Plotinus

Paper draft on the concept of participation in the Late Antique thought of Plotinus and Dionysius the Areopagite.

This paper offers a contemporary reinterpretation of Plotinus’s doctrine of emanation by translating the metaphysical sequence One → Nous → Psyche into an ontological–phenomenological account of human experience. The Plotinean One is refigured as the Ontological Now: the immediate, objective presence of reality as experienced under maximal present-constraint, with minimal conceptual and narrative mediation. Nous is interpreted as the shared human archetype, encompassing biological, cognitive, and symbolic structures that universally organize perception and meaning. Psyche is understood as the narrative self, (...) in which personal history, language, and cultural context generate an individualized sense of identity and a subject–object divide. By integrating insights from phenomenology, cognitive science, and depth psychology, the paper reframes emanation not as a supernatural cosmology but as a layered process of mediation through which presence becomes meaning and meaning becomes personal story. The analysis further explores the Plotinean return (epistrophē) as a phenomenological reversal: a movement of introspection and de-mediation that increases present-constraint, reducing narrative mediation within experience. This reinterpretation situates Plotinus within contemporary debates on consciousness and selfhood, suggesting that ontological grounding in the present has implications for metaphysics, psychology, and contemplative practice. (shrink)

In Plotinus' Philosophical system of the world we can see three hypostases which result from each other vertically. They include: the One, the intellect, and the soul.There are various views concerning the genesis of the world, such as the theory of creation, which is suggested by holy books, the theory of theophany and manifestation, which belongs to gnostics, and the theory of emanation, in which most philosophers believe.Concerning the genesis of the world, Plotinus believed in emanation. This word is derived (...) from the Latin word "emanatio", meaning eruption from somewhere. According to Plotinus, the One is not the creator of the world so that He could create voluntarily. The world is the overflow of Divine springing. The One cannot create the world according to His free will because creation is a kind of activity, and attributing an act to God disrupts His Stability and is, therefore, a mistake. Thus Plotinus resorted to the metaphor of "emanation". He believed that God does not decrease by being emanated. He tried to follow a middle way between monotheistic creation, on the one hand, and pantheism, on the other. (shrink)

The oneness of being is still one of the most exciting and, at the same time, critical and controversial issues in the field of religious sciences. However, a correct study of it can decrease the number of the involved controversies to some extent. The writer has chosen Plotinus for this study because the Neo-Platonic philosophy, which has Plotinus as its founder, has influenced the thoughts of Muslim thinkers in the fields of gnosis and philosophy. This influence has been exercised through (...) the books Uthulugiya and The Book of Causes. When dealing with the degree that Neo-Platonic philosophy has influenced Islamic philosophy and, particularly, gnosis, some historians in the areas of philosophy and gnosis have gone into such extremes that they have introduced this school as the origin of all the ideas of Islamic thinkers. In this paper, it has been tried to inquire into one of the most important gnostic issues, namely, the oneness of being, from the viewpoints of Plotinus and some Neo-Platonists. It is also intended to clarify whether prominent gnostics, such as Ibn Arabi, and believers in the oneness of being had been influenced by Plotinus, or whether this issue was among the innovations of Muslim gnostics. (shrink)

The paper follows the development of the concept of transcendence ‹e)pe/keina› from the time when it first entered philosophy in Plato’s The Republic up to Plotinus, who thought it through in all its essential dimensions. In common with some thinkers before him, Plotinus thought of the concept of transcendence in the light of the absolute one Plato analyzed in the first hypothesis of Parmenides. The paper also shows how Plotinus understood transcendence with regard to Being and to thinking. The paper (...) aims to show how Plotinus, by his criticism of the onto-theo-logical structure of philosophical thought, already announced the criticism of traditional philosophy for which Martin Heidegger and Ludwig Wittgenstein became known in the 20th century. (shrink)

After concluding in the introduction that different things are beautiful in different ways, the first section of the treatise focuses on sensory beauty or beauty of bodies. Rejecting symmetry as a sufficient criterion for beauty, Plotinus explains that things in this world are beautiful to the extent that they participate in form and to the extent that shapeless matter is dominated by shape and the formative principle. Sensory beauty stirs the soul and helps it to recognise and remember transcendental beauty.

