Plotinus and Wang Yangming on the Structures of Consciousness and Reality: A Transversal Prospection in View of the Affinities of Their Positions

In this paper, particular key aspects of the philosophies of Plotinus and Wang Yang-ming have been analysed comparatively on the basis of important passages of their works. The method used for this investigation can be defined as that of transversal comparative induction, in which the focus is more on working out the details of affinities and similarities. As this means a first step in an encompassing systematic context, differences will be introduced more briefly. The present investigation aims to provide a foundation for a more differentiating and therefore complementing second part, which will consider other contents and topics in both philosophies. The present analysis is performed in three systematic steps and with regard to three basic philosophical ideas: (1) the idea that human consciousness is a central medium in the universal process and interrelatedness of (biological) life as a whole; (2) the idea that the self-unfoldment of reality represents a meta-cognitive process beyond the limits of subjectivity and finite consciousness; and (3) the idea that it is our major task to perfect and know ourselves by means of a “return” to the highest underlying foundation of this universal process. In their own ways, Plotinus and Wang Yangming both show that by enfolding human reflexivity toward the ineffable source of all reality in thought, feeling, human activity, and natural processes, namely by actively pursuing the path of moral and intellective perfection, we become fulfilled mediators of a universal process and of that which all of it represents.


Introduction
This paper presents an analysis of particular aspects of two "paths of thinking" (German: Denkwege), 1 the respective pioneers of which differ greatly in historical positions and geographical locations: Plotinus (Πλωτῖνος, and Wang Yangming (王陽明, also: Wang Shouren 王守仁, 1472Shouren 王守仁, -1529. Neither share any traditional backgrounds or cultural-historical contexts in philosophy, and the current systematic analysis mainly relates to the contents of their thinking, which are collected in a more inductive and therefore also more detail-oriented fashion on this occasion. In this sense, the present investigation is to be understood as a systematic transversal reflection (Bartosch 2022a) in transcultural comparative philosophy (also Bartosch 2015b). The term "transversal" was first introduced into this field under the following premise: "Today, and in terms of plurality, we regard reason precisely as a capacity for connection and transition between forms of rationality. No longer cosmic, but earthly, no longer global, but linking functions shape its image" (Welsch 2008, 295, tr. DB). To track these "linking functions" between particular problems, thoughts, and concepts of the philosophies of Plotinus and Wang Yangming in methodologically reduced scopes of particular topics is the major task of this article.
The philosophical use of the adjective "transversal" derives from the metaphor of a transversal in geometry, that is, a line that passes through two other lines at one distinct point of each of these, thereby making it possible to define their relationship by measuring the angles at each point. Transversal comparison in transcultural philosophy conjoins and attempts to systematically determine the contentual relationship of philosophical lore that neither stands in one and the same historical cultural space nor can be viewed as being related across cultures and civilizations due to being part of a particular history of reception or shared history of concepts in the more general sense. 2 The working terminology, and thus the concepts that are the focus of these transversal comparisons, is developed in a rather inductive fashion, that is, rather context-related from particular point-for-point perspectives and from the comparative textual milieus themselves. In these more inductive contexts of transversal analysis, one is to avoid unmediated applications of existing (in these cases often overtly general, overtly vague comparative) categories, like, for example, "metaphysics", "Idealism", "Materialism". Their rather deductive application can be considered as unmediated if they are used without the preceding methodological reflection and in the sense of exterior "imports" to categorize any pre-existing simplifications 3 of the philosophies in question 4 and to "box" these materials into prefabricated frameworks and synopses, which lack detail.
In contrast to this approach, transversal induction has the advantage that it is easier to avoid the loss of possible detailed insights. Point-for-point inductions, provided in the form of detailed transversal prospections like the present one, allow for new insights and the development of more secure foundations for the transcultural dialogue of traditions of thought. It is, of course, not the only possible method in the context of transcultural philosophy, and it can also be complemented by others (e.g. Kwee 1953;Smid 2009). Transversal analytics starts (1) directly from the correlating, parallel discussion of particular source passages and in view of their related, more narrowly encircled topics as well as by the correlating application of methodologically restricted inductive approaches. Thus, the working terminology of transversal comparison is developed in the context of the transversal analysis itself to measure the particular scopes of the chosen topical frameworks. 5 Therefore the inductive approaches with regard to the three particular topics that are a focus in the present article are not to be misunderstood as attempts to provide a whole-scale comparison of the thought of Plotinus and Yangming. Such a "holistic" attempt would either imply a to-be-avoided, "quasi-deductive" approach, which would be unmediated-it would not have resulted from an actual present process of philosophizing itself (and its categories would be merely implemented)-or it would necessitate an investigation and an account that would bring together, in a mutually complementary fashion, several more transversal-comparative reflections on particular comparable aspects in the philosophies of Plotinus and Yangming than is the case in this investigation. The first attempt would have to be declined for philosophical reasons, while the second could not be realized sufficiently here due to the space constraints which the limited form of the academic article entails. 6 This presents us with a certain restriction of the transversal method-a self-imposed restriction which is an advantage in the long run: by working inductively and "point-for-point", we have to put certain aspects that we might already know or anticipate "into brackets" (to use Husserl's terminology in the transferred sense here). To avoid premature conclusions, one has to accept that every content "has its time". This relates to the question of what the present article should and can accomplish-and what is not intended, and thus what is kept pending on the present occasion for methodological reasons. First of all, the present article is to be read within the specific parameters which have been set for it. For the abovementioned reasons, the author decided for a more detailed, more induction-based, yet at the same also more restricted, partial framework, namely in terms of topical and methodological scope. A further criterion was that this perspective should provide a foundation to add future complementary outcome in a systematic fashion (see "Conclusion and Outlook"). The aim is to provide a first-foundational-"building block", that is, a component or "module" which, in view of the nevertheless more comprehensive scope that is possible, could and should be complemented further in terms of both content and research focus. 5 Cf. also the methodological considerations in Bartosch (2015b, 18-22).

6
The author of the present paper has already delivered a valid example for such a transversal, respectively, transcultural comparison in view of the philosophies of Nicolaus Cusanus (1401-1464) and Wang Yangming. However, to fulfill this task of a more holistic and yet also detailed study in an adequate way, a book format was required (Bartosch 2015b).
This brings us to the following questions: (1) Which kind of possible (sub-)method of transversal reasoning should be emphasized here? And (2), which of several possible comparable topics in the thought of Plotinus and Yangming are the most feasible ones in correlation to that? Then again, these questions are related to problem (3), how to set this framework for the present investigation in such a way that it also provides a complementary base in relation to further possible comparable topical fields and methods of transversal investigation, and thus so its results can be added to the present perspective and help create a whole-scale transversal picture in the aforementioned sense.
With regard to point (1), it is worthwhile to start from questions related to the criterion of comparability (German: Vergleichsfähigkeit). One of these questions is that of the third of the comparison (Latin: tertium comparationis), that is, the binding element that allows systematic transversal comparison in the first place. And the term "comparability" has to be clarified itself (which then also relates to points (2) and (3), mentioned above): to be able to compare something should not be confused with the meaning of "leveling existing differences" (Bartosch 2010, 7). "Comparability" (in general: "the possibility to compare something") is given, if we can find particular permeable "problem horizons", shared basic problems and topics which then not only enable us to search for possible affinities of positions (despite different linguistic and conceptual or concept-historical contexts, etc.) but to possibly analyse content-related differences as well. That is to say, comparability in the sense of certain shared problems (as starting points) can also lead to the discovery of very different solutions to these problems in the philosophies that are analysed in this way.
As for the sub-question of the tertium comparationis, I have already provided a detailed explanation in a recent article. It can also be applied in view of a transversal analysis of aspects of the philosophies of Plotinus and Yangming (Bartosch 2022a). In short: both thinkers have reached a level of formal understanding which represents the conditions of the possibility of all reasoning itself. I have referred to the expression of this most basic level of "meta-reason" (ibid., 110, 112-16, 118-22) as "implicate logic" (ibid., the whole article), in earlier works also as "Grundlogik" (Bartosch 2015b, 14-15 et al.) or "foundational logic" (Bartosch 2021, 130, 134-35, 139). To understand what is meant here, one has to grasp the "metaparadoxical type of " (Gloy 2001, 170) self-reflective intellection which is expressed by the term "unity of unity and difference" (e.g. Bartosch 2015b, 14, 16, 19;2021, 134, 139;2022a, 110 et al.), which (so much in passing) means the cognitive precondition of dialectical logic and two-valued Aristotelian logic (Bartosch 2022a, 113, 115, 119). All structured thinking in the form of (finite) concepts and logical progressions unfolds from this foundation of (transversal) meta-reason.
The author has already exhaustively shown on several occasions that Yangming has expressed the implicate logical formal insight throughout all of his philosophy, such as in the more content-specific reflection of a "unity of knowing and (the related process of ) actively passing through (something)" (zhi-xing he yi), or in the sense of his view that the "heart-mind's root-system of vitality" (xin zhi benti) and "Heaven's self-organizing principle" (tianli) seem to be distinct (subjective vs. objective sides) but spring forth from the same undivided origin, the "true self " (zhen ji) (for a very systematic and extensive approach: Bartosch 2015b, see also here, chapters 2 and 3), or in the context of a model of consciousness, which is also briefly discussed here (chapter 1). In this article, the formal understanding of such a "unity through difference" (to use an alternative expression to "unity of unity and difference") is also discovered and explored in view of the "theoretical apex" of the "thinking of thinking" (noḗseōs nóēsis νοήσεως νóησις) in Plotinus's philosophy, where thinker and thoughts, subject-object, coincide in a unity which is not a unit besides another unit (that is, non-countably unity), namely by integrating the difference which, as a constant cognitive emergence of this (non-conceptualizable) unity, enables us to differentiate, to think, at all (Bartosch 2015b;2021;2022a).
As this will also be discussed in the main part of the article, I would like to return to the methodological question under point (1) here: I have already said that "comparability" refers to the shared basic problem horizons which are "permeable" in the sense that they allow us to determine possible affinities or possible differences in the solutions in view of the related problem fields or philosophical topics. As for the present investigation, I would like to put emphasis on the task of determining certain correspondences and congruences of particular ideas in both philosophies.
