NEOPLATONISM

Neo-Platonism: translation

Neo-PlatonismEyjólfur K.EmilssonGENERAL INTRODUCTIONNeo-Platonism is usually defined as the philosophy of Plotinus, who livedin the third century AD, and his followers in the pagan Graeco-Romanworld in late antiquity. The most significant philosophers among thesefollowers are Porphyry, Iamblichus and Proclus. In a more liberal sense theterm ‘Neo-Platonic’ may be applied to all philosophers on whom theseprimary Neo-Platonists exerted considerable influence. It may thus be usedso as to include Christian thinkers such as St Augustine, Boethius, Pseudo-Dionysius and John the Scot Erigena and of later people, Marsilio Ficino,Cusanus, Bruno and Cudworth, to name just a few.Neo-Platonism was the dominant philosophy in the Graeco-Romanworld from the third century till the sixth, when the emperor Justinianclosed the pagan schools. It survived even after this in Alexandria down tothe Islamic conquest in 642. Plotinus taught in Rome, but eventually Neo-Platonism spread out in the Empire, especially in the East, with majorcenters for a while in Rome, Syria and Pergamum, and with long lastingtraditions in Athens and Alexandria. Neo-Platonism was thus an activephilosophy for about 400 years. As the last phase of pagan philosophyprevalent in the early centuries of Christianity, Neo-Platonism was theschool of ancient philosophy which at first opposed and soon profoundlyinfluenced Christian thought and theology.&LT;sup&GT;1&LT;/sup&GT; Its later stages arecharacterized by the Aristotelian Neo-Platonist Greek commentators, whofall outside the span of this volume. But even the period from Plotinus inthe third century AD to Proclus in the fifth provides a fairly long list ofNeo-Platonic philosophers. Rather than commenting on every name—ourknowledge of the doctrines of most of the thinkers involved is extremelylimited in any case—I shall treat Plotinus, the greatest mind of all the Neo-Platonists, most extensively.In so doing I shall point out traits that arecharacteristic of Neo-Platonism generally. This will be followed by shorteraccounts of Porphyry, Iamblichus and Proclus.The definition of Neo-Platonism given at the outset tells us of coursenothing about philosophical content. Before attempting to give such anaccount, it may be helpful to have an outline of the background of Neo-Platonism in antiquity and an explanation of the term ‘Neo-Platonism’.Throughout antiquity there were thinkers, often quite different fromeach other, who claimed to be followers of Plato. Arguably, they were allright in maintaining such affiliation, for Plato’s thought is so rich that onecan develop it in many directions. Platonic tradition in antiquity can bedivided into four main types that correspond, at least roughly, to differentperiods. First comes the Old Academy, a metaphysically inclined school ofthought which dominated in Plato’s Academy for the next few generationsafter Plato’s death. In the early third century BC scepticism became theprevailing view. This tendency lasted into the first century BC, when theAcademy became dogmatic again with Antiochus of Ascalon, who blendedhis Platonism with a good deal of Stoicism.The period that follows till Plotinus (205–69/70) is usually called MiddlePlatonism.&LT;sup&GT;2&LT;/sup&GT; Our knowledge about Platonic thinkers during this time isextremely fragmentary. Nevertheless, we know enough to affirm that therewas considerable activity, by no means exclusively or even primarily in theAcademy but at various places in the Hellenized world. In fact MiddlePlatonism is no unified school of thought, but a label put on variousPlatonically inspired thinkers at different places during this period. It ispossible, nevertheless, to point out some general trends: Platonists havenow become metaphysically oriented again, happily engaging inspeculations about the ultimate principles and structure of the world. So ina way we see here a return to the kind of philosophy characteristic of the OldAcademy but with important new features: the Middle Platonists generallyshow significant influence of other philosophical schools in terminologyand even in doctrine. The Peripatetics are the most relevant here, but Stoicinfluence is by no means negligible. The authors Plutarch of Chaeronea andApuleius (the author of theGolden Ass), who are better known for theirnon-philosophical writings, both wrote philosophical works and count asMiddle Platonists. Among the philosophically most important of theMiddle Platonists should be mentioned Albinus, author ofIntroduction toPlato’s Dialogues,and Alcinous. The latter, whom some scholars wish toidentify with Albinus, wrote a work called theDidaskalikos,which inmany respects is representative of Middle Platonism. Concurrently withMiddle Platonism and not easily distinguishable from it there arose amovement of Neo-Pythagoreanism represented by such figures asModeratus and Numenius. Their doctrines paved the way for Plotinus,who was in fact accused of plagiarizing from Numenius.Plotinus’ thought, and thereby the kind of philosophy that has come to beknown as Neo-Platonism, grows out of this soil. It is even questionablewhether Plotinus, who on all accounts is considered the founder of Neo-Platonism, really marks a breaking point in the history of Platonism. (Aswe shall see, this is not meant to downgrade his importance andoriginality.) For most of the supposedly characteristic elements of Neo-Platonism can be traced back to the Middle Platonists. Plotinus constitutesa historical milestone primarily because he synthesizes and in some respectscarries further ideas already current. Nor should we forget that he is thefirst significant Platonist of his era who has left a large extant corpus. Evenour meager sources suggest that a more complete picture of his MiddlePlatonist predecessors would reveal Plotinus as a great mind belonging toan already established mode of thought. Thus, Neo-Platonism, defined as aphilosophical movement beginning with Plotinus, is a somewhat artificialnotion.As with the names of so many other movements in the history of culture,‘Neo-Platonism’ is an intellectual historian’s term of art, invented inmodern times to describe the past. The philosophers involved surely didnot think of themselves asNeo-Platonists. They would simply seethemselves as Platonists, interpreters and followers of Plato’s philosophy.But so have many others thought of themselves both before and afterPlotinus and his followers in antiquity. The main reason why historianshave found it expedient to put a special label, ‘Neo-Platonists’, on theseparticular Platonists is that for a long time after the study of Plato’sdialogues was resumed in Europe during the Renaissance, the distinctionbetween his thought and that of the late ancient Platonists, especiallyPlotinus and Proclus, tended to be blurred: Plato was generally seen from aNeo-Platonic viewpoint. Moreover, this attitude was often mixed with aneffort to harmonize and even mix Platonism with Christianity. Gradually,however, it became evident that this view involved serious historicaldistortions. Not only did it turn out to be worth while to study Platostripped of the outfit of the ancient Platonic tradition, not to mentionChristianity, increasing historical awareness also suggested that manyfeatures foreign to Plato had infiltrated the minds of Plotinus and hissuccessors. It was originally in a revolt against the historical errors of thetotal fusion of Plato and the late ancient Platonists that scholars began todistinguish sharply between the philosophy of Plato and that of Plotinusand his successors, calling the latter ‘Neo-Platonists’.Understandable as these motives are, the reaction was in some respectsexcessive: new historical errors and misunderstandings have separatedPlato and the Neo-Platonists even further apart than is reasonable. Thepresence of Plato in the Neo-Platonists’ writings, which today is obvious toall serious students of both, faded into the background, whereas all sorts ofother elements came to the fore: the Neo-Platonists’ alleged orientalism,superstition and philosophical eclecticism. Truly Platonic elements evenwent unnoticed in cases where they are, by hindsight, obvious. The mostnotorious example of this is scholarly views of the Neo-Platonic One (Ishall have more to say about this shortly) about whose non-Platonic andeven non-Greek origin there had been imaginative speculations, until in1928 E.R. Dodds proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the One’s keyfeatures come right out of Plato’sParmenides.&LT;sup&GT;3&LT;/sup&GT; The fact is that asphilosophers the Neo-Platonists are above all genuine Platonists and thismust be the first guiding principle in the interpretation of their thought.But what sort of Platonists? It is sometimes said that Neo-Platonism isPlato without Socrates, meaning that the ethico-political side of Plato aswell as Socratic ignorance with all its implications are largely absent in theNeo-Platonists. Their interests lie primarily in metaphysics and in thephilosophy of nature and of Man as seen from the viewpoint of theirmetaphysics. In fact there are relatively few Platonic passages on which theNeo-Platonists build. TheTimaeusenjoys a prominent position, presentingfor the Neo-Platonists a picture of the world as a whole and its structure.Other much cited dialogues are theParmenides(the second part), whichwas thought to present Plato’s theology (i.e. metaphysics or ontology)—theNeo-Pythagoreans mentioned above were the first to read theParmenidesin this way; theRepublic,especially books V–VII and the myth of Er. Tothis may be added passages from theSymposium(Diotima’s speech),Phaedrus, Phaedo, Theaetetus, Philebus,theSophist,theLawsand the firstAlcibiades.The Neo-Platonists were convinced that Plato presents a coherent andtrue account of the reality. The problem is to understand him correctly, foroften he expresses himself cryptically—according to the Neo-PlatonistsPlato’s myths contain important philosophical truths. In addition thetradition of Plato’s unwritten doctrines, i.e. Aristotle’s presentation ofPlato’s principles and accounts of the celebrated lecture on the Good, playa role in the Neo-Platonists’ picture of Plato. Not that the tradition of theunwritten doctrines supersedes that of the dialogues; rather the dialoguesare interpreted in the light of the ‘unwritten doctrines’. An example of thisis the identification of the One and the Good as Plato’s highest principle.The Neo-Platonists could not fail to be influenced by the philosophicaldevelopments that took place in the Graeco-Roman world during the 600years between Plato and Plotinus as well as by the intellectual climate