Plotinus

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Plotinus

Plotinus

Born

c.204/5
Lycopolis,Egypt,RomanEmpire

Died

270(aged6465)
Campania,RomanEmpire

Era

Ancientphilosophy

Region

WesternPhilosophy

School

Neoplatonism

Main

Platonism,Metaphysics,Mysticism

interests
Notable

Threeprinciples:One,theTwo,and

ideas

theThree;Emanationism;Henosis

Influences[show]

Influenced[show]

The template below (Wikidata image) is being considered for deletion. See templates for
discussion to help reach a consensus.
Partofaserieson

Neoplatonism

Concepts[show]

Works[show]

People[show]

Relatedtopics[show]

Philosophyportal

Plotinus (/pltans/; Greek: ; c. 204/5 270) was a major Greek-speaking philosopher of

the ancient world. In his philosophy there are three principles: the One, the Intellect, and the Soul.[1] His
teacher was Ammonius Saccas and he is of the Platonic tradition.[2] Historians of the 19th century

invented the term Neoplatonism[2] and applied it to him and his philosophy which was influential in Late
Antiquity. Much of the biographical information about Plotinus comes from Porphyry's preface to his
edition of Plotinus' Enneads. His metaphysical writings have inspired centuries
of Pagan, Christian, Islamic and Gnostic metaphysicians and mystics.

Contents
[hide]

1Biography

1.1Expedition to Persia and return to Rome

1.2Later life
2Major ideas

2.1One

2.2Emanation by the One

2.3The true human and happiness

2.4Against causal astrology

2.5Plotinus's Relation to Plato

2.6Plotinus and the Gnostics

3Influence

3.1Ancient world

3.2Christianity

3.3Islam

3.4Renaissance

3.5England

3.6India

4See also

5Notes

6References

7Further reading

8External links

Biography[edit]
Porphyry reported that Plotinus was 66 years old when he died in 270, the second year of the reign of
the emperor Claudius II, thus giving us the year of his teacher's birth as around 205. Eunapius reported
that Plotinus was born in the Deltaic Lycopolis in Egypt, which has led to speculations that he may have
been a native Egyptian of Roman,[3] Greek,[4] or Hellenized Egyptian[5] descent.
Plotinus had an inherent distrust of materiality (an attitude common to Platonism), holding to the view
that phenomena were a poor image or mimicry (mimesis) of something "higher and intelligible" [VI.I]
which was the "truer part of genuine Being". This distrust extended to the body, including his own; it is
reported by Porphyry that at one point he refused to have his portrait painted, presumably for much the
same reasons of dislike. Likewise Plotinus never discussed his ancestry, childhood, or his place or date
of birth. From all accounts his personal and social life exhibited the highest moral and spiritual
standards.
Plotinus took up the study of philosophy at the age of twenty-seven, around the year 232, and travelled
to Alexandria to study. There he was dissatisfied with every teacher he encountered until an
acquaintance suggested he listen to the ideas of Ammonius Saccas. Upon hearing Ammonius lecture,
he declared to his friend, "this was the man I was looking for," and began to study intently under his new
instructor. Besides Ammonius, Plotinus was also influenced by the works of Alexander of
Aphrodisias, Numenius, and various Stoics.

Expedition to Persia and return to Rome[edit]

After spending the next eleven years in Alexandria, he then decided, at the age of around 38, to
investigate the philosophical teachings of the Persian philosophers and the Indian philosophers.[6] In the
pursuit of this endeavor he left Alexandria and joined the army of Gordian III as it marched on Persia.
However, the campaign was a failure, and on Gordian's eventual death Plotinus found himself
abandoned in a hostile land, and only with difficulty found his way back to safety in Antioch.
At the age of forty, during the reign of Philip the Arab, he came to Rome, where he stayed for most of the
remainder of his life. There he attracted a number of students. His innermost circle
included Porphyry, Amelius Gentilianus of Tuscany, the Senator Castricius Firmus, and Eustochius of
Alexandria, a doctor who devoted himself to learning from Plotinus and attending to him until his death.
Other students included: Zethos, an Arab by ancestry who died before Plotinus, leaving him a legacy
and some land; Zoticus, a critic and poet; Paulinus, a doctor of Scythopolis; and Serapion from
Alexandria. He had students amongst the Roman Senate beside Castricius, such as Marcellus
Orontius, Sabinillus, and Rogantianus. Women were also numbered amongst his students, including
Gemina, in whose house he lived during his residence in Rome, and her daughter, also Gemina; and
Amphiclea, the wife of Ariston the son of Iamblichus.[7] Finally, Plotinus was a correspondent of the
philosopher Cassius Longinus.