This, of course, is not to neglect existing differences, which there certainly are and which will also be examined (to a lesser extent) here, but to develop a methodologically supported foundation to put more emphasis on these differences in future (complementary) attempts. So, the task is to provide one side of a complementary approach, which, as a whole, will represent the affinities and the differences 7 in those major aspects of the philosophies of Plotinus and Yangming that are comparable with regard to the topics they cover. From here, the earlier-mentioned questions (2) and (3) can be approached: we have to find those (comparable) topics and views in both philosophies, which have been solved in a way that at least partial "resonances" and affinities in the points of views can be traced.
The general direction of this paper is also expressed in the subtitle "A Transversal Prospection in View of the Affinities of [Plotinus's and Wang Yangming's] Positions". The term "prospection" alludes to the fact that while the systematic, methodological perspective as well as the scope of both philosophies' investigated contents had to be narrowed down to particular restricted approaches as well as topical "encirclements", other possible topics had to be "put into brackets", namely to stay pending in view of the complementary analyses mentioned earlier. On the other hand, and as the important aspect of contentual differences cannot be neglected even from the perspective of the present emphasis, some differences have also been already problematized in the present paper. These are also to be read as a basic preparation for the above-mentioned complementary second step.
Regarding the second question-which particular permeable problem horizon or general topic to focus on-I would like to start from Plotinus's work Ennead 3.8. It presents us with the philosopher's views "On Nature, Contemplation, and the One". 8 ; 9 In my view, this chapter of Porphyry's (Πορφύριος, c.234-c.305) edition of his master's works is one of the most promising parts to initiate a systematic transversal reflection perspective-especially in view of Wang Yangming. It presents us with the main aspects of Plotinus's philosophy of nature, his views on the role of consciousness in relation to the structure of life and reality, on the particular and eminent position or function of human consciousness as well as his reflection on an indivisible foundation of human consciousness, life, and the cosmos itself. I will introduce and discuss some key points of Plotinus's thoughts in this text, complement these with passages of other books from the Enneads (Enneádes Ἐννεάδες), and then intertwine this in a transversal fashion with comparable reflections by Wang Yangming, mostly from his magnum opus Chuanxilu (傳習錄, Records of the Transmission of the Practice), as well as a few other texts.
Under the background of the binding element of the "implicate logic" (see further above, also Bartosch 2022a), the method of this article is to be understood as a sort of superimposition of "encirclements" of respective basic positions that both philosophers have developed toward an ineffable "blind spot" of absolute originality, which they both respectively viewed as the source of all thoughts and (conscious) deeds. On the whole, various advances are made, as it were, from different directions, which, in their encirclement of that which is to be shown, exhibit the central point of the underlying affinities in three different topical segments of the comparison. The three chapters form a sort of ascending transversal path toward the aforementioned major philosophical motivation of both thinkers:  Bartosch (2022b).
The first segment "The Role of Human Reflective Consciousness and the Levels of Universal Life" starts from the shared and permeable problem horizon of Plotinus and Yangming, how human (self-)consciousness relates to non-human life and the natural environment. It will become clear that both philosophers have developed a comparable and often partly resonating understanding, namely in the sense that non-human life forms are participating in the structure that is expressing itself in the most self-reflective way in the form of human consciousness, and that the self-knowledge of the latter fulfils a kind of "mediating" function in the whole of life and its universal context. In the context of transcultural or transversal working categories like "consciousness" or "empathy", I will discuss key-terms in both philosophies, like "contemplation" (theōria), "nature" (phýsis), "spiritual brightness" (lingming), "inter-humaneness" (ren), etc. From a transversal angle in view of Plotinus's understanding of "intellect" (noûs), the tertium comparationis of the implicate logic (Bartosch 2022a) is shown as being the inherent foundation of an implicit Yangmingian model of the structures of consciousness.
The second segment "The Self-Unfoldment of Reality as a Meta-Cognitive Process toward Self-Knowledge" provides a more general and foundational background for the prior findings in the first chapter. The philosophical foundations of Plotinus's concept of "contemplation" in the sense of a universal process of the unfoldment of reality itself are analysed in the context of his views on "intellect" (noûs), "soul" (psychē), "nature" (phýsis), the later Neo-Platonic conceptuality of monḗ, próodos, and epistrophḗ, and more. These contexts are systematically interwoven with Wang Yangming's reflections on the self-realization of "heaven, earth, and the ten thousand things" (tian-di wanwu) and his views on "good-knowing" (liangzhi), the "unity of knowing and (the related process of ) actively passing through (something)" (zhi-xing he yi), the "heart-mind's root-system of vitality" (xin zhi benti), "Heaven's self-organizing principle" (tianli), "true self " (zhen ji), and so on. The major thesis is that, mutatis mutandis, both thinkers have understood reality as a self-unfolding meta-cognitive process toward human self-knowledge.
The third and last segment, "Oneness and Goodness as the Core-Insight of True Humanity", develops a final transversal reflection in view of Plotinus's and Wang Yangming's related approaches to human moral self-perfection and self-knowledge toward an absolute origin, the philosophical problems of good and evil, and, very importantly, that of ineffability in this respect as well. Terms, like "Good" (agathón), "One" (hén), "Way" (dao 道), "root-system of the vitality of good-knowing" (liangzhi benti), etc. are discussed as important (cataphatic) terms in this regard.  (1909( -1997( ) translation from 1967( (reprinted in 1980( , hereafter: Plotinus 1980. With regard to Wang Yangming, I have chosen to refer to the Chinese edition of Chuanxilu 傳習錄 and some other texts in the 1933 complete edition by Wang Yunwu (王雲五) (hereafter: Wang Shouren 1933a-e), which I prefer over more recent editions.

The Role of Human Reflective Consciousness and the Levels of Universal Life
For both Plotinus and Yangming, what is thought of as the "human being" (ánthrōpos ἄνθρωπος, (mutatis mutandis) ren 人) fulfils a kind of mediator-function between the levels of non-human (animal and plant) life and that which is reflected as the inherent spiritual and all-encompassing creative foundation of the "world" (kósmos κόσμος, tian-di wanwu 天地萬物 10 ) as a whole.
Because of this mediator-function, and although "the heavenly bodies are still more honorable, as they are in the universe […] [and] because they provide order and ornament" (Plotinus 2018, 2.9.13, 226-27), "human beings occupy an honorable rank in comparison to other living beings" (ibid., 226). 11 Humans have the ability of reasoning in correlation with their manual or technological capabilities, and can reflect the (higher-valued) contemplative-effective mode of nature in transference from there (Plotinus 2018, 3.8.2, 357). And they have insight into the workings of "nature" (phýsis φύσις), because "thinking in the intelligible world is different in human beings and in other animals" 12 (ibid., 6.7.9, 813), and the former can actualize self-reflection and infer from themselves to "nature" (phýsis): And my contemplating produces an object of contemplation, just as geometricians draw lines as they contemplate. But without my drawing [because nature is "the power that produces not by means of hands" (see the quote at the beginning of chapter 2)], while I contemplate, the lines of bodies come to exist as though falling out of me. (Plotinus 2018, 3.8.4, 358-59, insertion in brackets DB) 13 From the perspective of this elevated correlation of the "human being" (ánthrōpos) and "nature" (phýsis) (in the sense of a possibility which has to be actualized by means of philosophizing), the term "contemplation" (theōria θεωρία) attains a universal meaning for Plotinus, because […] all things aim at contemplation [theōria] and look to this goal, not only rational but also non-rational animals and nature in plants and the earth which produces them, and that all things achieve it as far as they can in their natural state, but contemplate and achieve it in different ways, and some in a genuine manner, others by acquiring an imitation and image of it […]. (Plotinus 2018, 3.8.1, 356, italics, insertion in brackets DB) 14 According to this, all life actualizes subordinate forms of processes in the image of the self-referential, intention-based, and self-iterating patterns of human consciousness and self-knowledge, 15 namely in the sense of "contemplation" (theōria), to use Plotinus's term (see chapter 2 in addition to this). Plotinus clearly envisions this self-evocative, reality-unfolding theōria of our world-experience in the form of a hierarchy of life-forms. There is even a lower form of organic theōria that plantlife and non-rational animals are receiving and expressing in their forms of striving and growing and even feeling; these forms of life are thus absorbed and uplifted in their lower non-rational (álogos άλογος) manifestation of the cosmic principle of "contemplation" by the higher-ranking, self-unfolding theōria of human rational and, what's more, self-knowing thinking. 16 The levels of living organisms are distinguished in relation to their "distance" from this highest form of contemplation: it is like another part of it, a part that is most audacious and unintelligent […]. And, then, whenever Soul comes to be in a non-rational animal, the power of sense-perception becomes dominant and brings it there. But whenever Soul comes to be in a human being, Soul's motion is either entirely in the faculty of calculative reasoning, or it comes from Intellect, since an individual soul has its own intellect and a will of its own to think or, generally, to move itself. (Plotinus 2018, 5.2.2, 550, italics and insertion in brackets DB) 17 From his own perspective, and being situated in a completely unrelated historical discourse and Chinese context, Yangming has taken into consideration the same basic topics: Like Plotinus, he sees the important, "all-mediating" function of what he thinks of as human self-reflexivity in the reality of the world, that is, "heaven, earth, and the ten thousand things" (tian-di wan wu) as a whole. Much like Plotinus, Yangming has pointed out the limited character of the special status and did not overestimate the general capabilities of the "human being" (ren): Heaven, earth, and the ten thousand things originally form "one system of vitality" (yiti 一體) all together with the human being. The location of its most extreme and strongest emergence and self-unfolding is the "little bit of spiritual brightness" (yi dian lingming 一點靈明) of the human "heart-mind" (xin 心). (Wang Shouren 1933c, 17, tr., italics DB) 18 Unlike Plotinus, Yangming does not refer to technological (crafts) or geometrical practices to infer to the mode of natural self-production in the sense of the abstract conceptual form of "contemplation" (theōria). However, the "levels of the organic"-fellow humans, animals and plants (and even stones) are directly and intuitively included in the aforementioned human "little bit of spiritual brightness" (yi dian lingming) as well. This presents us with a certain transversal contentual analogy to Plotinus's views noted above. By applying the term "consciousness" in the sense of a "customized" transversal "comparative category" (Neville 2009, 37-38;Bartosch 2015b, 18) here, 19 we can say that also in Yangming's view, animals, plants and even stones participate in the structure of human consciousness.
