Plotinus as a Philosopher of the Future?

[Balder]

Joel Morrison shared this on the FB IPS site:

 

The Philosophy of the Future: Plotinus as Dynamic Set Theorist of t...

 

"Plotinus as the philosopher of the future?! In the last few posts, I’ve worked to explain some of why this is. Strange historical accidents of various sorts have erased much of his name from the history of philosophy, even as his ideas have proliferated under the names of others (most importantly, his indirect influence on figures like Spinoza and Leibniz). I’ll explain below some of the difficulties with reading Plotinus today, and why it takes some work to see the insights in his texts.

But most importantly, I want to explain here why Plotinus is a philosopher for the present, and the future. So first an appetizer of where this is going before I lay some of the necessary groundwork. Plotinus is a ultimately a set-theorist, and at the core of his thought is an attempt to deal with the same issue as has dominated twentieth century mathematics, namely, how to settle the score with Russell’s famous paradox and its reworking in Gödel’s famous incompleteness theorum. But Plotinus doesn’t stop there, because he is not only a set theorist, but a dynamic set theorist, which is to say, he’s concerned with time, process, and duration as well, with putting these sets into motion as series. For his texts manage to bring the issues raised by Gödel’s incompleteness theorum into touch with that which Derrida famously called ‘originary repetition,’ which is the core of the dilemma which Lacan discusses at length, in his own terms, in his theorization of the difference between S1/S2, and how this links symbolic, imaginary, and real. When seen in the context of the many aspects of Plotinus’ philosophy which resonate with Deleuzian theory of the virtual, as well as Plontinus’ highly develop theory of images, which can be used to link him to contemporary media theory, we have a philosopher ready to be rediscovered and put to work as a guide to our image-laden, networkological futures.

In what follows, I’ll explain precisely what I mean, and why I believe all this to be the case. First I’ll give a quick summary of Plotinus’ major ideas. From there, I’ll show how these ideas can be read in light of both the issues of set-theory as described by Gödel and Russell in the early twentieth century, as well as how these apply today in more dynamic form to the issues of ‘originary repetition’ in relation to signs, bodies, and processes in the present. Finally, I’ll describe why I think so many have missed these insights in Plotinus before..."  [Continued here.]

[Edward theurj Berge]

I used to be a neo-Platonist so of course am skeptical. Reading a couple of paragraphs beyond the above I am even more so. Maybe I'll read it all to decide.

[Balder]

It gets better once he gets beyond the intro to Plotinus' thought and starts applying it to Deleuzian (and other) insights, but I'm also not convinced yet, either.  (It's long and I only got halfway through today on my break at work).

[Layman Pascal]

In general, I approve of what Mr. Vitale is trying to do. It is clear that he is trying to stabilize a Metaphysics of Adjacency -- entangling postmodern theorists of networks and difference with super-harmonic mystic-mathematicians. That's a great area to be working. Even to get things wrong in that area is useful. I'm glad that Vitale takes time to complain about conventional translations and the usual interpretations of Plotinus... although frankly I would have preferred that at the beginning. Don't take me through the standard rigamarole that you are going to critique! Who has time for that? And doesn't it just reinforce what you are critiquing as "the standard"?

It is possible (and desirable) to pick up any ancient theorists and reformulate him in light of contemporary social, computational and philosophical insights.

There seem to be many dangers and cul-de-sacs in such an approach... but so what! The most promising zones here from my point of view are:

1. the creative function of the excessive dimension of perfection (adequate configuration)

2. the stabilization of Godel as the solution to Russell

3. the need to go beyond the notion that one-many is a function of the limited intellect while the ONE (metaphysical or virtual) is the ineffable beyond. there needs to be a very frank admission that the intellect is enacting the entire discussion and that the one-many is the superior concept since it is the place that an active intellect draws near to its own surplus boundary-condition.

[Balder]

Nice response, Layman -- which invites me back into this essay.  Your point 3 is just the issue I was wondering about, but I hadn't gotten far enough to see how he handled it.  If your comments summarize to some extent the position Vitale is advocating, that is a welcome move. 

[Layman Pascal]

If we imagine MOA-1 Pluralism passing into (or starting to become accompanied by) MOA-2 Integralism -- what do we see? There are numerous ways for this to happen and yet they will all bear some signs of kinship. One of the common ways is to be struck by, and then feel obligated to structurally enact, a strange sense of parity between so-called deconstructive pluralists and deep spiritual philosophers. This is precisely where we find Vitale. 

In his project to develop "networkologies" (i.e. pluralistic-level models in the LR quadrants) he has become struck by an uncanny similarity between the advocates of such approaches and the phraseology of a handful of classical philosopher-saints. It appears to him that there is some sort of alliance between the Nietzscheans, Neo-mathematicians & various Sufi, Hindu and Greek sages. A compelling need to create in precisely this chasm... a need to reveal it as a non-chasm is typical of MOA-2 feelings. 

He seems admirable aware of his own role in selecting a non-nihilistic Plotinus (i.e. he freely admits he is turning Plotinus on his head, reading him in an emergent, this-worldly sense... submitting him to Nietzsche). But he basis this on nuances in the writings of Plotinus. Not on the summarized content (i.e. the traditional notion of "what did Plotinus believe") but rather upon how Plotinus described and referenced his nouns. Recurrent trends of specification indicate a form of thinking that was conversant with the basic moves exhibit later by Lacan, Deleuze, Whitehead, etc. 

An image begins to form for Vitale in which no "level of being" or "set of things" can truly stand on their own. At least not coherently. They are rooted in a slip, a minimum incoherence, a primordial gaffe. Such a slip is secured only by resort to a next level in which the system is nested. Ultimately this displays a gradient in terms of the way in which the slip itself is held. And here we find the central MOA thread being illuminated again: 

The enacted difference between "one" and "many" is secured by the mind's apprehension of the one-many as its own generative boundary condition and then it has no choice but to affirm an implicit differential-unity (samedifference) as the transcendental and creative condition... appearing only as the effects (often superlative) of its own absence.

So we will expect that Vitale's work -- as long as he continues to drive it forward -- will increasingly found relatively stable systems of differential that progressively resemble the most comprehensive existing versions of "integralism" and also that he will progressively intuit the divine attraction-effects which arise from contemplating generative structural incoherence as the root form of coherence itself.

And that all makes me fairly happy.

Perhaps it will be a good year.