oftheir day. In the third century AD it was impossible to talk aboutphilosophy without some Stoic and Aristotelian accent, which had becomea part of the language of philosophy itself. And however convinced aPlatonist a late ancient philosopher may have been, he would of course useany tools available to him and compatible with his basic Platonic views toargue for and state his position. Thus, the Neo-Platonists’ position can becompared to that of, say, any sensible Marxist of today who uses whateverhe finds useful in twentieth-century non-Marxist philosophy, sociology oreconomics, not attempting to transform himself into a nineteenth-centurymind but, on the contrary, addressing the issues of the day. In any case, forthe Neo-Platonists Aristotle was not a complete outsider. The late ancientPlatonist attitudes towards him vary from hostility to a friendliness thatwould only befit a faithful fellow Platonist. Plotinus’ attitude may perhapsbe expressed by saying that Aristotle was an aberrant Platonist whonevertheless is most useful. After Porphyry the dominant view came to bethat in fact Plato and Aristotle were in essential agreement.Plato belonged to Athens, a small homogeneous city-state, where activeparticipation in politics was expected of every free man; the Neo-Platonists, by contrast, belonged to the immense and multifarious RomanEmpire. The general mood of the times, not only among the Neo-Platoniststhemselves who in due course did much to create the intellectual climate atleast among the educated, was oriented inwards and upwards rather thanout to the physical world and society. The rise of Christianity and thepopularity of gnosticism and other kindred trends bear witness to this. Allthis helps to explain the Neo-Platonists’ lack of enthusiasm for Plato’sworldly ethics and political philosophy and preoccupation with thespeculative aspects of his thought.How good an interpretation of Plato came out of all this? This is by nomeans an easy question to answer, if only because also today evenfundamental aspects of Plato’s philosophy are debated. The Neo-Platonistsdid not have a sense of a development in Plato’s thought and they wouldgive much greater weight to Plato’s myths and allegorical interpretationsthan most scholars today are willing to do. However, given that one’s taskis to set forth systematic metaphysics out of the Platonic material the Neo-Platonists rely on, their results are not at all implausible, as can be seenfrom the fact that modern scholars who attempt to reconstruct systematicmetaphysics out of Plato tend to come up with structures that have a gooddeal in common with Neo-Platonism, albeit admittedly not the whole thing.Plato is in any event a central figure in ancient philosophy: he bringstogether many ideas from previous Greek philosophy and puts a strongmark on subsequent ancient mainstream metaphysics, i.e. on theAristotelian and the Stoic traditions in addition to the Platonic traditionitself. So Neo-Platonism as a philosophical movement concerned withPlato’s thought while being aware of and employing ideas from the otherschools can be fruitfully seen as a culmination not only of Platonic butGreek metaphysical thought in general. In many cases Neo-Platonism takesto their extreme, to their logical conclusion one might even say, ideasalready present in the tradition. The philosophical value of the movementlies not least in this play with the entire Greek tradition which results in adistinctive and, when at its best, quite sophisticated metaphysical thinking.Within the history of philosophy Neo-Platonism has a rather peculiarand in some respects an uncomfortable position. It lies on the borderbetween antiquity and the Middle Ages, which constitute two separatefields of expertise whose focal points lie far from Neo-Platonism. The Neo-Platonists’ writings also tend to make difficult reading, even forphilosophical works. This is not only because their works may presentviews that are in themselves difficult to grasp, but also and no less becausethe Neo-Platonists incorporate and presuppose so much of the previousGreek tradition in their writings that no Neo-Platonic text is intelligiblewithout prior familiarity with this tradition. The result of all this is that theNeo-Platonists are usually not given much attention in the standardphilosophy curriculum. Furthermore, the prevailing trends in twentiethcenturyphilosophy, especially in the English-speaking world, have on thewhole been unsympathetic towards Neo-Platonism, which is seen toexhibit many signs of corrupt philosophy: uncontrolled rationalisticmetaphysical speculation combined with faith in an authority (who ismoreover misunderstood); to this are added the sins of mysticism, occultismand superstition. Even if genuine progress has been made in Neo-Platonicstudies in recent years, the image of the Neo-Platonist as a thinker engagedin ‘wild fancy’ seems to linger on. While there are certainly passages thatmake some of these charges understandable, the Neo-Platonists’ reputationas philosophers has in general been lower than they deserve. And whateverone thinks of their philosophy, the Neo-Platonists have had an immenseinfluence not only on the history of philosophy but also in the history ofart, literature and science. Richard Wallis hardly exaggerates when hewrites that ‘a survey of Neo-Platonism’s influence threatens to become littleless than a cultural history of Europe and the Near East down to theRenaissance, and on some points far beyond’.&LT;sup&GT;4&LT;/sup&GT; At the end of this chapter Ishall briefly take up the issue of the influence of Neo-Platonism.PLOTINUS, THE MASTER THINKER OF NEOPLATONISMLIFE AND WRITINGSWe are lucky to have a fairly reliable account of Plotinus’ life and writings.His student, friend and editor, Porphyry, composed a biography,On theLife of Plotinus and the Order of His Books(hereafterLife) whichprefaced his posthumous edition of Plotinus’ writings. Plotinus was born in204/5, probably in Lycopolis in Egypt, though this piece of informationdoes not come from Porphyry. About his ethnic origin nothing is known,but he wrote in Greek. At the age of 28 Plotinus began his philosophicalstudies in Alexandria under a certain Ammonius (often called AmmoniusSaccas), with whom he studied for about eleven years. In an attempt toacquaint himself with the philosophy of Persia and India, he joined theemperor Gordian on a campaign against the Persians. Gordian wasmurdered on the way and Plotinus escaped with difficulty. He settled inRome at the age of 40, where he established a school. He stayed in Romefor the rest of his life except during his final illness, when he retired toCampania.Few ancient philosophers have left a larger extant corpus than Plotinusand we probably possess everything he wrote. His works are treatises thatvary greatly in length and scope. Some are only a few pages dealing with aspecific question, while others are extensive writings. Porphyry arrangedthe treatises according to subject matter into six sets of nine treatises, i.e.six ‘enneads’. In order to arrive at this division he had to split sometreatises, for example IV.3–5,The Problems of Soul,which originally was asingle treatise. The order is supposed to be pedagogical, starting with theeasier and proceeding to the more difficult. Thus, Porphyry included in thefirstEnneadtreatises that deal with ethical matters. In the second and thirdhe put treatises dealing with the physical universe. The fourth is about souland the fifth about intellect and the doctrine of the three principalhypostases. Porphyry does not say explicitly which subject the sixthEnneadis supposed to cover, but apparently it is meant to be being and theOne. In any case, Porphyry’s arrangement according to subject matter is anapproximate one, partly because he is forcing the material to meet hisprinciples of division, partly because many of Plotinus’ treatises do notreadily fall under one, or even two, headings.&LT;sup&GT;5&LT;/sup&GT;Plotinus’ treatises grew out of discussions in his school. Thesediscussions would often be concerned with exegesis of some text or other.Plotinus used to have commentaries on Plato and Aristotle read in theschool (Life, 14). The object of reading these would be to arrive at acorrect understanding of the relevant primary text. Thus, more often thannot, Plotinus’ writings are interpretations of some Platonic text or doctrine,sometimes involving refutations of rival interpretations. However, he didnot follow the standard procedures of the writing of commentaries.Porphyry says that he did not speak straight out of the books that wereread in his seminars ‘but took a distinctive personal line in hisconsideration, and brought the mind of Ammonius to bear on theinvestigations in hand’ (Life, 14, 14–16). Of Plotinus’ manner of writingPorphyry informs us that when Plotinus wrote he did so continuously as ifhe was copying from a book and that owing to bad eyesight he could notbear to read over what he had written (Life, 8). All this suggests that thestyle of Plotinus’ lectures and writings was quite unconventional. So far ashis writings are concerned we can confirm that so they are indeed. Alreadyin antiquity people complained that he was difficult to follow (Life, 17–18). He was sometimes accused of being ‘a big driveller’, sometimes aplagiarist (Life, 17). Porphyry’s account of Plotinus’ style and manner ofphilosophizing aims to show that such accusations are unjustified.Plotinus is sometimes described as a systematic philosopher who neverreveals his whole system in an organized way and that the system must beinferred from bits and pieces here and there in his writings. Anothercommon dictum is that every one of his treatises presupposes all the restand the whole system. Even if there is something to these claims and amore organized comprehensive view lies behind Plotinus’ writings thanmeets the eye, Plotinus’ mind is not that of the rigid system-builder. In thishe is different from Proclus and even Porphyry. Plotinus has perhaps beenseen as more of a system-builder than he really is because many features oflater Neo-Platonists’ systems can be detected by the benefit of hindsight inPlotinus’ works. Plotinus’ philosophical genius consists rather in thecombination of sensitivity and shrewdness with which he addresses theproblems inherent in his tradition. The result is that after him this traditionwas transformed.PLOTINIAN METAPHYSICSA characteristic of Plotinus’ philosophy and Neo-Platonism generally is adivision of reality into hierarchically ordered stages or levels, so-called‘hypostases’. The following list presents the main levels of the Plotinianhierarchy, which was essentially taken over by