17 Source text: "Ὅταν οὖν ψυχὴ ἐν φυτῶι γίνηται, ἄλλο ἐστὶν οἷον μέρος τὸ ἐν φυτῶι τὸ τολμηρότατον καὶ ἀφρονέστατον καὶ προεληλυθὸς μέχρι τοσούτου· ὅταν δ᾽ ἐν ἀλόγωι, ἡ τοῦ αἰσθάνεσθαι δύναμις κρατήσασα ἤγαγεν· ὅταν δὲ εἰς ἄνθρωπον, ἢ ὅλως ἐν λογικῶι ἡ κίνησις, ἢ ἀπὸ νοῦ ὡς νοῦν οἰκεῖον ἐχούσης καὶ παρ᾽ αὐτῆς βούλησιν τοῦ νοεῖν ἢ ὅλως κινεῖσθαι" (Plotinos n.d., Ε´ [5] βʹ [2]). 18 Source text: "蓋天地萬物.與人原是一體.其發竅之最精處.是人心一點靈明." Actually, there are two aspects to compare here, and the first one is rather close to Plotinus's meaning of "contemplation" (theōria) in Enneads 3.8. Here, after his student's following question, Wang Yangming makes a highly relevant statement: "The human being possesses an 'empty [that is, undetermined/free] spirit' (xu ling 虛靈), (and) thereby has 'good-knowing' (liangzhi 良知). Do trees and grass, bricks, stones, etc. also have good-knowing?" The gentleman [Yangming] replied, "The good-knowing of humans is exactly the good-knowing of grass and trees, bricks and stones, inasmuch as grass and trees, bricks and stones cannot enter into existence 20 as grass and trees, bricks and stones without the human being's good-knowing." (Wang Shouren 1933c, 17, tr., italics, and insertions in brackets DB) 21 In view of Plotinus's understanding of higher "contemplation" (theōria), it is important to note here that the self-referential form of this statement by Yangming itself presents a more or less implicit example of the implicate logical form of the same self-knowledge that Plotinus's understanding of "thinking of thinking" (noḗseōs nóēsis νοήσεως νóησις) represents in a somewhat more explicit, more direct way (and in a totally different concept-historical context, of course). This same implicate-logical (meta-)form of an all-including unity of unity and difference of the (subjective) knower and the (objectively) known (Plotinus 2018, 3.8.6, 361), which Plotinus has made explicit in the sense of the conditio sine qua non to enter the highest stage of self-knowledge on the plane of "intellect" (noûs νοῦς), is at least implicitly represented in a model of the structures of consciousness by Wang Yangming.
In a sort of underlying allusion, this model implicitly inherits the implicate-logical unity of unity and difference of yin-yang 陰陽 (which Yangming also alludes to by the term "li 理" in the focal passage) as well as an additional hidden 20 In this regard, one can also think of the following, very famous passage: "先生遊南鎮.一友指 巖中花樹問曰.天下無心外之物.如此花樹.在深山中自開自落.於我心亦何相關.先生曰.你未 看此花時.此花與汝心同歸於寂.你來看此花時.則此花顏色一時明白起來.便知此花不在你的 心外" (Wang Shouren 1933c, 18). ["While the teacher [Yangming] was strolling in Nanzhen, a friend pointed at a blossoming tree, asking: 'Under heaven there are no things outside of the heart-mind (xin). But how does the blossoming tree, opening up its blossoms in the midst of the deep mountains all by itself relate to my heart-mind?' The teacher said: 'When you haven't yet seen these blossoms, these blossoms in the same way (as the heart-mind in itself ) relate to a stillness of your heart-mind. When you come along and see these blossoms-this is when the colours of the blossoms (suddenly) appear clearly [enter actual existence]. Therefore you have to understand that these blossoms are not outside of your heart-mind.'" (tr., additions in brackets DB)] indication of the aspect-systematic functional structure of the five agents (wu xing 五行). The model has already been introduced and discussed in great detail and at length by the present author (for a very detailed analysis and interpretation cf. Bartosch (2015b, 390-424); for a shorter explanation in English cf. Bartosch (2021, 137-40)).
According to this, the "knowing" (zhi 知) is a central aspect in the unbound efficacy of the "(self-)organizing principle" (li 理). 22 As such, "knowing" (zhi) is the conversion or crossing of two more "subjective" aspects, amongst which one exerts a more active influence than the other, in correlation with two more "objective" aspects-one of which can be interpreted as taking a more passive function than the other. Knowing (a process of self-reflective awareness) thereby permanently results from "perceiving and responding" (gan-ying 感應) to a (respective situational) "thing" (wu 物), while the "clear awareness" (mingjue 明覺) of the knowing is at the same time also the permanent (processual) foundation of the (subjective) "heart-mind's" (xin) "(self-)mastering" (zhuzai 主宰) of the "will(ing)'s" (意) "emitting-moving" (fadong 發動)-which, in turn, is "becoming apparent/ manifesting" (ningju 凝聚) by way of the unfolding "character(izing)" (xing 性) in the (ever-present) formation of the aforementioned (situational) "thing" (wu) (for the initial quote cf. Wang Shouren (1933b, 70-71), 23 see also the references to my works in the last paragraph).
In analogy to Plotinus's elucidation on pure "contemplation" (theōria) as the (1) unity of the (2) knower (more active, subjective side) and (3) the known (more passive, objective side)-which includes the roots of all experience, all lower non-human beings (see the quote further above), and of all things-the (1) "knowing" (zhi) mirrors the unity of the unity and difference of (2) the intention-emitting and formation-motivating (more active, subjectively self-experiencing) heart-mind and its intentionality (willing) and, on the other hand, (3) the (more passively receiving) formation process of the "character(izing)" (xing) (from formless qi 氣) of the "thing" (wu 物, in the sense of a situation or a person, living being, or an object "in respective focus") in its (permanent circular) resonance ("perceiving and responding", gan-ying 感應) again with the (1) "knowing" (zhi) (in and of itself, if I may say so). As the "thinking of thinking" (noḗseōs nóēsis νοήσεως νóησις) is a permanent processual form in which both aspects can only be distinct, because they form a unity and vice versa, so is the circular relatedness of the five functions of (1) knowing (clear awareness), (2) heart-mind (controlling), (3) willing (intention-emitting), (4) characterizing (manifesting), (5) thing (resonating, being perceived). In this context, the knowing (1) represents the coincidence of two related, more active aspects (2, 3) and two related, more passive aspects (4, 5); it represents that which goes through all of the other 4 aspects and that which makes the "heart-mind" (xin) as the subjective manifestation of the objective "(self-)organizing principle" (li) of "heaven, earth, and the ten thousand things" (tian-di wanwu) an identical aspect of the latter in an implicate-logical sense. 24 Under the background of this transversal implicate-logical, formal "resonance" in this particular respect, the last indented quote by Wang Yangming can be reread and compared to a further statement by Plotinus: in parallel to the "clear awareness" (mingjue) of "human" (ren) "knowing" (zhi), Plotinus identified the implicate-logical self-knowledge of the philosopher (as the unity of unity and difference of knower and the known) in the sense that "every animal and plant and anything that appears to be soulless 25 are within me" 26 (Plotinus 2018, 3.2.3, 255).
On the one side, we can view the content of this statement in its general original context of a cosmological meaning of theōria in Plotinus's philosophy (see the first three indented quotes of this chapter). At the same time, it is also to be considered from the transversal perspective of the implicate-logical foundation of the (self-) reflective reality-emerging level of Yangming's "good-knowing" (liangzhi), which "is exactly the good-knowing of [other humans, animals] grass and trees" (see the indented quote above, insertions in brackets DB). In the sense of Yangming's understanding in the mature phase of his philosophy (Bartosch 2015b, 69-70, fn. 141 et al.), it does not just mean an intuitive moral conscience; "liangzhi" became a term for an all-encompassing transformational origin of all reality and experience in extension.
The "knowing", respectively, "good-knowing"-or, to use another and later alternative term: "root-system of the vitality of the good-knowing" (liangzhi benti 良 知本體)-is to be viewed as the convergence of all functions of consciousness in the sense of (to stay with our earlier example) "clear awareness" (mingjue) of all "knowing" (zhi) and thereby as nothing short of a conditio sine qua non for grass and trees (and animals, societies, heaven, earth, and the ten thousand things) 27 to appear as what they are to us in an "anthropocosmic" (Tu 1973, 202) universe, which is carried through and constantly elevated into (self-)reflective forms in the process of human existence.
The shared implicate-logical foundation (Bartosch 2022a) of all "under-standing", namely (to activate the etymology of "under-") as a logical "inter-standing", a "standing-in-between", that is, dividing and thereby connecting at the same time, 28 does not contradict the fact that Yangming somehow put more emphasis on the aspect of a sort of empathizing or sympathizing responsiveness of (holistic) awareness.
Wang Yangming emphasizes that when we see a child in danger, 29 we naturally find ourselves in the state of a "fearfully alert, compassionate heart-mind" (chu ti ce yin zhi xin 怵惕恻隱之心), because we are related to the child in the context of "one (and the same meta-)system of vitality" (yiti) and in the sense of the related inborn "inter-humaneness" (ren 仁). However, according to Yangming, we do not only feel this kind of compassion with beings who, like the human child, are "of the same kind" (tong lei 同類), as the fear and suffering of animals naturally evoke our compassion, and our "inter-humaneness" (ren) is thus effective. 30 Like Plotinus, Yangming emphasizes that we share consciousness and sense perception with the animals. Furthermore, he also stresses that our compassionate "inter-humaneness" is even activated when we see the destruction of plant-life. According to Yangming, we share the same urge to live with plants. Therefore, we are in empathic resonance even with plants, and their destruction and death results in a "compassionately empathizing heart-mind" (minxu zhi xin 憫恤之心). For Yangming, even natural rock formations and stones are within the scope of the possible actuality of our inter-humaneness, 31 compassion, and the one (meta-)system of vitality 27 Cf. also the quotes toward the end of chapter 2! 28 Cf. Bartosch (2021, 127-32) my analysis of the "original metaphor of 'understanding'", including the respective etymological background and also with comparative remarks in view of ancient Chinese thought.