Later life[edit]
While in Rome Plotinus also gained the respect of the Emperor Gallienus and his wife Salonina. At one
point Plotinus attempted to interest Gallienus in rebuilding an abandoned settlement in Campania,
known as the 'City of Philosophers', where the inhabitants would live under the constitution set out
in Plato's Laws. An Imperial subsidy was never granted, for reasons unknown to Porphyry, who reports
the incident.
Porphyry subsequently went to live in Sicily, where word reached him that his former teacher had died.
The philosopher spent his final days in seclusion on an estate in Campania which his friend Zethos had
bequeathed him. According to the account of Eustochius, who attended him at the end, Plotinus' final
words were: "Strive to give back the Divine in yourselves to the Divine in the All." ["The Six Enneads"
translated by Stephen Mackenna and B. S. Page.] Eustochius records that a snake crept under the bed

where Plotinus lay, and slipped away through a hole in the wall; at the same moment the philosopher
died.
Plotinus wrote the essays that became the Enneads over a period of several years from ca. 253 until a
few months before his death seventeen years later. Porphyry makes note that the Enneads, before being
compiled and arranged by himself, were merely the enormous collection of notes and essays which
Plotinus used in his lectures and debates, rather than a formal book. Plotinus was unable to revise his
own work due to his poor eyesight, yet his writings required extensive editing, according to Porphyry: his
master's handwriting was atrocious, he did not properly separate his words, and he cared little for
niceties of spelling. Plotinus intensely disliked the editorial process, and turned the task to Porphyry, who
not only polished them but put them into the arrangement we now have.

Major ideas[edit]
One[edit]

See also: Substance theory

Plotinus taught that there is a supreme, totally transcendent "One", containing no division, multiplicity or
distinction; beyond all categories of being and non-being. His "One" "cannot be any existing thing", nor is
it merely the sum of all things [compare the Stoic doctrine of disbelief in non-material existence], but "is
prior to all existents". Plotinus identified his "One" with the concept of 'Good' and the principle of
'Beauty'. [I.6.9]
His "One" concept encompassed thinker and object. Even the self-contemplating intelligence
(the noesis of the nous) must contain duality. "Once you have uttered 'The Good,' add no further
thought: by any addition, and in proportion to that addition, you introduce a deficiency." [III.8.11] Plotinus
denies sentience, self-awareness or any other action (ergon) to the One [V.6.6]. Rather, if we insist on
describing it further, we must call the One a sheer potentiality (dynamis) or without which nothing could
exist. [III.8.10] As Plotinus explains in both places and elsewhere [e.g. V.6.3], it is impossible for the One
to be Being or a self-aware Creator God. At [V.6.4], Plotinus compared the One to "light", the
Divine Nous (first will towards Good) to the "Sun", and lastly the Soul to the "Moon" whose light is merely
a "derivative conglomeration of light from the 'Sun'". The first light could exist without any celestial body.
The One, being beyond all attributes including being and non-being, is the source of the worldbut not
through any act of creation, willful or otherwise, since activity cannot be ascribed to the unchangeable,
immutable One. Plotinus argues instead that the multiple cannot exist without the simple. The "less
perfect" must, of necessity, "emanate", or issue forth, from the "perfect" or "more perfect". Thus, all of
"creation" emanates from the One in succeeding stages of lesser and lesser perfection. These stages
are not temporally isolated, but occur throughout time as a constant process. Later Neoplatonic
philosophers, especially Iamblichus, added hundreds of intermediate beings as emanations between the
One and humanity; but Plotinus' system was much simpler in comparison.[citation needed]
The One is not just an intellectual conception but something that can be experienced, an experience
where one goes beyond all multiplicity.[8] Plotinus writes, "We ought not even to say that he will see, but
he will be that which he sees, if indeed it is possible any longer to distinguish between seer and seen,
and not boldly to affirm that the two are one."[9]

Emanation by the One[edit]

Superficially considered, Plotinus seems to offer an alternative to the orthodox Christian notion of
creation ex nihilo (out of nothing), although Plotinus never mentions Christianity in any of his works. The
metaphysics of Emanation, however, just like the metaphysics of Creation, confirms the absolute
transcendence of the One or of the Divine, as the source of the Being of all things that yet remains
transcendent of them in its own nature; the One is in no way affected or diminished by these
emanations, just as the Christian God in no way is affected by some sort of exterior "nothingness".
Plotinus, using a venerable analogy that would become crucial for the (largely Neoplatonic) metaphysics
of developed Christian thought, likens the One to the Sun which emanates light indiscriminately without

thereby diminishing itself, or reflection in a mirror which in no way diminishes or otherwise alters the
object being reflected.[citation needed]
The first emanation is Nous (Divine Mind, Logos, Order, Thought, Reason), identified metaphorically
with the Demiurge in Plato's Timaeus. It is the first Will toward Good. From Nous proceeds the World
Soul, which Plotinus subdivides into upper and lower, identifying the lower aspect of Soul with nature.
From the world soul proceeds individual human souls, and finally, matter, at the lowest level of being and
thus the least perfected level of the cosmos. Despite this relatively pedestrian assessment of the
material world, Plotinus asserted the ultimately divine nature of material creation since it ultimately
derives from the One, through the mediums of nous and the world soul. It is by the Good or through
beauty that we recognize the One, in material things and then in the Forms.[10]
The essentially devotional nature of Plotinus' philosophy may be further illustrated by his concept of
attaining ecstatic union with the One (henosis). Porphyry relates that Plotinus attained such a union four
times during the years he knew him. This may be related to enlightenment, liberation, and other
concepts of mystical union common to many Eastern and Western traditions.[citation needed]