the later Neo-Platoniststhough certain details may have varied.The One (the Good)Being—Intellect—Platonic IdeasSoulThe World-Soul—Individual SoulsOrganismsBodiesMatterWhy should reality be structured in this way? In order to answer thisquestion let us first point out some affinities with earlier Greek thought.From the outset Greek philosophers were engaged in explaining the worldof everyday experience in terms of some underlying nature: Thalesproposed water, Anaximander some indeterminate nature, Plato the Ideasand so forth. In general the Greek philosophers took a strong realistposition with regard to their explanatory postulates—principles(archai)asthey came to be called. Not only were the principles supposed to exist, butfrequently they were supposed to be more real, to exist in some fullersense, than that which they were meant to explain.The Neo-Platonic One, Intellect, Soul are principles in this traditionalsense. With certain qualifications, to be explained below, so is matter.Inorganic bodies, organisms and their functions, and human consciousnessand experiences are phenomena to be accounted for in terms of theprinciples. We can even readily identify the sources of the Neo-Platonicprinciples in previous Greek thought:&LT;sup&GT;6&LT;/sup&GT; the One (the Good) is founded onPlatonic passages such as the first hypothesis of theParmenidesand theIdea of the Good in theRepublic.In formulating his theory about itPlotinus also draws on Parmenides of Elea himself, the Pythagoreans,Speusippus and Xenocrates, all of whom posited a One as an ultimateprinciple. Intellect, as the sphere of being and the Ideas, has its source inPlato of course but also in Aristotle, especiallyMetaphysics12, where Godis described as a pure intellectual activity. Soul as a cosmological principlecomes primarily from Plato’sTimaeus.Plotinus’ notion of matter is acombination of the receptacle of forms in theTimaeusand Aristotle’snotion of matter. The three first principles, the One, Intellect and Soul,comprise together the intelligible world (though, as we shall see, the One isnot strictly speaking intelligible). Like Plato, Plotinus works with afundamental dichotomy between the intelligible and the sensible. Theintelligible world is distinguished from the sensible world primarily bybeing non-spatial; it is also the sphere of the real (in the sense of beingwhat it is in virtue of itself), whereas in Plotinus’ view nothing in the sensibleworld counts as real in this sense.So the Neo-Platonic hierarchy is a hierarchy of principles. But a host ofquestions remains: Why do the principles assume a hierarchical form? Whatare the distinguishing features of each level? Why exactly these principles?How are the levels related to one another? The answer to the first questionis that once we have distinguished between what is to be accounted for anda principle that explains it, questions may arise about the principle itself:the principle itself may turn out to have features that stand in need of anexplanation and a further principle must then be postulated to account forthe one we encountered first. This process may go on until we come upwith a principle which needs no further explanation, a principle aboutwhich no further questions can be asked. For the Neo-Platonists thisultimate principle is the One.The Neo-Platonists generally assume that the explanatory principlesthemselves must have the features they explain. For instance Soul, which isthe principle of life in the sensible realm, is itself alive. Moreover, theprinciples ideally have these features in such a way that it is pointless to askwhy they have them. The principle possesses of itself what other thingspossess as an imposed feature and hence one that requires explanation.Plotinus frequently expresses this by saying of a principle that it is such andsuch in itself(en heautôi),whereas other things have the same feature as inanother(en allôi).This corresponds roughly to what in modern philosophyis expressed in terms of necessary and contingent properties. The notionthat the principles have of themselves the features they explain in others isof course implicit or explicit in much of previous Greek thought: forexample the Platonic Ideas are themselves primary instances of what otherthings are in virtue of them—the Idea of beauty is beautifulpar excellence.Let us call this assumption the Principle of the Self-Sufficiency of theCause.The Neo-Platonic hierarchy is above all a hierarchy of degrees of unity:each level has a characteristic kind of unity with the One on top as theabsolutely simple stage which, by the Principle of the Self-Sufficiency ofthe Cause, is the cause of all other unity there is and thereby, in fact, thecause of everything else whatsoever. Why should unity be such animportant concept? Once again Plotinus is drawing on the previous Greektradition and interpreting the facts in light of it. Unity had been a keyconcept in the tradition from the Pythagoreans and the Eleatics to Aristotleand the Old Academy: unity is what distinguishes between an entity and anon-entity. Plotinus accepts Aristotle’s view that being and unity arecoextensive: to be is to be one thing, to be unified, and the more ‘one’something is the more of a being it is. The most striking feature of theworld of everyday experience is in fact the unity of it as a whole and ofindividual objects, especially living things, in it. The organization,regularity and beauty that is evident in the world of everyday experience—all these may be said to express its unity—cannot be explained in terms ofits constituent parts. The latter are what is unified and their unity is animposed feature which must come from elsewhere. The unity revealed inthe sensible world is far from perfect but it gives the sensible world thereality it has. The same may be said of our experiences of ourselves:introspection shows that the human soul has a more perfect kind of unitythan anything pertaining to the body, although even the soul does not haveunity of itself (IV.2 (4) 2; IV.7. (2) 6–7). Thus, our everyday experiences,both of the external world and our mental life, point beyond themselves toa higher level of reality which is its principle.This process of going upwards from everyday phenomena to theirprinciples reminds us of and in fact draws on Plato’s dialectic as describedfor instance in theSymposiumand theRepublic.There are many instancesof such spiritual ascent in theEnneads.The most famous one is Plotinus’first treatise,On Beauty,1.6, where he builds on Diotima’s speech in theSymposium.This treatise has been extremely influential in art, especiallyduring the Renaissance. The ascent from the beauty of corporeal things tothe Beautiful itself is as one would expect interpreted in terms of thePlotinian hierarchy and general doctrine of spiritual ascent. Interestingly,he deviates from Plato’s views of the arts as expressed in theRepublicinthat for Plotinus art does not imitate nature but operates in parallel withnature (I.6.3; V.8 (31) 1). Thus, the artist uses the intelligible world directlyand expresses it in sensible form. The artist’s status is thereby elevated tothat of a micro-demiurge instead of being a maker of shadows of shadows.Other treatises where spiritual ascent is prominent are 1.3 (20),OnDialectic,V.1,On the Three Primary Hippostases(10) andOn theKnowing HypostaseisV.3 (4). In IV.7 (4),On the Soul’s Immortality,Plotinus argues against rival views on the nature of the soul and attemptsto prove its independence of the body and kinship with a higher realm.This is one of Plotinus’ most accessible treatises and shows how he thinkseveryday natural phenomena point to transcendent causes.Leaving the intermediate stages aside for the moment, the Principle ofthe Self-Sufficiency of the Cause together with the claim that everythingpresupposes unity, leads to the highest principle, the One. The doctrineof the One, even if foreshadowed by the tradition before Plotinus, ispresumably his most significant contribution. His Aristotelizingpredecessors such as Alcinous and Numenius believed in a simple firstprinciple, but, like Aristotle, they thought that this simple principle was anintellect of some sort. As we have seen, in Plotinus the level below the Oneis an intellect which is characterized by a high degree of unity.Nevertheless, Plotinus maintains, any intellect involves plurality: there isplurality in thought because there is at least a conceptual distinctionbetween the thought and its object, and what is thought is in any casevaried (cf. for example V.3.10.). So the One is not an intellect.The One is both absolutely simple and unique—i.e. there can at most beone absolutely simple principle (V.4 (7) 1)—and it involves no variation orlimitation. From this it follows that the One cannot be positively described.It cannot be grasped by thought or known in its true nature, since anythought of it distorts in so far as the thought is bound to be composite. It isnot even appropriate to say of the One that itis,or that itis one,since suchexpressions indicate something unified rather than the absolutely simplenature which gives unity to whatever is unified (VI.9.5). Nevertheless, it ispossible to approach the One and even become one with it in a kind of noncognitiveunion, a ‘vision’ which escapes all description (VI.9 (9) 8–11). Onaccount of this doctrine of a union with the ultimate principle, a unionwhich transcends conceptualization, Plotinus has been called a mystic. Itmust however be said that this ‘mystical union’ does not play a major rolein his writings.Even if there are precedents for a supreme formal principle in Plotinus’tradition, most of his predecessors would postulate in addition otherultimate principles. Thus, Aristotle posits both form and matter and it seemsthat Plato too, in thePhilebusand according to Aristotle’s account, positsin addition to a formal, unifying principle an independent principle ofplurality. In Plotinus and the other Neo-Platonists this is different. Even ifthe lower levels in his hierarchy function in fact as principles of multiplicity—we shall see in greater detail below precisely how—all these lower levelsderive from the One. In this sense Plotinus is an unwavering monist.Intellect, the level below the One, is the realm of the Platonic Ideas and ofreal being—by which is meant that which is what it is in virtue of itself, notthrough something else. Historically the Plotinian Intellect is the unificationof Aristotle’s God fromMetaphysics12 (identified with the demiurge ofPlato’sTimaeus), the active intellect ofOn the Soul3, 4–6 and the realm ofthe Platonic Ideas. The identification of the realm of the Ideas with realbeing is straightforward, provided