29 This is related to Mengzi's (Mencius 372-289 BCE) famous image of the situation faced by someone who sees a little child falling into a well.
30 A good example is provided by Mengzi: "[…] he is drawing the picture of a ruler who sees an innocent cow being led to a sacrificial site, and who, overcome by his compassion for the animal, is then faced with the dilemma of not being able to abolish the state-supporting rites involving animal sacrifices (which are his duties as a ruler) and of wanting to save the animal's life at the same time" (Bartosch 2015a, 453, tr. DB). Cf. also Mengzi (n.d., chapter "Lian Hui Wang I").
31 Stones and minerals are included, because they are an aspect of the "one (indivisible) fluidum in circulation" (yiqi liutong 一氣流通). It constitutes the solid, liquid, or gaseous "forms" (xing 形) of that we form with other humans, animals, and plants (Wang Shouren 1933d, 36, tr. DB; cf. also Bartosch 2015b, 694-95). 32 (All of this includes the possibility and thus the "freedom" to ignore or suppress the empathic self-evidence, which is declared as "evil" (e 惡) by Yangming.) The idea of an empathic resonance between human consciousness and other forms of life is at least implicitly present in Plotinus's point of view, as well. It is as implicitly present as the aforementioned implicate-logical form of the unity of unity and difference marks the implicit foundation in Yangming's model of self-conscious yin-yang-like subject-objectivity (also in the sense of a general implicate-logical tertium comparationis, see introduction) as well as in his philosophy as a whole (Bartosch 2015b).
Put simply: Plotinus, too, was not simply a hard-hearted "theoretician". As a human being striving for the "(highest) Good" (agathón ἀγαθόν) (see chapter 3), Plotinus himself showed great empathy with animals as well: 33 "He would not agree to take medicines derived from wild animals […] [or] to derive nourishment from the bodies even of domesticated animals" (Porphyry of Tyre 2018, § 1, 17). Plotinus developed a strong argument that it is fair "to endow with happiness even the basest living beings, and plants, too, since they are themselves alive, that is, they have a life that also unfolds in the direction of a goal" 34 (Plotinus 2018, 1.4.1, 71). In passing, it might be noted in advance (for more, following 2) that both Yangming and Plotinus thereby understood life as a processual unfoldment. However, Plotinus's explicit reflection of an inherent goal-driven nature is all appearing living beings and objects. Wang Yangming points to the fact that medicinal minerals (yaoshi 藥石) can only heal illness, because the "matter-energy" ( Joseph Needham's translation for "qi 氣") of the stone and our bodies represent "this same one (and only) fluidum" (tong ci yiqi 同此 一氣) (Wang Shouren 1933c, 17).
33 Apart from "the assignment of evils to men of opposite kinds, the good being poor, the wicked rich, and the bad having more of those things that those who are human beings ought to have and being in power and in charge of nations and cities" (Plotinus 2018, 3.2.7, 260), Plotinus states that the "(highest) Good" (agathón) "also reaches the earth is attested by the expressed principle of the other things that come about. For animals and plants both share in this expressed principle, and in soul and life" (ibid. mirrored rather implicitly in Yangming's line of thought: it has to be remembered that Yangming said that we share an urge to live (which implies an immanent goal) with plants (see above, second last paragraph).
From a more differentiating angle, it can be added that Yangming didn't make a distinction comparable to that between "rational" (logikós λογῐκός) and "non-rational" (álogos άλογος) animals. This difference can be viewed as an implicit manifestation of the general differences between a Neo-Platonic (implicate, Bartosch 2022a) "logic of theoretical knowledge and insight" and Yangming's (implicate) "logic of situational cognition and insight", which the author has analysed extensively and very much in detail, albeit by referring to Nicolaus Cusanus instead of Plotinus (Bartosch 2015b, 425-590). At this point, I would only like to say that while the same implicate logic can be detected in Yangming's model of consciousness, he doesn't actually understand the aspects of thoughts and feelings as separate dimensions that would exist in a hierarchical order. From the (Neo-)Platonic perspective of Plotinus, the self-knowing evidence of the implicate logic (self-enfolding "meta-reason", Bartosch (2022b, 110)) and also the descending or deriving faculty of concept formation (unfolding reason, "downstream" of thinking, ibid.) are reflected as superordinate to sense perception and feelings (for example, the happiness of plants). In the case of Plotinus, the anthropocentric hierarchy that has already been introduced at the beginning of this chapter is established on the basis of the finite representation of the exceptional human capability for intellection, and thus the actualization of pure "contemplation" (theōria)--a self-evidence which actually cannot be mediated in a conceptualizing manner (see also the last main segment of chapter 3 on ineffability).
In the case of Yangming's (Neo-Confucian) anthropocentrism, an implicit hierarchy of the living is established in another way, that is, on the foundation of the aspect of "inter-humaneness" (ren). For Yangming, this aspect counts as the manifestation of the empathizing responsiveness which is at the root of the unity of the system of vitality of my heart-mind with heaven, earth, and the ten thousand things (see an exact quote with source text in chapter 2).
In view of Plotinus, we have already seen that the same underlying implicate-logical (meta-)form (Bartosch 2022a, 110, 118) is also represented in the sense of the unity of unity and difference of the knower and the known in the sense of the notion of "thinking of thinking" (noḗseōs nóēsis). It comes with the exclusion of feelings and sensations on the related onto-hierarchical, highest level of human existence of the Plotinian "intellect" (noûs). In view of the other side of the "transverse", it might not be all too surprising that the inclusion of feelings and sensations in the Yangmingian "heart-mind" (xin) has led to a more down-to-earth, alternative representation of a hierarchical superordination of (empathic) human consciousness. Because of the origin of all "inter-humaneness" (ren) in one's family context, Yangming envisioned a hierarchy of empathy, love, and care as a core aspect of reality. It is manifested by the (organic) necessity of having to eat or to provide one's family with food (to sustain their lives) in the following sense: Plotinus, on the other hand, is very well aware of the same dilemma. Although he seems to have followed a vegetarian way of life to minimize the suffering of animals in this regard, he does not explicitly relate the problem to the question of human consciousness, and he did not come up with the idea of an anthropocentric hierarchy of empathy and care. In his case, the hierarchy of living beings is related to the ability to engage in the abstraction of thought and the explicit self-application of the principle of thinking (theōria) to oneself/itself. With regard to the situation of a self-consumption of life on the animal plane, he stated that th[e] eating of each other is necessary. These transformations from one animal to another come about because they would be unable to continue on in existence the way they are, even if no one were to kill them. And if at the time when they leave the world, they leave it in such a way that others find some use from them, why must we begrudge that? What does it matter if they are consumed to be born as other living beings? (Plotinus 2018, 3.2.15, 267)  More generally speaking, and despite the differences that have just been outlined, we can say that in both philosophies the elevated status of what is conceptualized as a "human being" (ánthrōpos, ren 人) results from the ascription of a much higher qualitative level of human self-knowledge, that is, the highest intellective form of "contemplation" (theōria), as well as the exclusive features of the "spiritual brightness" (lingming) and "good-knowing" (liangzhi), which are expressions of the self-reflective actualities of human consciousness. We have already seen that these central terms are not confined to subjective cognitive processes, but that they suggest that the human being is participating in that which these terms allude to in the sense of being a central cosmological agent.

The Self-Unfoldment of Reality as a Meta-Cognitive Process toward Self-Knowledge
In this segment, the last-mentioned similarity will be further explored: in both philosophies the respective understanding of the "human being" (ánthrōpos, ren) characterizes the latter as an eminent or central being. Both ascribe human consciousness a central role in the self-unfoldment of reality as an all-encompassing meta-cognitive process. The reason is, generally and comparatively speaking, the feature of self-knowledge. 37 The implicate-logical reflection of the reflection (which implies the synthetic absorption in the unitive relationship of subject and object of the reflection that has already been indicated in view of both philosophies) 38 enables the human being to fully integrate itself into the whole of everything there is, to relate to the overall process(es) of universal life by means of cognition and feeling, and to empathize with it to an extent that the whole is viewed as an expression of an all-encompassing, universal goodness. In the sense of the respective implicate-logical self-knowledge (as a foundation), the human mind (in the sense of the Plotinian noûs and, as we have seen, mutatis mutandis, also of the Yangmingian model of consciousness) is itself geared toward this integration: it can reflect back onto itself in a way so that it can fully be absorbed in the self-evident insights that to realize absolute unity (and therefore absolute freedom), difference as such cannot be excluded, because otherwise one would just have mistaken non-countable boundless unity for a mere unit which still is distinct from something else. 39 In the following, we have to explore how both philosophers have envisioned the realization of this integration.
