus's dilemma. It was stated that it is impossible to refer to the unlimited, since the act of reference delimits. But in that very sentence the term "the unlimited" had to be used. Similarly,in the case of pronominaldelimitation one might say that "We can't even call it it," but again one has had to use reference to deny the use of reference. Like the rigorous apophatic, the critic is caught in a regress spiralling infinitely back away from saying anything. Rigorous apophasis is obscured when treated from an ambiguous apophatic perspective, when, for example, the Plotinian One is translatedas "God," and that term is then used in a nonapophaticway. Formal or nonapophatic lenses result in a nonapophatic picture. A self-sustaining process of reversion to the normative sets in. Critical methods based upon nonapophatic premises render the rigorous

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apophatic tradition the more invisible. To avoid this trap, one must begin by adheringto the conventions of Plotinianapophasis. Apophasis begins with apology, acknowledgement that the terms used in reference to the unlimited are incorrect and should not be taken referentially. This discussion begins with a repetition of that apology. The second step is the apophatic marker. Plotinus often uses the term hoion (as it were) to show that a name or predicateshould not be taken at face value. Though we have a wider variety of apophatic markers(quotationmarks, brackets), to place an apophaticmarkerafter every problematicreference would dilute the impact of the markerand result in an unreadabletext. This leads to the most important step, the apophatic pact. Unless the reader agrees to accept a seemingly incorrect use of names at the outset, and to make a certainadjustmentin the term (describedbelow), apophaticlanguage will seem absurd. Plotinus believed that the mind has a language-conditioned tendency to delimit, and to be unaware of the delimitation. Not only the apophatic writer but anyone who attempts to discuss that writer's work without betrayingit must enter with the reader into an engagement with the dilemmas of delimitation. Apophasis cannot be presented unless the presentationis in some way apophatic. Just as in the above passage Plotinus was forced to use the term "immense nature," so one is now forced to use terms (the One, the unlimited) that cannot perform the referential act they proclaim. The reader is asked to bracketthem, to recognize their deficiency with the expectationthat their referentialfunction will be transformed. To the referential use of language that he associates with orality, is with speaking, naming, and calling, Plotinus opposes theoria. Theoria
a seeing or gazing (idein, blepein, theasthai), but as opposed to normal

sight, it is not the viewing of an exterior object. As an example, Plotinus suggests the Pythagoreanuse of the term Apollo as a "symbol" of the "not many." This is not a negation, but something more complex, an open, never ending process of apophasis:
The name "The One" is merely a denial of multiplicity. The Pythagoreans signified it symbolically (symbolikos) among one another through the term Apollo (a-pollon, not-many), by apophasis of the many. If the One is to be taken as a positing (thesis), name (onoma), and referent (deloumenon),we would express ourselves more clearlyif we did not speak its name at all. We speak it so that we can begin our search with that which signifies the most simple, ending with the apophasisof even that. (5.5.6.26-33)

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Apophasis is not merely a substitution of a negative term (the nonmany) for a positive term (the One). The term Apollo is used to signify the "not many," but it is followed by the "apophasis of even that." As in the example above, "we can't even call it it," the negation must undergo apophasis in turn. The infinite regress within the initial aporiafinds itself at the center of what Plotinus refers to as symbolic language. An initial, working definition of Plotinian theoriaor symbolism would be: a discourse that transforms itself from the referential to the nonreferential through a never-ending process of apophasis, the withdrawalof a delimitation, the withdrawalof the delimitation posited in making the first withdrawal, ad infinitum. The tendency of the mind moves it inexorablytoward language-conditioned delimitation, a tendency that must be continually transformedby new acts of apophasis as long as the contemplative gaze remains. The dynamic of symbolic engagement tends to revert to static reference, to as being paraphrased a symbol "of some-thing," the reversion of the symbol into a name. Plotinian language avoids reversion through the continued "apophasisof even that." In a vivid passage, Plotinus imagines a glowing mass in the center of a hollow sphere. Light is wholly present over every spot on the sphere. Then: If someoneshouldtake out the corporeal the mass, but preserve powerof the light, wouldyou then speakof wherethe lightwas? in Or wouldit not be everywhere, distributed and over the entire whereit was first sphere? No longercan you say throughdianoia located,and no longercan you say whenceand how it came. You into willbe brought perplexity wonderment. and (6.4.7.32-38) The hand of the author reaches back into the image to pull out the glowing mass, a kind of manus ex machina,as it were. This is apophasis: to reach into a reference and withdrawthe delimited referent, to reach into the notion of contemplatingsomething and withdrawthe "some-thing." What appears to happen ex machina is not really artificial,however. The apophaticwithdrawalis governed by the inner logic of the aporia. In the above example, the entire image was not withdrawn, only the central mass. An analogous situation holds for propositions. Apophasis does not negate the first proposition, it withdrawsfrom it a delimiting element. The originalregression that spirals back away from saying anythingis transformedinto a movement spiraling deeper into the prereferential, or rather, transreferentialsymbol. The common, closed categories of discursive reason (dianoia) are transformedinto a dynamic, open-ended process of theoria.

