Plotini Opera Omnia cum Ficini commentariis

κείμενος ἰδέᾳ κ. τ. λ. occupying himself with the idea, etc. Otherwise, compare Marsilio Ficino's Commentary on this chapter and Heusdius's Initiation into Platonic Philosophy (Traj. ad Rh., 1827), p. 48 sqq. Among the more recent philosophers, Hegel judges Dialectic (Logic) in a way similar to Plotinus. This was also seen by Steinhart, On the Dialectic of Plotinus, p. 15, note 25.

— 8. ὅτι παρὰ τὸν κανόνα because it is beside the rule] Ficino: as if it were beside the rule of truth. Engelhardt and Taylor are better: because it opposes the rule of truth. Otherwise, if the books were to support it, you could also write ὅ, τι, so that it would be: because it is against the rule of truth.

— 12. καὶ εἰ ἑτέρα, ἢ κ. τ. λ. and if it is different, or etc.] Again, he wants it to be understood: αἴρει καὶ τίθησι it takes up and puts down, accepting the whole passage thus: "Whether the soul affirms or denies that which is brought to it from the outside, it does so in a way similar to the senses when they judge external things." Conversely, Taylor translates it thus: likewise, whether different or the same things are adduced; applying itself to them in a way resembling sense; adding this little note: i.e. by intuition, so as to come into immediate contact with the objects of its knowledge. It does this, however, so far as its energy is purely intellectual. This interpretation seems more true. For throughout this whole passage, he opposes Platonic Metaphysics (or Dialectic) to the logical operations of the Peripatetics.

— 15. ἔχει γὰρ καὶ ἄλλα κ. τ. λ. for it also has other things, etc.] Plotinus follows the distribution of philosophy into these three parts: τὰ φυσικὰ, τὰ ἠθικὰ, τὰ νοητὰ physics, ethics, intelligibles (regarding these, Dialectic, see ch. 4 and 5), which some attributed to Socrates, others to Plato as the author. See Fabricius on Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhonist Hypotyposes II, 2, p. 69, and the references there, and Against the Mathematicians VII, 6—10, p. 370 sq.

p. 45, 1. κομίζεται it obtains] It perceives, as if it were help (as before βοήθειαν λαβοῦσα having received help), fruit. See Thomas Magister p. 543 sq., and the interpreters there. Sturz, Lexicon Xenophonteum II, 768. Schleusner, Lexicon N. T. p. 768. But he wishes it to be understood that there is a much closer connection between Dialectic and the remaining parts of philosophy than between arithmetic and the remaining arts.

ib. Καὶ περὶ ἠθῶν And concerning ethics] (namely, philosophy from the preceding) θεωροῦσα μὲν ἐκεῖθεν contemplating from thence (namely, obtaining or receiving help).

— 3. Ἴσχουσι δὲ καὶ αἱ λογικαὶ ἕξεις But the rational habits also possess] Either Ficino reads

ἀρεταὶ virtues in his codex, or he supplied it by thinking from the following. Taylor followed him. Our books do not vary, except between ἤδη already and εἴδη forms. However you may decide about this passage, for I do not wish to judge, this is certain: ἐκεῖθεν from thence must also be referred here to Dialectic; so that Plotinus seems to be saying this: even rational habits or virtues repeat their principles from Metaphysics.

— 4. καὶ γὰρ μετὰ τῆς ὕλης for indeed with matter] Taylor does not translate these words and τὰ πλεῖστα the most things. Engelhardt supplies ἔχει (ἴσχει) it has (possesses) to τὰ πλεῖστα, with this meaning: Reason, and indeed the rational virtues which are proper to them, repeat from Dialectic, as things cognate to reason; most of these virtues, however, have things in common with matter, as they treat and moderate sensible things. Then the same learned man entered upon another line of reasoning, this one, so that you might supply after τὰ πλεῖστα this sentiment: ἀρχὰς ἔχει παρὰ τῆς διαλεκτικῆς it has principles from Dialectic: most things depend upon Dialectic together with matter, so that the principles of Dialectic have force even upon matter. The former reasoning, if possible, seems better. The same man wishes for what follows to be explained thus: ἡ δὲ φρόνησις ἐπιλογισμός τις ἐστὶ, καὶ τὸ καθόλου μᾶλλον ἐπισκέπτεται, καὶ ἀκολουθοῦσιν ἑαυτοῖς οἱ λογισμοὶ διδάσκει (?), καὶ εἰ δεῖ νῦν ἐπισχεῖν ἢ εἰσαῦθις κελεύει (?) καὶ ὅλως ἄλλο βέλτιον δίδωσι (?) But practical wisdom is a certain calculation, and it examines the universal more, and it teaches that reasonings follow themselves (?), and whether it is necessary to pause now or commands later (?) and altogether gives something better (?). Whoever knows the Thucydidean brevity of Plotinus will not miss these. For from ἐπιλογισμὸς recalculation/reputation one must think toward the following ἐπιλογίζεται it recalculates/reputes. Otherwise, the word ἐπιλογισμὸς is among those which Dionysius notes in Thucydides as obsolete and commonly obscure (in Epistle II to Ammaeus p. 793 Reisk., where Hudson had introduced περιλογισμὸς; Kruger restored the former from two codices in Dionysius of Halicarnassus's Historiographical Works p. 224, and it is worthy of note that the word περιωπὴ circumspeculation, also criticized in Thucydides there, is read in the Enneads of Plotinus. See II, 9, 14 end). But because ἐπιλογισμὸς is more often reputation, thought, and the sentiment of some symbol which we extract from it after it has been offered (as in Iamblichus in Protrepticus, Symbols XI, explanation p. 336 Kiessling): in Plotinus it is opposed to τοῖς λογισμοῖς the reasonings, which are attributed to the remaining virtues, and it is something superior, which is claimed as proper only to φρονήσει practical wisdom, and is therefore a more august and higher kind of reasoning, as it were. Zonaras, Greek Lexicon p. 793: ’Επιλογισμὸς· ὁ κατὰ Epilogismos: he who according to...