Plotinus's "nature" (phýsis) means an "expressed principle" 40 (lógos λόγος) (e.g. Plotinus 2018, 3.8.3) that produces animals and plants, which then themselves express the same principle (lógos) in a derived, "lower" sense, that is in the particular forms of their psychophysical generativity. The form of the "expressed principle" (lógos) that descends in declining qualitative steps from the (world-)"intellect" (noûs) and thereby connects the (world-)"soul" (psychē) with "nature" (phýsis) in such a (descending) fashion is that of "contemplation" (theōria), because all the power that produces not by means of hands must remain and remain entire. For there is, indeed, no need for it [power] to have some parts that remain and others that are in motion, for matter is what is in motion, but nothing in power is in motion; otherwise, it [power] will not be the prime mover, nor will nature be this [the prime mover], but that which is unmoved in the whole [of nature]. (ibid., 3.8.2, 357) 41 For Plotinus, everything that is effective and part of the world-process means an appearance of a meta-cognitive principle: "nature" (phýsis) is deriving "entirely from contemplation [theōria]" 42 (Plotinus 2018, 3.8.3, 358, insertion in brackets DB) and "every life is intellection [nóēsis νóησις] of a sort, but one kind more obscure than another, just as life is, too" (ibid., 3.8.8, 363, insertion in brackets DB). 43 How does the obscurity come into play? Here, we have to discern between "pure" "contemplation" (theōria) and its lowering "copies" or steps toward the realm of (physical) "matter" (hýle ὕλη). 44 The former only takes place in the realm of 41 Source text: "ὡς μένειν δεῖ καὶ ἐνταῦθα τὴν δύναμιν τὴν οὐ διὰ χειρῶν ποιοῦσαν καὶ πᾶσαν μένειν. Οὐ γὰρ δὴ δεῖται τῶν μὲν ὡς μενόντων, τῶν δὲ ὡς κινουμένωνἡ γὰρ ὕλη τὸ κινούμενον, αὐτῆς δὲ οὐδὲν κινούμενονἢ ἐκεῖνο οὐκ ἔσται τὸ κινοῦν πρώτως, οὐδὲ ἡ φύσις τοῦτο, ἀλλὰ τὸ ἀκίνητον τὸ ἐν τ 44 In passing, I would like to mention that we have to discern between two forms of matter in the case of Plotinus, who "[…] turned the Platonic μὴ ὄν into τὸ κακόν, that is, evil par excellence. This is more than an ascetic determination, as it did not occur up until then, and as it also had been lifted a hitherto merely 'disturbing' aspect in matter into the realm of the devilish, the inferno" (Bloch (1972, 149, tr. DB). However, "with Plotinus, the full Tohu wa-bohu is and remains only in the invisible abyss of the lower darknesses, which, due to original evil, have not conceived the light. But strangely enough, Plotinus not only inserts matter in this abyss but in the heights as well, albeit a completely different one, certainly, but nevertheless one that shares the name with the 'matter-Satan' (Stoff-Satan): he called it ὕλη νοητή, intelligible matter" (ibid., 150, tr. DB; cf. also Plotinus 2018, 2.4, 164-83).
"intellect" (noûs), that is, by way of an absolutely self-reflective "thinking of thinking" (noḗseōs nóēsis). 45 On this level of intellective contemplation, in which the absolute source of the "(highest) Good" (agathón), respectively, the "One" (hén ἕν) is "shining through" the intellective form of a unity through the difference of the knowing and the known (see chapter 3), the human being is able to self-knowingly reflect the cosmic life principle of (self-)"contemplation" (theōria) as being effective in non-rational animals, plants, and the earth in the form of (partly unconscious) after-images as reflections of reflections of reflections and so on-namely in the myriads of ways of sustaining life, of growing, of regenerating it in the form of offspring (ibid., 3.8.5, 360: "generation is contemplation" 46 ). In this sense, one can also say that nothing which is derived from theōria can be disconnected from the "intellect" (noûs) (ibid., 3.8.8, 363-64), because the lower manifestations still participate the former (see also the last indented quote in this chapter). Like in the case of two parallel mirrors, which reflect each other ad infinitum in mere theory but become increasingly fainter reflections in reality, 47 the forms of the unfoldment of life of non-rational animals and plants are fainter after-images of the perfect theōria, that is, the perfect immaterial reflection of that which cannot be thought of as an image but only as an absolute origin.
The word "contemplation" is the term that has been used to render the Greek "theōria" in both English translations of the Enneads (Plotinus 1980;2018). 48 It is important to note that although our modern word "theory" is derived from it, Plotinus's understanding of the term cannot be confused with concepts of modern scientific theories, which are finite semantic frameworks superimposed on selected sets of aspects of an infinite reality and can be validated/verified or falsified by experiments in relation to data. 49 In my opinion, the translation term "contemplation" can also be misleading on occasion, because the word might possibly shroud the implications of the processual nature, the inherent motivation or intentional moments, and the related emergences, which are also implied in Plotinus's original use of the Greek term "theōria": in 45 Cf. also the detailed overview by Mazur (2021, 26-62 48 We will see that the word "contemplation" (which has been used in both Plotinus (1980) and (2018)) might not have been the absolute best choice to translate "theōria θεωρία" in this context. Maybe it is better not to translate it at all? the initial pre-philosophical context, "theōria" signified a completion of a process of becoming aware of divine principles in a sanctuary to which one had to journey beforehand from another city and as a chosen ceremonial envoy in this regard (Rausch 1982, 70-71;Bartosch 2015b, 494). The "encounter" of the mortal (human) envoy with the "immortals", that is, with the mathematical proportions, geometric-harmonic principles of temples and sculptures of gods, actually were meant as a conscious return, as a reminiscent awakening in view of the very principles that were behind the motions of the celestial bodies and even of the beauty of human bodies, etc. 50 In this sense, again, the travel to the sanctuary, that is, the intentional movement toward the divine principles-in other words: the effort to move toward the source--had its own symbolic meaning, namely that of a "return" to the highest principles that the gods represented.
The later philosophical rendering of the term "theōria" conveys the meaning of (self-)reflection in the sense of what Plotinus's follower Proclus (Προκλος Διαδοχος, 412-484) conceptualized as "epistrophḗ ἐπιστροφή"-the active (path of a) return to the one and indivisible source of all thinking and world-experiences (including their sense-perception-conveyed "things"). 51 The origin of the English philosophical term "reflection" still hints at this original (Platonic) meaning of "theōria" (which, as mentioned, also finds a transversal counterpart in Neo-Confucian mirror metaphors). It is derived from the Latin "reflectere" in the sense of "bending back (on itself/oneself )". Furthermore, theōria thereby not only includes the vision 52 but-please note-also the active process of realization and an inherent "source-relatedness" (Bartosch 2022a: 114, 119): Plotinian "theōria" therefore also conveys the meaning of an inherent "motivation"/"intentionality"--(self-)organizing directionality--and a related process of movement or transformation in relation 50 Cf. also Kayser (1950).
52 The word "theōria" has also been translated into Latin "visio" (vision). "Theōria" is related to the "theōros θεωρός", the "spectator". The word "theōria" is also the precursor of philosophical meanings of "speculation". The latter is deriving from Latin "speculari" (to peer around from an observation point, specula) and, alternatively, from "speculum" (mirror) (Ebbersmeyer 1995(Ebbersmeyer , 1355. In the latter sense, it is related to the philosophical mirror-metaphor which has been unfolding since the times of Plato, has been intensely cultivated by Plotinus, and finds its counterpart in the Chinese traditions since Zhuangzi (莊子, 3rd cent. BCE) and especially in the thought of Wang Yangming as well (Bartosch 2015b;2017); it also forms the background for the conceptual history of "(self-) reflection" (Zahn 1992, 396). "Speculatio" has been used to translate "θεωρία" in the Aristotelian sense, that is, "as an opposite term to 'practice', and it is as such relevant for the classification of the sciences as well as for the distinction of the cognitive faculties" (Ebbersmeyer 1995, 1355 and in the sense of "a specific form of cognition as reflection, in which the subject of reflection […] and the object of reflection […] are posited in a mutually clarifying relation" (ibid.).
The process of unfoldment toward the inherent goal is the central aspect of theōria, because "all of it is contemplation" 53 (Plotinus 2018, 3.8.5, 360), possibly leading to its own inherent "apex-event", 54 that is, a fully self-reflective realization of an indivisible, boundless unity in the highest actuality of epistrophḗ. The latter is to be understood as a circular return: it means the "event", when Α and Ω of the process of cosmic life (via human intellection) "in an un-reaching way touch" 55 (Bartosch 2015b, 285) the One (hén)--of which the whole process of the cosmos is the appearance, which is the indivisible root of all cosmic forms of becoming (as the One's manifestations) while they exist (logically)--and which is preceding all number, even "substantial number" 56 (Plotinus 2018, 5.5.4, 587-588). The One cannot be "touched" by separation from finiteness but through finiteness. 57 Proclus's concept of epistrophḗ has to be understood in the context of three inseparable steps: monḗ μονή, próodos πρόοδος, epistrophḗ ὲπιστροφή. This means the third and final, the all-including, all-elevating (ab)solution of the finite state of existence. The term "próodos" is made up of the prefix "pro-προ-" and "hodós ὁδός". While the former can mean "forth" or "un-" (in the sense of "unfolding"), the latter means "way" or "path". (One might already anticipate the potential for discussion in regard to the Chinese term "dao 道" at this point.) In German, "próodos" can be rendered quite literally as "Hervorgang" (Bartosch 2015b, 319). "Próodos" means the "way" in which things are proceeding forth, the process of an emanation of consciousness in finite perspectives, aspects, and situations. All of these processes are unknowingly springing forth from their origin, 58 that is, their original "dwelling" or "abode" (monḗ), 59 and turn into self-knowledge in the sense of an epistrophḗ, that is, as the conscious, knowing, and uncovering return to the hidden principles of the monḗ.
In later Latin terminology, "monḗ" has been translated as "principium" (principle), "próodos" as "medium" (medium), and "epistrophḗ" as "finis" (end/goal). The Neo-Platonic thinker Nicolaus Cusanus, who was directly influenced by Proclus (and in a roundabout way by Plotinus), has provided the image of a spoon-carver, who is in the process of polishing his creation, and who--by actively going through this phase with his intention in mind--creates a "mirror spoon" (coclear speculare).
The process itself means the emergence of a symbol for his mirror-spoon-creating "mind" (mens) to attain self-knowledge (Bartosch 2015b, 317-19). Due to his creation proceeding forth in this way (próodos), the craftsman attains the "epistrophic" (Schäfer 2006, 111) wisdom of self-reflexivity. 60 In accordance with this image of "self-production", Cusanus derives the term for "deity", "god" (theós θεός), which is also directly related to "theōria", from "theoro" [θεωρώ], that is, "I see" and "I walk/move fast" Consequently, the seeker must walk/move fast by means of (mental) vision, so that he may be able to reach out toward the all-seeing theon [θεόν, accusative singular of "θεός"]. Thus, the vision shows a likeness of the way, on which the seeker must walk along (to get) closer. (Nicolai de Cusa, 1959, 15, tr., insertions in brackets, italics, tr. DB) 61 Proclus's metaphor of the "processional path" (próodos) or Cusanus's of the "way/ road" (via) provide the opportunity of a transversal reflection. The finite processes in the sense of próodos are the medium of returning to the source. They correlate to Laozi's "name-bearing" (you ming) "ways" (dao 道) (those which can be communicated) in view of their "ineffable" (wu ming 無名) origin and end: Dao 道 (here with a capital "D" to discern the function of this expression from the former) (also Bartosch, 2022a). 62 59 Hence the word "monastery".
