Impassible Passion in Psychology of Plotinus

Abstract

The article purports to demonstrate that the seemingly paradoxical concept of «impassible passion» in Enn. III 6 1 sheds light on Plotinus’ understanding of the character of impassibility of the soul in its union with the body. Appropriation of the passions of the ensouled body by the soul does not lead to its mutability and passibility, although it is indeed the lower part of the soul that is the cause of passions. Thus, the soul is engulfed by the passions without being really affected by them (at least in the way the ensouled body is). The practical implication of such dichotomy of impassible passion lies in necessity in ascetic lifestyle to ensure self-realization of its own impassibility on behalf of the soul, resulting in the move upwards.