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and Semantics Disontology DoubleProposition Then therecan be no "thus." It wouldbe a delimitation a and some-thing. One who sees (idOn),knows that it is possibleto assertneithera "thus"nor a "not-thus."Howcan you say thatit is a being amongbeings, somethingto which a "thus" can be applied?It is otherthanall thingsthatare "thus." Butseeingthe unlimited will say thatall thingsare belowit, affirming it that you is none of them but, if you will, a powerof absoluteontological It the self-mastery. is thatwhichit willsto be; or rather, beingthat it wills to be it projects into beings,while it remainsgreater out thanall its will,all willbeingbelowit. So neitherdidit willto be a "thus," so thatit wouldhave to conform(to its "thus"), nor did another makeit so. (6.8.9.38-48) The critiqueof languagereference is tied into a critiqueof ontology.4 Both ontology, the placing of the unlimited within the category of being, and referential delimitation, as represented by the predications "thus" and "not-thus," are invalid. The unlimited must be free of all categories, including the category of being. The argument can be as diagrammed follows: (a) Since the unlimited is free, no other makes it what it is. It is what it wills itself to be. (b) But it cannot even be said to be limited to what it wills itself to be. (c) We should say that it projectsthe being, the quiddity,the "what," that it wills itself to be out into the realm of beings. It alwaysremains above its own being and its own willing. This series of apophaticwithdrawalsis an explication of the dense expression dynaminpasan hautPs ontOskyrian, "power of absolute ontological self-mastery." The One's "projection" of being outside of itself is the prime Plotinian symbol. Later, even the notion that "it projects"will be transformed,since the subject of such a predication implies an actor or being, but "being" is preciselywhat is being projectedout. Disontology, mythicallyrepresentedby this "projection,"is the transcendence of predicationand reference as represented by "thus" and "not-thus." To say that the One is x is to delimit it, to mark it off from the not-x. It is also to mark it off even from the x it is said to be. To say that it is here is to mark it off not only from "there," but also "here." There is some category, hereness, which is other than it (otherwise the statement "it is here" would be a tautology). A similarcase
4 For a discussionof the conceptof "being" in Greek and medievalWestern thought, see Ivor LeClerc,"God and the Issue of Being," RelS20 (1984) 63-78.

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of double delimitation would occur for the "not thus." Plotinus was convinced that such reifications, hidden within acts of predication, determine consciousness in a manner both subtle and profound. We cannot even say "it is" since this would imply a category (beingness) from which it would be markedoff and delimited. Elsewhere, instead of saying it is neither x nor not-x, he says that it is both x and not-x (see below). It is often maintained that such languageis only a "seeming contradiction." It must be arguedthat real contradictionsarise when the delimited, referentialfunction of language encounters a rigorouslyapophaticnotion of the unlimited. But they are not illogical. They result from a rigorous critiqueof referentialdelimitation. Further, the rules of non-contradictionand of the excluded middle apply specifically to delimited language reference. The coincidentiaoppositorum the logical result of any reference to the unlimis and the means by which language reference is transformed into ited, theoria. Since the term "paradox"is often defined as a "seeming contradiction,"the term "dialecticallogic" is preferredfor the coincidentiae under discussion here. oppositorum The dialectic of immanence and transcendence is an instance of dialecticallogic. "It is beyond all things" is a statement that delimits. If it is beyond all things, then there is a conceptual space (all things) from which it is excluded, and another space (the beyond all things) in which it is confined. Apophatic thinking criticizes normal, one-step statements of transcendenceas being just another form of delimitation. To achieve an affirmation of transcendence of all limits, one must "transcend" the delimitation of normal affirmationsof transcendence. The solution lies in the following double proposition: It is within all things-it is beyond all things. Neither propositionin itself is meaningful since each imposes a delimitation. The smallest semantic unit is not the sentence or proposition, but the double sentence or dual proposition. With the image of the glowing mass within the sphere, meaning was generatedonly when a second image was superimposedupon it, the reachingin and pulling out the mass. Meaning results from the interaction of the first and second propositions. Either proposition taken by itself is delimitingand thus, in reference to the unlimited, meaningless. No single proposition can be true or false since no single proposition can say anythingabout the unlimited. It is to this new semantics of the double-sentence that dialecticallogic applies. Because of the tendency to treat the sentence as the semantic unit, apophasis must be continually repeated. Otherwise, the gravity of language-conditioned thought pulls it towardgiving independent propositional status to the last sentence. Plotinian discourse, when the