60 From a further comparative perspective, the figure of the god Krishna in Indian spirituality, represented in the literature and in forms of sculptures and paintings, is likewise to be understood as a symbolic projection, which is supposed to "mirror" and therefore to "awaken" its own creative origin in the sense of self-knowledge. Taken in the most general comparative sense here, we can reflect upon that semantic "pointing rod" (Zeigestab) (Scheler 1921, 546) "Way" (Dao 道) in the transverse, namely in view of the ineffable "One" (hén), in terms of the (ineffable) "(highest) Good" (agathón) (or together as the "the One-Good" (Aubry 2020, 211)) (as well as with Proclus's self-reflection of the "monḗ", in the sense of its revealing self-knowledge as "epistrophḗ"). I hasten to say that this finding around the philosophical metaphors of "way" or "path" (Proclus's "próodos", Cusanus's "via", and-mutatis mutandis!-dao/Dao) itself provides a "path" for further transversal references. In the present paper, this can only be followed through to a certain extent. At this point, I would like to go only this far as to not transgress the scope of the topical field of the present chapter: 63 For Yangming, the "Way" (Dao), the "heart-mind" (xin) (primarily expressing the "little bit of spiritual brightness" (yi dian lingming) of humanity), and "Heaven" 64 (tian) are aspects of one and the same meta-cognitive process: "The heart-mind is the Way; the Way is Heaven. To know the heart-mind is the measure to know the Way and to know Heaven" (Wang Shouren 1933a, 20, tr., italics DB). 65 On the one hand, the "heart-mind" (xin) carries (out) the subjective, unique, finite, respectively, "mortal" experience of each living human individual: "Now consider a deceased human: his 'spiritual agent' (jingling) 'drifting and scattered' (you san le). Where should his heaven, (his) earth, (his) spirits, (his) gods (and his) ten thousand things still exist?" 66 (Wang Shouren 1933c, 33, tr. DB). However, this subjective/finite "surface level" must not obscure the fact that, on the other hand, the "heart-mind" (xin) bears a certain comparability to the objective dimension of the (world-) "soul" (psychē) in Plotinus's philosophy. Mutatis mutandis, both terms refer to the idea of a universal/cosmic dimension in which everything, to borrow Hegel's expression, is "translated" into existence: in this sense also the heart-mind is "throughout all ages 'one [human] inhaling-exhaling' (yi xu-xi 一噓吸)" 67 (Wang Shouren 1933e 47, tr., italics DB). And as Plotinus's 63 Many possible points of interest must be kept pending. They will be addressed in a contentually and methodologically complementing attempt (as mentioned in the introduction).
64 I am not using tian in the sense of "heaven and earth" (tian-di) but in the sense of the other possible meaning of the "whole of everything". Hence the capitalization of the translation term on these occasions. nature-evoking "contemplation [theōria] does not have a limit nor does the object of contemplation" (Plotinus 2018, 3.8.5, 361), 68 so "there are [also] no things outside of the heart-mind under heaven" 69 (Wang Shouren 1933c, 18, tr., insertion DB). Not even "heaven and earth" (tian-di) could manifest without the "good-knowing" (liangzhi) (ibid., 17), 70 permanently realizing itself through the human heart-mind, that is, in a self-processing meta-collective network of all finite perspectives of all individual human life past and present (as a sort of integrated "monads" of life-experiences, if I may say so). 71 In this context, it is highly interesting to compare Wang Yangming's notion of the "unity of knowing and (the related process of ) actively passing through (something)" (zhi-xing he yi 知行合一) with Plotinus's notions of "contemplation" (theōria) and its "expressed principle" (lógos).
Like in Plotinus's active process of the expression of the principle (lógos), for Wang Yangming the understanding that permanently realizes the "good knowing" (liangzhi) (as the self-reflective manifestation of the "(self-)organizing principle" (li)) is not confined to individual perspectives. It can rather be understood as a complementing objective characteristic of the self-unfoldment of reality (here: heaven, earth, and the ten thousand things (tian-di wanwu)) as a meta-cognitive, transpersonal, universal process. In analogy to the aforesaid immanent intentionality of the "processional path" (próodos) or, in Latin Neo-Platonic terminology, the medium in the self-unfoldment of all finite human perspectives of the (world-) "soul" (psychē), the "heart-mind" (xin) is inherently driven by an intention to know (at least situation-wise) and understand; and it demands having "a heart-mind, which is eager to actively pass through (all experiences). Only after that one knows the road. This 68 Source text: "Καὶ γὰρ οὐκ ἔχει πέρας ἡ θεωρία οὐδὲ τὸ θεώρημα" (Plotinos n.d., Γʹ [3] ηʹ [8]). For the background of this thought in the philosophy of Plato as well as for an overview of the following development in the European Neo-Platonic tradition of the Middle Ages see the overview in Bartosch (2015b, 64-65, fn. 126 71 The reader should also keep in mind the Yangmingian model of subjective consciousness presented in ch. 1. Here, the "heart-mind" (xin) is rooted in and being nurtured by the all-encompassing "knowing" (zhi) which represents the implicate-logical unity of the unity and difference of all functions of experience and at the same time also the connection with the objective, all-unifying "(self-)organizing principle" (li) of "heaven, earth, and the ten thousand things" (tian-di wanwu). For more on this, see also further below in the present chapter.
is (called) the 'intentionality/will(ing)' (yi 意); this is already the beginning of 'actively passing through' (xing 行)" (Wang Shouren 1933b, 38, tr. DB). 72 This does not only address the manifestation of subjective dispositions but, in inseparable correlation with the former and in the sense of an existential realism, the objective process of the emergence of all things (through the centre of the heartmind, through our "little bit of spiritual brightness" (yi dian lingming): 73 This inference is confirmed by [Wang Yangming's] famous analysis of the ["unity of knowing and (the related process of ) actively passing through" (zhi-xing he yi 知行合一]. When I see a beautiful color, I do not first see it with my eyes (a kind of "knowing"), with liking it (a kind of "action") coming afterwards as the result of a mental decision to like it. My perception of a thing [in the sense of Wang Yangming] as having visible and value qualities [which are known in the sense of an "immediate reflexivity" (Aubrey 2020, 212)] is total and unitary. As Husserl might say, it seems to be one unitary "constituting" intentional act of consciousnessjust as when I look at a tree, I see not only a shape but a solid extended object with a front and a back side, so here I "see" an object with a visible and a "value side". (Nivison 1973, 132,

insertions in brackets, italics DB)
The immediacy of knowing "along the Way" or through the act itself (which represents a universally creative principle of implicate-logical meta-cognition at the same time) at least partly resembles the Plotinian understanding how an "expressed principle" (lógos) is self-unfolding the cosmic principle of "contemplation" (theōria). The function of Plotinus's "expressed principle" on the levels of "soul" (psychē) and "nature" (phýsis) is at least partly resonant with what Wang Yangming viewed as the "heart-mind" (xin) activating the "characterizing nature" (xing) by means of "intentionality/will(ing)" (yi). The only major functional difference is that Yangming did not contemplate the correlation of these terms in analogy to Plotinus's hierarchy of qualitative dimensions of reality (nature "below" soul etc.). We have seen (see chapter 1) that intentionality/will(ing) and the characterizing nature appear to be juxtaposed aspects of one and the same "level-free" dimension of a meta-cognitive subject-objectivity (also analysed in Bartosch (2015b, 390-424)).
74 Unfortunately, the expression "zhi-xing he yi" is often translated as "unity of knowledge and action" in English. In my opinion, this unrefined mode of expression obstructs access to the subtlety of to translate "xing" (in a more pronounced way) as "actively passing through". This also helps to show transversal correspondences with Plotinus's understanding of the unity of "contemplation" (theōria) and its "expressed principle" (lógos) in the active process of the self-realization or unfoldment of everything. Also in Plotinus's view, the knowing (implicit or explicit theōria) is inseparable from its "actively passing through", namely in the sense of a self-expressing principle which is at the core of all life: How, then, while the expressed principle [lógos] produces that is, produces in this way, could it attain to any kind of contemplation? In fact, if it produces while remaining, that is, both remaining in itself and an expressed principle, it would itself be contemplation. For action [prâxis πρᾶξις] would occur in accordance with an expressed principle being clearly different from it; but the expressed principle, which accompanies action and looks after it, would not be action. Then, if it is not action but an expressed principle, it is contemplation. (Plotinus 2018, 3.8.3, 358) 75 Also in the sense of Wang Yangming, "xing 行" cannot of course merely be viewed as "action" in contrast to cognitive processes. On the contrary, the "integrated activity" (another possible translation term for "xing") is expressing the "knowing" (zhi 知, see also chapter 1) in the form of "actively passing through" (xing) "things" (wu) (to be taken as situations and processual affairs which might or might not include (processual) objects)--without being "exterior" to, respectively, without ever being apart from the knowing. As in the process of a master-calligrapher at work, the knowledge and its realization perpetually coincide in the act. While, to explicitly think in the transverse here, the calligrapher and his knowing (as the condition of the possibility of his performance) represent the aspect of (1) "monḗ" (the "dwelling" 76 ) or "principium" (principle), (2) the integrated realization or actualization of (1) represents the "próodos" (processional path) as the medium--which nurtures the self-knowledge of the calligrapher in the act, namely in the sense of the "return" (epistrophḗ), respectively, as the "finis" (end/goal), which is, to switch back to Chinese terminology, permanently reached as long as one is in touch with the deepest core of the "self " (ji 己). From this transversal angle, one might also add that the implicate-logical unity of knowing and the known (Plotinus: thinking of Wang Yangming's understanding in this context. The German translation of "xing 行" as "tätiges Durchlaufen" (Bartosch 2015b, 529) provides an example of a better solution.
76 In this context, Heidegger's remarks on "the dwelling" also come to mind.
thinking) comes about more "colourful", practical, and less abstract on the Chinese side. The body is more involved.