According to the history of aesthetics, Plotinus restored the dignity of which Plato’s verdict on artists in The Republic, especially his notorious mirror analogy in the tenth book, had deprived them. The paper analyses the key topics in the first chapter of Plotinus’ treatise On Noetic Beauty : the meaning of arts and their function, the way Plotinus’ aesthetics is firmly embedded in his metaphysics, the defence of imitation/representation of nature and Phidias’ creation of his statue of Zeus at Olympia. (...) It also discusses other authors as possible models for Plotinus. An exploration of inspiration in Phidias opens up questions concerning the role of imagination and the possibilities for symbolism and idealism in art. A comparison of selected passages from Plotinus’ and Plato’s writings shows that there are unexpectedly many points of contact between the two authors and that both explore a range of possibilities from imitation/representation of objects belonging to the visible world, to creation independent of visible models. (shrink)

An exploration of the philosophical and mystical ideas of Plotinus. So as to show that underneath all traditional Western philosophy of being their lies a non-philosophy of 'the one'. The One with whom mystics seek unification or to be united with (also know as realization of the one real self, unity with the Sufi Beloved, buddha-mind, the absolute truth, the foundation or ground of all etc).

Porphyry of Tyre (c. 234–305) was not only the biographer of his teacher Plotinus, and the editor of his Enneads, but an important Platonist philosopher in his own right. "On Theology and Theurgy" presents two of Porphyry’s texts, preserved in fragments, in which he tries to bring philosophy to bear on religion, and ultimately to align the two. In “Letter to Anebo” and “Philosophy from Oracles,” Porphyry explores questions of reason, revelation, and ritual, of theology and theurgy, of how divination (...) serves divinization. This edition includes the Greek fragments and Latin quotations of both texts with facing English translation, a Greek-English glossary (including Latin equivalents), and a commentary. (shrink)

Abstract: This brief paper highlights the essentiality of apophatism for Man's self-reminiscence. -/- Résumé : ce court texte démontre l'essentialité de l'apophatisme pour une réminiscence chez l'homme.

Résumé : Ce court texte cherche à expliquer ce que nous concevons rendre nécessaire l'ontologie cosmique : le principe logique et nécessaire de la double négation du néant. -/- Abstract: This short text explains what we consider necessary for cosmic ontology: the logical and necessary principle of double negation of nothingness.

This article examines the sources of Plotinus’ doctrine of extension, a central aspect of his Platonic dualism whose origins have received little scholarly attention. This doctrine entails a distinction between two central concepts: the notion of body as primarily divisible or extended ‘mass’ (ὄγκος) and that of immanent form as secondarily divisible or extended quality (ποιότης). The article argues that, although Plotinus presents this doctrine as an interpretation of Plato, Timaeus 35a, its philosophical content is irreducible to the Timaeus, and (...) that Plotinus rather employs, adapts, and develops concepts drawn from Aristotle. First, Plotinus’ notion of ‘mass’ finds conceptual and textual parallels in Aristotle’s Physics, especially in the discussions of place and continuous magnitudes (Books IV and VI). Second, Plotinus’ distinction between bodies and qualities as primarily and secondarily divisible or extended represents a sophisticated development of chapter 6 of the Categories, where Aristotle discusses quantity and distinguishes per se and accidental quantities. Finally, the article shows that Middle Platonic authors (Ammonius Saccas, Numenius) had already employed Aristotle’s distinction between per se and accidental quantities in their anti-Stoic polemics, and that Plotinus’ engagement with Aristotle is far more sophisticated. (shrink)

Confessions 13.11.12, which describes the Christian Trinity in terms of “to be, to know, and to will” and “being, mind, and life,” is a difficult passage to interpret. At the same time, it has important implications: for making sense of an assertion about Platonism in Book 7, for assessing Augustine’s originality or lack thereof in philosophical theology, and for correctly placing him in the wider history of metaphysics. As we will see, this rich passage is only fully intelligible as an (...) engagement with Plotinus (fl. 250) that is mediated by Marius Victorinus’ metaphysics. This fact about Confessions 13.11.12 has ramifications, both particular and general. It permits us to understand what this particular passage intends to say about the Trinity – an important implication because the meaning of some of the basic terms and the relation between Augustine’s paronymous trios are not what they appear to be. Equally crucially, this feature of Confessions 13 gives us access to the reasoning behind Augustine’s claims; for Victorinus provides arguments grounded in classical metaphysics to support his trinitarianism, whereas Augustine only repeats Victorinus’ conclusions. Furthermore, it reveals that Augustine’s highly influential writings about the Trinity are not as original as is typically assumed, and it illustrates a general truth: Augustine’s common designation as “Platonist” would be more precise if it were revised to “Victorine Neoplatonist.” Again, it indicates that Augustine was exposed to a wider range of philosophical concepts and distinctions than is often supposed. Victorinus wrote in Latin but was fluent in Greek; he was in touch with Greek philosophical texts and sprinkled his text with technical terms from Greek philosophy. For example, Victorinus utilizes Aristotelian concepts that are not contained in the Categories, the only text by Aristotle that Augustine knew. So Augustine, who was not bilingual, could access this content via Victorinus. Lastly, the presence of Marius Victorinus’ thought in Confessions 13.11.12 improves our knowledge of his role in the later history of western metaphysics. Victorinus is often assumed to have had no significant influence on medieval philosophy, because his Against Arius ceased to be copied in full by the time of Alcuin (fl. 780). (That was because Jerome rightly characterized the text as inaccessible except to those with advanced training in philosophy.) However, Augustine’s sway over subsequent western thought renders his direct source, Victorinus, influential as well. (shrink)