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context is the unlimited, is made up of dual propositions,the last sentence of the first dual proposition forming the first sentence of the second dual proposition. One movement popularwith Plotinus and his successors begins with the dialectic of immanence and transcendence: It is beyond all things-it is in all things. But as the mind settles on the second sentence, it reifies a some-thing contained in all things as in a place. A new apophasis pushes off this reification by switching to a stronger form of immanence: it is not in all things but is all things, or is the very place of all things. It is through a continual movement of dual propositions that meaning is generated. Once the movement stops, the mind is trapped in the false significationof the last single proposition. It is ironic that practitionersof mystical dialectic are accused of pantheismor the denial of the transcendent. Their critiqueof language showed that simple, one-propositionaffirmationsof transcendenceare misleading, pretending to affirm what in fact they cannot. It is the attempt to find a meaningful formulation of transcendencethat leads ineluctablyto statements of radicalimmanence. The charge of pantheism is often countered by saying that we shouldn't take seriously the more extreme statements of immanence. But dialecticallogic is a logic of extremes. The "absolutely transcendent"is meaningful only if it is simultaneously the "absolutely immanent." Otherwise it is just another being, however great, among beings. The existence of the apophatic critique is often ignored. William Christian states, for example, that "in most conceptions of God he transcendsthe world but is not utterly or absolutely transcendent,since he is immanent in the world also."5 This statement is based upon presuppositionsconcerning the relationship of language reference to transcendencethat are challenged by mysticaldialectic. Plotinus would certainly wonder how an absolute transcendence could be affirmed without an absolute immanence. Dialectical logic as defined here can be found in Plato's Parmenides where the hypothesis of "the One" results in a plethoraof coincidentiae Specific passages will now be examined to show how Plooppositorumr6 tinus gives this schematizedlogic a dynamicprinciple,how he makes it come alive.
5 WilliamA. Christian,Sr., Meaning in and Truth Religion(Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press, 1964, 1978) 190. Italicsmine. 6 Parm.137c-155d. See E. R. Dodds, "The Parmenidesof Plato and the Originsof 22 the NeoplatonicOne," Classical Quarterly (1928) 129-43.

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For Plotinus, discursive reason reflects alienated consciousness. It must "run after" the object of its contemplationthrough activity. It is caught in dualisms of subject-object,cause-effect, origin-goal. Nous as spirit, intuition, theoria, is the overcoming of these dualisms. It involves several acts of union: (1) The union of subject, predicate,and object. Nous is thought thinking itself, or it is the union of being (ousia) and act (energeia), at once pure being and pure act. (2) The union of all these activities in one act. In Nous, to think something is to make it, rather than to consider a preexistent separate object, and both acts are identical with willing, loving, living, etc. (3) The union of the divine and human. The human stage of psyche insofar as it achieves noetic contemplation is by that fact united with Nous. And Nous is considered by Plotinus to be divine. Nous is an event, and from the human perspective we might consider it the event of union with the divine. (4) The union of all three unions in Nous. The three occur simultaneouslyand imply one another. The statement "thought thinking itself" still contains dualisms. Though subject, predicate,and object are said to be identical, they are linguistically differentiated and thus delimited. The last stage, the unlimited, the One, lies beyond this delimitation. Nous can be realized only when the contemplative gaze is focused not on Nous but on the One. For Nousto be Nous it must look beyond itself. If Nous is thought thinking or contemplating itself, what does it mean to say that Nous contemplatesthe One? There are two problems here. First, the One cannot be an object of contemplation, since that would make it a delimited entity, marked off logically from the subject that contemplatesit. Second, if Nous is self-contemplation,then to say that it contemplatesthe One is to say that it is the One. In either case, the reference is split. The breakdown of standard reference can be seen in predications such as "the One wills." As was mentioned earlier, to say "the One wills" creates several delimitationsmarkingthe One as subject off from the activity in which it engages, marking the activity of will off from other activities. To say that the One is "self-willing" does not solve the problem since it is Nous that is defined as self-reflective act. Plotinus suggests that the One can be intimated only when language arrives "where there is not two as one, but One-either because there is Act only, or because there is no act at all" (6.8.12.35-37). As opposed to the noetic identity of being and act, or subject and predicate, the identity spoken of here can be called fusion identity. Again, such a notion can only be conceived of in a dual proposition.