The true human and happiness[edit]

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The philosophy of Plotinus has always exerted a peculiar fascination upon those whose discontent with
things as they are has led them to seek the realities behind what they took to be merely the appearances
of the sense.
The philosophy of Plotinus: representative books from the Enneads, p. vii[11]
Authentic human happiness for Plotinus consists of the true human identifying with that which is the best
in the universe. Because happiness is beyond anything physical, Plotinus stresses the point that worldly
fortune does not control true human happiness, and thus there exists no single human being that
does not either potentially or effectively possess this thing we hold to constitute happiness. (Enneads
I.4.4) The issue of happiness is one of Plotinus greatest imprints on Western thought, as he is one of
the first to introduce the idea that eudaimonia (happiness) is attainable only within consciousness.
The true human is an incorporeal contemplative capacity of the soul, and superior to all things corporeal.
It then follows that real human happiness is independent of the physical world. Real happiness is,
instead, dependent on the metaphysical and authentic human being found in this highest capacity of
Reason. For man, and especially the Proficient, is not the Couplement of Soul and body: the proof is
that man can be disengaged from the body and disdain its nominal goods. (Enneads I.4.14) The human
who has achieved happiness will not be bothered by sickness, discomfort, etc., as his focus is on the
greatest things. Authentic human happiness is the utilization of the most authentically human capacity of
contemplation. Even in daily, physical action, the flourishing humans Act is determined by the higher
phase of the Soul. (Enneads III.4.6) Even in the most dramatic arguments Plotinus considers (if the
Proficient is subject to extreme physical torture, for example), he concludes this only strengthens his
claim of true happiness being metaphysical, as the truly happy human being would understand that
which is being tortured is merely a body, not the conscious self, and happiness could persist.
Plotinus offers a comprehensive description of his conception of a person who has
achieved eudaimonia. The perfect life involves a man who commands reason and contemplation.
(Enneads I.4.4) A happy person will not sway between happy and sad, as many of Plotinus
contemporaries believed. Stoics, for example, question the ability of someone to be happy
(presupposing happiness is contemplation) if they are mentally incapacitated or even asleep. Plotinus
disregards this claim, as the soul and true human do not sleep or even exist in time, nor will a living
human who has achieved eudaimonia suddenly stop using its greatest, most authentic capacity just
because of the bodys discomfort in the physical realm. The Proficients will is set always and only
inward. (Enneads I.4.11)

Overall, happiness for Plotinus is "...a flight from this world's ways and things." (Theat 176AB) and a
focus on the highest, i.e. Forms and The One.

Against causal astrology[edit]

Plotinus seems to be one of the first to argue against the still popular notion of causal astrology. In the
late tractate 2.3, "Are the stars causes?", Plotinus makes the argument that specific stars influencing
one's fortune (a common Hellenistic theme) attributes irrationality to a perfect universe, and invites moral
turpitude.[clarification needed] He does, however, claim the stars and planets are ensouled, as witnessed by
their movement.

Plotinus's Relation to Plato[edit]

See Also, Allegorical interpretations of Plato

For several centuries after the Protestant Reformation, Neo-Platonism was condemned as a decadent
and 'oriental' distortion of Platonism. In a famous 1929 essay, E. R. Dodds showed that key conceptions
of Neo-Platonism could be traced from their origin in Plato's dialogues, through his immediate followers
(e.g., Speusippus) and the Neo-Pythagoreans, to Plotinus and the Neo-Platonists. Thus Plotinus'
philosophy was, he argued, 'not the starting-point of Neo-Platonism but its intellectual
culmination.'[12] Further research reinforced this view and by 1954 Merlan could say 'The present
tendency is toward bridging rather than widening the gap separating Platonism from Neo-Platonism.'[13]
Since the 1950s, the Tbingen School of Plato interpretation has argued that the so-called 'unwritten
doctrines' of Plato debated by Aristotle and the Early Academy strongly resemble Plotinus's
metaphysics. In this case, the Neo-Platonic reading of Plato would be, at least in this central area,
historically justified. This implies that Neo-Platonism is less of an innovation than it appears without the
recognition of Plato's unwritten doctrines. Advocates of the Tbingen School emphasize this advantage
of their interpretation. They see Plotinus as advancing a tradition of thought begun by Plato himself.
Plotinus's metaphysics, at least in broad outline, was therefore already familiar to the first generation of
Plato's students. This confirms Plotinus' own view, for he considered himself not the inventor of a system
but the faithful interpreter of Plato's doctrines.[14]

