PLOTINUS - ENNEADS
Translated by Stephen Mackenna and B. S.
Page
IN THIRTEEN WEB-PAGES - PAGE ONE
INTRODUCTION
BY FREDERIC COPLESTON,
S.J.
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Frederick Copleston, S. J. A History of Philosophy: Vol. 1, Part 2. ISBN 0385002106 Plotinus. The Enneads, translated by Stephen MacKenna and John
Dillon. London: Penguin, 1991. ISBN
014044520X
INTRODUCTION PAGE
THE ENNEADS BEGIN ON THE NEXT PAGE - LINK
AT THE BOTTOM
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Plotinus
(ca. 205-270) is considered to be the founder
of Neo-Platonism. Taking his lead from his
reading of Plato, Plotinus developed a complex
spiritual cosmology involving three hypostases:
the One, the Intelligence, and the Soul.
It is from the productive unity of these
three Beings that all existence emanates.
The principal of emanation is not simply
causal, but also contemplative. In his system,
Plotinus raises intellectual contemplation
to the status of a productive principle;
and it is by virtue of contemplation that
all existents are said to be united as a
single, all-pervasive reality. In this sense,
Plotinus is not a strict pantheist, yet his
system does not permit the notion of creatio
ex nihilo
(creation out of nothingness).
In addition to his cosmology, Plotinus also
developed a unique theory of sense-perception
and knowledge, based on the idea that the
mind plays an active role in shaping or ordering
the objects of its perception, rather than
passively receiving the data of sense experience
(in this sense, Plotinus may be said to have
anticipated the phenomenological theories
of Husserl). Plotinus' doctrine that the
soul is composed of a higher and a lower
part -- the higher part being unchangeable
and divine (and aloof from the lower part,
yet providing the lower part with life),
while the lower part is the seat of the personality
(and hence the passions and vices)
-- led him to neglect an ethics of the individual
human being in favor of a mystical or soteric
doctrine of the soul's ascent to union with
its higher part. The philosophy of Plotinus
is represented in the complete collection
of his treatises, collected and edited by
his student Porphyry into six books of nine
treatises each. For this reason they have
come down to us under the title of the Enneads.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Plotinus widely considered
the father of Neoplatonism. Much of our biographical
information about Plotinus comes from Porphyry's
preface to his edition of Plotinus' Enneads.
Porphyry believed Plotinus
was sixty-six years old when he died in the
second year of the reign of the emperor Claudius
II, and estimated the year of his teacher's
birth as around 205. Plotinus disliked "being
in the body", so he never discussed
his ancestry, or his place or date of birth.
Eunapius however reports that he was born
in Lyco or Lycopolis in Egypt.
He took up the study of
philosophy at the age of twenty-seven, around
the year 232, and went to Alexandria to study.
Plotinus was dissatisfied with every teacher
he met until a friend suggested he go to
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 this teacher. Plotinus
spent the next eleven years in Alexandria
until his 38th year, when he decided to investigate
the philosophical teachings of the Persians
and the Indians. As a result he left Alexandria
and joined the army of Gordian III as it
marched on Persia. However, on Gordian's
death he found himself abandoned in a hostile
land, and 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 lived for most of the remainder
of his life. He attracted a number of students
in that city. His innermost circle included
Porphyry, Gentilianus Amelius of Tuscany,
the Senator Castricius Firmus, and Eustochius
of Alexandria -- a doctor who devoted himself
to learning from Plotinus and attended to
him until his death.
Others included: Zethos,
an Arab by ancestry who died before Plotinus
and left 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 Gemina;
and Amphiclea, the wife of Ariston the son
of Iamblichus. He was a correspondent of
the philosopher Cassius Longinus.
He also had the respect
of the Emperor Gallienus and his wife Salonica.
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. The
support of an Imperial subsidy did not come
to pass due to reasons Porphyry did not know,
and the settlement never happened.
After Porphyry went to
live in Sicily, word came to him that Plotinus
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 upon him at the end, Plotinus' final
words were: "Strive to give back the
Divine in yourselves to the Divine in the
All." At that moment a snake crept under
the bed where Plotinus lay, and slipped away
through a hole in the wall; at the same moment
Plotinus died.