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The first step posits a predication ("the One wills") and the second step reaches in to withdrawthe glowing mass, this time in the form of either the subject or the predicate. We are asked to think of an act so total that the subject has been utterly fused into the act, a willing without a willer; or alternatively,to think of a pure subject, a subject that does not act, but serves as the bottomless ground (or depth) out of which the divine willing and divine consciousness (as Nous) well up or emanate. Because thought gravitates toward the subject-predicate, or being-act dichotomy, a willing-without-willer willer-without-willing can only be glimpsed momentarilyin the intersticesof the dual proposition. Apophasismust keep the mind from settling into delimitationby ever new dual propositions. This being-without-act or act-withoutbeing attempts a momentarytranscendenceof predication. The following passage begins with an apophatic apology, only to shift into the most intensely apophaticlanguage. The crucial moments are signaled by the use of the apophaticmarker(hoion,as it were):
But given that we must incorrectlyemploy predications the sake for of the inquiry,then let it be said once again that they are not being spoken correctly, since a duality must never be posited, not even for the sake of obtaininga notion (epinoia). We use these names now for the sake of persuasion and in doing so we depart from strict accuracy. If we give it activities, and imply that its activities are through its will (for it would not act will-lessly), the acts must be as it were its being; its will and its being will be the same. If this is so, it is as it willed to be. (6.8.13.1-9)

The statement that its will and being are the same contains a tension between the fusion identity evoked, and the noetic, linguistic identity which is the most that any one-step propositiontaken by itself can actually say, a tension which is here highlightedthrough italics. The mind glimpses an identity of fusion beyond the delimitations of language before it settles into normal habits of reference. In other passages, the author attempts to prolong such a glimpse by an apophaticwithdrawal of the subject from the proposition, by speaking of an awakening without an awakener, for example. In the following quotation the One-Nous is said to cause itself, to be its own very act of self-causing, to be its act of contemplatingitself. This turning inward, this motion towardsitself, is the "power of absolute ontologicalself-mastery" mentioned above. The deontology consists of a continual fusing of the subject-predicatedualism. The apophatic marker hoion appears with such frequency that to translateit each time as "as it were" would be cumbersome. It will here be marked with the sign: (. Despite

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Plotinus's intense use of the marker, this passage and others like it have been read as if there were an entity engagingin activities.7
He is everywhere and nowhere. ... if nowhere, nowhere has he happenedto be, and if everywhere, then, just as he is, he is everywhere so that he is the everywhere and the everyway. ... If then he exists in view of holding fast toward himself and gazing 0 towardhimself, and the being 0 is for him that very gazing toward himself, he would then make him(self) 0, and then he is not as he happenedto be but as he wished to be. ... The being that he is is that very act towardhimself. ... If then his act did not come to be, but always was, an awakening 0 without an awakeneras other 0, an eternal awakeningand a supra-intellection,then as he awoke to be he is: awakeningbeyond being, and Nous, and rationallife 0, and life, though he is these 0, act beyond Nous and understanding which are from him and from no other. By himself, in himself, and from himself is his being. He is, therefore, not as he happened to be, but as he wished to be. (6.8.16.1-39)

Predicationsimply that a subject engages in an activity, that there is a "remainder" within the subject that is not that activity itself. Plotinus evokes an act without subject to overcome such remainders, to overcome the delimitations hidden within predication. He evokes an act so utterly complete and instantaneousthat the subject is fused into the act to the point of no longer existing. In terms like "awakening without an awakener," the fusion of normal syntacticalunits results in semantic intensity. extraordinary Splitor ShiftingReference The One is Nous, but beyond Nous. Or the One-Nousis the being it makes itself to be and then, in disontology, is said to projectoutside of itself. This disontology is reflected in languageby a splitting of normal reference, and by a subversion of normal distinctionsbetween reflexive and nonreflexive. When Plotinus says in the above passage that "he
7 A. H. Armstrongin his influentialbook TheArchitecture the Intelligible Universe in of the Philosophy Plotinus(Cambridge: of CambridgeUniversityPress, 1940) took these passages as positing a positive One, a being with attributes of freedom, will, knowledge, with a negative One mentioned in other Plolove, and goodness, that is in contradiction tinian passages. For another nonapophaticreadingof Plotinus, see J. M. Rist, Plotinus: TheRoad to Reality(Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress, 1967). In the recent work of Armstrong,the centralityof apophasisin Plotinusis stressed: A. M. Armstrong,"The Escape from the One: An Investigationof Some PossibilitiesImperfectlyRealized in the Review (1977). West," StPatr13 (1979); idem, "Negative Theology," Downside 95

