Friday, March 12th, 1982

Intellectual-Principle Outline

by Anthony J. Damiani

Paper V09MP

3-LETTER CODE: ASN

TOPIC: Astronoesis

SUBJECT: Intellectual-Principle

ORIGINAL LOCATION & FILE NAME (of PDF used for typing): 1982 0312a V12rp. Plotinus - One.DOC & PDF

BOOKS QUOTED FROM OR REFERENCED:

• Plotinus, The Enneads (MacKenna translation, 4th ed.)

PLOTINUS QUOTES REFERENCED: See Intellectual-Principle Outline in Astronoesis, pp. 98-99, for Plotinus references.

AD HANDWRITING: This retyped version is almost exactly the same (with a few minor variations and prior to the edits) as ASN MASTER ONE and IP 71-90.PDF (pp. 85-87), which is typewriter typed with a few AD and AS edits

COMPLETENESS: Full Paper

PUBLISHABILITY: No, already published in Astronoesis in a different form

ALTERNATE VERSIONS: ASN ALT The One Outline AD Hand.PDF (pp. 3-5) (typewriter typed with extensive AD edits); AD SUPPG 1-10.PDF (pp. 3-5) (typewriter typed, no edits); Intellectual-Principle Outline as read in WG Class 1982 0402a

DATES ASSOCIATED WITH THIS PAPER: 1982 0312, 0402

VERSION OF PAPER IN ASTRONOESIS: This is an early draft which is published in a different form in Astronoesis, Chapter 2, The Intellectual-Principle, Intellectual-Principle Outline, pp. 98-99

RETYPED AND REFORMATTED by IT 2024

NOTES:

• RETYPED AD PAPER presented in class (V09MP).

• This is 1982 03/12c, Intellectual-Principle Outline, and the third entry associated with this date. 1982 03/12a = Plotinus; One Class. 1982 03/12b = One Outline.

INTELLECTUAL-PRINCIPLE OUTLINE

[Paper as read by LR in WG Class 1982 0312a Begins]

--The One as the source of all contains in its inner nature, in a differenceless mode, transcendentally all the principles which are to be distinguished from it.

--In the undifferenced knowledge of the One are prefigured the Intellectual-Principle and Being, the Ideas and Numbers, so, in essence, the unity of the Intellectual-Principle is to be found in Universal Being.

--When we conceive of the essential simplicity of the One, i.e., its transcendental aspect, we are considering it as partless and indivisible. Even knowledge of it is excluded. When considered as the principle of all principles it is immanent. Both views are necessary to understand it rightly. This follows the paradigm of the double act.

--The radiant emanations or the divine outflowing is now unfolded. Within Being the first distinctions arise, knowledge and its objects, the one-many.

--Number, which is already transcendentally in the One, presides over, arranges, and coordinates the Ideas and their powers in the Intellectual-Principle.

--We will attempt to show that a derivation of the 10 structuring metaphysical principles, the Divine Numbers, are from the One itself. These are the properties of Number.

--These properties will form the basis and archetypes for the ordering of the Ideas in the Divine Mind. This principle of Number will coordinate the specific relations of the Ideas with the appropriate powers or dignities which essentialize and singularize the Ideas.

--Number, which coordinates the Ideas and their powers, is symbolized by the Head in our illustrations, the two are distinguishable but not separable.

--The inability to grasp the Infinite One in its totality even by the Intellectual-Principle, its repeated attempts to do so, accounts for the innumerable successive impressions of that One as universe after universe is unfolded and the planned evolution or idea of manifestation progresses.

--The Intellectual-Principle, or self-thinking thought, knows the One in essence.

--In the Intellectual-Principle the unities of the Ideas and their Power are made explicit. They are its own divine content which is itself self-gnostic. It is that which it knows.

--Each Idea is an Intellectual-Principle entire, a special and unique form of it. The same as Intellectual-Principle entire is a duality and unity with a specific internal structure of its own determined by Number, and similarly self-gnostic and self-distinguishing, which gives rise to the notion of the separative intellect rooted in the one unified Divine Intellect.

--The power of the One is so great that the Intellectual-Principle, although an image-One, is an authentic reality in eternal actuality. There is no notion of becoming or potential in the Intellectual-Principle; all is actualized, and all is one eternal life.

--The Power of the One, being the indeterminate Dyad, the Intellectual-Principle paradoxically stands a distinct reality, distinct in the One, yet expressive of the One's own nature.

--Plotinus attempts to reveal something of the essence of the Divine Mind by a discussion of the categories or the constitutive principles of Being: isness, motion, permanence, difference, identity. Sometimes he speaks of five, and sometimes of six. The nature of these principles is the cause of some ambiguity. Nonetheless, these are not parts of Being but Being itself. Mind thinks, which is an eternal act, this is divine ideation. It is a permanent reality and has Power or motion and is stable essence. Mind equals Isness, thinks equals power or motion, its thoughts are self-identical, and different from one another, and their permanence is their stable essence. In their totality they are identical with Being or Intellectual-Principle. Any real Being or Idea will also be similarly constituted.

[Paper as read by LR in WG Class 1982 0312a Ends]