that one believes in Platonic Ideas, forby definition each Idea is perfectly and of itself that which it causes inothers. More problematic is the identification of the Ideas with a divineintellect. Plotinus finds historical support for such a view in Plato’sSophistwhere the Ideas are said to have intelligence and life, and in Aristotle’sviews of God: God is an Intellect and at the same time the supreme beingor substance, i.e. it is in virtue of being pure thought of himself that God ispure actuality, and being pure actuality God has a fuller being thananything else, is more real. But what philosophical motivation lies behindplacing the Ideas within a divine Intellect?An important question Platonists face is how to describe the relationbetween the demiurge and his intelligible model in theTimaeusin precisephilosophical terms. In treatise V.5(32),That the Ideas are not Outside theIntellect and on the One, Plotinus discusses this question and gives severalarguments for the view that the Ideas are indeed internal to the divineintellect. Of these arguments the philosophically most interesting one is anargument to the effect that if the Ideas are outside the Intellect, the latter’sknowledge of them must be acquired, i.e. the Intellect will receive only animpression of the Idea, not the Idea itself; but the Ideas are the standards ofjudgment and if the Intellect does not possess these standards previously, itwill lack the necessary means of recognizing the impression of each Ideafor what it is. So, if the Intellect does not essentially contain the Ideas as itsthoughts, its knowledge and wisdom become problematic: an unacceptableconclusion since it is agreed that the divine intellect has supremeknowledge.These ideas are further developed in V.3(49) where there emerges a pictureof the Intellect as really identical with, though conceptually distinct from,the objects of its thought, the Ideas. The Intellect’s thought is described asself-thought and its knowledge as a kind of self-knowledge. At the sametime this self-thought is the Ideas and real being. In his account of thisPlotinus makes use of the Aristotelian view that God is an Intellect and alsowhat is supremely real, a substancepar excellence:only a self-containedthought is fully actual, pure actuality. But Plotinus goes far beyondAristotle not only in identifying the thoughts of the Intellect with the Ideasbut also in his use of this doctrine. For him, the identification of real beingwith a divine intellect means that there is a level of reality whereknowledge and being, epistemology and ontology, coincide. This he takesto be a necessary condition of the possibility of knowledge.We mentioned above that Intellect is characterized by a greater unitythan the sensible world.&LT;sup&GT;7&LT;/sup&GT; Intellect is non-spatial and non-temporal andhence free from the dispersion that has to do with space and time. (Itfollows from this that talk of ‘above’ and ‘below’, ‘first’ and ‘after’ inconnection with the hypostases is of course merely metaphorical.) Secondly,the part-whole relations in Intellect are such that not only does the wholecontain its parts, the whole is also implicit in each of the parts (cf. forexample VI.2.20). Thirdly, as we have noted there is not a real distinctionbetween subject and attribute on the level of Intellect. It is replaced by thenotion of intellectual substance and its activity(energeia),which isidentical with the substance. Much of this doctrine about the relationshipsbetween the items on the level of Intellect is founded on interpretations andsuggestions in Plato’s late dialogues. Plotinus takes the five greatest kindsof theSophist,being, sameness, difference, motion and rest, as the highestgenera of his ontology. Each of these is at once distinct and presupposesand is interwoven with all the others. Together they constitute the Intellector the Intelligible substance and particular Ideas are generated from themas species from higher genera. The integrity of Intellect implies thatIntellect’s thought, Intellect’s self-thought as we have seen, is in some waysdifferent from ordinary thought: it employs neither inferences nor words;its objects which are at the same time its vehicles are the very thingsthemselves, the prototypes and causes of which everything else, whethernatural phenomena or lower modes of human thought, are inferiormanifestations.Soul is the level below Intellect.&LT;sup&GT;8&LT;/sup&GT; On account of the multiplicity of itsfunctions Soul is in some ways the most complex of the Plotinianhypostases and conceptually the least unified one. The historical sources ofPlotinus’ notion of soul are primarily Plato, above all theTimaeus,butPlotinus’ psychology also reveals strong Aristotelian and Stoic influences.We shall have more to say about human psychology later in connectionwith Plotinus’ views on Man and the remarks here are intended primarilyto give an outline of the place of soul within the system.The hypostasis Soul is the intelligible level that is directly responsible forthe sensible world. Thus, everything below the level of soul is its product:matter itself, inorganic bodies, ordinary living things, including the sensiblecosmos itself, which according to the Neo-Platonists as well as Plato andthe Stoics is a supreme organism. Certain difficulties arise precisely onaccount of Soul’s close relationship with the sensible. In the first place, howcan soul cause the extended sensible world, administer it and, in fact,ensoul it without thereby coming to share in its extended nature? Howcould soul operate here and also there without being divisible into spatiallydistinct parts? If it is divided, its intelligible status will be lost or at leastseriously threatened. This difficulty is increased by the fact that accordingto common and deeply ingrained opinion soul is present in the bodies itensouls. Plato in theTimaeuseven speaks of the soul of the world asextending throughout it. Plotinus was deeply disturbed by these and otherpuzzles having to do with the soul’s relationship with the sensible realm asis shown by the fact that he returns to them repeatedly.Plotinus finds it necessary to make certain distinctions within the level ofsoul. There is the hypostasis Soul, which remains in the intelligible realm,and there is the World-Soul and the souls of individuals, the latter twobeing on the same level (IV.3.1–8). Plotinus further distinguishes within thetwo latter types of soul between a higher and a lower soul, correspondingto a distinction between soul directly operating through a body and soulnot so operating (this distinction coincides with the distinction betweenrational and non-rational soul). These distinctions are useful for otherpurposes, but surely do not solve the real philosophical difficulties aboutthe soul’s relation to the sensible realm. For if the sensible realm is causedand administered by something belonging to the intelligible realmsomething of the intelligible order must stain itself in the mud, as it were.Nor does Plotinus think, at least not when he is at his best, that creatingnew levels will help solve this problem. One solution he frequently suggestsand argues for, mainly from facts about the unity of consciousness insensation, is that the soul is present as a whole at every point of the body itensouls. Thereby it can be at different places without being divided. Itsbeing so present as a whole in different parts of space shows its differentontological status from that of bodies which have numerically distinctspatial parts (see for example IV.2.2). Another account, however, presentssoul as not present in body at all, but rather the reverse, body as present tosoul: body is in soul somewhat as bodies may be said to be in light or inheat; they thereby become illuminated or warm without (in Plotinus’ view)dividing or affecting the source of light or heat in any way. Similarly,bodies become ensouled, alive, in virtue of presence to soul (IV.3.22; IV.4.18). The treatises VI.4 and VI.5(21–2),On the Ubiquitous Presence ofBeing(which constitute a single treatise), contain what is perhaps Plotinus’subtlest account of the relation between the sensible and the intelligiblealong these lines.In connection with Plotinus’ views on Soul mention should be made ofthe strange doctrine that all souls are one, that all souls are identical withthe hypostasis Soul (and by implication with one another). The Neo-Platonists after Porphyry rejected this doctrine but Plotinus maintains itconsistently and attaches considerable importance to it (IV.9 (8), VI.4.4; IV.3.1–8 (27)). Plotinus is clearly aware that the doctrine sounds strange andhe himself seems not altogether at ease in maintaining it. So one maywonder why he considers it necessary to do so. Such a doctrine howeverseems to be implied by the combination of two Plotinian doctrines that wehave just mentioned: the soul’s membership in the intelligible realm (or therealm of real being) and the integrity of that realm. The upshot of thetreatises VI.4–5 is that if being is indivisible, and what participates in beingtherefore participates in it as a whole, and if the so-called presence of soulin extension is just another way of looking at such participation, then thewhole of soul must presumably be present to whatever any soul is presentto. In other words, the doctrine of the unity of soul can be seen as just aspecial case of the indivisibility of being.Above we mentioned that Intellect is outside space and time. In III.7(45),On Eternity and Time,Plotinus states his views on time. Developinghis own view from the account in Plato’sTimaeus,Plotinus offersinteresting and powerful criticisms of the views of Aristotle, the Stoics andthe Epicureans. He defines eternity as ‘the life which belongs to that whichis and is in that which is, all together and full, completely withoutextension or interval’ (III.7.3, 36–8) and time he defines as ‘the life of soulin the movement of passage from one mode of life to another’ (III.7.11, 43–5). Thus, time comes in at the level of soul as the ‘image of eternity’. Thismeans that the soul, in producing the sensible world, unfolds in successivestages what is present all together and without interval at the level above.Plotinus’ doctrine of time had deep impact in the West, for it influencedboth St Augustine and Boethius.The lowest level in the Plotinian hierarchy is matter.