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would then make himself," or in another passage that "logic leads us to the discovery that it made itself," the reflexive pronoun is subverted by the infinite regress lying within the notion of self-causality. The simultaneous use and subversion of the reflexive is a deliberate verbal strategy. This is a critical moment. The infinite regress that constituted the original aporia returns as the interior principle of mystical dialectic, splittingapartnormal reference structuresfrom within:
And if someone should say: "What! doesn't it follow that he would have had to come into being before coming into being? For if he makes himself, then, insofar as he is made, he is not yet in being, but from the perspectiveof the act of making he is before the self as made, which he is said to be?!" To whom it must be replied that he cannot be taken as made, but only as maker. The act of making himself must be freed (apoluteon) from all else. (6.8.20.1-6)

The dual proposition now takes the following form. The One makes/wills/thinks itself to be (self-causality)-the One cannot be taken as the object, it transcends the self which it makes itself to be (self-transcendence). Parenthesesare used here to indicatethe splitting of reference: It is as it makes it(self) to be. Split reference occurs not only in the object [it makes it(self)] but throughout the proposition. What is it that makes itself? It must be Nous since Nous is defined as reflexive act. But then it would have had to make itself in order to exist in order to make itself. Nous as self-making devolves into an infinite regress. On the other hand, if we say that the One makes itself, then we must withdraw not only the "itself," but also the division between maker and making by posing a making without a maker or a maker without a making. Insofar as "it makes," it cannot be the One, delimitation. since the One cannot be referred to in a subject-predicate Nous both is and is not the One. The double dialectic of self-causality and self-transcendence brings to life the underlying dialectical logic. This analysis accounts for the disagreement among editors in many cases over whether the antecedent of the pronoun is Nous or the One.8
Henry and Schwyzer's apparatusfor 6.7.16.15-16, 6.7.8.16.37, 6.8.13.54-55, 5.2.1.12-15, 5.1.7.10 for a few examplesof the controversyover whetherthe reflexiveor nonreflexive is meant. For a more extended view of the controversy in a particular instance, see V. Cilento, Enneadi,vol. 3, part 2, p. 32. In a separateessay (in preparaoutlined here to a detaileddiscussion of the tion) I applythe principlesof interpretation above texts.
8 See

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It is neither and both. As with other writers of mystical dialectic, Plotinus splits the normal reference so that the reflexive/non-reflexive, self/other division is no longer operative.9The referent continuallyslips beyond the proposition. Below, Plotinus speaks of the beyond-being projectingbeing outside itself. As indicated in reference to the "power of absolute ontological self-mastery," the predication "it projects" cannot stand. To the extent that it is projectingoutside of itself its being, it has no being that it might be thought of as a being that projects. The propositionturns in upon itself in apophasis, transformingitself on ever deeper levels of theoria. deontology into a transreferential
So we should intuit the beyond-being spoken as a riddle by the ancients. Not only did he beget being, but he is subject neither to being nor to himself, nor is his being a principleof himself, but he, being the principleof being, did not make being for himself, but having made it, he projectedit outside himself-he who is in no need of beingness, who made it. Thus he did not make in accordance with his being. (6.8.19.12-20)

Self-making refers then to Nous (noetic self-reflexivity) and to the One (fusion-identity) at the same time. The propositions "it is as it willed/made/thought it(self) to be" not only split the reference, but the infinite regress implied in them continues to split the reference as long as the gaze (theoria) is maintained. The split reference of selfcausality, the "projection" of being outside the self, the process of deontology, the breakdownof the self/other dichotomy, are all aspects of emanation (literally "outflowing," though the term also refers to as overflowing). Emanationis reified when presentednon-apophatically if there were some place or thing from which things "flow out." In
9 For similarshifts in Erigena,Eckhart,and Ibn cArabi,see MichaelSells, "The Metaphor and Dialectic of Emanationin Plotinus, John the Scot, Meister Eckhart, and Ibn (Arabi" (Ph.D. diss., Universityof Chicago, 1982); idem, "Ibn cArabi'sGarden among the Flames:A Reevaluation,"HR 23 (1984) 287-315; and idem, "Ibn cArabi'sPolished Mirror: PerspectiveShift and MeaningEvent," StudiaIslamica(forthcoming). Ibn (Arabi refers to the doctrine of fana,, the passingaway of the ego self in the contemplationof the divine beloved, through the image of the polished mirror. When the Sufi passes away, his heart becomes a polished mirror. The mirror is no longer "seen," only the divine image reflected in the mirror. The question "Who sees whom in whom" then involves an infinite regress of shifting referents, which I attempt to translate as "It (divine subject, human subject) sees it(self) through it(self) in it(self)." Again, normal linguistic distinctions between reflexive and nonreflexive, between self and other, are split or fused.

