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PLOTINUS
An Examination
Plotinus 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.
Life and Work
Plotinus was born in 204 C.E. in Egypt, the exact location of which is unknown. In
his mid-twenties Plotinus gravitated to Alexandria, where he attended the lectures
of various philosophers, not finding satisfaction with any until he discovered the
teacher Ammonius Saccas. He remained with Ammonius until 242, at which time he
joined up with the Emperor Gordian on an expedition to Persia, for the purpose, it
seems, of engaging the famed philosophers of that country in the pursuit of wisdom.
The expedition never met its destination, for the Emperor was assassinated in
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Mesopotamia, and Plotinus returned to Rome to set up a school of philosophy. By

this time, Plotinus had reached his fortieth year. He taught in Rome for twenty years
before the arrival of Porphyry, who was destined to become his most famous pupil,
as well as his biographer and editor. It was at this time that Plotinus, urged by
Porphyry, began to collect his treatises into systematic form, and to compose new
ones. These treatises were most likely composed from the material gathered from
Plotinus' lectures and debates with his students. The students and attendants of
Plotinus' lectures must have varied greatly in philosophical outlook and doctrine,
for the Enneads are filled with refutations and corrections of the positions of
Peripatetics, Stoics, Epicureans, Gnostics, and Astrologers. Although Plotinus
appealed to Plato as the ultimate authority on all things philosophical, he was
known to have criticized the master himself (cf. Ennead IV.8.1). We should not make
the mistake of interpreting Plotinus as nothing more than a commentator on Plato,
albeit a brilliant one. He was an original and profound thinker in his own right, who
borrowed and re-worked all that he found useful from earlier thinkers, and even
from his opponents, in order to construct the grand dialectical system presented
(although in not quite systematic form) in his treatises. The great thinker died in
solitude at Campania in 270 C.E.
The Enneads are the complete treatises of Plotinus, edited by his student, Porphyry.
Plotinus wrote these treatises in a crabbed and difficult Greek, and his failing
eyesight rendered his penmanship oftentimes barely intelligible. We owe a great
debt to Porphyry, for persisting in the patient and careful preservation of these
writings. Porphyry divided the treatises of his master into six books of nine treatises
each, sometimes arbitrarily dividing a longer work into several separate works in
order to fulfill his numerical plan. The standard citation of the Enneads follows
Porphyry's division into book, treatise, and chapter. Hence 'IV.8.1' refers to book (or
Ennead) four, treatise eight, chapter one.
Metaphysics and Cosmology

Plotinus is not a metaphysical thinker in the strict sense of the term. He is often
referred to as a 'mystical' thinker, but even this designation fails to express the
philosophical rigor of his thought. Jacques Derrida has remarked that the system of
Plotinus represents the "closure of metaphysics" as well as the "transgression" of
metaphysical thought itself (1973: p. 128 note). The cause for such a remark is that, in
order to maintain the strict unity of his cosmology (which must be understood in the
'spiritual' or noetic sense, in addition to the traditional physical sense of 'cosmos')
Plotinus emphasizes the displacement or deferral of presence, refusing to locate
either the beginning (arkhe) or the end (telos) of existents at any determinate point
in the 'chain of emanations' -- the One, the Intelligence, and the Soul -- that is the
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expression of his cosmological theory; for to predicate presence of his highest

principle would imply, for Plotinus, that this principle is but another being among
beings, even if it is superior to all beings by virtue of its status as their 'begetter'.
Plotinus demands that the highest principle or existent be supremely self-sufficient,
disinterested, impassive, etc. However, this highest principle must still, somehow,
have a part in the generation of the Cosmos. It is this tension between Plotinus'
somewhat religious demand that pure unity and self-presence be the highest form of
existence in his cosmology, and the philosophical necessity of accounting for the
multiplicity among existents, that animates and lends an excessive complexity and
determined rigor to his thought.
Since Being and Life itself, for Plotinus, is characterized by a dialectical return to
origins, a process of overcoming the 'strictures' of multiplicity, a theory of the
primacy of contemplation (theoria) over against any traditional theories of
physically causal beginnings, like what is found in the Pre-Socratic thinkers, and
especially in Aristotle's notion of the 'prime mover,' becomes necessary. Plotinus
proceeds by setting himself in opposition to these earlier thinkers, and comes to
align himself, more or less, with the thought of Plato. However, Plotinus employs
allegory in his interpretation of Plato's Dialogues; and this leads him to a highly
personal reading of the creation myth in the Timaeus (27c ff.), which serves to
bolster his often excessively introspective philosophizing. Plotinus maintains that
the power of the Demiurge ('craftsman' of the cosmos), in Plato's myth, is derived
not from any inherent creative capacity, but rather from the power of contemplation,
and the creative insight it provides (see Enneads IV.8.1-2; III.8.7-8). According to
Plotinus, the Demiurge does not actually create anything; what he does is govern the
purely passive nature of matter, which is pure passivity itself, by imposing a
sensible form (an image of the intelligible forms contained as thoughts within the
mind of the Demiurge) upon it. The form (eidos) which is the arkhe or generative or
productive principle of all beings, establishes its presence in the physical or sensible
realm not through any act, but by virtue of the expressive contemplation of the
Demiurge, who is to be identified with the Intelligence or Mind (Nous) in Plotinus'
system. Yet this Intelligence cannot be referred to as the primordial source of all
existents (although it does hold the place, in Plotinus' cosmology, of first principle),
for it, itself, subsists only insofar as it contemplates a prior -- this supreme prior is,
according to Plotinus, the One, which is neither being nor essence, but the source, or
rather, the possibility of all existence (see Ennead V.2.1). In this capacity, the One is
not even a beginning, nor even an end, for it is simply the disinterested orientational
'stanchion' that permits all beings to recognize themselves as somehow other than a
supreme 'I'. Indeed, for Plotinus, the Soul is the 'We' (Ennead I.1.7), that is, the
separated yet communicable likeness (homoiotai) of existents to the Mind or
Intelligence that contemplates the One. This highest level of contemplation -- the
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Intelligence contemplating the One -- gives birth to the forms (eide), which serve as
the referential, contemplative basis of all further existents. The simultaneous
inexhaustibility of the One as a generative power, coupled with its elusive and
disinterested transcendence, makes the positing of any determinate source or point
of origin of existence, in the context
The One
The 'concept' of the One is not, properly speaking, a concept at all, since it is never
explicitly defined by Plotinus, yet it is nevertheless the foundation and grandest
expression of his philosophy. Plotinus does make it clear that no words can do
justice to the power of the One; even the name, 'the One,' is inadequate, for naming
already implies discursive knowledge, and since discursive knowledge divides or
separates its objects in order to make them intelligible, the One cannot be known
through the process of discursive reasoning (Ennead VI.9.4). Knowledge of the One
is achieved through the experience of its 'power' (dunamis) and its nature, which is
to provide a 'foundation' (arkhe) and location (topos) for all existents (VI.9.6). The
'power' of the One is not a power in the sense of physical or even mental action; the
power of the One, as Plotinus speaks of it, is to be understood as the only adequate
description of the 'manifestation' of a supreme principle that, by its very nature,
transcends all predication and discursive understanding. This 'power,' then, is
capable of being experienced, or known, only through contemplation (theoria), or
the purely intellectual 'vision' of the source of all things. The One transcends all
beings, and is not itself a being, precisely because all beings owe their existence and
subsistence to their eternal contemplation of the dynamic manifestation(s) of the
One. The One can be said to be the 'source' of all existents only insofar as every
existent naturally and (therefore) imperfectly contemplates the various aspects of the
One, as they are extended throughout the cosmos, in the form of either sensible or
intelligible objects or existents. The perfect contemplation of the One, however, must
not be understood as a return to a primal source; for the One is not, strictly
speaking, a source or a cause, but rather the eternally present possibility -- or active
making-possible -- of all existence, of Being (V.2.1). According to Plotinus, the
unmediated vision of the 'generative power' of the One, to which existents are led by
the Intelligence (V.9.2), results in an ecstatic dance of inspiration, not in a satiated
torpor (VI.9.8); for it is the nature of the One to impart fecundity to existents -- that is
to say: the One, in its regal, indifferent capacity as undiminishable potentiality of
Being, permits both rapt contemplation and ecstatic, creative extension. These twin
poles, this 'stanchion,' is the manifested framework of existence which the One
produces, effortlessly (V.1.6). The One, itself, is best understood as the center about
which the 'stanchion,' the framework of the cosmos, is erected (VI.9.8). This
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'stanchion' or framework is the result of the contemplative activity of the