This leads us to the following question: If the "heart-mind" (xin) and its world-emerging meta-cognitive productivity can be compared to the dimension of "soul" (psychē), what could then be viewed as the "functional equivalent" to the more "pre-somatic" "intellect" (noûs) and the "thinking of thinking" (noḗseōs nóēsis)? In my opinion, we can draw insight from the following passage in this regard: This "heart-mind's root-system of vitality" (zhe xin zhi benti) is the (undivided) "source of Heaven's self-organizing principle" (yuan zhi shi ge tianli)-(it presents) an origin which is never without appropriateness. This indeed is your "true self " (zhen ji). This true self is the master of the [living and mortal] body-shell. If there were no true self, indeed there would be no body-shell. True is this: to have it means to be alive, to be without means death. (Wang 1933a, 34, tr., italics, insertions in brackets DB) 77 In contrast to the aforementioned "surface-level" of finite experience, which is constantly being actualized by the heart-mind (xin) in the sense of a subjective mode of reflexivity, the term "Heaven's self-organizing principle" (tianli) illustrates its objective aspects, for example, manifesting itself as the movement of the celestial bodies or in the sense of seasonal changes (e.g. Wang Shouren 1933b, 59-60). It is well known that Wang Yangming's opponent Zhu Xi (朱熹, 1130-1200) had separated those two aspects. In short: he had subordinated that which he confined as a purely subjective element of the "human heart-mind" (renxin 人心) to the objective process(es) of the "self-organizing principle(s)" (li) in all things and situations (Bartosch 2015b, 164-73).
As already stated in view of Yangming's model of consciousness in the preceding chapter, this expresses the same implicate-logical form as the Plotinian "thinking of thinking" (noḗseōs nóēsis). As in Plotinus's reference to intellection, the subject and the object in the unity, the knowing/the knower and the known, are self-reflected as identical: the mere objectivizing reflection of the difference between the two aspects turns into the more profound self-reflection of the underlying uniting connection that enables the reflection of difference. The foundational level ("root-system of vitality" (benti)) of the thinking and perceiving subject ("heart-mind" (xin)) and the "source" (yuan) of the respective object of the finite, personal perspective on the "surface" 80 of the heart-mind (which is perceived and known as a representation of its "self-organizing principle" (li)) are intuited as identical through their difference: the self-reflecting consciousness is elevated into its original state -subject-objectivity.
Historically speaking, Wang Yangming had a first insight of this 81 during one historical moment of the year 1508. This happened during a phase of his life when he was forced to live in a remote place in Guizhou province in southwest China. This existential "aha-experience" is known as his wu Dao 悟道, his "finding of the Way"-moment, as the original unity of the unity and difference of the subjective and the objective, xin and li, knower and known (situation, process).
In the last quote further above, Yangming also referred to this same foundation of heart-mind and (self-)organizing principle as the "true self " (zhen ji), and he has identified it as the life-providing origin per se. From our perspective this is important. In a transversal view of Plotinus, this universally life-bearing "true self " provides an exact functional equivalent to the highest form of pure "contemplation" (theōria) of the (transpersonal/cosmic) "intellect" (noûs). As it is indirectly receiving the One, the (cosmic) "intellect" is not only viewed as the conditio sine qua non of all living processes, " [b]ut [as] […] a contemplation that is alive, not an object of contemplation like that in another" (Plotinus 2018, 3.8.8, 363, italics, insertions in brackets DB). 82 This life […] is more clear and is the primary Life and primary Intellect, and these are one. And so the first life is intellection [nóēsis], and the 80 I have discussed this topic in Bartosch (2015b, 88-91). One can also infer the two major levels or dimensions of the "heart-mind" (xin) from the expression "xin zhi benti 心之本體".
81 This moment could also be explained "translatively" as a self-manifestation of the same implicatelogical (meta-)form that underlies the Plotinian "thinking of thinking" (noḗseōs nóēsis). In Yangming's case, it is of course displayed in the form of Neo-Confucian terminology. The "true self " (zhen ji) is identical with the "root-system of vitality of the heartmind" (xin zhi benti 心之本體)-which is identical with the "source" (yuan 原) of all (living and non-living) forms, things, and situations brought forth in the omnipresent transformations of the "(self-)organizing principle of Heaven" (tianli). Therefore, it is the general life principle.
While the "heart-mind" (xin) is the "master of the body" (shen zhi zhu 身之主) in the sense of our own respective body and our subjective perspective on it (Wang Shouren 1933b, 44, tr. DB), 84 the "true self " is the master of the "body-shell" (quqiao 軀殼) in the most universal (subject-object-related) sense. In this regard, the mastery of the true self (as the implicate-logical unity of unity and difference of the subjective, respectively, objective "surfaces" of the heart-mind and the (self-) organizing principle of Heaven) over the living processes resembles that of the highest form of intellection (nóēsis). The subordinate mastery of the heart-mind over the individual's "body" (shen), respectively, all living "things" (wu) implies a certain "vicinity" to the functional status of the Plotinian "soul" (psychē), at least in this life-bestowing perspective. 85 Furthermore, it is interesting that Wang Yangming chose the term "ji 己", because, in view of ancient sources, "the ji [己] self is one of the least somatic aspects of a person's identity, and it is far less material than, for example, the xing 形 form, which is the physical frame, shape, or mass of the body" (Sommer 2012, 19).
At least in view of basic differences, it is important to note that Yangming is not an "Idealist" in the (Neo-)Platonic sense: what takes the place of the explanatory function of the "matter" (hýle) of existing things and objects here, that is, mutatis mutandis, "fluidum"/"matter-energy" (qi 氣) is thought of as the inseparable "inverse" or "carrying flux" of organized thought (the two aspects being thought of as two sides, two opposite ends of a spectrum of the same) 86 and not as an evil "reverse", which is not reached by thought, light, and therefore by the extensions of the "One-Good" (agathón) (in its hierarchical emanations of theōria declining in purity), as in the case of Plotinus's views of physical matter. 87 On the other hand, however, one also has to take notice that the "good-knowing" (liang zhi), which matches the level of the "true self ", is defined as an "empty spirit" (xu ling) (see the respective quote in chapter 1). From our transversal angle, this leads us to a further, more "resonant" aspect: "Good-knowing" (liangzhi) is the spiritual agent (jingling) of (an all-encompassing process of ) "creative transformation" (zaohua). This spiritual agent brings forth heaven, gives birth to the earth, generates (earthly) "spirits" (gui), and is the cause of (heavenly) "deities" (di). Everything emanates from that: truly related to (all) things, but with no counterpart. (Wang Shouren 1933c, 15, tr. DB) 88 Although the "good-knowing" (liang zhi) is effective within everything, it is (in a logical sense) before any experience. In this sense, it stands in a certain partial 89 functional parallel to the explanatory function of the pure "contemplative dimension" of the Plotinian "intellect" (noûs). Like the latter, the former has no limit and nothing besides itself, because it includes the possibility of all perfect developments. Even the "heart-mind" (xin) as a whole is still characterized by "[…] 'emptiness' (xu), [it is] 'spiritual, bright, (self-)conscious' (lingming jue). This is what is called the 'root-condition' (benran 本然) of its 'good-knowing' (liangzhi)" (Wang 86 For the background in the history of Chinese philosophy during the Song dynasty cf. also Bartosch (2015b, 182-83 The non-manifest is the driving agent within all transformation. Apart from the aforesaid difference that Wang Yangming does not think in terms of an ontonoetic hierarchy (intellect, soul, nature, physical matter) and a related value-based vertical circle of self-realization (Proclus: monḗ, próodos, epistrophḗ), but (implicitly) in the sense of circularly coordinated model of consciousness (see chapter 1), there is another partial resonance of meanings: As "nature" (phýsis) (as an emergence of cosmic theōria) produces "not by hands and must therefore remain entire" (see the first quote in this chapter), so is the "good-knowing" (liangzhi), or with an alternative term, our "spiritual brightness" (lingming) actual within that which springs forth from it. "(If ) heaven, earth, spirits, gods (and) the ten thousand things were to split apart (and) to withdraw from my spiritual brightness (lingming), there would be no more heaven, earth, spirits, gods, ten thousand things" 92 (Wang Shouren 1933c, 33, tr. DB).
In this sense of the eminent function that consciousness plays in Yangming's philosophy for the manifestation of all world-experience as such, the following passage therefore also transcends the realm of a mere "phenomenological" allusion to the problem of moral responsiveness: 93 The centre of (that which is) "not yet emerging" (wei fa)--this is the "good-knowing" (liangzhi): "no before (and no) after, (no) inside (and no) outside" (wu qianhou neiwai) "and thereby indivisibly representing one (meta-)system of vitality" (er hunranyiti)-[…] That (which is) not yet emerging "exists in the centre of that (which is) already emerging" (zai yi fa zhi zhong); and in the centre of that which is "already emerging" (yi fa), that which is not yet emerging never exists in distinction from it. That (which is) already emerging exists in the centre of that (which is) not yet emerging; and in the centre of that which is not yet emerging, that which is already emerging never exists in distinction from it: never being without movement and stillness and yet non-distinguishable in terms of movement and stillness. (Wang Shouren 1933b, 59, tr We can also say that least in a partial functional (transversal) resonance 95 with Plotinus's view,96 Yangming also expresses the higher reality of an enlightened self-knowledge, which is unfolding, experiencing, while actively "bending itself back" (the original meaning of "reflexion") to a universal source, the "true self " (zhen ji), at the same time: The "emptiness of good-knowing" (liangzhi zhi xu) is precisely the "great void of Heaven" (tian zhi taixu). The "formlessness" (wu) of the good-knowing is exactly the "formless appearance" (wu xing) of the great void. Sun, moon, wind, thunder, mountains, rivers, peoples, the (the living and non-living) entities: all have appearance, form, shape, colour and all remain in the formlessness of the great void, emerging from its centre-effective, flowing, operating-never causing disruptions (or) blockages of the sky. (Wang Shouren 1933c, 16, tr. DB) 97 The philosophical enigma of the same "emptiness" (xu 虛) as the foundation of "good-knowing" (liangzhi), which is also inherently present in subjective experience in an eminent way, and the unlimited, all-emanating objective "great void of Heaven" (tian zhi taixu) points towards the logical form of the identity of subject-object. Plotinus somehow alludes to this in his own affine way as well: "Intellect is not the intellect of one particular thing, but Intellect as a whole. And being Intellect as a whole, it is the Intellect of everything. And so since it is all Beings and belongs to all Beings even its part must possess all Beings" (Plotinus 2018, 3.8.8, 364 95 That is, with the above-stated general difference remaining. 96 Namely that of a superordinate non-materiality of "contemplation" in the sense of the subjectobjective, intellective "thinking of thinking" (noḗseōs nóēsis). Wang Yangming's identification of the "emptiness of good-knowing" (liangzhi zhi xu) and the "great void of Heaven" (tian zhi taixu) allude to the same ineffable sameness that Plotinus's philosophical image of "empty space" (erēmíā) is alluding to on this occasion--namely the very foundation of everything: an infinite unity that is effective in all distinctions, 101 because it is the connection of all possible distinction at the same time, and because the distinction is in itself without any distinction: "The line or boundary which draws all individual forms is in itself without any limit; it is in [itself] undivided" (Bartosch 2021, 136, insertion DB).