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Plotinus there is always that second step, the reaching to pull out the glowing mass. as Emanation Overflow Meaning of
The One is all things but no one thing. The principleof all things is not all things, but is all things in "that" way. For there all things run within, as it were. Or they are not, but will be. How then from the absolute One, in which no multiplicityappearsnor any duality whatsoever, [can there be a many]? Rather, it is

are is in because there nothing it thatall things fromit In orderthat

Being be, That must not be Being, but rather Being's begetter. This is, as it were, the primal genesis. Perfect, seeking nothing, having nothing, needing nothing, it overflowed, as it were, and its overflowing made its other. This begotten turned back toward it(self) and was filled and became the contemplatorof it(self) and became Nous. Its standing before it made Being, and the contemplation towardit made it Nous. When it stands before it, so that it sees, at one time it is engendered as Nous and Being. Thus, since

forth a it is, as it were, That, it bringsaboutlikenesses-pouring

vast power, and that is its image. (5.2.1.1-16)

"Because there is nothing in it, all things are from it." Here emanation is tied in directly to "ontological self-mastery," or disontology. The passage contains coiled within it the entire mystical dialectic, and by unravelingits dilemmas we can see the workingsof this genre. For example, the primal act of generation (prote gennOsis)is called an overflowing. The overflowing produced an other, which turned back (epestrapho),was filled, and became a contemplatorand Nous. However, if the One produced the other by overflowing, if that other is what flows from it, then to state that the other is filled by the same perpetual overflowing is to fuse together the vessel-content dualism on which the metaphor is based, or to first pose the dualism and then withdrawone element. This is the dilemma that the vessel is the content. A similar dilemma is intimated by the meanings of the English term emanation: the act of flowing out or of causing to flow out, or that which flows out. What flows out is identical to the act of flowing out, the result of the process is the process. In regardto the One and Nous, it [split reference] is the motion of procession and return (or turning back), the motion of which it is at other times called the result.

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Another dilemma concerns the fact that what flows out, or the flowing out, cannot really be or happen until the turning back to the source. Only after the return can it really be said to have proceded. SimilarlyNous (as intellective act) is said to be Being. Sometimes Nous is said to proceed and become being when it turns back. At other times Being proceeds and becomes Nous when it turns back. Plotinian discourse is filled with related double paradigms(Beauty-Life, UnityMultiplicity,Rest-Motion). These double paradigms,which elsewhere are referredto as reciprocalcausality, are latent in the split reference [it turns back toward it{self)]. In the semantics of the double paradigm, no single, static paradigmis meaningful. "A then B" leads ineluctably to "B then A." Again, textual difficulties that occur in deciding the antecedent (Nous or the One) for the pronouns in this passage can be seen as a result of Plotiniansplit reference. Split reference involves a double gaze. Nous looks toward its source/self. Plotinus accepted Aristotle's Nous as thought thinking Nous becomes itself, but criticized making it the ultimate principle.10 itself by gazing beyond itself. The enigma of the double gaze relates to the problem of predication. If Nous is reified as a principle, as subject of predication,then the thought-thinking-itself freezes into a static concept. In the simultaneous contemplationof source/self, contemplative mind is led by the aporiainto reenacting the very unions mentioned above as being part of Nous: union of subject and predicate, of all activity in one act, etc. The unlimited, like a magnet, keeps Nous in a state of constant activity. One could go on explicatingthe dilemmas of emanation. Later Neoplatonists did so systematically. What is most importantis the aporetic function these dilemmas represent. The aporia keeps the mind in incessant activity, never allowing it a fixed referent. One is led from one facet of aporia to another. The logical regress within the aporia continuallyforces the readerto reach in and pull out the glowing mass. Whenever a source of emanation is delimited a second step removes the delimitation.
10 Enneads 6.7.41.8-17, 6.7.40.22-30. Though Plotinusconsideredhimself a discipleof Plato and a critic of Aristotle, it may have been in his unravelingthe hidden dynamic within Aristotelian formulations of Nous (Metaphysics1074b 33-1075a; De anima 3.4.429b-430a) that the Plotinianinfinitelyrecedingreferent evolved. The term "Neoplatonism"may granttoo much to Plotinus's rhetoricalself-positioning,and may neglect the profoundimpactupon him of certainAristoteliantexts. (Of course that is in addition to the deeper problem with the term "Neoplatonism" with its implicationthat what is interestingabout Plotinus lies in his doctrineratherthan, as suggestedhere, in his mode of discourse.)