Intelligence.
Emanation and Multiplicity
The One cannot, strictly speaking, be referred to as a source or a cause, since these
terms imply movement or activity, and the One, being totally self-sufficient, has no
need of acting in a creative capacity (VI.9.8). Yet Plotinus still maintains that the One
somehow 'emanates' or 'radiates' existents. This is accomplished because the One
effortlessly "'overflows' and its excess begets an other than itself" (V.2.1, tr. O'Brien
1964) -- this 'other' is the Intelligence (Nous), the source of the realm of multiplicity,
of Being. However, the question immediately arises as to why the One, being so
perfect and self-sufficient, should have any need or even any 'ability' to emanate or
generate anything other than itself. In attempting to answer this question, Plotinus
finds it necessary to appeal, not to reason, but to the non-discursive, intuitive faculty
of the soul; this he does by calling for a sort of prayer, an invocation of the deity, that
will permit the soul to lift itself up to the unmediated, direct, and intimate
contemplation of that which exceeds it (V.1.6). When the soul is thus prepared for
the acceptance of the revelation of the One, a very simple truth manifests itself: that
what, from our vantage-point, may appear as an act of emanation on the part of the
One, is really the effect, the necessary life-giving supplement, of the disinterested
self-sufficiency that both belongs to and is the One. "In turning toward itself The
One sees. It is this seeing that constitutes The Intelligence" (V.1.7, tr. O'Brien).
Therefore, since the One accomplishes the generation or emanation of multiplicity,
or Being, by simply persisting in its state of eternal self-presence and impassivity, it
cannot be properly called a 'first principle,' since it is at once beyond number, and
that which makes possible all number or order (cf. V.1.5).
Presence
Since the One is self-sufficient, isolated by virtue of its pure self-presence, and
completely impassive, it cannot properly be referred to as an 'object' of
contemplation -- not even for the Intelligence. What the Intelligence contemplates is
not, properly speaking, the One Itself, but rather the generative power that
emanates, effortlessly, from the One, which is beyond all Being and Essence
(epikeina tes ousias) (cf. V.2.1). It has been stated above that the One cannot
properly be referred to as a first principle, since it has no need to divide itself or
produce a multiplicity in any manner whatsoever, since the One is purely self-
contained. This leads Plotinus to posit a secondary existent or emanation of the One,
the Intelligence or Mind (Nous) which is the result of the One's direct 'vision' of itself
(V.1.7). This allows Plotinus to maintain, within his cosmological schema, a power of
pure unity or presence -- the One -- that is nevertheless never purely present, except
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as a trace in the form of the power it manifests, which is known through

contemplation. Pure power and self-presence, for Plotinus, cannot reside in a being
capable of generative action, for it is a main tenet of Plotinus' system that the truly
perfect existent cannot create or generate anything, since this would imply a lack on
the part of that existent. Therefore, in order to account for the generation of the
cosmos, Plotinus had to locate his first principle at some indeterminate point outside
of the One and yet firmly united with it; this first principle, of course, is the
Intelligence, which contains both unity and multiplicity, identity and difference -- in
other words, a self-presence that is capable of being divided into manifestable and
productive forms or 'intelligences' (logoi spermatikoi) without, thereby, losing its
unity. The reason that the Intelligence, which is the truly productive 'first principle'
(proton arkhon) in Plotinus' system, can generate existents and yet remain fully
present to itself and at rest, is because the self-presence and nature of the
Intelligence is derived from the One, which gives of itself infinitely, and without
diminishing itself in any way. Furthermore, since every being or existent within
Plotinus' Cosmos owes its nature as existent to a power that is prior to it, and which
it contemplates, every existent owes its being to that which stands over it, in the
capacity of life-giving power. Keeping this in mind, it is difficult, if not impossible,
to speak of presence in the context of Plotinus' philosophy; rather, we must speak of
varying degrees or grades of contemplation, all of which refer back to the pure trace
of infinite power that is the One.
The Intelligence
The Intelligence (Nous) is the true first principle -- the determinate, referential
'foundation' (arkhe) -- of all existents; for it is not a self-sufficient entity like the One,
but rather possesses the ability or capacity to contemplate both the One, as its prior,
as well as its own thoughts, which Plotinus identifies with the Platonic Ideas or
Forms (eide). The purpose or act of the Intelligence is twofold: to contemplate the
'power' (dunamis) of the One, which the Intelligence recognizes as its source, and to
meditate upon the thoughts that are eternally present to it, and which constitute its
very being. The Intelligence is distinct from the One insofar as its act is not strictly its
own (or an expression of self-sufficiency as the 'act' of self-reflection is for the One)
but rather results in the principle of order and relation that is Being -- for the
Intelligence and Being are identical (V.9.8). The Intelligence may be understood as
the storehouse of potential being(s), but only if every potential being is also
recognized as an eternal and unchangeable thought in the Divine Mind (Nous). As
Plotinus maintains, the Intelligence is an independent existent, requiring nothing
outside of itself for subsistence; invoking Parmenides, Plotinus states that "to think
and to be are one and the same" (V.9.5; Parmenides, fragment 3). The being of the
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Intelligence is its thought, and the thought of the Intelligence is Being. It is no

accident that Plotinus also refers to the Intelligence as God (theos) or the Demiurge
(I.1.8), for the Intelligence, by virtue of its primal duality -- contemplating both the
One and its own thought -- is capable of acting as a determinate source and point of
contemplative reference for all beings. In this sense, the Intelligence may be said to
produce creative or constitutive action, which is the provenance of the Soul.
The Ideas and the 'Seminal Reasons'
Since the purpose or act of the Intelligence is twofold (as described above), that
which comprises the being or essence of the Intelligence must be of a similar nature.
That which the Intelligence contemplates, and by virtue of which it maintains its
existence, is the One in the capacity of overflowing power or impassive source. This
power or effortless expression of the One, which is, in the strictest sense, the
Intelligence itself, is manifested as a coherency of thoughts or perfect intellectual
objects that the Intelligence contemplates eternally and fully, and by virtue of which
it persists in Being -- these are the Ideas (eide). The Ideas reside in the Intelligence as
objects of contemplation. Plotinus states that: "No Idea is different from The
Intelligence but is itself an intelligence" (V.9.8, tr. O'Brien). Without in any way
impairing the unity of his concept of the Intelligence, Plotinus is able to locate both
permanence and eternality, and the necessary fecundity of Being, at the level of
Divinity. He accomplishes this by introducing the notion that the self-identity of
each Idea, its indistinguishability from Intelligence itself, makes of each Idea at once
a pure and complete existent, as well as a potentiality or 'seed' capable of further
extending itself into actualization as an entity distinct from the Intelligence (cf.
V.9.14). Borrowing the Stoic term logos spermatikos or 'seminal reason,' Plotinus
elaborates his theory that every determinate existent is produced or generated
through the contemplation by its prior of a higher source, as we have seen that the
One, in viewing itself, produces the Intelligence; and so, through the contemplation
of the One via the Ideas, the Intelligence produces the logoi spermatikoi ('seminal
reasons') that will serve as the productive power or essence of the Soul, which is the
active or generative principle within Being (cf. V.9.6-7).
Being and Life

