Ennead III.8 [30], On Nature and Contemplation and the One, chapter 3

porphyrian III.8 · chronological 30 · chapter 3 · volkmann page 333-334

πῶς οὖν ποιῶν καὶ οὕτως ποιῶν θεωρίας τινὸς ἂν ἐφάπτοιτο; ἤ, εἰ μένων ποιεῖ καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ μένων ἐστὶ λόγος, εἴη ἂν αὐτὸς θεωρία. ἡ μὲν γὰρ πρᾶξις γένοιτ’ ἂν κατὰ λόγον ἑτέρα οὖσα δηλονότι τοῦ λόγου: ὁ μέντοι λόγος καὶ αὐτὸς συνὼν τῇ πράξει καὶ ἐπιστατῶν οὐκ ἂν εἴη πρᾶξις. εἰ οὖν μὴ πρᾶξις ἀλλὰ λόγος, θεωρία: καὶ ἐπὶ παντὸς λόγου ὁ μὲν ἔσχατος ἐκ θεωρίας καὶ θεωρία οὕτως ὡς τεθεωρημένος, ὁ δὲ πρὸ τούτου πᾶς ὁ μὲν ἄλλος ἄλλως, ὁ μὴ ὡς φύσις ἀλλὰ ψυχή, ὁ δ’ ἐν τῇ φύσει καὶ ἡ φύσις. ἆρά γε καὶ αὐτὸς ἐκ θεωρίας; πάντως μὴν ἐκ θεωρίας: ἀλλ’ εἰ καὶ αὐτὸς τεθεωρηκὼς αὐτόν; ἢ πῶς; ἔστι μὲν γὰρ ἀποτέλεσμα θεωρίας καὶ θεωρήσαντός τινος. πῶς δὲ αὐτὴ ἔχει θεωρίαν; τὴν μὲν δὴ ἐκ λόγου οὐκ ἔχει: λέγω δ’ ἐκ λόγου τὸ σκοπεῖσθαι περὶ τῶν ἐν αὐτῇ. διὰ τί οὖν ζωή τις οὖσα καὶ λόγος καὶ δύναμις ποιοῦσα; ἆρ’ ὅτι τὸ σκοπεῖσθαί ἐστι τὸ μήπω ἔχειν; εἰ δὲ ἔχει, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ὅτι ἔχει καὶ ποιεῖ. τὸ οὖν εἶναι αὐτῇ ὃ ἔστι τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ ποιεῖν αὐτῇ: ἔστι δὲ θεωρία καὶ θεώρημα, λόγος γάρ. τῷ οὖν εἶναι θεωρία καὶ θεώρημα καὶ λόγος τούτῳ καὶ ποιεῖ ᾗ ταῦτά ἐστιν. ἡ ποίησις ἄρα θεωρία ἡμῖν ἀναπέφανται: ἔστι γὰρ ἀποτέλεσμα θεωρίας μενούσης θεωρίας οὐκ ἄλλο τι πραξάσης, ἀλλὰ τῷ εἶναι θεωρία ποιησάσης.

How, then, making, and making in this way, could it lay hold of any contemplation? Or, if it makes while remaining, and, remaining in itself, is a rational form, it would itself be contemplation. For action would come about according to a rational form, being plainly other than the rational form; but the rational form itself, though it accompanies the action and presides over it, would not be action. If, then, it is not action but a rational form, it is contemplation. And in every case of rational form, the last comes from contemplation and is contemplation in the sense of having been contemplated; and all that is before it is so in different ways — the one not as nature but as soul, the other the one in nature, that is, nature. Does this one too come from contemplation? Certainly from contemplation. But has it also itself contemplated itself? Or how? For it is the outcome of a contemplation and of something that contemplated. But how does nature itself have contemplation? The contemplation that comes from reasoning it does not have — by 'from reasoning' I mean inquiring into what is within it. Why not, when it is a kind of life and a rational form and a power that makes? Is it because to inquire is not yet to have? But it has; and for this very reason, because it has, it also makes. For nature, then, to be what it is, is to make; and it is contemplation and object of contemplation, for it is a rational form. By being contemplation and object of contemplation and rational form, then — by this it also makes, in that it is these. Making, then, has come to light for us as contemplation; for it is the outcome of a contemplation that remains contemplation, that has done nothing else, but has made by being contemplation.

λόγος is 'rational form' (glossary) except in ἐκ λόγου, 'from reasoning', the ordinary sense, which Plotinus glosses himself. θεώρημα is 'object of contemplation' (glossary). Volkmann prints αὐτ- where the reflexive is meant; the English follows the sense ('itself').

Greek collated line by line against the Volkmann plate (vol. 1, pp. 333–334); every departure of the First1KGreek transcription from the printed page is corrected and recorded in the apparatus.