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The aporiagoverns a discourse that combines the metaphorof emanation, or the mythic language of "projectionof being out of it/self," with an inner dialectic that transforms the dualistic structures upon which images are based, forming a symbolic process of mythic dialectic or metaphoricdialectic. Emanationis often seen as causal explanation,and genesis as simply the One's engendering of Nous, and the succeeding creation of the lower realms. But the inner apophaticlogic subverts the dualisms and delimitationsupon which such narrative,explanatorylanguageis based. Explanatorylanguage is transformedinto a language of theoria. Until now theoriahas not been translatedhere as contemplation since contemplationis most often seen as contemplationof some-thing, and that reificationof a "something" is precisely what Plotinus was attempting to avoid. Nous is contemplation,but the "object" of its contemplation is constantly being pulled away through the techniques of linguistic fusion and split reference. From the fusion or fission of small particles results an enormous energy. Though such analogies may only be suggestive, Plotinus does obtain an extraordinary symbolic intensity through splitting reference, and fusing subject and predicate. This is the "pouring forth of a vast the power" that results from the Plotinian epistrophe, turning back to the self/source. IngressintoSymbol Plotinus called his apophasisa "symbolic" use of language. This use of "symbol" should not however be confused with pre-referential signification. Mystical dialectic uses language and language reference. It "proceeds" out into delimited language reference, only to "return" to the non-delimited source. Both steps are necessary for the generation of meaning. The first or "kataphatic"step sets the context. The cultural and linguistic context of a given tradition, in this case the philosophicaltraditionof late antiquity,is affirmed. The second or apophatic step removes the delimitation through the negativity, the representedby withdrawing glowing mass. The second or negative stage can take on meaning only within its context. This negativity can never be propositionally distinguished from mere negativityor nothingness. From the standpointof the apophatic moment, the question "does it exist or not" cannot be answered. On what grounds could one affirmor deny the existence of what (!) lies beyond the delimitationsof predication,of "it exists" or "it does not exist." When the apophatic movement is taken out of context it sounds nihilistic. But a greaterdangeris posed by those who

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attempt to show that the apophaticmoment actually affirms a "something" and thus delimits it. Apophasis demands a moment of real negation. After speakingof absolute unity as that which is most powerful (dynatotaton)in an animal, a soul, or in the all, Plotinus says: But shouldwe graspthe One of authentic beings,theirprinciple, and dynamis-will then lose faith and considerit we wellspring, nothingof the thingsof whichit is the orinothing?It is certainly can to gin, beingsuch,as it were,thatnothing be attributed it, neither being, nor beings, nor life. It is beyondthose. If then by withdrawing being you shouldgraspit, you will be broughtinto wonder(thauma). (3.8.10.26-32) After contemplatingthe worldview of his tradition, the mystic then withdrawsbeing from the source. At this moment the soul "fears that there be nothing" (6.9.3.6). A moment of pure receptivity is demanded, a letting go, a leap beyond the security of delimited consciousness. At this point one is asked not to lose faith. The faith demanded is not a faith in any-thing, but a willingness to let go of being. Such a letting go results in wonderment (thauma), and emanation, an overflow of meaning. But wonderment and the overflow that result from liberationfrom deliberationconstitute an event. They cannot be held onto. The process must be continuallyrepeated. Apophasis transformsa semantics of predicationinto a semantics of realization. Nothing can be affirmed objectively about the One/Nous without delimiting the unlimited and freezing the dynamic. Noetic contemplation must be realized (in the double sense of understood and actualizedor reenacted) at the moment of apophaticwithdrawal. The appeal of apophaticmystics lies not in a universal doctrine or creed. One need not share Plotinus's opinions on astrology or the material world, for example, in order to appreciatethe apophaticpassages. The "what" that is posed in the first kataphaticstage is conditioned and delimited, but the act of withdrawingit is not. Though Plotinus insists that it is necessary to follow the virtuous life, according to his own rigorousnotions of virtue, to achieve a complete experience, his ultimate (and hard won) decision to write implies that reading can itself enact the epistropho, aesthetically and noetically, as a meaning event. Plotinus's agony for expression led to the birth of mystical dialectic as a genre, a genre that was to have a long history in Greek, Christian,Jewish, and Islamic traditions. This account of mystical dialectic suggests a change in the focus of contemporarydiscussion of mysticism. One group has claimed that "what" the mystic experiences is the same in different traditions. In