Being, for Plotinus, is not some abstract, amorphous pseudo-concept that is
somehow pre-supposed by all thinking. In the context of Plotinus' cosmological
schema, Being is given a determined and prominent place, even if it is not given,
explicitly, a definition; though he does relate it to the One, by saying that the One is
not Being, but "being's begetter" (V.2.1). Although Being does not, for Plotinus, pre-
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suppose thought, it does pre-suppose and make possible all 're-active' or causal
generation. Being is necessarily fecund -- that is to say, it generates or actualizes all
beings, insofar as all beings are contained, as potentialities, in the 'rational seeds'
which are the results of the thought or contemplation of the Intelligence. Being
differentiates the unified thought of the Intelligence -- that is, makes it repeatable
and meaningful for those existents which must proceed from the Intelligence as the
Intelligence proceeds from the One. Being is the principle of relation and
distinguishability amongst the Ideas, or rather, it is that rational principle which
makes them logoi spermatikoi. However, Being is not simply the productive
capacity of Difference; it is also the source of independence and self-sameness of all
existents proceeding from the Intelligence; the productive unity accomplished
through the rational or dialectical synthesis of the Dyad -- of the Same (tauton) and
the Different (heteron) (cf. V.1.4-5). We may best understand Being, in the context of
Plotinus' thought, by saying that it differentiates and makes indeterminate the Ideas
belonging to the Intelligence, only in order to return these divided or differentiated
ideas, now logoi spermatikoi, to Sameness or Unity. It is the process of returning the
divided and differentiated ideas to their original place in the chain of emanation that
constitutes Life or temporal existence. The existence thus produced by or through
Being, and called Life, is a mode of intellectual existence characterized by discursive
thought, or that manner of thinking which divides the objects of thought in order to
categorize them and make them knowable through the relational process of
categorization or 'orderly differentiation'. The existents that owe their life to the
process of Being are capable of knowing individual existents only as they relate to
one another, and not as they relate to themselves (in the capacity of 'self-sameness').
This is discursive knowledge, and is an imperfect image of the pure knowledge of
the Intelligence, which knows all beings in their essence or 'self-sameness' -- that is,
as they are purely present to the Mind, without the articulative mediation of
Difference.
The Soul
The power of the One, as explained above, is to provide a foundation (arkhe) and
location (topos) for all existents (VI.9.6). The foundation provided by the One is the
Intelligence. The location in which the cosmos takes objective shape and
determinate, physical form, is the Soul (cf. IV.3.9). Since the Intelligence, through its
contemplation of the One and reflection on its own contents, the Ideas (eide), is both
one and many, the Soul is both contemplative and active: it contemplates the
Intelligence, its prior in the 'chain of existents,' and also extends itself, through
acting upon or actualizing its own thoughts (the logoi spermatikoi), into the
darkness or indeterminacy of multiplicity or Difference (which is to be identified in
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this sense with Matter); and by so doing, the Soul comes to generate a separate,
material cosmos that is the living image of the spiritual or noetic Cosmos contained
as a unified thought within the Intelligence (cp. Plato, Timaeus 37d). The Soul, like
the Intelligence, is a unified existent, in spite of its dual capacity as contemplator and
actor. The purely contemplative part of the Soul, which remains in constant contact
with the Intelligence, is referred to by Plotinus as the 'higher part' of the Soul, while
that part which actively descends into the changeable (or sensible) realm in order to
govern and directly craft the Cosmos, is the 'lower part,' which assumes a state of
division as it enters, out of necessity, material bodies. It is at the level of the Soul that
the drama of existence unfolds; the Soul, through coming into contact with its
inferior, that is, matter or pure passivity, is temporarily corrupted, and forgets the
fact that it is one of the Intelligibles, owing its existence to the Intelligence, as its
prior, and ultimately, to the power of the One. It may be said that the Soul is the
'shepherd' or 'cultivator' of the logoi spermatikoi, insofar as the Soul's task is to
conduct the differentiated ideas from the state of fecund multiplicity that is Being,
through the drama of Life, and at last, to return these ideas to their primal state or
divine status as thoughts within the Intelligence. Plotinus, holding to his principle
that one cannot act without being affected by that which one acts upon, declares that
the Soul, in its lower part, undergoes the drama of existence, suffers, forgets, falls
into vice, etc., while the higher part remains unaffected, and persists in governing,
without flaw, the Cosmos, while ensuring that all individual, embodied souls return,
eventually, to their divine and true state within the Intelligible Realm. Moreover,
since every embodied soul forgets, to some extent, its origin in the Divine Realm, the
drama of return consists of three distinct steps: the cultivation of Virtue, which
reminds the soul of the divine Beauty; the practice of Dialectic, which instructs or
informs the soul concerning its priors and the true nature of existence; and finally,
Contemplation, which is the proper act and mode of existence of the soul.
Virtue
The Soul, in its highest part, remains essentially and eternally a being in the Divine,
Intelligible Realm. Yet the lower (or active), governing part of the Soul, while
remaining, in its essence, a divine being and identical to the Highest Soul,
nevertheless, through its act, falls into forgetfulness of its prior, and comes to attach
itself to the phenomena of the realm of change, that is, of Matter. This level at which
the Soul becomes fragmented into individual, embodied souls, is Nature (phusis).
Since the purpose of the soul is to maintain order in the material realm, and since the
essence of the soul is one with the Highest Soul, there will necessarily persist in the
material realm a type of order (doxa) that is a pale reflection of the Order (logos)
persisting in the Intelligible Realm. It is this secondary or derived order (doxa) that
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gives rise to what Plotinus calls the "civic virtues" (aretas politikas) (I.2.1). The "civic
virtues" may also be called the 'natural virtues' (aretas phusikas) (I.3.6), since they
are attainable and recognizable by reflection upon human nature, without any
explicit reference to the Divine. These 'lesser' virtues are possible, and attainable,
even by the soul that has forgotten its origin within the Divine, for they are merely
the result of the imitation of virtuous men -- that is, the imitation of the Nature of the
Divine Soul, as it is actualized in living existents, yet not realizing that it is such.
There is nothing wrong, Plotinus tells us, with imitating noble men, but only if this
imitation is understood for what it is: a preparation for the attainment of the true
Virtue that is "likeness to God as far as possible" (cf. I.1.2; and Plato, Theaetetus
176b). Plotinus makes it clear that the one who possesses the civic virtues does not
necessarily possess the Divine Virtue, but the one who possesses the latter will
necessarily possess the former (I.2.7). Those who imitate virtuous men, for example,
the heroes of old, like Achilles, and take pride in this virtue, run the risk of
mistaking the merely human for the Divine, and therefore committing the sin of
hubris. Furthermore, the one who mistakes the human for the Divine virtue remains
firmly fixed in the realm of opinion (doxa), and is unable to rise to true knowledge
of the Intelligible Realm, which is also knowledge of one's true self. The exercise of
the civic virtues makes one just, courageous, well-tempered, etc. -- that is, the civic
virtues result in sophrosune, or a well-ordered and cultivated mind. It is easy to see,
however, that this virtue is simply the ability to remain, to an extent, unaffected by
the negative intrusions upon the soul of the affections of material existence. The
highest Virtue consists, on the other hand, not in a rearguard defense, as it were,
against the attack of violent emotions and disruptive desires, but rather in a
positively active and engaged effort to regain one's forgotten divinity (I.2.6). The
highest virtue, then, is the preparation for the exercise of Dialectic, which is the tool
of divine ordering wielded by the individual soul.
Dialectic
Dialectic is the tool wielded by the individual soul as it seeks to attain the unifying
knowledge of the Divinity; but dialectic is not, for that matter, simply a tool. It is
also the most valuable part of philosophy (I.3.5), for it places all things in an
intelligible order, by and through which they may be known as they are, without the
contaminating diversity characteristic of the sensible realm, which is the result of the
necessary manifestation of discursive knowledge -- language. We may best
understand dialectic, as Plotinus conceives it, as the process of gradual extraction,
from the ordered multiplicity of language, of a unifying principle conducive to
contemplation. The soul accomplishes this by alternating "between synthesis and
analysis until it has gone through the entire domain of the intelligible and has
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arrived at the principle" (I.3.4, tr. O'Brien). This is to say, on the one hand, that
dialectic dissolves the tension of differentiation that makes each existent a separate
entity, and therefore something existing apart from the Intelligence; and, on the
other hand, that dialectic is the final flourish of discursive reasoning, which, by
'analyzing the synthesis,' comes to a full realization of itself as the principle of order
among all that exists -- that is, a recognition of the essential unity of the Soul (cf.
IV.1). The individual soul accomplishes this ultimate act by placing itself in the
space of thinking that is "beyond being" (epekeina tou ontos) (I.3.5). At this point,
the soul is truly capable of living a life as a being that is "at one and the same time ...
debtor to what is above and ... benefactor to what is below" (IV.8.7, tr. O'Brien). This
the soul accomplishes through the purely intellectual 'act' of Contemplation.
Contemplation
Once the individual soul has, through its own act of will -- externalized through
dialectic -- freed itself from the influence of Being, and has arrived at a knowledge of
itself as the ordering principle of the cosmos, it has united its act and its thought in
one supreme ordering principle (logos) which derives its power from
Contemplation (theoria). In one sense, contemplation is simply a vision of the things
that are -- a viewing of existence. However, for Plotinus, contemplation is the single
'thread' uniting all existents, for contemplation, on the part of any given individual
existent, is at the same time knowledge of self, of subordinate, and of prior.
Contemplation is the 'power' uniting the One, the Intelligence, and the Soul in a
single all-productive intellectual force to which all existents owe their life. 'Vision'
(theoria), for Plotinus, whether intellectual or physical, implies not simply
possession of the viewed object in or by the mind, but also an empowerment, given
by the object of vision to the one who has viewed it. Therefore, through the 'act' of
contemplation the soul becomes capable of simultaneously knowing its prior (the
source of its power, the Intelligence) and, of course, of ordering or imparting life to
that which falls below the soul in the order of existence. The extent to which Plotinus
identifies contemplation with a creative or vivifying act is expressed most forcefully
in his comment that: "since the supreme realities devote themselves to
contemplation, all other beings must aspire to it, too, because the origin of all things
is their end as well" (III.8.7, tr. O'Brien). This means that even brute action is a form
of contemplation, for even the most vulgar or base act has, at its base and as its
cause, the impulse to contemplate the greater. Since Plotinus recognizes no strict
principle of cause and effect in his cosmology, he is forced, as it were, to posit a
strictly intellectual process -- contemplation -- as a force capable of producing the
necessary tension amongst beings in order for there to be at once a sort of hierarchy
and, also, a unity within the cosmos. The tension, of course, is always between
11
knower and known, and manifests itself in the form of a 'fall' that is also a forgetting
of source, which requires remedy. The remedy is, as we have seen, the exercise of
virtue and dialectic (also, see above). For once the soul has walked the ways of
discursive knowledge, and accomplished, via dialectic, the necessary unification, it
(the soul) becomes the sole principle of order within the realm of changeable
entities, and, through the fragile synthesis of differentiation and unity accomplished
by dialectic, and actualized in contemplation, holds the cosmos together in a bond of
purely intellectual dependence, as of thinker to thought. The tension that makes all
of this possible is the simple presence of the pure passivity that is Matter.
Matter
Matter, for Plotinus, may be understood as an eternally receptive substratum
(hupokeimenon), in and by which all determinate existents receive their form (cf.
II.4.4). Since Matter is completely passive, it is capable of receiving any and all
forms, and is therefore the principle of differentiation among existents. According to
Plotinus, there are two types of Matter -- the intelligible and the sensible. The
intelligible type is identified as the palette upon which the various colors and hues
of intelligible Being are made visible or presented, while the sensible type is the
'space of the possible,' the excessively fecund 'darkness' or depth of indeterminacy
into which the soul shines its vivifying light. Matter, then, is the ground or
fundament of Being, insofar as the entities within the Intelligence (the logoi
spermatikoi) depend upon this defining or delimiting principle for their articulation
or actualization into determinate and independent intelligences; and even in the
sensible realm, where the soul achieves its ultimate end in the 'exhaustion' that is
brute activity -- the final and lowest form of contemplation (cf. III.8.2) -- Matter is
that which receives and, in a passive sense, 'gives form to' the act. Since every
existent, as Plotinus tells us, must produce another, in a succession of dependence
and derivation (IV.8.6) which finally ends, simultaneously, in the passivity and
formlessness of Matter, and the desperation of the physical act, as opposed to purely
intellectual contemplation (although, it must be noted, even brute activity is a form
of contemplation, as described above), Matter, and the result of its reception of
action, is not inherently evil, but is only so in relation to the soul, and the extent to
which the soul becomes bound to Matter through its act (I.8.14). Plotinus also
maintains, in keeping with Platonic doctrine, that any sensible thing is an image of
its true and eternal counterpart in the Intelligible Realm. Therefore, the sensible
matter in the cosmos is but an image of the purely intellectual Matter existing or
persisting, as noetic substratum, within the Intelligence (nous). Since this is the case,
the confusion into which the soul is thrown by its contact with pure passivity is not
eternal or irremediable, but rather a necessary and final step in the drama of Life, for
12
once the soul has experienced the 'chaotic passivity' of material existence, it will
yearn ever more intensely for union with its prior, and the pure contemplation that
constitutes its true existence (IV.8.5).
Evil
The Soul's act, as we have seen (above), is dual -- it both contemplates its prior, and
acts, in a generative or, more properly, a governing capacity. For the soul that
remains in contact with its prior, that is, with the highest part of the Soul, the
ordering of material existence is accomplished through an effortless governing of
indeterminacy, which Plotinus likens to a light shining into and illuminating a dark
space (cf. I.8.14); however, for the soul that becomes sundered, through
forgetfulness, from its prior, there is no longer an ordering act, but a generative or
productive act -- this is the beginning of physical existence, which Plotinus
recognizes as nothing more than a misplaced desire for the Good (cf. III.5.1). The
soul that finds its fulfillment in physical generation is the soul that has lost its power
to govern its inferior while remaining in touch with the source of its power, through
the act of contemplation. But that is not all: the soul that seeks its end in the means
of generation and production is also the soul that becomes affected by what it has
produced -- this is the source of unhappiness, of hatred, indeed, of Evil (kakon). For
when the soul is devoid of any referential or orientational source -- any claim to
rulership over matter -- it becomes the slave to that over which it should rule, by
divine right, as it were. And since Matter is pure impassivity, the depth or darkness
capable of receiving all form and of being illuminated by the light of the soul, of
reason (logos), when the soul comes under the sway of Matter, through its tragic
forgetting of its source, it becomes like this substratum -- it is affected by any and
every emotion or event that comes its way, and all but loses its divinity. Evil, then, is
at once a subjective or 'psychic' event, and an ontological condition, insofar as the
soul is the only existent capable of experiencing evil, and is also, in its highest form,
the ruler or ordering principle of the material cosmos. In spite of all this, however,
Evil is not, for Plotinus, a meaningless plague upon the soul. He makes it clear that
the soul, insofar as it must rule over Matter, must also take on certain characteristics
of that Matter in order to subdue it (I.8.8). The onto-theological problem of the
source of Evil, and any theodicy required by placing the source of Evil within the
godhead, is avoided by Plotinus, for he makes it clear that Evil affects only the soul,
as it carries out its ordering activity within the realm of change and decay that is the
countenance of Matter. Since the soul is, necessarily, both contemplative and active,
it is also capable of falling, through weakness or the 'contradiction' of its dual
functions, into entrapment or confusion amidst the chaos of pure passivity that is
Matter. Evil, however, is not irremediable, since it is merely the result of privation
13
(the soul's privation, through forgetfulness, of its prior); and so Evil is remedied by
the soul's experience of Love.
Love and Happiness