Plotinus and the Gnostics[edit]

See also: Neoplatonism and Gnosticism
At least two modern conferences within Hellenic philosophy fields of study have been held in order to
address what Plotinus stated in his tract Against the Gnostics and whom he was addressing it to, in
order to separate and clarify the events and persons involved in the origin of the term "Gnostic". From
the dialogue, it appears that the word had an origin in the Platonic and Hellenistic tradition long before
the group calling themselves "Gnostics"or the group covered under the modern term "Gnosticism"
ever appeared. It would seem that this shift from Platonic to Gnostic usage has led many people to
confusion. The strategy of sectarians taking Greek terms from philosophical contexts and re-applying
them to religious contexts was popular in Christianity, the Cult of Isis and other ancient religious contexts
including Hermetic ones (see Alexander of Abonutichus for an example).
Plotinus and the Neoplatonists viewed Gnosticism as a form of heresy or sectarianism to
the Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy of the Mediterranean and Middle East.[note 1] He accused them
of using senseless jargon and being overly dramatic and insolent in their distortion of Plato's
ontology."[note 2] Plotinus attacks his opponents as untraditional, irrational and immoral[note 3][note 4] and
arrogant.[note 5] He also attacks them as elitist and blasphemous to Plato for the Gnostics despising the
material world and its maker.[note 6]
The Neoplatonic movement (though Plotinus would have simply referred to himself as a philosopher of
Plato) seems to be motivated by the desire of Plotinus to revive the pagan philosophical tradition.[note
7]
Plotinus was not claiming to innovate with the Enneads, but to clarify aspects of the works of Plato that
he considered misrepresented or misunderstood.[2] Plotinus does not claim to be an innovator, but rather

a communicator of a tradition.[16] Plotinus referred to tradition as a way to interpret Plato's intentions.

Because the teachings of Plato were for members of the academy rather than the general public, it was
easy for outsiders to misunderstand Plato's meaning. However, Plotinus attempted to clarify how the
philosophers of the academy had not arrived at the same conclusions (such
as misotheism or dystheism of the creator God as an answer to the problem of evil) as the targets of his
criticism.

Influence[edit]
Ancient world[edit]
The emperor Julian the Apostate was deeply influenced by Neoplatonism, as was Hypatia of Alexandria,
as well as many Christians, most notably Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. St. Augustine, though often
referred to as a "Platonist," acquired his Platonist philosophy through the mediation of the Neoplatonist
teachings of Plotinus.[citation needed]

Christianity[edit]
Plotinus' philosophy had an influence on the development of Christian theology. In A History of Western
Philosophy, philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote that:
To the Christian, the Other World was the Kingdom of Heaven, to be enjoyed after death; to the
Platonist, it was the eternal world of ideas, the real world as opposed to that of illusory appearance.
Christian theologians combined these points of view, and embodied much of the philosophy of Plotinus.
[...] Plotinus, accordingly, is historically important as an influence in moulding the Christianity of the
Middle Ages and of theology.[17]
The Eastern Orthodox position on energy, for example, is often contrasted with the position of
the Roman Catholic Church, and in part this is attributed to varying interpretations of Aristotle and
Plotinus, either through Thomas Aquinas for the Roman Catholics or Gregory of Nyssa for the Orthodox
Christians.[citation needed]

Islam[edit]
Neoplatonism and the ideas of Plotinus influenced medieval Islam as well, since
the Sunni Abbasids fused Greek concepts into sponsored state texts, and found great influence amongst
the Ismaili Shia.[18] Persian philosophers as well, such as Muhammad al-Nasafi and Abu Yaqub Sijistani.
By the 11th century, Neoplatonism was adopted by the Fatimid state of Egypt, and taught by their da'i.
[18]
Neoplatonism was brought to the Fatimid court by Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani, although his teachings
differed from Nasafi and Sijistani, who were more aligned with original teachings of Plotinus.[19] The
teachings of Kirmani in turn influenced philosophers such as Nasir Khusraw of Persia.[19]

Renaissance[edit]
In the Renaissance the philosopher Marsilio Ficino set up an Academy under the patronage of Cosimo
de Medici in Florence, mirroring that of Plato. His work was of great importance in reconciling the
philosophy of Plato directly with Christianity. One of his most distinguished pupils was Pico della
Mirandola, author of An Oration On the Dignity of Man. Our term 'Neo Platonist' has its origins in the
Renaissance.[citation needed]

England[edit]
In England, Plotinus was the cardinal influence on the 17th-century school of the Cambridge Platonists,
and on numerous writers from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to W. B. Yeats and Kathleen Raine.[citation needed]

India[edit]
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Ananda Coomaraswamy used the writing of Plotinus in their own texts as
a superlative elaboration upon Indian monism, specifically Upanishadic and Advaita Vedantic thought.

