Plotino, sulla vista e sull’udito

Against the background of the current debate on sensation in Plotinus, this article reconstructs the theoretical path that, in the years of his maturity (263-268 CE), led the philosopher to further examine issues related to the sensory process and to specify the nature of objects seen and heard. The theory that Plotinus proposes stems from a critical engagement with the philosophical tradition and with the most recent and well-established scientific theories of his day. The philosopher takes up their fundamental results, while reworking them from his own perspective, so as to make them compatible in particular with two principles that he cannot abandon: the impassibility of the soul and the idea that “like knows like”. On this basis, he maintains that sight and hearing are eminently active and explains how the mediation of the organs allows the soul to have direct access to what is external to it, namely the qualities of bodies, which are quantitatively determined in space. This thesis is linked to Plotinus’ criticism of the model of sensation as an imprint on the soul, which implies the passive character of the soul and its faculties and attributes to things seen and heard the status of mere subjective images, independent of empirical reality.