Plotinus speaks of Love in a manner that is more 'cosmic' than what we normally
associate with that term. Love (eros), for Plotinus, is an ontological condition,
experienced by the soul that has forgotten its true status as divine governor of the
material realm and now longs for its true condition. Drawing on Plato, Plotinus
reminds us that Love (Eros) is the child of Poverty (Penia) and Possession (Poros)
(cf. Plato, Symposium 203b-c), since the soul that has become too intimately engaged
with the material realm, and has forgotten its source, is experiencing a sort of
'poverty of being,' and longs to possess that which it has 'lost'. This amounts to a
spiritual desire, an 'existential longing,' although the result of this desire is not
always the 'instant salvation' or turnabout that Plotinus recognizes as the ideal (the
epistrophe described in Ennead IV.8.4, for example); oftentimes the soul expresses
its desire through physical generation or reproduction. This is, for Plotinus, but a
pale and inadequate reflection or imitation of the generative power available to the
soul through contemplation. Now Plotinus does not state that human affection or
even carnal love is an evil in itself -- it is only an evil when the soul recognizes it as
the only expression or end (telos) of its desire (III.5.1). The true or noble desire or
love is for pure beauty, i.e., the intelligible Beauty (noetos kalon) made known by
contemplation (theoria). Since this Beauty is unchangeable, and the source of all
earthly or material, i.e., mutable, beauty, the soul will find true happiness
(eudaimonia) when it attains an unmediated vision (theoria) of Beauty. Once the
soul attains not only perception of this beauty (which comes to it only through the
senses) but true knowledge of the source of Beauty, it will recognize itself as
identical with the highest Soul, and will discover that its embodiment and contact
with matter was a necessary expression of the Being of the Intelligence, since, as
Plotinus clearly states, as long as there is a possibility for the existence and
engendering of further beings, the Soul must continue to act and bring forth
existents (cf. IV.8.3-4) -- even if this means a temporary lapse into evil on the part of
the individual or 'fragmented' souls that actively shape and govern matter.
However, it must be kept in mind that even the soul's return to recognition of its
true state, and the resultant happiness it experiences, are not merely episodes in the
inner life of an individual existent, but rather cosmic events in themselves, insofar as
the activities and experiences of the souls in the material realm contribute directly to
the maintenance of the cosmos. It is the individual soul's capacity to align itself with
material existence, and through its experiences to shape and provide an image of
eternity for this purely passive substance, that constitutes Nature (phusis). The
14
soul's turnabout or epistrophe, while being the occasion of its happiness, reached
through the desire that is Love, is not to be understood as an apokatastasis or
'restoration' of a fragmented cosmos. Rather, we must understand this process of the
Soul's fragmentation into individual souls, its resultant experiences of evil and love,
and its eventual attainment of happiness, as a necessary and eternal movement
taking place at the final point of emanation of the power that is the One, manifested
in the Intelligence, and activated, generatively, at the level of Soul.
A Note on Nature (phusis). One final statement must be made, before we exit
this section on Plotinus' Metaphysics and Cosmology, concerning the status of
Nature in this schema. Nature, for Plotinus, is not a separate power or principle of
Life that may be understood independently of the Soul and its relation to Matter.
Also, since the reader of this article may find it odd that I would choose to discuss
'Love and Happiness' in the context of a general metaphysics, let it be stated clearly
that the Highest Soul, and all the individual souls, form a single, indivisible entity,
The Soul (psuche) (IV.1.1), and that all which affects the individual souls in the
material realm is a direct and necessary outgrowth of the Being of the Intelligible
Cosmos (I.1.8). Therefore, it follows that Nature, in Plotinus' system, is only correctly
understood when it is viewed as the result of the collective experience of each and
every individual soul, which Plotinus refers to as the 'We' (emeis) (I.1.7) -- an
experience, moreover, which is the direct result of the souls fragmentation into
bodies in order to govern and shape Matter. For Matter, as Plotinus tells us, is such
that the divine Soul cannot enter into contact with it without taking on certain of its
qualities; and since it is of the nature of the Highest Soul to remain in contemplative
contact with the Intelligence, it cannot descend, as a whole, into the depths of
material differentiation. So the Soul divides itself, as it were, between pure
contemplation and generative or governing act -- it is the movement or moment of
the soul's act that results in the differentiation of the active part of Soul into bodies.
It must be understood, however, that this differentiation does not constitute a
separate Soul, for as we have already seen, the nature and essence of all intelligible
beings deriving from the One is twofold -- for the Intelligence, it is the ability to
know or contemplate the power of the One, and to reflect upon that knowledge; for
the Soul it is to contemplate the Intelligence, and to give active form to the ideas
derived from that contemplation. The second part of the Soul's nature or essence
involves governing Matter, and therefore becoming an entity at once contemplative
and unified, and active and divided. So when Plotinus speaks of the 'lower soul,' he
is not speaking of Nature, but rather of that ability or capacity of the Soul to be
affected by its actions. Since contemplation, for Plotinus, can be both purely noetic
and accomplished in repose, and 'physical' and carried out in a state of external
effort, so reflection can be both noetic and physical or affective. Nature, then, is to be
understood as the Soul reflecting upon the active or physical part of its eternal
15
contemplation. The discussion of Plotinus' psychological and epistemological