Coomaraswamy has compared Plotinus' teachings to the Hindu school of Advaita

Vedanta (advaita meaning "not two" or "non-dual").[20]
[citation needed]

Advaita Vedanta and Neoplatonism have been compared by J. F. Staal,[21] Frederick Copleston,[22] Aldo
Magris and Mario Piantelli,[23] Radhakrishnan,[24] Gwen Griffith-Dickson,[25] and John Y. Fenton.[26]
The joint influence of Advaitin and Neoplatonic ideas on Ralph Waldo Emerson was considered by Dale
Riepe in 1967.[27][full citation needed]

See also[edit]

AntiochusofAscalon

DisciplesofPlotinus

Ecstasyinphilosophy

Emanationism

FormoftheGood

AllegoricalinterpretationsofPlato

Notes[edit]
1.

Jump up^ From Introduction to Against the Gnostics Plotinus' Enneads as

translated by A. H. Armstrong, pp. 220222:
The treatise as it stands in the Enneads is a most powerful protest on behalf
of Hellenic philosophy against the un-Hellenic heresy (as it was from the Platonist as well
as the orthodox Christian point of view) of Gnosticism. There were Gnostics among
Plotinus's own friends, whom he had not succeeded in converting (Enneads ch.10 of this
treatise) and he and his pupils devoted considerable time and energy to anti-Gnostic
controversy (Life of Plotinus ch.16). He obviously considered Gnosticism an extremely
dangerous influence, likely to pervert the minds even of members of his own circle. It is
impossible to attempt to give an account of Gnosticism here. By far the best discussion of
what the particular group of Gnostics Plotinus knew believed is M. Puech's admirable
contribution to Entretiens Hardt V (Les Sourcesde Plotin). But it is important for the
understanding of this treatise to be clear about the reasons why Plotinus disliked them so
intensely and thought their influence so harmful.

2.

Jump up^ From Introduction to Against the Gnostics Plotinus' Enneads as

translated by A. H. Armstrong, pp. 220222:
Short statement of the doctrine of the three hypostasis, the One, Intellect and Soul; there
cannot be more or fewer than these three.
1. Criticism of the attempts to multiply the hypostasis, and especially of the idea of two
intellects, one which thinks and that other which thinks that it thinks. (Enneads Against the
Gnostics ch. 1). The true doctrine of Soul (ch. 2).
2. - The law of necessary procession and the eternity of the universe (ch. 3).
- Attack on the Gnostic doctrine of the making of the universe by a fallen soul, and on

their despising of the universe and the heavenly bodies (chs. 45).
- The sense-less jargon of the Gnostics, their plagiarism from and perversion of Plato,
and their insolent arrogance (ch. 6).
3. The true doctrine about Universal Soul and the goodness of the universe which it forms
and rules (chs. 78).
4. Refutation of objections from the inequalities and injustices of human life (ch. 9).
5. Ridiculous arrogance of the Gnostics who refuse to acknowledge the hierarchy of
created gods and spirits and say that they alone are sons of God and superior to the
heavens (ch. 9).
6. The absurdities of the Gnostic doctrine of the fall of "Wisdom" (Sophia) and of the
generation and activities of the Demiurge, maker of the visible universe (chs. 1012).
7. False and melodramatic Gnostic teaching about the cosmic spheres and their influence
(ch. 13).
8. The blasphemous falsity of the Gnostic claim to control the higher powers by magic
and the absurdity of their claim to cure diseases by casting out demons (ch. 14).
9. The false other-worldliness of the Gnostics leads to immorality (ch. 15).
10. The true Platonic other-worldliness, which love and venerates the material universe in
all its goodness and beauty as the most perfect possible image of the intelligible,
contracted at length with the false, Gnostic, other-worldliness which hates and despises
the material universe and its beauties (chs. 1618).
A. H. Lawrence, Introduction to Against the Gnostics Plotinus' Enneads, pages 220222
3.

Jump up^ From Introduction to Against the Gnostics Plotinus' Enneads as

translated by A. H. Armstrong, pp. 220222:
The teaching of the Gnostics seems to him untraditional, irrational and immoral. They
despise and revile the ancient Platonic teaching and claim to have a new and superior
wisdom of their own: but in fact anything that is true in their teaching comes from Plato,
and all they have done themselves is to add senseless complications and pervert the true
traditional doctrine into a melodramatic, superstitious fantasy designed to feed their own
delusions of grandeur. They reject the only true way of salvation through wisdom and
virtue, the slow patient study of truth and pursuit of perfection by men who respect the
wisdom of the ancients and the know their place in the universe. Pages 220222

4.