&LT;sup&GT;9&LT;/sup&GT; Plotinian matter islike the One in that it permits no positive characterization, but for exactlythe opposite reasons: the One is, one might say, so full, so perfect that iteludes any positive description; matter, on the contrary, is such on accountof its utter privation, lack of being. It is the receptacle or substrate ofimmanent bodily forms, such as colors, shapes and sizes. Physical objects,bodies, are composites of matter and such immanent forms. Matter itself isnot subject to change but underlies change: as forms come and go matterremains unaffected (III.6 (26)). It is as such imperceptible but reasonconvinces us of its existence as a purely negatively characterized substrateof forms. Since matter is what underlies all forms of bodies, it might betempting to identify it with space or with mass. Plotinus considers this andrejects it. The three-dimensionality of space presupposes localdetermination and all mass contains form, but matter is totallyindeterminate and without form (II.4 (12) 8–12). Nevertheless, matter isthe principle of spatial extension in that the dispersion characteristic ofspace is due to matter (II.4.11–12) 1–12). So matter is a principle in thesense that it is necessary to explain plurality, though it is not a principle ofbeing in Plotinus’ sense.In this brief account of the Plotinian hierarchy every now and thenmention has been made of the relationships between the stages: we havenoted for instance that a given level is somehow ‘produced’ by one aboveit. It remains, however, to address this topic generally. Plotinus and theother Neo-Platonists use Plato’s language of participation: a lower levelparticipates in a higher one and thereby comes to have the character of thelatter. They also use Plato’s language of model, imitation and image to thesame affect. What is new in Neo-Platonism in this regard is the so-calledemanation—a term that has found its way into just about every survey ofNeo-Platonism, however brief. Plotinus frequently uses the analogies of thesun and the light it radiates, fire and heat and the like to illustrate how ahigher hypostasis generates a lower. Sometimes he uses metaphors from thelanguage of water (‘to flow out’ etc.). The later Neo-Platonists speak of‘procession’ from the higher to the lower. Thus, the Neo-Platonistsfrequently describe the production of the lower in terms of some kind ofprocess originating in the higher. The term ‘emanation’ may howevermislead in so far as it suggests that the cause spreads itself out. The Neo-Platonists on the contrary consistently maintain that the cause alwaysremains unaffected and loses nothing by giving away.In Plotinus there is sometimes an explicit and often an implicitdistinction drawn between an ‘internal activity’ and an ‘external activity’ (cf.e.g V.3.12; V.4.2). This distinction runs through every Plotinian causedown to soul and is crucial for an understanding of causation in thePlotinian system. Keeping in mind what was said above about the identityof a substance with its activity(energeia),the internal activity will be thesame as the thing itself. In terms of the light analogy the inner act iswhatever the source of light, considered in itself and as a source of light, isdoing. The external act is this same entity as operating in something else,causing the brightness on the wall for instance. It is illuminating tocompare this with Aristotle’s account of actualization.&LT;sup&GT;10&LT;/sup&GT; When a teacher,who actually knows something, teaches a pupil what he knows, the teacheris producing an effect in another without being cut off from that other (cf.Physics3, 202b7–8). The events of teaching and learning are in fact oneand the same event, though different in definition. Plotinus applies andtransforms these ideas: the external act, the effect in another, becomes aninferior image or expression of the original, an image which nevertheless isnot cut off from its cause, because the image still depends on the activity ofthe cause.It makes the matter still more complicated that the Neo-Platonists speaknot only of a process from the cause but also of a reversion(epistrophê)ofthe produced towards its source. It is clear that the analogies fromeveryday physical phenomena mentioned above are no longer of any helphere: the light on the wall surely does not have to return to the sun. In anyevent the Neo-Platonists thought that some kind of reversion is neededwhereby the product is informed by the source in order for the product tobe complete (see for example V.1, 5–7 and Proclus,Elements of Theology(hereafterET), props. 31–9). The outward process and the reversion are nottemporal processes and hence neither is temporally prior to the other. Nordoes reversion mean ‘reunion’—in that case nothing new would come about.Rather it seems that the Neo-Platonists thought that the outward processdistinguishes the product from the original whereas the reversionestablishes their identity, which however is not complete since whatassumes the character of the source in the reversion is something which byproceeding is already other than the source (6, 130–5). As the Neo-Platonists do not posit any kind of pre-existent matter as the recipient ofform, what gets informed must come from the informing cause. Thus, theoutgoing aspect functions as a material principle, the returning aspect asthe informing of the material principle.This structure of process from a source which remains in itself unaffectedand then a reversion, an inclination back towards the source, pervades thesystem. Only at the very lowest level, that of matter and immanent sensibleforms, is there no generation, which of course is another way of saying thatwe have reached the bottom. So what is the external activity of the Onebecomes the internal activity of Intellect, which in turn has Soul as itsexternal activity. The internal activity of a generated hypostasis consists ofthought of its source, a reversion. We may visualize the system as ahierarchy where each stage below the One is an expression or amirror image of its cause, revealing a more ‘unfolded’ and thereby, in theNeo-Platonists’ view, causally weaker version of it—‘unfolding’ is one ofPlotinus’ favorite metaphorical expressions. So in a way the same itemsexist on every level: the One is everything there is, but in such a unifiedform that no distinctions are to be found. Likewise, Intellect and Soul, andfinally the physical world contain everything there is.PLOTINUS’ VIEWS ON MANPlotinus’ attitude towards the sensible world and to human life within it issomewhat ambivalent. While constantly emphasizing its low worth ascompared with the higher realms, he does not consider it totally evil orworthless. In all essentials his view is the same as Plato’s in the middledialogues. First I shall present an outline of the picture and then take upcertain aspects in greater detail.Man is identified with his higher soul, reason (I.1(53) 7, etc.). The soul isdistinct from the body and survives it: it is essentially a member of theintelligible realm and has a source in Intellect on which it constantlydepends. This undescended source is sometimes described as the real manand our true self. However, as a result of the communion with the bodyand through it with the sensible world, human beings may also identifythemselves with the body and the sensible. Thus, Man stands on the borderbetween two worlds, the sensible and the intelligible. Our existential choiceis about which of the two we identify ourselves with. Philosophy is themeans of purification and intellectual vision. As noted above it is possible,however, to ascend beyond the level of philosophy and arrive at a mysticalreunion with the source of all, the One. In contrast with the post-Porphyrian Neo-Platonists, who maintained theurgy as an alternative,Plotinus stands firmly with classical Greek rationalism in holding thatphilosophical training and contemplation are the means by which we canascend to the intelligible realm.The most noteworthy feature of Plotinus’ psychology is perhaps his useof Aristotelian machinery to defend what is unmistakably Platonic dualism(17; 21). We find him for instance using the Aristotelian distinctionsbetween reason, sense-perception and vegetative soul much more than thetripartition of Plato’sRepublic.He employs the notions of power and act,and sense-perception is described in Aristotelian terms as the reception ofthe form of the object perceived. However he never slavishly followsAristotle and one should expect some modifications even where Plotinussounds quite Aristotelian.Sense-perception in Plotinus is an interesting case of how he can beoriginal while relying on tradition.&LT;sup&GT;11&LT;/sup&GT; He sees sense-perception as the soul’sinternalization of something external and extended. This involves gravedifficulties: on the one hand, the external physical object mustevidently somehow affect the percipient, if there is to be perception of thatobject; on the other hand, action of a lower level on a higher is generallyruled out and a genuine affection of the soul is in any case objectionablebecause the soul is not subject to change. So Plotinus sees sense-perceptionas involving the crossing of an ontological gap between the sensible and theintelligible. In formulating this problem his dualism becomes sharper and insome respects closer to modern Cartesian dualism than anything we find inPlato or previous ancient thinkers.&LT;sup&GT;12&LT;/sup&GT;His solution to the problem is clever even if it is questionable whether itsucceeds in all respects: what is affected from the outside is an ensouledsense-organ, not the soul itself. This affection of the sense-organ is howevernot the perception itself but rather something like a mere preconceptualsensation; the perception proper belongs to the soul and consists in ajudgment(krisis)of the external object. This judgment does not constitutea genuine change in the soul for it is an actualization of a power alreadypresent. Plotinus contrasts sense-perception as a form of cognition withIntellect’s thought which is the paradigm and source of all other forms ofcognition. Sense-perception is in fact a mode of thought but obscure (VI.7(38) 7). This is so apparently because the senses do not grasp the ‘thingsthemselves’, the thoughts on the level of Intellect, but mere images. Sincethey are images they also fail to reveal the grounds of their being andnecessary connections. This is Plotinus’ version of the view that consideredin themselves facts about the sensible world appear contingent.In the treatise 1.8 (51),On What Are and Whence Come Evils, Plotinusdiscusses at length questions concerning evil, a topic also brought up inmany other treatises. The intelligible world is perfect and totally selfsufficient.The sensible world, which is imperfect and contains evil, is areflection of the former and contains nothing which does not have itsorigins there. It is therefore puzzling how evil can have arisen: can it becaused by what is perfect? Plotinus argues that evil as such does exist andhe identifies it with matter, understood as total formlessness. Being totalformlessness matter is in a sense nothing, and hence evil; even if it exists, itis not an entity. In Plotinus’ view the existence of absolute evil is requiredby the fact that the Good exists. Matter is to be understood as the contraryof the Good in the sense that it is that which is furthest removed from itand which thus is characterized by all the opposite features. Matter, as thenegation of unity and being, is absolute evil. Other things such as bodiesare evil in a relative way according to the extent of their participation inmatter.The goal of human life is the soul’s liberation from the body andconcerns with the sensible realm and reunion with the unchangingintelligible world. In outline this seems to be approximately the doctrine ofPlato’sPhaedo.But there are interesting elaborations. Plato affirms thesoul’s kinship with the Ideas on the ground that without such kinship itwould be unable to know them. Plotinus agrees and presents an account ofthe nature of this kinship which goes beyond what can be found in Plato. Aswe have seen the whole realm of Ideas is for Plotinus the thought ofIntellect and the human soul has a counterpart in Intellect, a partial mindwhich in fact is the true self on which the soul depends. This has twointeresting consequences for the doctrine of spiritual ascent: first, theascent may be correctly described as the search after oneself and, ifsuccessful, as true self-knowledge, as fully becoming what one essentiallyis.