PHL109: Ancient Philosophy: Plotinus

Plotinus (204/5-270 CE) was the first and greatest of Neoplatonic philosophers. His writings were edited by his disciple Porphyry, who published them many years after his master's death in six sets of nine treatises each (the Enneads). Plotinus regarded Plato as his master, and his own philosophy is a profoundly original development of the Platonism of the first two centuries of the Christian era and the closely related thought of the Neopythagoreans, with some influences from Aristotle and his followers and the Stoics, whose writings he knew well but used critically. He is a unique combination of mystic and Hellenic rationalist. His thought dominated later Greek philosophy and influenced both Christians and Moslems, and is still alive today because of its union of rationality and intense religious experience. In his acclaimed edition of Plotinus, Armstrong provides excellent introductions to each treatise. His invaluable notes explain obscure passages and give reference to parallels in Plotinus and others.

Selected and newly translated with introd. and commentary by Elmer O'Brien.

Translated by Stephen MacKenna, with a foreword by E.R. Dodds and an introduction by Paul Henry.

A good insight into the neo-platonic philosopher.... the Platonic and Aristotelian sources of Plotinus's thought are given, and the influence of Plotinus on later writers is traced from St. Augustine to Tennyson. A sketch of Stephen MacKenna and a good bibliography complete the work.-- Times [London] Literary Supplement

Contents: Introduction -- A life for the sage -- The Plotinian one -- The one's knowledge -- Beauty, the beautiful, and the good -- Emanation and necessity -- Logos -- The sensible object -- The descent of the soul -- Man's free will -- Happiness -- The self and others -- The originality of Plotinus -- A common metaphor -- Prayer -- Mysticism -- Neoplatonic faith -- Conclusion.

The third century of our era -- The "Enneads" -- The fundamental problem in the philosophy of Plotinus -- The procession -- The soul -- Intelligence -- The orientalism of Plotinus -- The one -- The sensible world and matter -- Conclusion.

Contents: Plotinus : the Platonic tradition and the foundation of Neoplatonism / Maria Luisa Gatti -- Plotinus's metaphysics of the One / John Bussanich -- The hierarchical ordering of reality in Plotinus / Dominic J. O'Meara -- On soul and intellect / Henry J. Blumenthal -- Essence and existence in the Enneads / Kevin Corrigan -- Plotinus on the nature of physical reality / Michael F. Wagner -- Plotinus on matter and evil / Denis O'Brien -- Eternity and time / Andrew Smith -- Cognition and its object / Eyjólfur Kjalar Emilsson -- Self-knowledge and subjectivity in the Enneads / Sara Rappe -- Plotinus : body and soul / Stephen R.L. Clark -- Human freedom in the thought of Plotinus / Georges Leroux -- An ethic for the late antique sage / John M. Dillon -- Plotinus and language / Frederic M. Schroeder -- Plotinus and later Platonic philosophers on the causality of the First Principle / Cristina D'Ancona Costa -- Plotinus and Christian philosophy / John Rist.

2 volume set

Contents: Plotinus' Life and Works -- Soul and Body -- The Relation between Sensible and Intelligible Reality -- Soul, Intellect, and the Forms -- Intellect and the One -- Speaking of the One -- The Derivation of All Things from the One (I) -- The Derivation of All Things from the One (II) -- Evil -- Beauty -- The Return of Soul: Philosophy and Mysticism -- Plotinus in Western Thought.

Contents: Form -- Light -- Silence -- Word -- Love.

Originally presented as the author's thesis, University of Berne, 1968

This book is a revised version, with some omissions, of a Cambridge doctoral dissertation submitted in 1963: I fear that it still bears marks of its origins. The dissertation itself was the result of an earlier scheme to identify the sources of Plotinus' psychological doctrines. In the course of this work it soon became evident that it was not sufficiently clear what these doctrines were. Students of Plotinus have tended to concentrate on the higher regions of his world, and there is still no satisfactory treatment of his doctrines of the embodied soul. It is the purpose of this book to provide a fairly extensive survey of these doctrines. It does not claim to be exhaustive. Nor does it claim to add a large body of new knowledge, since over so wide a field many points have been touched on by others, if only in passing. But I hope that it may remove some misconceptions, and bring the details of Plotinus' theories into sharper focus. It had been my intention to add an introduction - mainly for the benefit of non-specialist readers - on the psychology of Plotinus' predecessors. In the meantime the Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy has appeared, and the reader who wants information on this subject may convenient1y be referred to the relevant parts of the late Professor Merlan's chapters on the predeces­ sors of Plotinus.

The 15 studies collected here reflect a prolonged interest in the Platonism of late antiquity, and most of them are concerned with its exploration of the themes of human identity and the nature of mind and soul. Modern philosophers call this kind of theorizing the philosophy of mind, and several psychological concepts and activities that feature regularly in work on the philosophy of mind - sense-perception, imagination, memory, our awareness of time - are discussed in this volume.