theories, which now follows, must be read as a reflection upon the experiences of the
Soul, in its capacity or state as fragmented and active unity.
Psychology and Epistemology

Plotinus' contributions to the philosophical understanding of the individual psyche,
of personality and sense-perception, and the essential question of how we come to
know what we know, cannot be properly understood or appreciated apart from his
cosmological and metaphysical theories. However, the Enneads do contain more
than a few treatises and passages that deal explicitly with what we today would
refer to as psychology and epistemology. Plotinus is usually spurred on in such
investigations by three over-arching questions and difficulties:
(1) how the immaterial soul comes to be united with a material body,
(2) whether all souls are one, and
(3) whether the higher part of the soul is to be held responsible for the misdeeds
of the lower part.
Plotinus responds to the first difficulty by employing a metaphor. The Soul, he tells
us, is like an eternal and pure light whose single ray comes to reflected through a
prism; this prism is matter. The result of this reflection is that the single ray is
'fragmented' into various and multi-colored rays, which give the appearance of
being unique and separate rays of light, but yet owe their source to the single pure
ray of light that has come to illumine the formerly dark 'prism' of matter. If the
single ray of light were to remain the same, or rather, if it were to refuse to
illuminate matter, its power would be limited. Although Plotinus insists that all
souls are one by virtue of owing their being to a single source, they do become
divided amongst bodies out of necessity -- for that which is pure and perfectly
impassive cannot unite with pure passivity (matter) and still remain itself.
Therefore, the Higher Soul agrees, as it were, to illuminate matter, which has
everything to gain and nothing to lose by the union, being wholly incapable of
engendering anything on its own. Yet it must be remembered that for Plotinus the
Higher Soul is capable of giving its light to matter without in any way becoming
diminished, since the Soul owes its own being to the Intelligence which it
contemplates eternally and effortlessly. The individual souls -- the 'fragmented rays
of light' -- though their source is purely impassive, and hence not responsible for any
misdeeds they may perform, or any misfortunes that may befalls them in their
incarnation, must, themselves, take on certain characteristics of matter in order to
illuminate it, or as Plotinus also says, to govern it. One of these characteristics is a
certain level of passivity, or the ability to be affected by the turbulence of matter as it
16
groans and labors under the vivifying power of the soul, as though in the pangs of
childbirth (cf. Plato, Letter II. 313a). This is the beginning of the individual soul's
personality, for it is at this point that the soul is capable of experiencing such
emotions like anger, fear, passion, love, etc. This individual soul now comes to be
spoken of by Plotinus as if it were a separate entity by. However, it must be
remembered that even the individual and unique soul, in its community (koinon)
with a material body, never becomes fully divided from its eternal and unchanging
source. This union of a unique, individual soul (which owes its being to its eternal
source) with a material body is called by Plotinus the living being (zoon). The living
being remains, always, a contemplative being, for it owes its existence to a prior,
intelligible principle; but the mode of contemplation on the part of the living being is
divided into three distinct stages, rising from a lesser to a greater level of intelligible
ordering. These stages are:
(1) pathos, or the immediate disturbance undergone by the soul through the
vicissitudes of its union with matter,
(2) the moment at which the disturbance becomes an object of intelligible
apprehension (antilepsis), and
(3) the moment at which the intelligible object (tupon) becomes perceived
through the reasoning faculty (dianoia) of the soul, and duly ordered or
judged (krinein). Plotinus call this three-fold structure, in its unity, sense-
perception (aisthesis).
We may best understand Plotinus' theory of perception by describing it as a

'creation' of intelligible objects, or forms, from the raw material (hule) provided by
the corporeal realm of sensation. The individual souls then use these created objects
as tools by which to order or govern the turbulent realm of vivified matter. The
problem arises when the soul is forced to think 'through' or with the aid of these
constructed images of the forms (eide), these 'types' (tupoi). This is the manner of
discursive reasoning that Plotinus calls dianoia, and which consists in an act of
understanding that owes its knowledge (episteme) to objects external to the mind,
which the mind, through sense-perception, has come to 'grasp' (lepsis). Now since
the objects which the mind comes to 'grasp' are the product of a soul that has
mingled, to a certain extent, with matter, or passivity, the knowledge gained by
dianoia can only be opinion (doxa). The opinion may indeed be a correct one, but if
it is not subject to the judgment of the higher part of the soul, it cannot properly be
called true knowledge (alethes gnosis). Furthermore, the reliance on the products of
sense-perception and on dianoia may lead the soul to error and to forgetfulness of
its true status as one with its source, the Higher Soul. And although even the soul
that falls the furthest into error and forgetfulness is still, potentially, one with the
Higher Soul, it will be subject to judgment and punishment after death, which takes
17
the form, for Plotinus, of reincarnation. The soul's salvation consists of bringing its
mind back into line with the reasoning power (logos) of its source, which it also is --
the Soul. All order in the physical cosmos proceeds from the power of the Soul, and
the existence of individual souls is simply the manner in which the Soul exercises its
governing power over the realm of passive nature. When the individual soul forgets
this primal reality or truth -- that it is the principle of order and reason in the cosmos
-- it will look to the products of sense-perception for its knowledge, and will
ultimately allow itself to be shaped by its experiences, instead of using its
experiences as tools for shaping the cosmos.
The Living Being