Besides Ammonius, Plotinus
was greatly influenced by the works of Alexander
of Aphrodisias and Numenius.
Porphyry wrote the essays
that became the Enneads over a period of
years, from ca. 253 to a few months before
his death. Plotinus was unable to revise
his own work due to his poor eyesight. Yet
his writings badly needed editing, according
to Porphyry: Plotinus' handwriting was atrocious,
he did not properly separate his words, and
he cared nothing for spelling. He disliked
the process of rewriting them, so he gave
the task to Porphyry, who not only polished
them but put them into the arrangement we
now have.
Although Plotinus attacked
Gnosticism, he was silent about Christianity,
of which he must have been aware. From all
accounts his personal and social life exhibited
the highest moral and spiritual standards.
Teachings
Plotinus taught that there
is a supreme, absolutely transcendent "One",
which is beyond all categories of being and
non-being. The concept of "being"
is derived by us from the objects of human
experience, but the infinite, transcendent
One is beyond all such objects, and therefore
is beyond the concepts derived from them.
"Being" or "existence"
is an attribute, and the One is beyond all
attributes as their source. The One "cannot
be any existing thing", and cannot be
merely the sum of all such things, but "is
prior to all existents". The One emanated
the rest of the universe as a sequence of
lesser beings. 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.
The One contains no division,
multiplicity or distinction. Compare, for
example, Advaita Vedanta, ("advaita"
= "not two", or "non-dual").
Thus, no attributes can be assigned to the
One. Thought cannot be attributed to the
One because thought implies distinction between
a thinker and an object of thought. Likewise,
neither will nor activity can be ascribed
to the One, since doing so would logically
require distinction between an "agent"
of will or act, and its object.
The One, beyond all attributes,
including being and non-being, is the source
of the world not through any act of creation,
willful or otherwise, since activity cannot
be ascribed to the unchangeable, immutable
One. Plotinus resorts to a logical principle
that 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 (not
temporal) stages of lesser and lesser perfection.
Plotinus offers an alternative
to the orthodox Christian notion of creation
ex nihilo (out of nothing), because he does
not teach that the One is different from
the material realm. All that is, is the One,
but nothing in the material realm is the
One. But is probably inaccurate to label
him a pantheist, since he repeatedly maintains
that the One is in no way affected or diminished
by the emanations of "creation".
The One does not divide itself into multitudes
of lesser beings, or parcel himself out piece
by piece. Plotinus uses the analogy of the
Sun which emanates light indiscriminately
without thereby "lessening" itself,
or a mirror reflection which in no way diminishes
the object reflected.
The first emanation is
Thought (Nous), identified with the "demiurge"
in Plato's Timaeus. From Nous proceeds the
"World Soul", which Plotinus divides
into "upper" and "lower",
identifying the lower with Nature. From the
World Soul proceed individual human souls,
and finally, matter, at the lowest level
of being and perfection.
Although the "material
world" is at the lowest level of the
"chain of being", Plotinus criticized
the Gnostic disdain for matter. Plotinus
asserted the ultimately divine nature of
material creation since it is the product
of Nous (the demiurge) and the World Soul.
The essentially religious
nature of Plotinus' philosophy may be further
illustrated by his concept of attaining "ecstatic"
union with the One. Porphyry relates that
Plotinus achieved "union" several
times during the years he knew him. Compare,
of course, "enlightenment", "liberation",
and other concepts of mystical union common
to many Eastern and Western traditions.
Neoplatonism was sometimes
used as a philosophical foundation for paganism,
and as a means of defending paganism against
Christianity; but many Christians were also
influenced by Neoplatonism. The teachings
of Plotinus influenced many of the early
Christian Fathers, e. g., St. Augustine.
In the 20th century, American
philosopher Ken Wilber has drawn heavily
upon Plotinus in his cosmology, reaching
some similar metaphysical conclusions.
References
Frederick Copleston, S. J. A History of Philosophy: Vol. 1, Part 2. ISBN 0385002106 Plotinus. The Enneads, translated by Stephen MacKenna and John
Dillon. London: Penguin, 1991. ISBN
014044520X
|