&LT;sup&GT;13&LT;/sup&GT; Second, on account of Plotinus’ doctrine about the interconnectednessof Intellect as a whole, this gain of self-knowledge and self-identity wouldalso involve knowledge of the realm of Ideas as a whole.Plotinus’ views on classical Greek ethical topics such as virtue andhappiness are determined by his general position that intellectual life is thetrue life and Man’s proper goal. The treatise 1.2(19) is devoted to thevirtues. Plotinus’ main objective here is to reconcile apparent discrepanciesin Plato’s teaching. In this case it is the doctrine of the four cardinal virtuesin theRepublic,the doctrine of thePhaedoaccording to which virtue is thesoul’s purification, and the view suggested inTheaetetusthat the virtuesassimilate us to the divine. Plotinus distinguishes between political virtues,purgative virtues and the archetypes of the virtues at the level of Intellect.These form a hierarchy of virtues. This classification is taken up andelaborated by Porphyry in theSententiae(see p. 376 below). The functionof the political virtues (the lowest grade) is to give order to the desires. Thequestion arises whether the political virtues can be said to assimilate us toGod (which for Plotinus is Intellect), for the divine does not have anydesires that must be ordered and hence, it would seem, cannot possess thepolitical virtues. Plotinus’ answer is that although God does not possess thepolitical virtues, there is something in God answering to them and fromwhich they are derived. Further, the similarity that holds between areflection and the original is not reciprocal. Thus, the political virtues maybe images of something belonging to the divine without the divinepossessing the political virtues as such.The firstEnneadcontains two treatises dealing with happiness orwellbeing(eudaimonia): 1.4(46),On Happinessand 1.5(36),On WhetherHappiness Increases with Time.In the former treatise Plotinus arguesagainst the Epicurean view that happiness consists in pleasure, a sensationof a particular sort. One can be happy without being aware of it. He alsorejects the Stoic account of happiness as rational life. His own position isthat happiness applies to life as such, not to a certain sort of life. There is asupremely perfect and self-sufficient life, that of the hypostasis Intellect,upon which every other sort of life depends. Happiness pertains primarilyto this perfect life, which does not depend on any external good. But as allother kinds of life are reflections of this one, all living beings are capable ofat least a reflection of happiness according to the kind of life they have. Onaccount of the human soul’s ability to ascend, human beings are capable ofattaining the perfect kind of life of Intellect. Plotinus holds with the Stoicsthat none of the so-called ‘external evils’ can deprive a happy man of hishappiness and that none of the so-called ‘goods’ pertaining to the sensibleworld are necessary for human happiness. In the second treatise onhappiness, Plotinus discusses various questions concerning the relationbetween happiness and time, in particular whether the length of a person’slife is relevant to his happiness. His answer is that it is not, becausehappiness, consisting in a good life, must be the life of real being, i.e. that ofIntellect. This life is not dispersed in time but is in eternity, which heremeans outside time, not lasting forever.Plotinus makes several remarks on human freedom or autonomy, inparticular inOn Destiny(III.1),On ProvidenceI and II (III.2–3) and inOnthe Voluntary and on the Will of the One(VI.8). He defines a voluntaryact as one which is not forced and is carried out with full knowledge ofeverything relevant (VI.8.1). It appears that he had doubts that humanbeings, as agents in the sensible world, can be fully free in this sense, andhence they enjoy at best a limited autonomy. Nevertheless, in so far as thehuman soul is the agent of human actions, the person is responsible forthem. Full autonomy belongs only to the soul that is entirely free from thebody and lives on the level of Intellect. Thus, autonomy is possible, but it isquestionable whether we are free to seek it and attain it.PORPHYRY: THE DISSEMINATOR OF NEOPLATONISMPorphyry was an exceptionally learned man and a prolific writer, whoseimportance as a disseminator of Neo-Platonism can scarcely beexaggerated. Not only did he write extensively on philosophy strictlyspeaking but he applied his philosophical approach to other areas as well.After Porphyry Neo-Platonism became a way of thought and life havingapplications everywhere. During Porphyry’s lifetime the Roman empirebegan to split into two and separate traditions began to evolve in the Eastand the West. Porphyry’s works were known and had impact on bothsides. For the West Porphyry is particularly important because some of hiswritings were translated into Latin and he influenced such importantthinkers as St Augustine and Boethius.Porphyry was born in Tyre in Phoenicia around AD 234. He studiedfirst in Athens with Longinus, a learned Platonic scholar, and subsequentlyjoined Plotinus in Rome where he stayed for six years and became aconvert to Plotinus’ version of Platonism. We do not have good records ofhis life after this, but we know that he lived in Sicily and then in Romeagain, and presumably visited his native Syria. He died inc.305. Porphyrywrote on a vast number of different subjects: commentaries on Plato,Aristotle, Theophrastus, Ptolemy and Plotinus; philosophical and religiousessays; the history of philosophy; on Homer and a work against theChristians. All in all there are some seventy-seven titles attributed to him.Only a small portion of this bulk is extant and what there is is oftenfragmentary. Of these writings the following are the most philosophicallysignificant:Aids to the Study of the Intelligibles(best known under itsLatin titleSententiae ad intelligibilia ducentes);Isagoge(introduction toAristotle’sCategories);Letter to MarcellaandOn abstinence;excerpts ofthe worksOn the Return of the SoulandMiscellaneous questions(Symmikta zêtêmata)are preserved by St Augustine and Nemesius,respectively. Then there is an incomplete commentary on Plato’sParmenideswhich is likely to be by Porphyry or someone close to him.We have Porphyry’s own words for his admiration of Plotinus as aphilosopher in hisLife of Plotinus.The writings we do possess and thereports of later ancient thinkers also suggest that philosophically he wasessentially a follower of Plotinus, the differences consisting mainly ininterests, emphasis and wording. Porphyry stresses purity of life asessential for the the soul’s ascent. He is also much interested in religion andpaved the way for the intermingling of philosophy and late ancientpaganism in the later Neo-Platonists. Given that most of the works inwhich Porphyry’s strictly metaphysical views are likely to have beenexplicitly stated are lost, it is difficult to present an accurate overall pictureof his views and hence to assess to what extent he may have gone beyondPlotinus. Scholarly opinions here are also divided. TheSententiae,whichthough incomplete is the most extensive purely philosophical text we have,is essentially Plotinian. The French scholar of Neo-Platonism, PierreHadot, has made a strong case on Porphyry’s behalf for an elaboratesystem of triads at the apex of the Neo-Platonic hierarchy, consisting ofExistence, Life and Intelligence.&LT;sup&GT;14&LT;/sup&GT; This however involves liberal use of theParmenidescommentary and other sources whose Porphyrian authenticityis not certain (cf. 36, 737–41).Porphyry’s student, Iamblichus, accuses Plotinus and Porphyry of failingto distinguish between intellect and soul (in Stobaeus, p.365 Wachsmuth [5.81]). In theSententiaePorphyry often ignores the distinction, even if he isalso perfectly able to uphold it. At issue here seems to be the question ofthe soul’s ontological status. We saw in connection with Plotinus abovethat he insists on the soul’s status as a genuine intelligible and not merelysomething intermediate between the sensible and the intelligible as themost obvious reading of the celebrated passage on the constitution of thesoul in theTimaeuswould suggest. On this, together with theParmenidescommentary mentioned above, Anthony Lloyd founds a thesis aboutPorphyrian metaphysics claiming that Porphyry tends to telescope thehypostases into one another with the result that only the One is real,everything else being appearances of it.&LT;sup&GT;15&LT;/sup&GT; The idea is this: the whole Neo-Platonic hierarchy is an ordered series (or perhaps a set of ordered serieswith a common first member, the One). Each member (aside from the veryfirst) is not only a mere image of a previous one, the first cause is the onlyreal item in the series: the real man is the intelligible man, the real soul isnot the soul in union with body, but the pure soul as it is in itself withoutconsideration of its external activities and relations. In general terms wemight say that each thing should be defined in terms of the internal actconstituting it. The internal act of anything below the One, however, isconstituted by the external act of the level above it and thus points beyonditself. So in search of the real we are forced to climb the ladder in thehierarchy so that ultimately only the One turns out to be fully real. Theevidence does not permit us to claim with confidence that Porphyrysystematically taught extreme metaphysical monism of this sort. Such atrend is however present in Plotinus and Porphyry may have carried itfurther, though neither consistently maintains this as dogma.