What Plotinus calls the "living being" (zoon) is what we would refer to, roughly, as
the human-being, or the individual possessed of a distinct personality. This being is
the product of the union of the lower or active part of the soul with a corporeal
body, which is in turn presided over by the Higher Soul, in its capacity as reasoning
power, imparted to all individual souls through their ceaseless contemplation of
their source (I.1.5-7). The "living being," then, may be understood as a dual nature
comprising a lower or physically receptive part, which is responsible for transferring
to the perceptive faculty the sensations produced in the lower or 'irrational' part of
the soul through its contact with matter (the body), and a higher or 'rational' part
which perceives these sensations and passes judgment on them, as it were, thereby
producing that lower form of knowledge called episteme in Greek, that is contrasted
with the higher knowledge, gnosis, which is the sole possession of the Higher Soul.
Plotinus also refers to this dual nature as the 'We' (emeis), for although the
individual souls are in a sense divided and differentiated through their prismatic
fragmentation (cf. I.1.8, IV.3.4, and IV.9.5), they remain in contact by virtue of their
communal contemplation of their prior -- this is the source of their unity. One must
keep in mind, however, that the individual souls and the Higher Soul are not two
separate orders or types of soul, nor is the "living being" a third entity derived from
them. These terms are employed by Plotinus for the sole purpose of making clear the
various aspects of the Soul's governing action, which is the final stage of emanation
proceeding from the Intelligence's contemplation of the power of the One. The
"living being" occupies the lowest level of rational, contemplative existence. It is the
purpose of the "living being" to govern the fluctuating nature of matter by receiving
its impressions, and turning them into intelligible forms for the mind of the soul to
contemplate, and make use of, in its ordering of the cosmos. Now in order to receive
the impressions or sensations from material existence, the soul must take on certain
characteristics of matter (I.8.8-9) -- the foremost characteristic being that of passivity,
or the ability to undergo disruptions in one's being, and remain affected by these
18
disturbances. Therefore, a part of the "living being" will, of necessity, descend too far
into the material or changeable realm, and will come to unite with its opposite (i.e.,
pure passivity) to the point that it falls away from the vivifying power of the Soul, or
the reasoning principle of the 'We.' In order to understand how this occurs, how it is
remedied, and what are the consequences for the Soul and the cosmos that it
governs, a few words must be said concerning sense-perception and memory.
Sense-Perception and Memory
Sense-perception, as Plotinus conceives it, may be described as the production and

cultivation of images (of the forms residing in the Intelligence, and contemplated by
the Soul). These images aid the soul in its act of governing the passive, and for that
reason disorderly, realm of matter. The soul's experience of bodily sensation
(pathos) is an experience of something alien to it, for the soul remains always what it
is: an intellectual being. However, as has already been stated, in order for the soul to
govern matter, it must take on certain of matter's characteristics. The soul
accomplishes this by 'translating' the immediate disturbances of the body -- i.e.,
physical pain, emotional disturbances, even physical love or lust -- into intelligible
realties (noeta) (cf. I.1.7). These intelligible realities are then contemplated by the
soul as 'types' (tupoi) of the true images (eidolon) 'produced' through the Soul's
eternal contemplation of the Intelligence, by virtue of which the cosmos persists and
subsists as a living image of the eternal Cosmos that is the Intelligible Realm. The
individual souls order or govern the material realm by bringing these 'types' before
the Higher Soul in an act of judgment (krinein), which completes the movement or
moment of sense-perception (aisthesis). This perception, then, is not a passive
imprinting or 'stamping' of a sensible image upon a receptive soul; rather, it is an
action of the soul, indicative of the soul's natural, productive power (cf. IV.6.3). This
'power' is indistinguishable from memory (mnemes), for it involves, as it were, a
recollection, on the part of the lower soul, of certain 'innate' ideas, by which it is able
to perceive what it perceives -- and most importantly, by virtue of which it is able to
know what it knows. The soul falls into error only when it 'falls in love' with the
'types' of the true images it already contains, in its higher part, and mistakes these
'types' for realities. When this occurs, the soul will make judgments independently
of its higher part, and will fall into 'sin' (hamartia), that is, it will 'miss the mark' of
right governance, which is its proper nature. Since such a 'fallen' soul is almost a
separate being (for it has ceased to fully contemplate its 'prior,' or higher part), it will
be subject to the 'judgment' of the Higher Soul, and will be forced to endure a chain
of incarnations in various bodies, until it finally remembers its 'true self,' and turns
its mind back to the contemplation of its higher part, and returns to its natural state
(cf. IV.8.4). This movement is necessary for the maintenance of the cosmos, since, as
19
Plotinus tells us, "the totality of things cannot continue limited to the intelligible so
long as a succession of further existents is possible; although less perfect, they
necessarily are because the prior existent necessarily is" (IV.8.3, tr. O'Brien). No soul
can govern matter and remain unaffected by the contact. However, Plotinus assures
us that the Highest Soul remains unaffected by the fluctuations and chaotic
affections of matter, for it never ceases to productively contemplate its prior -- which
is to say: it never leaves its proper place. It is for this reason that even the souls that
'fall' remain part of the unity of the 'We,' for despite any forgetfulness that may
occur on their part, they continue to owe their persistence in being to the presence of
their higher part -- the Soul (cf. IV.1 and IV.2, "On the Essence of the Soul").
Individuality and Personality
The individual souls that are disseminated throughout the cosmos, and the Soul that
presides over the cosmos, are, according to Plotinus, an essential unity. This is not to
say that he denies the unique existence of the individual soul, nor what we would
call a personality. However, personality, for Plotinus, is something accrued, an
addition of alien elements that come to be attached to the pure soul through its
assimilative contact with matter (cf. IV.7.10, and cp. Plato, Republic 611b-612a). In
other words, we may say that the personality is, for Plotinus, a by-product of the
soul's governance of matter -- a governance that requires a certain degree of
affectivity between the vivifying soul and its receptive substratum (hupokeimenon).
The soul is not really 'acted upon' by matter, but rather receives from the matter it
animates, certain unavoidable impulses (horme) which come to limit or bind (horos)
the soul in such a way as to make of it a "particular being," possessing the illusory
quality of being distinct from its source, the Soul. Plotinus does, however, maintain
that each "particular being" is the product, as it were, of an intelligence (a logos
spermatikos), and that the essential quality of each 'psychic manifestation' is already
inscribed as a thought with the cosmic Mind (Nous); yet he makes it clear that it is
only the essence (ousia) of the individual soul that is of Intelligible origin (V.7.1-3).
The peculiar qualities of each individual, derived from contact with matter, are
discardable accruements that only serve to distort the true nature of the soul. It is for
this reason that the notion of the 'autonomy of the individual' plays no part in the
dialectical onto-theology of Plotinus. The sole purpose of the individual soul is to
order the fluctuating representations of the material realm, through the proper
exercise of sense-perception, and to remain, as far as is possible, in imperturbable
contact with its prior. The lower part of the soul, the seat of the personality, is an
unfortunate but necessary supplement to the Soul's actualization of the ideas it
contemplates. Through the soul's 'gift' of determinate order to the pure passivity
that is matter, this matter comes to 'exist' in a state of ever-changing receptivity, of
20
chaotic malleability. This malleability is mirrored in and by the accrued 'personality'