This article challenges some common modern conceptions of Plotinus’ ethics and suggests a more positive view on the basis of an ancient paradigm of self-relatedness that runs from Plato through Aristotle to Plotinus with different emphases in each, but that is often misunderstood. Following Stern-Gillet’s rejection of some modern views that Plotinus’ ethics is egoistical, impractical, and world renouncing, we argue that while self-directedness is primary in the ancient tradition, there flows from this an intrinsic correlation between self-directedness and care (...) for others. Negative views of Plotinus' ethics do not take account of Plotinus’ understanding of energeia or activity which pre-includes praxis and transforms external action into focused energeia. In other words, self-relatedness in the context of divine inspiration, as in Socrates’ second speech in Plato’s Phaedrus, is for Plotinus a psycho-somatic activity, but rooted in the psyche and in principle intelligible, genuinely capable of unifying intelligible and sensible in a form that can be really attentive to both practical and contemplative concerns simultaneously. From this perspective, Plotinus’ ethics includes not only care of the self and others, but also, we maintain, broader ecological and cosmic concerns. (shrink)

In Ennead VI 5 [23], 1, Plotinus calls the «firmest principle» the «common notion» that says that «that which is one and identical in number is everywhere, and simultaneously whole».1 The expression «firmest principle» comes from Metaphysics Γ 3, where Aristotle uses it, along with the adjective «unhypothetical»,2 to describe the Principle of Non-Contradiction (PNC), i.e., the principle that «it is impossible for the same thing to belong and not to belong to the same thing, at the same time and (...) in the same respect».3 By calling the PNC the «firmest principle» and «unhypothetical», Aristotle subtly transfers to it features that Plato had reserved for the Idea of the Good in Republic VI-VII, while engaging in the same breath with Plato’s own formulation of the PNC in Republic IV. This essay unpacks how Plotinus in Ennead VI 5 [23], 1 reacts to this Aristotelian twist to defend Platonism. We shall see that his defense is not, mechanically, a series of replies to Aristotle’s objections and a reaffirmation of Plato’s positions. Rather, through the development of both a distinctive interpretation of claims from the Parmenides and original accounts of the inborn notions of human rationality and of the causality of the intelligibles, Plotinus sets out a view whereby the firmest principle is the claim of the undivided omnipresence in the manifold of what is one and identical. This principle was destined to become a key axiom of Neoplatonist metaphysics. (shrink)

In Ennead VI.2 Plotinus states that the genera of intelligible Being (the μέγιστα γένη of Plato’s Sophist: Motion, Rest, Being, Identity, and Difference), also labelled ‘primary genera’ (VI.2.8.43, 8.9.1: πρῶτα γένη), ‘cannot be merely genera, but must also be principles of being at the same time’ (2.2.10-1: οὐ μόνον γένη ταῦτα εἶναι, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀρχὰς τοῦ ὄντος ἅμα ὑπάρχειν).1 My aim here is to unpack and explain this statement. I provide a context for its understanding in Books B, Z, and (...) H of Aristotle’s Metaphysics and argue that Plotinus maintains that the primary genera are productive causal factors responsible for the structural constitution and articulation of the noetic world, i.e. true Being, and that this view is best understood by considering Plotinus’ critical engagement with Aristotle’s account of the relationship between genus, species, differentia, and substance. (shrink)

Volume 33, Issue 1, February 2025, Page 100-104.

In Ennead I.8 Plotinus argues that evil is not intrinsic to the soul; the treatise includes an account of the metaphysical status of matter and a nuanced presentation of the way in which matter and the soul can together be responsible for moral evil.

The second edition of the first English translation of the complete works of Plotinus in one volume in seventy years. Led by Lloyd P. Gerson, a team of experts present up-to-date translations which are based on the best available text, the edition minor of Henry and Schwyzer and its corrections.