This "implicate logic" (Bartosch, 2022a) of "thinking of thinking" (noḗseōs nóēsis), namely the application of the distinction to itself, or, "containing itself " (Luhmann 2001, 245), which can also be formulated as the "unity of unity and difference" (Bartosch 2015b, e.g. 19), is implicitly hinting even beyond the logical position of Plotinus's "intellect" (noûs)-it is alluding to the same foundational dimension, the same boundless sameness, here expressed in the (implicitly negating) meaning of an "emptiness of good-knowing" (liangzhi zhi xu) and (the implicit negation) in the term "great void of Heaven" (tian zhi taixu). This is because, with regard to grasping a further implication of Wang Yangming in this context, we have to think one step further: an emptiness within a great void is an "empty" opposition (of subject-object). It therefore only alludes toward an absolute sameness, that is, a highest foundation, which, as it is to be conceived of as boundless, all-encompassing, cannot be reached by means of mere conceptual (finalizing, definition-based) thinking.-Plotinus alludes to "this" same ineffable foundation in an absolute sameness by using the terms "hén" (the One) or "agathón" (the (highest) Good).
this particular philosophical context. More literal translations wouldn't make any sense here.

Oneness and Goodness as the Core-Insight of True Humanity
Another topical field to explore in a transversal-analytical perspective with regard to Plotinus and Wang Yangming is that of an absolute oneness in relation to morality in the sense of human self-perfection and the related self-knowledge. In comparison to earlier Greek thought, Plotinus's views on self-knowledge are rather special. Also under this background, they provide a great entrance point for transversal analysis of his and Yangming's thought. As Gwenaëlle Aubry has stated, earlier Platonic thinking and ancient Greek philosophy in general had nurtured the notion of a "self [which] was to be found not as much in the dimension of interiority and self-consciousness as in that of exteriority and manifestation" (Aubry 2020, 210). 102 Plotinus, on the other hand, represents, as stressed by Aubry, a "singular position […] in this context (ibid., 211)", because for him, "the precondition of self-knowledge is the conversion to [a form of ] interiority[, which] […] is not 'subjective', much less, 'intimate' [but] bears or contains the very principles of reality, from the One-Good to Nature" (ibid., 211, insertions in brackets DB). Furthermore, "Plotinus does accept an immediate reflexivity" (ibid., 212, italics DB).
Mutatis mutandis, very similar words can be used to describe Wang Yangming's general understanding of the foundations of self-knowledge. Recall the short passage that was quoted earlier, where the heart-mind is identified with Dao 道 as well as an entrance point "to know Heaven" (zhi tian 知天) (see footnote 65). And in one of the passages cited in the last chapter, we saw that the conversion to a form of interiority (the subjective "surface-level" of the heart-mind) is a precondition to establish and practice an insight, in which subjective and objective aspects of the "self " (ji) permanently coincide. For Wang Yangming, this "true self " (zhen ji) is not only the foundation for a higher experience of the world in the sense of a sort of self-processing subject-objectivity--but of life and of the related whole of "heaven and earth" (tian-di) itself.
The term "zhen ji" reflects the truth of a "known-and-practiced" 103 sameness and unison of "I" (wo 我, wu 吾) with "heaven, earth, and the ten thousand things" (tian-di wan wu) (see footnote 91). "To know Heaven" (zhi tian) in this sense can be understood in parallel to Plotinus's description of the "contemplation" (theōria) of the "intellect" (noûs), that is, as a form of true self-knowledge, namely, to say it again, as "a contemplation that is alive, not an object of contemplation like that in another" (see footnote 82). Plotinus emphasized that "[…] one should not be focused on one's heart's [selfish] desires but on the whole universe. Such a man gives other individuals the honour due to them and always strives for that object towards which all things capable of striving are directed […]" (Plotinus 2018, 2.9.9, 222). 104 In parallel to this understanding of the possible self-perfection of consciousness that is mediated via the "intellect" (noûs), we have seen that the "origin is never without appropriateness (yuan wu fei li)" (see the quote in chapter 2). If the "willing/intentionality" (yi) that is emitted by or radiating (fadong) from the heartmind (see chapter 1) is congruent with the immediate and intuitive directionality of its inherent and innate "good-knowing" (liangzhi), it is expressing its "root-system of vitality" (benti), respectively, the origin of the "self-organizing principle of Heaven" (tianli), and therefore: the universal "true self " (zhen ji). This is affine to the aforementioned "immediate reflexivity" (Aubrey 2020, 212) that Plotinus is emphasizing, when he says that the "Good" (agathón) is to be attained "by knowing it through immediate contact with it" 105 (Plotinus 2018, 3.8.10, 367). If the "willing/intentionality" (yi) is not congruent with the "good-knowing" (liangzhi) that all other life forms are participating as well, that is, if we are getting lost in "selfish desires" (zisizili 自私自利), our willing/intentionality is evoking "evil" (e 惡) (Bartosch 2015b, 679-706). 106 A comparable distinction with regard to the problem of good and evil can be made with regard to Plotinus's "soul" (psychē). It has already been compared to Wang Yangming's notion of the "heart-mind" (xin) further above. At this point, it can be added that Plotinus's "soul" is divided in an "upper" and "lower" part (Plotinus 2018, 2.9.2, 210-11). 107 The latter is related to the typical "entanglements" of human life, and it also includes the possibilities and actualities of immoral or evil human deeds. To become a better and happier human being (ibid., 1.4), one has to actively retreat to, that is, to focus one's consciousness in the "upper" echelons that directionality of liangzhi is not actualized by the "will(ing)" (yi) in the earlier-mentioned sense (see chapter 1 on Yangming's model of consciousness and the third last paragraph here). In that case, "evil" (e) is present in the sense of a selfish aberration from the "Way" (dao).
In the context of their uses of the words "Good" (agathón) or "One" (hén), respectively, "good-knowing" (liangzhi), "Way" (Dao), and so on, both thinkers are faced with the transversal (permeable) problem horizon of ineffability, which marks our last point to discuss here: In the case of the virtuous person's soul, that which is known approaches becoming identical with the substrate which contemplates, inasmuch as it hastens to Intellect. In Intellect, it is clear that the two are already one not by appropriation, as in the case of the best soul, but in Substantiality because "thinking and Being are identical". (Plotinus 2018, 3.8.8, 363, italics DB) 112 To point at this identity in the unity of the unity and difference of the knower and the known, of subject-object in the self-knowing state of "thinking of thinking" (noḗseōs nóēsis), Plotinus is using his semantic "pointing rods" (Zeigestäbe) (Scheler 1921, 546, tr. DB) "agathón" and "hén". Like the terms "Way" (Dao) and (when used in a universal sense) "Heaven" (tian) in Wang Yangming's thought, they are both to be viewed as cataphatic 113 philosophical terms, that is, as "performative act[s] of the ineffable" (Bartosch 2015b, 276, tr. DB). The adjective "cataphatic" means that both actually allude to the same unsurmountable inexpressibility of that which is to be revealed not by means of explicit negation but by using a particular expression in a supra-conceptual fashion, that is, in the sense of implicit infinite negation (ibid., 275): For this reason, when you have uttered [the word] "the Good", don't make any mental additions. For if you add anything, you will make that to which you have added something deficient. For this reason, don't, then, even add thinking so as not to make it into something else and make it two […]. (Plotinus 2018, 3.8.11, 367, italics,

insertion in brackets DB)
Wang Yangming's use of the term "good-knowing" (liangzhi) in the following passage presents itself in a very similar form of a "logic of ineffability" (Bartosch 2015b, 233-300, "Logik der Ineffabilität"); at least in certain passages like these,

Conclusion and Outlook
The present investigation has uncovered central aspects of Plotinus's and Wang Yangming's philosophies, which at least partly resonate with each other from a transversal perspective. These "resonances" also exist because both thinkers started from comparable problems and from there, in certain respects, also developed comparable 118 solutions in view of the respective general topics. This is remarkable, because both thinkers were not influenced by the other's historical traditions of philosophy. There are no historical correlations. Nevertheless, we find certain similarities when analysing the two philosophies transversally. These commonalities, which have been introduced here, provide a necessary foundation for the development of a further, complementing train of thought that will allow us to put more emphasis on particular contentual differences. Thus, I plan to explore the differences with regard to Plotinus's views on "matter" (hýle) and Wang Yangming's understanding of "fluidum/matter-energy" (qi) as well as both thinkers' "extended" views on subjectivity and transpersonal connection or, if I may say so, the "We in I" in a future investigation from here. 119 Last not least, I believe that reflections like the ones in the present paper can serve as inspirations for the future development of more sophisticated East-West perspectives, for example, in the field of modern process philosophy. They provide further hints and also historical foundations for a modern process cosmology with a global outlook under a transversal background of as many historical roots and useful, to-be-further-developed ideas as possible. It is an important and urgent task to work on a global philosophy of nature and sustainability, which includes the best and most useful perspectives of as many ancient wisdom traditions of mankind as possible.