Abstract

Mixture was a much debated issue in ancient Greek philosophy and Plotinus, probably under the influence of Alexander of Aphrodisias, did not remain indifferent to this problem. He even devoted it a whole treatise, Enneads II 7, in which he compares the theories of Peripatetics and Stoics on mixture and, without choosing between them, tries to provide a new solution to the problem by transferring it from the realm of physics to that of metaphysics: no matter how ingredients are in relation in the mixed body since any body eventually derives its form from a superior incorporeal principle and not from its physical constituents. Plotinus also referred to mixture in a demonstration of the soul’s incorporeal nature: if we suppose that the soul is corporeal, then it should necessarily be mixed to the body, but if no scheme of mixture can account for the union between the two of them, then we should revise our hypothesis and conclude that the soul is not corporeal. Quite paradoxically, this negative argument, by saying that the soul cannot be mixed if it is a body, suggests that, since in fact it is not a body, it can be mixed to the body in a very special way, that is by pervading it completely just as Stoics argued bodies completely pervade each other when they mix. Thus Plotinus at the same time tried to put an end to the endless controversies on the physical issue of mixture and paved the way for the use of mixture schemes outside physics for incorporeal entities such as the soul, a move which was made more explicit by Porphyry and became greatly influential on the use of the concept of mixture in later Neoplatonic metaphysics.