Observations placeholder
Plotinus - The Enneads - The use and act of Reason is a characteristic Act of the Soul
Identifier
011654
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Plotinus – The Enneads
The faculty of perception in the Soul cannot act by the immediate grasping of sensible objects, but only by the discerning of impressions printed upon the Animate by sensation; these impressions are already Intelligibles, while the outer sensation is a mere phantom of the other which is nearer to Authentic Existence as being an impassive reading of Ideal-forms.
And by means of these Ideal-Forms, by which the Soul wields single lordship over the animate, we have Discursive-Reasoning, Sense-Knowledge and Intellection. From this moment we have peculiarly the 'We' – the authentic Human Principle – loftily presiding over the Animate..... in our reasoning it is this We that reasons, in that the use and act of reason is a characteristic Act of the Soul.