of the soul. When this personality is experienced as something more than a conduit
between pure sense-perception and the act of judgment that makes the perception(s)
intelligible, then the soul has fallen into forgetfulness. At this stage, the personality
serves as a surrogate to the authentic existence provided by and through
contemplation of the Soul.
Ethics
The highest attainment of the individual soul is, for Plotinus, "likeness to God as far
as is possible" (I.2.1; cf. Plato, Theaetetus 176b). This likeness is achieved through the
soul's intimate state of contemplation of its prior -- the Higher Soul -- which is, in
fact, the individual soul in its own purified state. Now since the Soul does not come
into direct contact with matter like the 'fragmented,' individual souls do, the
purified soul will remain aloof from the disturbances of the realm of sense (pathos)
and will no longer directly govern the cosmos, but leave the direct governance to
those souls that still remain enmeshed in matter (cf. VI.9.7). The lower souls that
descend too far into matter are those souls which experience most forcefully the
dissimilative, negative affectivity of vivified matter. It is to these souls that the
experience of Evil falls. For this reason, Plotinus was unable to develop a rigorous
ethical system that would account for the responsibilities and moral codes of an
individual living a life amidst the fluctuating realm of the senses. According to
Plotinus, the soul that has descended too far into matter needs to "merely think on
essential being" in order to become reunited with its higher part (IV.8.4). This seems
to constitute Plotinus' answer to any ethical questions that may have been posed to
him. In fact, Plotinus develops a radical stance vis-a-vis ethics, and the problem of
human suffering. In keeping with his doctrine that the higher part of the soul
remains wholly unaffected by the disturbances of the sense-realm, Plotinus declares
that only the lower part of the soul suffers, is subject to passions, and vices, etc. In
order to drive the point home, Plotinus makes use of a striking illustration. Invoking
the ancient torture device known as the Bull of Phalaris (a hollow bronze bull in
which a victim was placed; the bull was then heated until it became red hot), he tells
us that only the lower part of the soul will feel the torture, while the higher part
remains in repose, in contemplation (I.4.13). Although Plotinus does not explicitly
say so, we may assume that the soul that has reunited with its higher part will not
feel the torture at all. Since the higher part of the soul is
(1) the source and true state of existence of all souls,
(2) cannot be affected in any way by sensible affections, and
21
(3) since the lower soul possesses of itself the ability to free itself from the bonds
of matter, all particular questions concerning ethics and morality are
subsumed, in Plotinus' system, by the single grand doctrine of the soul's
essential imperturbability.
The problems plaguing the lower soul are not, for Plotinus, serious issues for
philosophy. His general attitude may be summed up by a remark made in the
course of one of his discussions of 'Providence':
"A gang of lads, morally neglected, and in that respect inferior to the intermediate
class, but in good physical training, attack and overthrow another set, trained
neither physically nor morally, and make off with their food and their dainty
clothes. What more is called for than a laugh?" (III.2.8, tr. MacKenna).
Of course, Plotinus was no anarchist, nor was he an advocate of violence or
lawlessness. Rather, he was so concerned with the welfare and the ultimate salvation
of each individual soul, that he elevated philosophy -- the highest pursuit of the soul
-- to the level of a divine act, capable of purifying each and every soul of the tainting
accruements of sensual existence. Plotinus' last words, recorded by Porphyry, more
than adequately summarize the goal of his philosophy: "Strive to bring back the god
in yourselves to the God in the All" (Life of Plotinus 2).
Central to Plotinus' metaphysics is the process of ceaseless emanation and
outflowing from the One. Plotinus gives metaphors such as the radiation of heat
from fire or cold from snow, fragrance from a flower or light from the sun. 1
This basic theme reappears in the scholastic maxim that "good diffuses itself"
(bonum diffusivum sui); entities that have achieved perfection of their own being do
not keep that perfection to themselves, but spread it out by generating an external
image of their internal activity 2
This then leads to the idea that Arthur Lovejoy, in his book The Great Chain of
Being, calls "the principle of plenitude". What this means is that emanation from the
One cannot terminate until everything that has possibly come into existence has
done so. Creation cannot stop at the world of the Gods, but must continue
downwards through all possible levels of being and imperfection. Things cannot all
be good, and indeed, as Plotinus says, the universe would be less perfect if they
were, just as it may be necessary for a beautiful work of art that not all its parts are
beautiful in isolation 3
R. T. Wallis, Neoplatonism, p.61

1
2
Ibid, p.61
Ennead III. 2. 11; & R. T. Wallis, Neoplatonism, p.65
3
22
In contrast to the monotheistic idea of a God who creates through a deliberate act of
will, Plotinus sees the activity of the Divine Hypostases is more like the spontaneous
operation of nature than the laborious deliberations of a human craftsman 4
Plotinus' Mysticism
For Plotinus, and other Greek mystics, such as Plotinus' predecessors Plato and
Pythagoras, Spirituality means the ascent from the lower sense-reality to the higher
spiritual reality. Like twentieth century scientists such as Albert Einstein, these
ancient Greek mystics derived meaning and purpose from the contemplation of
nature. But instead of contemplating the wonder of visible physical reality, they
contemplated the wonder of the invisible spiritual reality which they saw as the
cause and ultimate meaning behind the physical reality. Plotinus believed that man
should reject material things and should purify his soul and to lift it up to a
communion with the One.
The Hypostases
Also central in Plotinus' cosmology is the a chain of hypostases.

"...With regard to the existence that is supremely perfect [i.e. "The One"], we must
say it only produces the very greatest of the things that are found below it. But that
which after it is the most perfect, the second principle, is Intelligence (Nous).
Intelligence contemplates the One and needs nothing but it. But the One has no
need of Intelligence [i.e. being the Absolute Principle, it is totally self-sufficient]. The
One which is superior to Intelligence produces Intelligence which is the best
existence after the One, since it is superior to all other beings. The (World-)Soul is
the Word (Logos) and a phase of the activity of Intelligence just as Intelligence is the
logos and a phase of the activity of the One. But the logos of the Soul is obscure
being only an image of Intelligence. The Soul therefore directs herself to
Intelligence, just as the latter, to be Intelligence, must contemplate the One....Every
begotten being longs for the being that begot it and loves it..." 5
(Ennead IV. 3. 10; IV. 4. 11), R. T. Wallis, Neoplatonism, pp.63, 65.

4
5
Ennead V:i:6; translated by Joseph Katz, The Philosophy of Plotinus, pp.15-6 (Appleton-Century-
Crofts, Inc, New York, 1950)
23
The Logos
As the relationship between a Hypostasis and its products, the Logos denotes the
plan or formative principle from which the lower realities evolve and by which their
development is governed 6
Plotinus uses the term not to indicate a separate hypostasis (contra Philo,
Christianity, etc), but to express the relationship between a Hypostasis and its
source or its products or both 7
For Plotinus therefore, the relation between the grades of being, or hypostases, is a
two-fold process. There is a downward process of Emanation or "outflowing", and a
corresponding upward process of return through Contemplation. This can be
represented diagrammatically as follows:
THE ONE
The Absolute and Source
emanation contemplation
NOUS
The "Divine Mind";
Eternal and Transcendent.
emanation contemplation
PSYCHE
"Soul"; the dynamic, creative temporal
power, both cosmic ("World-Soul") and
individual (e.g. human consciousness).
The world of the senses.
Procession and Reversion

Plotinus distinguishes two stages of emanation. The first, prohodros or Procession is
the formless, infinite stream of life that flows forth from the One. But it is
impossible for beings to receive any shape as long as the descent into multiplicity
6
R. T. Wallis, Neoplatonism, p.68
Ibid, p.68
7
24
continues unchecked; they must turn back upon themselves and imitate the
perfection of their Origin to the best of their ability. Hence in the second stage,
epistrophe, Reversion, being turns back, contemplates the One, and so receives form
and order 8 . In the subdivision of the second hypostasis into Being, Intelligence, and
Life, Life the Second Hypostasis in its unformed stage (Procession), and Intelligence
to the second stage, Reversion, when it has received form and limit.
This theme has been more recently taken up in the Theosophical idea of "Life-waves" or "monadic
8
essence" that have emanated from the Absolute, but are still on the involutionary or descending arc,
and hence still formless.
25
The Three Hypostases

The One
Plotinus taught that Reality is an ontological gradation; that is, a gradation of levels
of being. The highest reality, or First Principle, which Plotinus called The One (to
hen), is the most perfect and creative of all.
"That [The One] which is eternally perfect is eternally productive. That which it
produces [the Nous] is eternal too, though inferior to the generating principle..." 9
In Plotinus' view, multiplicity is a fragmentation of the original Unity. Hence each
stage of emanation is a descent into greater multiplicity, which means greater
restriction, more needs, and the dispersion and weakening of the power of previous
stages.
Hence the Supreme principle must constitute the Negation of Duality, in other
words, the One. And, in a manner that was very controversial to the Greeks, with
their abhorrence of infinity, Plotinus describes the One as Formless, Unmeasured,
and Infinite.
Plotinus was thus an early advocate in the West of what later came to be called
Negative Theology, which says that words and conceptions can only tell us what the
Absolute is not, no what it is. While to deny, for example, that the One is motion
does not mean that it is rest, but rather that it is on a level where the duality of
motion and rest does not apply.
In Indian mysticism Negative Theology goes back to the earliest Upanishads