Jump up^ Introduction to Against the Gnostics Plotinus' Enneads as translated

by A. H. Armstrong, pp. 220222:
9. The false other-worldiness of the Gnostics leads to immorality (Enneads ch. 15).

5.

Jump up^ Introduction to Against the Gnostics Plotinus' Enneads as translated

by A. H. Armstrong, pp. 220222:
Ridiculous arrogance of the Gnostics who refuse to acknowledge the hierarchy of created
gods and spirits and say that they alone are sons of God and superior to the heavens
(Enneads ch. 9)

6.

Jump up^ They claim to be a privileged caste of beings, in whom alone God is
interested, and who are saved not by their own efforts but by some dramatic and arbitrary
divine proceeding; and this, Plotinus says, leads to immorality. Worst of all, they despise
and hate the material universe and deny its goodness and the goodness of its maker.
This for a Platonist is utter blasphemy, and all the worse because it obviously derives to
some extent from the sharply other-worldly side of Plato's own teaching (e.g. in
the Phaedo). At this point in his attack Plotinus comes very close in some ways to the
orthodox Christian opponents of Gnosticism, who also insist that this world is the good

work of God in his goodness. But, here as on the question of salvation, the doctrine which
Plotinus is defending is as sharply opposed on other ways to orthodox Christianity as to
Gnosticism: for he maintains not only the goodness of the material universe but also its
eternity and its divinity. The idea that the universe could have a beginning and end is
inseparably connected in his mind with the idea that the divine action in making it is
arbitrary and irrational. And to deny the divinity (though a subordinate and dependent
divinity) of the World-Soul, and of those noblest of embodied living beings the heavenly
bodies, seems to him both blasphemous and unreasonable. Pages 220222
7.

Jump up^ "... as Plotinus had endeavored to revive the religious spirit of
paganism".[15]

References[edit]
1.

Jump up^ "Who was Plotinus?".

2.

^ Jump up to:a b c Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Plotinus.

3.

Jump up^ "Plotinus." The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth

Edition. Columbia University Press, 2003.

4.

Jump up^ "Plotinus." The Concise Oxford Companion to Classical Literature.

Oxford University Press, 1993, 2003.

5.

Jump up^ Bilolo, M.: La notion de lUn dans les Ennades de Plotin et dans
les Hymnes thbains. Contribution ltude des sources gyptiennes du noplatonisme. In: D. Kessler, R. Schulz (Eds.), "Gedenkschrift fr Winfried Barta tp dj n
zj" (Mnchner gyptologische Untersuchungen, Bd. 4), Frankfurt; Berlin; Bern; New
York; Paris; Wien: Peter Lang, 1995, pp. 6791.

6.

Jump up^ Porphyry, On the Life of Plotinus and the Order of His Books, Ch. 3 (in
Armstrong's Loeb translation, "he became eager to make acquaintance with the Persian
philosophical discipline and that prevailing among the Indians").

7.

Jump up^ Porphyry, Vita Plotini, 9. See also Emma C. Clarke, John M. Dillon,
and Jackson P. Hershbell (1999), Iamblichus on The Mysteries, page xix. SBL. who say
that "to gain some credible chronology, one assumes that Ariston married Amphicleia
some time after Plotinus's death"

8.

Jump up^ Stace, W. T. (1960) The Teachings of the Mystics, New York, Signet,
pp. 110123

9.

Jump up^ Stace, W. T. (1960) The Teachings of the Mystics, New York, Signet,

p122
10.
11.

Jump up^ I.6.6 and I.6.9

Jump up^ Plotinus (1950). The philosophy of Plotinus: representative books from
the Enneads. Appleton-Century-Crofts. p. vii. Retrieved 1 February 2012.

12.

Jump up^ E. R. Dodds, 'The Parmenides of Plato and the Origin of the
Neoplatonic One,' The Classical Quarterly, v. 22, No. 3/4, 1928, pp. 129-142, esp. 140.

13.

Jump up^ Philip Merlan, From Platonism to Neoplatonism (The Hague: Martinus
Nijhoff, 1954, 1968), p. 3.

14.

Jump up^ Detlef Thiel: Die Philosophie des Xenokrates im Kontext der Alten
Akademie, Mnchen 2006, pp. 197ff. and note 64; Jens Halfwassen: Der Aufstieg zum
Einen.

15.

Jump up^ A Biographical History of Philosophy, by George Henry Lewes

Published 1892, G. Routledge & Sons, LTD, p. 294

16.

Jump up^ Pseudo-Dionysius in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

17.

