Plotinus

Plotinus
Author: Dominic J. O'Meara
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 155
Release: 1993
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0198751478

This is the ideal introduction to the thought of the third-century AD writer Plotinus, one of the greatest of ancient philosophers, now enjoying a major revival of interest. Dominic O'Meara has tailored the book carefully to the requirements of students: he writes clearly and authoritatively, assumes no knowledge of Greek or expertise in ancient philosophy, stays close to the texts, and relates Plotinus's ideas to modern philosophical concerns.

The Six Enneads

The Six Enneads
Author: Plotinus
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
Total Pages: 1407
Release: 2008-01-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1465579389

Enneads

Enneads
Author: Plotinus
Publisher:
Total Pages: 122
Release: 1926
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN:

The Enneads

The Enneads
Author: Plotinus
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 1410
Release: 2005-06-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0141913355

Regarded as the founder of Neo-Platonism, Plotinus (AD 204-70) was the last great philosopher of antiquity, producing 0works that proved in many ways a precursor to Renaissance thought. Plotinus was convinced of the existence of a state of supreme perfection and argued powerfully that it was necessary to guide the human soul towards this state. Here he outlines his compelling belief in three increasingly perfect levels of existence - the Soul, the Intellect, and the One - and explains his conviction that humanity must strive to draw the soul towards spiritual transcendence. A fusion of Platonism, mystic passion and Aristotelian thought, The Enneads offers a highly original synthesis of early philosophical and religious beliefs, which powerfully influenced later Christian and Islamic theology.

The Enneads of Plotinus, Volume 1

The Enneads of Plotinus, Volume 1
Author: Paul Kalligas
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 728
Release: 2020-06-09
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0691202354

The first volume in a landmark commentary on an important and influential work of ancient philosophy This is the first volume of a groundbreaking commentary on one of the most important works of ancient philosophy, the Enneads of Plotinus—a text that formed the basis of Neoplatonism and had a deep influence on early Christian thought and medieval and Renaissance philosophy. This volume covers the first three of the six Enneads, as well as Porphyry's Life of Plotinus, a document in which Plotinus’s student—the collector and arranger of the Enneads—introduces the philosopher and his work. A landmark contribution to modern Plotinus scholarship, Paul Kalligas’s commentary is the most detailed and extensive ever written for the whole of the Enneads. For each of the treatises in the first three Enneads, Kalligas provides a brief introduction that presents the philosophical background against which Plotinus’s contribution can be assessed; a synopsis giving the main lines and the articulation of the argument; and a running commentary placing Plotinus’s thought in its intellectual context and making evident the systematic association of its various parts with each other.

Marsilio Ficino as Reader of Plotinus: The ‘Enneads’ Commentary

Marsilio Ficino as Reader of Plotinus: The ‘Enneads’ Commentary
Author: Stephen Gersh
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 577
Release: 2024-07-25
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9004701893

This book represents the first ever systematic philosophical study of Marsilio Ficino’s Commentary on Plotinus’ ‘Enneads’ (first published in Florence, 1492), this work of Ficino being arguably as definitive for the Florentine thinker’s later work as the Platonic Theology was for his earlier. Publication of the present study uniquely illuminates the extent to which Plotinus had always been the crucial influence over Ficino’s revolutionary projects of introducing Platonic thought based on original Greek sources to western Europe, correcting certain features of late medieval and Renaissance Aristotelianism, and laying the foundations of a new Christian Platonism. The study can be read both as an independent introduction to Ficino’s later philosophy and as the complement to the first modern edition and translation of the Commentary on the 'Enneads' itself also by Stephen Gersh (I Tatti Renaissance Library, 2017-).

Plotinus on the Good or the One (Enneads VI,9)

Plotinus on the Good or the One (Enneads VI,9)
Author: Meijer
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 397
Release: 1992-01-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9004453830

Amazing as it may be, to this day few commentaries on the treatises of Plotinus' Enneads are written. The classic ninth treatise (VI,9 in Porphyrius' order), for example, has hardly been studied. This treatise, however, is of vital importance, because it is in this work that for the first time in the Enneads, the One in its superform emerges and Plotinus dwells on the remarkable phenomenon of a 'mystical union' of the soul with the One. A thorough analysis of the argument and its development next to philosophical and philo-logical support will be welcome to any reader of this in-triguing but difficult treatise. These aims are pursued in the main part of Meijer's work, the commentary. The first part of the book, preceding the commentary, examines the philosophical history of the concept of the One and its status in the first eight treatises. This new approach to the problem of the One leads to striking conclusions. It appears that while Plotinus was writing these first eight treatises, the concept of the One developed from that of a Supreme Entity of a Mesoplatonian character, viz. the upper part of the mind, to One of a Superone above mind. This casts an entirely new light on the position of the One in Plotinus and that of the ninth treatise itself. The third part not only examines the mystical union as pictured in the ninth treatise, but also provides a full scale discussion of Plotinus' descriptions of this union in his en-tire work. The degree of unification, viz. the question whether a part of the mystic self remains intact during the unification, is a matter of vigorous scholarly debate. Meijer shows that, in spite of some inconsistencies in his doctrine about the union, one must accept that Plotinus basically considered the union as a complete absorption of the soul into the Supreme Entity.