L'uso del termine "paradeigma" in Plotino e la causalità noetica, in particolare nel trattato 31 (Enn. V 8, cap. 7) "Sul bello intelligibile"

Abstract The paper offers a survey of the use of the term paradeigma in Plotinus’ Enneads. There are 34 occurrences of that word in Plotinian works; most of them (23) are concentrated in the treatises of the second group (n. 22-45), written by Plotinus in Rome between 263 and 268 A.D. The word paradeigma is used by Plotinus according to the three ordinary meanings the term has in Ancient Greek, namely “example”, “exemplary instance” and “model”. In the cases where paradeigma means “model” the platonic dialogue Timaeus is often quoted or paraphrased. But in some cases (as we propose, in treatises 31, 33, 39 and 47) paradeigma means a model which does not have only a formal causal power (something which a demiurge look at in order to produce something else), but also a productive causal power, and in fact it is the intelligible world that produces the sensible one (this also depends on how one reads the Greek in Enn. V 8, ch.7, 24). This special Plotinian use is, at least in our view, in accordance with a non-literal reading, given by the philosopher, of Plato’s demiurge in the Timaeus. In concentrating in the intelligible model every type of causality (formal as well as productive and, also, final) Plotinus does not need any more a demiurge and he can successfully reply to the criticisms that Epicureans addressed against the too human demiurge of Plato’s Timaeus as well as to the idea that all thing are by chance and that there is no providence. He can also, and above all, reply to the Gnostics who introduced the novelty of a “new earth”, despising this world and its producer as ugly and bad. On the contrary, against both adversaries, Plotinus presents an intelligible model at the top of its power and beauty, and in such a way that it is “responsible” for this sensible world, especially for its being ordered and beautiful.