&LT;sup&GT;16&LT;/sup&GT;In this context we may raise the question of idealism: is reality mentalaccording to the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus and Porphyry? This is a trickyquestion that does not permit an unqualified answer. Taking extrememetaphysical monism as just described as our standpoint, we might answer‘no’ because the One, which alone exists, is beyond thinking. However, atleast in Plotinus and Porphyry mental life is ascribed to the One in aspecial way: the One has an analog of mental life, some kind ofsuperintellection (VI.8.16; V.1.7). Thus, it would be misleading to stressthat the ultimate principle is void of mental life. Secondly, disregardingextreme monism, the realm of Intellect is also the realm of being, the realmcontaining the real archetypes of which things in the physical world areimages. These archetypes are thoughts and hence mental. So Plotinus andPorphyry are idealists at least in the sense that ordinary non-mental thingshave a mental principle. We should note, however, that this idealism is notof the type which holds the physical world to be the product of our minds.Even if it is an appearance, even an illusion, it is to be seen as anappearance or illusion on analogy with a mirror image, not with ahallucination: what is seen in the mirror is of course not the real thing andif we take it for one we are under an illusion; nevertheless, the mirrorimage is not justourfancy.One unmistakable and lasting contribution Porphyry made tophilosophy is his promotion of Aristotle’s logical works in the Platoniccurriculum. As mentioned above, even before Plotinus there wereAristotelizing Platonists. There were even Platonists before Porphyry whodealt with Aristotle’s logical treatises. Porphyry is however the one whoput Aristotelian logic to positive use within Platonic teaching. Through himAristotle’sOrganoncame to serve as an introduction to philosophy—afunction transmitted on to the Middle Ages and well beyond. Porphyrywrote an introduction to Aristotle’sCategories,the so-calledIsagoge,which was translated into Latin by Boethius and became a standardintroductory text in the Middle Ages. In fact theIsagogenot onlyinfluenced the Latin West but also the Greek East and was later translatedinto Syriac and Arabic. Porphyry also wrote extensive commentaries onAristotle’s logical treatises of which all is lost except an elementarycommentary on theCategories.Anybody familiar with Aristotle’sCategorieswill note that it containscertain anti-Platonic doctrines, for example the doctrine of the primacy ofindividuals over genus and species. How could ardent Platonists likePorphyry integrate such works into their philosophy? Porphyry and thelater Neo-Platonists following him believed in the essential agreementbetween Plato and Aristotle and were predisposed to explain apparentdifferences away—Porphyry is said to have written a work on theiragreement and another about their differences. In the case of the logic theadoption of Aristotle was much eased by Porphyry’s views on the status ofthe logical treatises. Plotinus, who also wrote a critical but not altogetherhostile treatise on Aristotle’sCategories(VI.1–3), took the work to beabout the genera of being and thus a work in ontology, containingdoctrines about the structure of the world. Plotinus comes to theconclusion that a revised version of the doctrine of Aristotle’sCategoriesholds true for sensibles. Porphyry agrees that the categories apply to thesensible world, but denies that the treatise is a treatise in ontology, even theontology of the sensible world: he adopts the view that theCategories(andpresumably Aristotle’s logic in general) is quite independent of metaphysicsand is really about significative expressions for sensible phenomena (OnAristotle’s Categories,58). These may be primary in the order ofexperience, though not in the order of reality where Platonic metaphysicsprevails.PROCLUS: THE SYSTEM BUILDERProclus (c.410–85) is the third Neo-Platonic thinker who was to havegreat impact on posterity. He came as a young man to Athens where hestudied Platonic philosophy and eventually became the Head of theAcademy. He was the most systematic expositor of Neo-Platonism and aprolific writer. He left systematic philosophical works such as thecelebratedElements of Theology,which proceeds by a strictly deductiveEuclidean method such as Descartes and Spinoza were to use much later. IntheElementsProclus sets out from the apex of the hierarchy and proceedsdownward. The work covers the three first hypostases, in which the sphereof theology coincides with metaphysics as the study of first causes. Anothermajor work is thePlatonic Theology,which covers the same ground as theElements of Theologybut is larger and more intractable. There is also asystematic work on natural philosophy, theElements of Physics.He wroteextensive commentaries on Plato, a large bulk of which have survived evenif much is lost. They are less interesting as a source of Proclus’sphilosophical views than one might expect but a mine of informationabout the history of Platonism, in addition to representing late Neo-Platonic reading of Plato. Proclus also wrote on mathematics and literatureand composed pagan hymns.Proclus was a pious pagan in a world were pagans were an oppressedminority, having lost all chance of victory. Proclus nevertheless had an ironicrevenge against the Christians: his system is the philosophical foundationof the ‘Christian theology’ of Pseudo-Dionysius, a man who pretended tobe the Dionysius mentioned in the Acts as a Christian convert of Paul. Thewhole medieval world was deceived by the fraud, which was not fullyeradicated until the nineteenth century. The writings of Pseudo-Dionysiusacquired an immense authority in the medieval Christian tradition.Systematic and influential though Proclus undeniably was, there is somedoubt about the originality of his views. However that may be, the veryconception of such a work as theElements of Theologyis in itself a greatachievement and, for all we know, an original one. In order to assess hiscontributions we must briefly consider the period between Porphyry andProclus.Two new Neo-Platonic movements in the East appeared after Porphyry.One is the so-called ‘school’ at Pergamum, whose chief representatives areSallust and the emperor Julian (called the ‘Apostate’ by Christians). Thisbrand of Neo-Platonism seems to have been more religious thanphilosophical. It was Neo-Platonism and its interpretation of pagan religionand culture turned against the Christians. The other is the Athenian schoolwhose founder was Plutarch of Athens (died 432), succeeded by Proclus’steacher Syrianus. Proclus represents the culmination of the Athenianschool. Both these schools or trends owe much of their distinctive traits toPorphyry’s most renowned student, Iamblichus, whom many scholarsregard as a second father of Neo-Platonism. We possess even less of hiswritings than of Porphyry’s and he is credited with this honor—in somerespects a questionable honor considering the content of his teaching—onthe basis of others’ evidence, not least remarks in Proclus himself. At anyrate, Iamblichus’s achievements can be summarized as follows. First, heclaims theurgy as the means to union with divine intellects and as in someways superior to philosophy. This is of course a deviation from theteaching of Plotinus but was to become the received opinion. NeverthelessIamblichus insisted on keeping theurgy and philosophy apart. Secondly, heestablished a standard school curriculum and proposed the principles ofinterpretation of Platonic dialogues that came to prevail. According tothese each dialogue has one theme(skopos)which determines theinterpretation of all aspects of it. Thirdly, he gave the Athenian schoolwhat is distinctive in its metaphysics: pervasive use of mathematical conceptssuch as triads and monads. In all this Proclus is highly indebted toIamblichus.In outline Proclus’s system resembles that of Plotinus: we find the sameprincipal hypostases, the One, Intellect and Soul, and their relationships aredescribed in similar terms: process or irradiation from above and theinverse relation, participation, from below. We also find the same generalassumptions about the principles, often made quite explicit in Proclus: thecause is more perfect than effect, has a fuller degree of unity, contains insome manner its effect and so forth. Proclus, however, shows a tendencytowards a more extreme logical realism: he likes distinctions and everydistinction is liable to turn into a difference between entities with aproliferation of entities as a result: what in Plotinus has the status of aspector relation is apt to be reified in Proclus. As an example of this we maymention time and eternity which for Plotinus are aspects of Intellect andSoul respectively but have become substances in Proclus (cf. pp. 369–70above andET,props. 52–5). Thus, even if the simple ineffable One is theroot of it all, it does not take Proclus long to derive an astoundingmultiplicity from it. Proclus’s entities frequently come in triads whosegeneral structure is extremes connected by a middle term having affinitywith both the extremes. Such triads proliferate both as reified aspects of ahypostasis and in the relations between hypostases. As concerns us, thiscomplexity means that we must make do with mentioning a few generalfeatures and for a fuller of view of his system the reader is referred toProclus himself and items in the bibliography.We can get a glimpse of Proclus’s system by considering the top of thehierarchy. First there is the One (the Good) itself which is entirelytranscendent and unparticipated. Then, in between the transcendent Oneand Intellect but also belonging to the first hypostasis, is a series of unities(henads)—this doctrine of unities has no parallel in Plotinus (ET,props. 