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response, in a discussion of the experience of "nothingness," Stephen Katz answersthat "the differencebetween cases is a differencebetween what is experienced, not just how something experienced"11Notice is how "nothing" has been made into "something"! Mystical dialectic criticizes such a use of "what." The proposition "experiences what" delimits. A "what" implies a quiddity, a definable essence, a something. While we might argue that the experience is contextuallyconditioned, or that it is common to mystics in differing traditions, at the allows apophaticlevel we must withdrawthe "what." Such withdrawal an alternativeeither to delimiting a common essence of religious traditions or denying the possibilityof comparativeunderstanding. In this interpretation,the focus has been upon linguistic elements, dualisms, for example. It might be objected that Plosubject-predicate tinus does not usually use grammaticalterminology. It is true that he speaks ontologically,of the "other" proceedingfrom the One and then realizing itself as it turns back toward it(self). Yet, there are clues throughout that these passages are to be read symbolicallyas disontology. When Plotinus speaks of an awakeningwithout an "awakeneras an other," in the context of act-without-being,his text is self-reflective. What "proceeds" is the subject-predicatedualism that is language reference. That reference is not what it is until it returns to itself (we can't speak of the proceeding until the result, the subject-predicate, allows us to say "it proceeds"). But the languagereference is not fully itself until it turns towards its source in intuition (gazing inward), in the insight into the pre-predication, un-delimited. This transreferential second step is markedby fusion identities and split reference. There is movement (procession and return) but the movement is also a rest or remaining: the event of epistrophe,of apophasis, be continually repeated in order for the gaze to rest fixed. No single propositioncan be more than momentarilymeaningful. The original aporia that spirals back away from reference is of transformedinto a new spiral, the dynamis disontology. The linear, dualistic thrust of intention (origin-goal), causality (cause-effect), hierarchy (high-low), time, space, and language reference is combined with an equal circular movement of dialectic and coincidentia opposi torum. In emanation, what flows out is identicalwith the act of flowing out. In mystical dialectic, what is meant is identical with the process, or the movement, of signification. One can never say propositionally
11Stephen Katz, "Language,Epistemology,and Mysticism," in idem, ed., Mysticism
and Philosophical Analysis(New York: Oxford University Press, 1978) 52. Emphasis mine.

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what is meant, since the meaning cannot be delimited in a "what," a something. The dynamisof absolute ontological self-mastery is the meaning event that comes about throughapophasis. Plotinus's attitude toward writing is portrayedas ambivalent, even tortured, by Porphyry, his editor, biographer,and disciple. For years he refused to write, and when he finally did, he would write an entire treatise at a time, in a kind of contemplative white heat, not moving until it was finished. Afterwards,he would not look at it, even to make spelling and grammatical corrections. His ambivalence is in part justified by the fate of his method in much subsequent interpretation. The tendency to reify the One as some kind of entity is in direct proportion to Plotinus's pleas, and his apophatic mechanisms, meant to prevent such reification. The quotation with which this essay began exemplifies this tendency. The One is first reified as an entity, and then that entity is attackedfor its "static felicity." But the One is not a static entity, felicitous or otherwise. It is what 0 continually slips beyond delimiting language reference, leading a contemplative movement ever deeper into meaning. The movement never stops at a final entity. This movement can take place within any religious or cultural tradition. It does not attempt to deny the religious language of the tradition,but transformsit from the doctrinalto the contemplative,to a language of theoria. In doing so it breaks apart normal categories and boundaries,merging theology, philosophy,and poetry in a unique genre of discourse. It challenges standardstereotypesof Easternand Western thought,12as well as stereotypes of modern and classicalviews of referIt and dismissal as ence and language.13 challenges the marginalization "uncommunicative"of mystical language. Finally, it challenges scholarship and criticism to develop a contemporarydiscourse that will not freeze and reify the apophaticmotion.

12 There are strong similarities between Plotinian apophasis and non-dual Indian thought, for example. The Sunyata notion that all constructsare empty including the constructthat all constructsare empty, includingthe concept that the concept that ... is an infinite regress functionally identical to Plotinus's aporia, and used (as in the Vimalakirti Sutra) in similarways. 13There is a tendency among followers of deconstructionist thought to overlook precedents among apophaticthinkers. This is often due to a reified view of the apophatic thinkers themselves, or a dismissalof them, founded upon an inaccurateview of mysticism as irrational.