Plotinus argues that materialism cannot explain reflexive cognition. He argues that mere bodies cannot engage in the self-reflexive activity of both cognizing some content and being cognitively aware of cognizing this content. Short of outright denying the cognitive unity underlying this phenomenon of self-awareness, materialism is in trouble. However, Plotinus bases his argument on the condition that material bodies are capable of a spatial unity at most, and while this condition has purchase on ancient materialists, it would be rejected today. (...) After considering objections based on our contemporary understanding of a material body, I amend Plotinus' argument to focus instead on the core materialist commitment to external efficient-causal relations. This amended argument regains its urgency for materialism, while retaining the spirit of Plotinus' view. (shrink)

Plotinus posits the One as the single underlying principle from which everything that exists proceeds. This postulate makes the omnipresence of the One a given. Upon a close inspection, though, the matter is less clear-cut. How can the One be both ‘beyond existence’ and the productive ‘power’ of existence? How can the One be simultaneously nowhere and everywhere? How is the One present in the intelligible and the sensible level of reality? The omnipresence of the One, this chapter demonstrates, is (...) for Plotinus the power of unity, emanating from the One and making everything to be what it is through the ontologically constitutive role of number. Plotinus thus challenges the Stoic view of material omnipresence and magnifies Plato’s conception of the good-making property of unity. He uncovers the relation between omnipresence and numbers, long before it becomes one of the future directions of research on the subject today. (shrink)

When Odysseus makes his trip to meet the souls of the famous dead, he encounters the “shade of Heracles,” while “Heracles himself” is dining with the gods. This passage has inspired many poets and philosophers. A notable case is Plotinus who generally uses the term eidôlon along with other terms to define the “image of the soul” which is responsible for basic forms of ensoulment. The Homeric passage complicates matters: “Heracles himself” stands for the so-called undescended soul, but the “shade (...) of Heracles” seems to encompass more than the lower forms of ensoulment—the eidôlon of Heracles thinks, remembers and talks. Plotinus’ take on the story is unique. Instead of allegorizing the story in a general fashion, he seems driven to explain all its details, not from some general need for exegesis but because these challenge his ideas on the undescended soul, the image of the soul and the concept of self. (shrink)

With both the Roman Empire and contemporary scholarship as backdrop, this book contrasts the Imperial Platonism of Plotinus with Plato's own by distinguishing one as a master enlightening disciples, and the other as an Athenian teacher who taught students to discover the truth for themselves in the Academy.

The present article examines Contra Academicos 2.5 in which Augustine seems to detail the influence of the libri Platonicorum on his conversion. In the first part of the paper, I argue that Michael P. Foley is correct to interpret Augustine’s phrase “libri quidam pleni” as a reference to the libri Platonicorum. I advance the further claim that Augustine primarily has in mind Ennead I.6. This is in contrast to the argument alluded to by Pierre Courcelle and formally given by John (...) J. O’Meara where such a reading of Contra Academicos misconstrues the relationship between Augustine and Plotinus. In response to O’Meara, I advance a threefold argument, a corollary of which is a novel reading of a Latin phrase (bonas res Arabicas) that has perplexed scholars. In the second part of the paper, I use my reading of Contra Academicos along with two considerations from Ennead I.6 to motivate a deeper understanding of Augustine’s conversion. The present study develops recent lines of thought in Augustine scholarship and seeks to open new avenues for understanding the libri Platonicorum and their influence on Augustine’s conversion. (shrink)

Augustine’s sermons on the Psalms of Ascent, part of the Enarrationes in Psalmos, are a unique entry in the venerable tradition of those writings that aim to help us ascend to a higher reality. These sermons transform the ascent genre by giving, in the place of the Platonic account of ascent, a Christian ascent narrative with a Trinitarian structure. Not just the individual ascends, but the community that is the church, the body of Christ, also ascends. The ascent is up (...) to God, the Idipsum or the Selfsame, the ultimate reality, confessed by the church as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Through the grace of the Incarnation, God the Son enables us to ascend, making himself the way of ascent from the humility we must imitate at the beginning of the ascent all the way up to Heaven, where he retains his identity as Idipsum. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit works in the ascending church to convert our hearts to the love of God and neighbor. I review the Platonic ascent tradition in Plato’s Republic and Plotinus’ Enneads; overview ascent in some of Augustine’s earlier writings; introduce the narrative setting of the sermons on the Psalms of Ascent; and analyze the Trinitarian structure of their ascent narrative. I close with some reflections on the difference between a preached Trinitarianism that encourages ascent and a more academic effort to understand God such as we find in Augustine’s de Trinitate. (shrink)