Jump up^ "A History of Western Philosophy." Bertrand Russell. Simon and
Schuster, INC. 1945. pp. 284285

18.

^ Jump up to:a b Heinz Halm, Shi'ism, Columbia University Press, 2004, p. 176.

19.

^ Jump up to:a b Heinz Halm, Shi'ism, Columbia University Press, 2004, p. 177.

20.

Jump up^ Swami-krishnananda.org

21.

Jump up^ J. F. Staal (1961), Advaita and Neoplatonism: A critical study in

comparative philosophy, Madras: University of Madras

22.

Jump up^ Frederick Charles Copleston. "Religion and the One 19791981".
Giffordlectures.org. Retrieved 2010-01-08.

23.

Jump up^ Special section "Fra Oriente e Occidente" in Annuario filosofico No. 6
(1990), including the articles "Plotino e l'India" by Aldo Magris and "L'India e Plotino" by
Mario Piantelli

24.

Jump up^ Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (ed.)(1952), History of Philosophy Eastern

and Western, Vol.2. London: George Allen & Unwin. p. 114

25.

Jump up^ "Creator (or not?)". Gresham.ac.uk. Retrieved 2010-01-08.

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Jump up^ John Y. Fenton (1981), "Mystical Experience as a Bridge for CrossCultural Philosophy of Religion: A Critique", Journal of the American Academy of
Religion, p. 55

27.

Jump up^ Dale Riepe (1967), "Emerson and Indian Philosophy", Journal of the
History of Ideas

Further reading[edit]
Critical editions of the Greek text

mile Brhier, Plotin: Ennades (with French translation), Collection Bud, 19241938.

Paul Henry and Hans-Rudolf Schwyzer (eds.), Editio maior (3 volumes), Paris, Descle de
Brouwer, 19511973.

Paul Henry and Hans-Rudolf Schwyzer (eds.), Editio minor, Oxford, Oxford Classical Text,
19641982.

Complete English translation

Plotinus. The Enneads (translated by Stephen MacKenna), London, Medici Society, 1917
1930.

A. H. Armstrong, Plotinus. Enneads (with Greek text), Loeb Classical Library, 7 vol., 1966
1988.

Thomas Taylor, Collected Writings of Plotinus, Frome, Prometheus Trust, 1994. ISBN 1898910-02-2 (contains approximately half of the Enneads)

Lexica

J. H. Sleeman and G. Pollet, Lexicon Plotinianum, Leiden, 1980.

Roberto Radice (ed.), Lexicon II: Plotinus, Milan, Biblia, 2004. (Electronic edition by Roberto
Bombacigno)

The Life of Plotinus by Porphyry

Porphyry, "On the Life of Plotinus and the Arrangement of his Works" in Mark Edwards
(ed.), Neoplatonic Saints: The Lives of Plotinus and Proclus by their Students, Liverpool, Liverpool
University Press, 2000.

Anthologies of texts in translation, with annotations

Kevin Corrigan, Reading Plotinus: A Practical Introduction to Neoplatonism, West

Lafayette, Purdue University Press, 2005.

John M. Dillon and Lloyd P. Gerson, Neoplatonic Philosophy: Introductory Readings, Hackett,
2004.

Introductory works

Kevin Corrigan, Reading Plotinus. A Practical Introduction to Neoplatonism, Purdue University

Press, 1995.

Lloyd P. Gerson, Plotinus, New York, Routledge, 1994.

LLoyd P. Gerson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, Cambridge, 1996.

Dominic J. O'Meara, Plotinus. An Introduction to the Enneads, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993.
(Reprinted 2005)
John M. Rist, Plotinus. The Road to Reality, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1967.

Major commentaries in English

Cinzia Arruzza, Plotinus: Ennead II.5, On What Is Potentially and What Actually, The Enneads
of Plotinus Series edited by John M. Dillon and Andrew Smith, Parmenides Publishing, 2015, ISBN
978-1-930972-63-6

Michael Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1, On the Three Principal Hypostases, Oxford, 1983.

Kevin Corrigan, Plotinus' Theory of Matter-Evil: Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander of

Aphrodisias (II.4, II.5, III.6, I.8), Leiden, 1996.

John N. Deck, Nature, Contemplation and the One: A Study in the Philosophy of
Plotinus, University of Toronto Press, 1967; Paul Brunton Philosophical Foundation, 1991.

John M. Dillon, H.J. Blumenthal, Plotinus: Ennead IV.3-4.29, "Problems Concerning the
Soul, The Enneads of Plotinus Series edited by John M. Dillon and Andrew Smith, Parmenides
Publishing, 2015, ISBN 978-1-930972-89-6

Eyjlfur K. Emilsson, Steven K. Strange, Plotinus: Ennead VI.4 & VI.5: On the Presence of
Being, One and the Same, Everywhere as a Whole, The Enneads of Plotinus Series edited by John
M. Dillon and Andrew Smith, Parmenides Publishing, 2015, ISBN 978-1-930972-34-6

Barrie Fleet, Plotinus: Ennead III.6, On the Impassivity of the Bodiless, Oxford, 1995.