(mystical treatises, the oldest dating from the 7th and 8th Century B.C.E.), where it is
said that Brahman (the Absolute) is neti neti - "not this, not this". In Buddhism too,
especially the schools of Madhyamika and Zen, the dialectic of Negative Theology
was and is of central importance.
Plotinus applies Plato's term the Good to the One's role as the supreme object of
aspiration for all lower realities, due to its utter freedom from limitation and lack of
want.
The One has no need for its products and would not care if it had no products at all;
the process of emanation leaves the One totally unaffected and unconcerned
Ennead V,i,6; translated by Joseph Katz, The Philosophy of Plotinus, pp.15

9
26
The Nous
The beginning of each hypostasis constitutes a particular discontinuity in the

ontological spectrum. So The One is characterised by absolute Unity, perfection,
eternity, and creativity. The Nous is still eternal, creative, perfect blissful, and
totally spiritual, but it is no longer unitary. Rather, this is the region of Plato's
Spiritual Forms. This idea has its roots ultimately in the Middle Platonic view of
Forms as thoughts of God.
At the level of the Nous, the individual still has his own identity, but his
contemplation embraces the whole Intelligible world and everything in it. And
since on this level subject and object are identical, each member of the Intelligible
order is identifiable with the whole of that order, and every other member thereof.
So Universal Intelligence is a sort of unity-in-plurality. This is an idea advocated
earlier by the Neopythagorean philosopher Numenius, the "all is in all"
Intelligence (Nous) is the level of intuition, where discursive thought is bypassed
and the mind attains a direct and instantaneous vision of truth. The distinction
between Soul and Intelligence corresponds to the difference between discursive and
intuitive thought. Discursive thought means reasoning from premise to conclusion,
or being aware of first one thing, then another
The Soul
With the Soul there is the beginning of time, and therefore of Creation (because
Creation by its very nature requires sequence in which to occur). Whereas the Nous
embraces the whole of the Noetic world in one timeless vision, the Soul's
contemplation is forced to change from one thing to another.
The Soul thus constitutes the Nous projected into Time. Although still creative and
spiritual, is no longer eternal, or perfect in its consciousness. It cannot see things in a
holistic and all-embracing way, but only successively, imperfectly, moment by
moment, in terms of past and future. In keeping with Greek thought generally,
Plotinus refers to an original cosmic and therefore Divine World-Soul, which is the
creator of the visible cosmos, and the individual, for example the human, soul.
The Stoics conceived of individual souls as parts of the World-Soul. For Plotinus in
contrast, the World-Soul is herself an individual soul, albeit a very large one, whose
body is the cosmos which she forms and administers. But both the individual and
the World- souls are manifestations of the one Universal Soul. This is essentially the
same as the monistic Hindu philosopher Shankara's statement that the individual
27
soul or Jiva and Ishwara or God the creator and ruler of the universe are both the
result of super-imposition or Maya over the one Absolute or Atman-Brahman 10
As well as this "horizontal" division there is also a "vertical" one. Plotinus and his
successors integrated the Platonic distinction between the rational and irrational
souls with the Aristotlean distinction of vegetative, sentient (animal), and rational
soul-levels. They thus postulated a whole range of levels of psychic consciousness.
Being an intuitive and inspirational rather than a systematic thinker, Plotinus
sometimes divides the Soul into higher/rational and lower/irrational, and sometimes
into three or even more levels, the various classifications often being contradictory
with each other 11. Sometimes the rational soul as a whole is identified with the
"unfallen" soul. Plotinus went so far as to say that the soul, as an "intelligible
cosmos", contains not only all other soul-principles (or Logoi) but also the levels of
Intelligence and the One, and is therefore able to attain any of those principles; an
idea close to the Vedantic and Buddhist concept of Enlightenment or Liberation.
Plotinus' psychology is as follows:
 The summit of Soul is an unfallen level which does not descend into this
world; the Noetic Soul. It is in constant transcendent contemplation of the
eternal Nous.
 The Rational Soul is the highest level of the ordinary human psyche, which is
able to approach the spiritual.
 The Irrational or Animal Soul, which is limited to the bodily or animal

passions and desires; the equivalent perhaps of the Catholic "seven deadly
sins". This is the bodily or "vegetative" soul (phytikon) responsible both for
physical growth and nutrition, and also for the bodily appetites and
emotions 12
The soul is thus an "amphibian", belonging to both the physical and the intelligible
(noetic) worlds.
This concept of "vertical psychology" was later to figure prominently in Kabbalah
and Sufism, and is still with us (minus the higher or spiritual/noetic element) in the
Freudian psychoanalytical distinction of Ego (= Rational Soul) and Id (= Irrational
Soul). In modern Theosophy and Occultism also, this gradation appears as the
distinction between the Mental and the Astral (or Emotional or Desire) bodies.
10 Vivekachudamani, vv. 243-246
11 R. T. Wallis, Neoplatonism, pp.73-4
12 Ibid, pp.73-4.
28
Sometimes Plotinus adds a further hypostasis, phusis or Nature, as the lowest

projection of Soul and the dim consciousness within plants, between Soul and the
Sensible World. The Theosophical version of this is the "etheric plane".
The Soul is the lowest hypostasis, the lowest irradiation of the Divine. Deficient as it
is, it still retains a trace of the original on-tological authenticity or Spiritual-Being-
ness of the higher principles. Below the Soul there is only non-conscious matter -
hyle - which Plotinus equated with "non-being" and total deprivation. Plotinus
describes Matter as "non-being", in view of its formlessness and utter
unsubstantiality, although he denies that this means absolute non-existence 13
Plotinus's Influence - the Islamic Connection

Plotinus' teachings were to exert an influence not only on later Neoplatonists and
Gnostics, but on the Islamic world too. This happened quite by accident. An Arabic
translation of a section of Plotinus, padded out with his student Porphyry's
commentary, appeared, titled the Theology of Aristotle. Since the medieval islamic
thinkers thought very highly of Aristotle, this work exerted a strong formative
influence on Islamic philosophical thought. Thus, whereas Neoplatonism is no
longer respected in the West, except as an intellectual curiosity or historical
movement, the same is most definitely not the case with the intelligent and the
mystic Moslem. An Islamicised neoplatonism has retained its popularity among
progressive philosophers down to the present day. Indeed, anyone who reads the
works of Frithjof Schuon, the important contemporary Sufi-inspired theologian and
Traditionalist, will notice the strongly Plotinian bent to his metaphysics.
13 Ibid, p.48
29

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[Note: Please, if you can translate this work in Italian, contact

Mesopotamia, and Plotinus returned to Rome to set up a school of philosophy. By

Metaphysics and Cosmology

expression of his cosmological theory; for to predicate presence of his highest

'stanchion' or framework is the result of the contemplative activity of the

as a trace in the form of the power it manifests, which is known through

Intelligence is its thought, and the thought of the Intelligence is Being. It is no

The Ideas and the 'Seminal Reasons'

Being and Life

Love and Happiness

contemplation. The discussion of Plotinus' psychological and epistemological

Psychology and Epistemology

We may best understand Plotinus' theory of perception by describing it as a

The Living Being

Sense-Perception and Memory

Sense-perception, as Plotinus conceives it, may be described as the production and

Individuality and Personality

chaotic malleability. This malleability is mirrored in and by the accrued 'personality'

(2) cannot be affected in any way by sensible affections, and

R. T. Wallis, Neoplatonism, p.61

Also central in Plotinus' cosmology is the a chain of hypostases.

(Ennead IV. 3. 10; IV. 4. 11), R. T. Wallis, Neoplatonism, pp.63, 65.

The world of the senses.

Procession and Reversion

The Three Hypostases

In Indian mysticism Negative Theology goes back to the earliest Upanishads

Ennead V,i,6; translated by Joseph Katz, The Philosophy of Plotinus, pp.15

The beginning of each hypostasis constitutes a particular discontinuity in the

 The Irrational or Animal Soul, which is limited to the bodily or animal

10 Vivekachudamani, vv. 243-246

11 R. T. Wallis, Neoplatonism, pp.73-4

Sometimes Plotinus adds a further hypostasis, phusis or Nature, as the lowest

Plotinus's Influence - the Islamic Connection

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