This article focuses on the reception of Aristotle’s Categories by the first three representatives of Greek Neoplatonism: Plotinus (204/205–270 CE), Porphyry (ca. 234–ca. 305 CE), Iamblichus (ca. 242–ca. 325 CE). The first section argues that Plotinus’ acquaintance with Aristotle’s treatises marked a fresh start vis-à-vis the previous Platonist tradition. Aristotle’s views, arguments and vocabulary are ubiquitous in Plotinus writings (the Enneads) and they must be considered an essential part of his philosophical project. Plotinus, however, does not share some of Aristotle’s (...) key theories and is critical of them. The second section focuses on Plotinus’ discussion of Aristotle’s Categories in the tripartite treatise On the Genera of Being (6.1–3). There he rejects the Peripatetic division into ten categories as providing an incomplete account of the genera of being that unduly omits “those which are most authentically beings”, i.e. Plato’s separate Forms. While drawing on earlier Platonist objections to Aristotle, Plotinus’ approach is original insofar as he criticizes Aristotle and his followers not only for omitting intelligible beings in the division of categories, but also for being unable, for this very reason, to work out an adequate division of sensible beings themselves. The third section is devoted to Porphyry, a student of Plotinus’ and the editor of his works. Porphyry worked intensively on Aristotle’s Categories, which he regarded as an introduction not only to logic, but to philosophy as a whole. Unlike Plotinus, Porphyry aimed to integrate Aristotle into Platonism and his engagement with the Categories was a key part of his project after Plotinus’ in-depth criticism. Porphyry’s approach is connected to his view of the subject-matter of the Categories, which he sees as focusing on words insofar as they signify beings, and not on beings as such. The fourth section focuses on some parallels between Plotinus’ Genera of Beings and Porphyry’s works, which may reflect the debate within Plotinus’ school. The fifth section focuses on Iamblichus of Chalcis. Both in theology and in the interpretation of Aristotle’s Categories, Iamblichus aimed to both continue and supplant Porphyry’s work. While Plotinus criticizes Aristotle’s categories for omitting intelligible beings, and while Porphyry accepts Aristotle’s categories insofar as they focus on words signifying sensible things, Iamblichus incorporates his Neoplatonist and Pythagorizing metaphysics into the interpretation of the Categories. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to challenge the prevailing polemic between ‘necessary’ emanation and ‘free’ creation. I begin by arguing for the presence of freedom and volition in the emanationism of Plotinus. I then move on to explore the role of necessity in the creationism of Maximus. In both cases, I rely upon a twofold schematisation of freedom and necessity to dissolve the dichotomy between them effectively. Having levelled the playing field, so to speak, I conclude that, all things (...) being equal, one does find in Maximus (and Christian thinkers generally) a heightened sense of divine volition and relationality beyond that of the pagan Neoplatonists. This greater emphasis upon the freedom of the divine will, however, has little bearing on whether Maximus's doctrine of creation is ‘emanationist’ or ‘creationist’. Instead, it stems from a biblically inspired sense of the One God as intimately involved in His creation which, though derived from God, is crucially other than God. (shrink)

I reply to Bernard Wills (2023) review essay on my book Believing in Dawkins: The New Spiritual Atheism (2020). I discuss idolatry, Neoplatonism, the New Atheism, and atheistic Platonism.

This study offers an experiential and practical way of understanding Plotinus' thought and philosophy through a focus on the act of contemplation. Mateusz Stróżyński argues that contemplation, or direct seeing of the principles of reality, is not merely a part of Plotinus' thought, but rather a significant dimension of it.

Provides philosophical definitions which help scholars and students to understand Plotinus’ notions of eternity and time; presents a way in which to understand the relationship between eternity, time, and the hypostases; conveys the practical and experiential aspect of Ennead III.7.

Chez Plotin, le paradoxe est l’énonciation d’une ou plusieurs vérités démontrables mais difficiles à croire. Il permet une mise à distance par rapport au langage, qui ouvre la voie à son examen approfondi et à son dépassement. Proclus reprend et développe ce rôle du paradoxe, en insistant sur sa fonction d’étonnement, censé susciter la motivation de l’interlocuteur ou du lecteur, même quand il ignore son ignorance. Celui-ci est alors poussé à approfondir le raisonnement, voire à susciter lui-même des apories afin (...) de résoudre le problème. Damascius reprend ce dernier point, sans mention du paradoxe, au service d’une enquête philosophique avancée qui le mène au renoncement à la connaissance plutôt qu’à l’enseignement. (shrink)