Barrie Fleet, Plotinus: Ennead IV.8, On the Descent of the Soul into Bodies, The Enneads of
Plotinus Series edited by John M. Dillon and Andrew Smith, Parmenides Publishing, 2012. ISBN
978-1-930972-77-3

Lloyd P. Gerson, Plotinus: Ennead V.5, That the Intelligibles are not External to the Intellect,
and on the Good, The Enneads of Plotinus Series edited by John M. Dillon and Andrew Smith,
Parmenides Publishing, 2013, ISBN 978-1-930972-85-8

Gary M. Gurtler, SJ, Plotinus: Ennead IV.4.30-45 & IV.5, "Problems Concerning the Soul, The
Enneads of Plotinus Series edited by John M. Dillon and Andrew Smith, Parmenides Publishing,
2015, ISBN 978-1-930972-69-8

W. Helleman-Elgersma, Soul-Sisters. A Commentary on Enneads IV, 3 (27), 18 of Plotinus,

Amsterdam, 1980.

James Luchte, Early Greek Thought: Before the Dawn. London: Bloomsbury Publishing,
2011. ISBN 978-0567353313.

Kieran McGroarty, Plotinus on Eudaimonia: A Commentary on Ennead I.4, Oxford, 2006.

P. A. Meijer, Plotinus on the Good or the One (VI.9), Amsterdam, 1992.

H. Oosthout, Modes of Knowledge and the Transcendental: An Introduction to Plotinus Ennead

V.3, Amsterdam, 1991.

J. Wilberding, Plotinus' Cosmology. A study of Ennead II. 1 (40), Oxford, 2006.

A. M. Wolters, Plotinus on Eros (eNN. III.5), Amsterdam, 1972.

General works on Neoplatonism

Robert M. Berchman, From Philo to Origen: Middle Platonism in Transition, Chico, Scholars
Press, 1984.
Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy: Vol. 1, Part 2. ISBN 0-385-00210-6

P. Merlan, "Greek Philosophy from Plato to Plotinus" in A. H. Armstrong (ed.), The Cambridge
History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, Cambridge, 1967. ISBN 0-521-04054-X
Pauliina Remes, Neoplatonism (Ancient Philosophies), University of California Press, 2008.

Thomas Taylor, The fragments that remain of the lost writings of Proclus, surnamed the
Platonic successor, London, 1825. (Selene Books reprint edition, 1987. ISBN 0-933601-11-5)

Richard T. Wallis, Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, University of Oklahoma, 1984. ISBN 0-79141337-3 and ISBN 0-7914-1338-1

Studies on some aspects of Plotinus' work

R. B. Harris (ed.), Neoplatonism and Indian Thought, Albany, 1982.

Giannis Stamatellos, Plotinus and the Presocratics. A Philosophical Study of Presocratic

Influences in Plotinus' Enneads, Albany, 2008.

N. Joseph Torchia, Plotinus, Tolma, and the Descent of Being, New York, Peter Lang,
1993. ISBN 0-8204-1768-8

Antonia Tripolitis, The Doctrine of the Soul in the thought of Plotinus and Origen, Libra
Publishers, 1978.

M. F. Wagner (ed.), Neoplatonism and Nature. Studies in Plotinus' Enneads, Albany, 2002.

External links[edit]
Wikiquotehasquotations
relatedto:Plotinus
Wikisourcehasoriginal
workswrittenbyorabout:
Plotinus
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originaltextrelatedtothis
article:

Works by Plotinus at Project Gutenberg

Works by or about Plotinus at Internet Archive

Text of the Enneads

Greek original (page scans of Adolf Kirchhoff's 1856 Teubner edition) with English (complete)
and French (partial) translations;

Online English translations

The Internet Classics Archive of MIT The Six Enneads, translated into English by Stephen
MacKenna and B.S. Page.

On the Intelligible Beauty, translated by Thomas Taylor Ennead V viii(see also the Catalog of
other books which include Porphyry, Plotinus' biographer - TTS Catalog).

Philosophy Archive: An Essay on the Beautiful, translated into English by Thomas Taylor in
1917

On the First Good and the Other Goods, Ennead 1.7 Translated by Eric S. Fallick, 2011

On Dialectic, Ennead 1.3 Translated by Eric S. Fallick, 2015

Encyclopedias

Gerson, Lloyd P. "Plotinus". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Moore, Edward. "Plotinus". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Bibliographies

In English, by Richard Dufour.

In French by Pierre Thillet.

Plotinus' Criticism of Aristotle's Categories (Enneads VI, 1-3) with an annotated bibliography