Plotin: Traité sur la liberté et la volonté de l'Un (Ennéade VI, 8 [39]) (review)

448 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 30:3 JULY 1992 Setting aside these accusations of academic incompetence and even of philosophic conspiracy, it is a fact that one of the merits of recent interpreters of ancient scepticism lies in the efforts they have made to free our understanding of it from the fetters of modern presuppositions in general and rational presuppositions in particular. It is difficult to be sure if the author is writing for the benefit of the scholars or that of a wider public: the radical way in which he handles these matters suggests the former, and the pedagogic character of some of his quotations the latter: for example, when he quotes M i i. 1lo-67 (cf. 134), that is, all the fourth chapter of Against the Moralists, or M 7. 169-89 (cf. 119) about Carneades, in extenso. This edition also leaves something to be desired in connection with some other, minor, points. In a quotation from Bury's translation (74, line 5) the author omits: "others of white caused by the same object, so also" (M 7- a94-98). It is a mistake to quote PH 1. 135, to prove that Sextus attributes the eight modes to earlier Pyrrhonians , inasmuch as there is there no reference to them. It is also a mistake to indicate that Aenesidemus attributed the ten modes to earlier Pyrrhonians, since this is what Sextus presumably said, probably including Aenesidemus in the plural used. At other times, as in the previous passage (95), Groarke seems to believe that Sextus was the author of the modes. The quotation from PH 1. 168 (cf. l~ 7, note 3) is also mistaken, the text in question being taken from PHI. 33. And there is something missing which is needed to make sense of the phrase cited from M 7- ~9o-98 (cf. 139). Finally, the author feels that translating "equipollence" as "equal probability" is an anachronism, as invoking a modern notion of "probability" (1o5 note). He should give credit to I. Hacking, The Emergence of Probability (Cambridge, 1975). EzEQUIEL DE OLA$O Universidad de San AndrOs, Argentina Georges Leroux. Plotin: Trait~ sur ia libert~et la volunt~ de l'Un (Enn~ade VI. 8 [39])- Paris: Librarie Philosophique J. Vrin, 199o. Pp. 447. Cloth, FF z to.to. As a highly original exploration of "liberty and necessity," what Hume called "the most contentious question of metaphysics," Plotinus' treatise on the will deserves to be better known than it is. To that end one could hardly wish for a better guide than this comprehensive volume, which contains a monograph-length introduction (one hundred pages) on the problem of the will in Greek philosophy, its development by Plotinus, and the treatise's method and structure. Leroux conveniently prints the Greek text of Henry-Schwyzer's ed/t/o minor (Oxford Classical Texts, 198~), accompanied by what I can at least say is a scrupulously accurate translation. The line-by-line commentary runs to almost two hundred pages, and is prefaced by a lengthy discussion of the conceptual position of this rather unusual treatise in the Plotinian corpus and of its influence on later thinkers, and a history of scholarship on the treatise. At the end come unusually good (for French books) indexes (Locorum et Nominum) and an outstanding bibliography. Does this twenty-page treatise warrant such a full-scale philological and philosophi- BOOK REVIEWS 449 ca] examination? Philologically, the complete commentaries and editions of the Enneads by Harder, Beutler, Theiler, Br~hier, and Cilento are valuable, but their limited focus on textual emendations and citations of parallel passages is inadequate for dealing with the treatise's unique vocabulary and striking claims. Philosophically, Plotinus' views are treated only cursorily in Albrecht Dihle's important The Thtory of Will in Clr Antiquity (1982), but in many contexts John Rist has brilliantly illuminated various facets of VI.8. The reason for the general neglect is rather straightforward : Plotinus severely devalues action (prax/s) in comparison with the contemplation of transcendental being, concluding that true freedom for human beings begins on/y when the individual soul fully establishes itself in the intelligible world. "Being in our power," one of...