7and 113–65). These unities are participated terms from which anything elsereceives its unity (ET,prop. 116;In Platonis Parmenidem6, 148). Whatwe have just seen exemplifies a structure that pervades the Procleansystem: a distinction between an unparticipated term, a participated termand a participant. This triad reappears in a more familiar setting as atranscendent (unparticipated) Platonic Idea, an immanent participatedform, and a sensible participant (In Platonis Parmenidem3, 797). Thusthere is, for example, the ideal Man, instances of Man and organic bodiesthat take on the human form. The doctrine of the triad of participation is ofcourse meant to answer the question ‘Is the Platonic Idea transcendent orimmanent?’ and the answer is that it is both, i.e. the Idea itself istranscendent but it has an immanent counterpart, the participated term.No less fundamental is a triad consisting of rest(monê),process(proodos)and reversion(epistrophê)(ET,props. 25–39;cf PP. 370–2above), which is parallel or identical to another triad: limit, infinity andmixture (ET,props. 87–96). These latter are ingredients of the first unitiesand of everything else below them. Rest, process and return are operativethroughout the hierarchy. At every level there is a first term (monad) whichgenerates by procession and return subordinate entities of the same kindbelonging to the same level. Each such monad, however, alsosimultaneously proceeds to generate incomplete products, i.e. products thatare mere images and not the same sort of things as the monad: not everyproduct of soul is itself a soul and not every product of intellect is anintellect, for soul is a product of intellect (cf.ET,prop. 65). In this doubleprocession, both horizontal and vertical, as one might say, we have theanalog of internal and external activity in Plotinus—the generation of theentities within each hypostasis corresponding to the internal activity.The level of Intellect is characterized by the triad Existence, Life andThought, a special case, it seems, of rest-procession-return. There are manyother triads there but this one is especially important. Existence, Life andIntelligence are in turn each implicit in one another so that each contains atriad of Existence, Life and Intelligence, the difference being a matter ofpredominance (ET,props. 101–3). However this is to be understood inprecise terms, we can note some interesting consequences: the traditionalPlatonic Ideas are monads containing this triad and each Idea exists in allthree modes or, alternatively, a single Idea may be participated in eitherexistentially, vitally or intellectually (Platonic Theology,903–4). Theconcrete result of this is that for instance the Idea ‘Moon’ may berepresented as moon-fish or moon-stone (existential), as a lunar daemon(vital) or again as a lunar angel (intellectual).An important Proclean principle is the doctrine of the greater power ofthe higher causes (ET,props. 57, 71–2). This does not only mean that ahigher level in the hierarchy causes a greater number of and more perfecteffects than a lower one, but also that the higher causes extend further down.So the entities at the bottom of the hierarchy participate only in the highestlevels: inanimate bodies, having only unity and minimal being, participatedirectly in Existence, and matter, having no properties of its own and henceno being, participates only in a corresponding unity in the first hypostasis.These principles, therefore, extend all the way down to the level of bodies,without the involvement of the intermediate stages. Souls by contrastparticipate in life (rational souls in thought as well) and through life inexistence. This is illustrated in the diagram below taken from A.C.Lloyd([11.6], 112). The arrows point from causes to effects.Even if this diagram depicts only a fraction of Proclus’s world it gives usa sense of what it looks like. It is indeed as one his theorems in theElements of Theologystates: ‘All things are in all things, but in eachaccording to its proper nature’ (prop. 103). The same intelligible item maybe instantiated by different phenomena according to its mode (existential,vital or intellectual) and all the phenomena on the same level areinterconnected both via the monad of that level and via theinterconnectedness of everything at the top. So Proclus’s world is a tightlyknitted web.This is strange philosophy by our lights. Nevertheless, it is in many waysquite successful, intellectually speaking, in harmonizing the world-view ofthe late Neo-Platonists and no doubt many of their contemporaries. In thewords of Dodds, Proclus’s ideal is ‘the one comprehensive philosophy thatshould embrace all the garnered wisdom of the ancient world’.&LT;sup&GT;17&LT;/sup&GT; All thepagan Gods, the old, new and even foreign, had a place in Proclus’shierarchy. The first participated unities mentioned above are in factidentical with the higher gods. Lesser divinities and intermediate beings allfind their place in the intermediate stages between these and the world ofthe senses. Thus, we may choose different types of discourse to talk aboutthe same phenomena according to our concerns on each occasion. Restprocess-return, substance-power-actuality and Cronos-Rhea-Zeus allexpress the same or parallel phenomena. We may approach these eitherthrough abstract philosophical reasoning or through religious practices.Occult phenomena, theurgy and mantic, which so preoccupied Proclus andhis group, have their place and explanation as well. They are explained bythe bonds that connect entities both horizontally and vertically in thesystem: a physical object such as a particular stone has invested in it higherpowers which can be influenced through their manifestation in the stone.So everything worth speaking of had a place within the Athenian systemand was to be made intelligible through it. Confusing though the Atheniansystem may be and incorporating the most bizarre elements, it neverthelessstill is rational philosophy aiming at explanations on the basis of solidpremisses.THE LEGACY OF NEO-PLATONISMAfter Proclus the Athenian school had one significant master, Damascius.He wrote a workOn Principles,where he posits an ineffable principleabove the One—a view also held by Iamblichus. During his term as Head ofthe Academy the emperor Justinian closed the school in 529. Platonism hadbeen active in Alexandria for a long time—that is where Plotinus studied aswe have seen (p.361 above)—and presumably had a very long continuoushistory there even if there are gaps in our knowledge of it. The schoolflourished in the fifth century and was still active into the seventh. Therewas considerable communication between the Athenians and theAlexandrians, but still a very notable difference of emphasis: theAlexandrians were less bent on metaphysical speculations than theAthenians and are best known for their commentaries on Aristotle. TheAlexandrians were also less ardently pagan and included Christianmembers, for instance the well known commentator and notable critic ofAristotle, John Philoponus.&LT;sup&GT;18&LT;/sup&GT;The Christian Latin West produced a thinker of great importance whostands with one leg in the tradition of late ancient Platonism, namelyAnicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480–524). Boethius was a Catholicand a highly educated Roman statesman who served under Theodoric theOstrogoth, an Arian king of Italy. Boethius wrote extensively on a host ofsubjects including the mathematical disciplines, theology and philosophy.He had great ambitions about translating all works of Aristotle and Platointo Latin and elucidating them. He succeeded in translating Aristotle’sOrganonand prefaced it with a translation of Porphyry’sIsagoge.He alsowrote several commentaries and logical treatises. These works became thefoundation of logical studies in medieval Europe. Boethius did not live tocomplete his project. Accused of treason, he was imprisoned and finallytortured and executed. While in prison he wrote his masterpiece,On theConsolation of Philosophy,in which philosophy personified comes to theaid of the unjustly suffering man—it is noteworthy of course that Boethiusshould call upon philosophy rather than his Christian faith at this difficulttime of his life. Boethius’s philosophy is fundamentally Neo-Platonic. Hisemphasis on logic and other traits suggest influence of the Alexandrianschool.Boethius’sConsolationand his theological treatises abound in Platonic,Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic doctrines and contributed, along with theworks of St Augustine and others, to rendering such ideas commonplace inmedieval philosophical theology. Thus, on Boethius’s account, in additionto being one and simple God is supreme being and supreme goodness andpower; God is these things themselves whereas other things only have themby participation in or imitation of God. Furthermore, goodness and beingare one and same, and hence evil and lack of being (How Substances areGood in Virtue of Their Existence without Being Substantial Goods;Consolation3, 12). God is of course eternal and in a notorious passage intheConsolationBoethius gives an account of eternity and thendistinguishes between eternity and everlastingness. Eternity is defined as‘perfect possession of endless life, all present at once’ (5, 6), a definitionthat reflects Plotinus (see pp. 369–70 above). This is contrasted with thecreated universe, which even if without beginning and end unfolds intemporal succession what exists timelessly in God’s mind.The final victories of Christianity and Islam in what once was one paganRoman empire stretching over much of Europe, the Middle East and NorthAfrica put an end to Neo-Platonism in the strict sense of the term. Butmany ideas of the Neo-Platonists’ and in some cases their works lived onand were absorbed by the new cultures. In the Christian world Plotinus andPorphyry influenced the Church fathers both Greek and Latin and we havementioned Proclus’s great impact through Pseudo-Dionysius. If only forthese reasons the whole of Christian medieval theology was thoroughlycolored by Neo-Platonism. In fact there are innumerable threads thatconnect Neo-Platonism with the subsequent history of Europe. To mentionjust one interesting example: the great medieval Islamic and Jewishphilosophers, who in turn were to influence European philosophy, studiedand absorbed Neo-Platonic thought. In the fifteenth century pagan Neo-Platonism had a comeback in Europe that lasted into the seventeenth. Ithas continued to exert influence on important thinkers such as Berkeleyand Hegel, who was an admirer of Proclus, and Bergson, who admiredPlotinus.NOTES1 See O’Meara [11.8].2 See Dillon [11.3].3 See Dodds [11.20].4 See Wallis [11.12], 160.5 Conventionally, references to theEnneadsare often given only in numerals:‘V. 3 (49) 2, 14–16’, for instance, means ‘5th Ennead, 3rd treatise (which isnumber 49 on Porphyry’s chronological list of Plotinus’s writings), chapter 2,lines 14 to 16’.6 For details see Armstrong [11.1], 15.7 See Gurtler [11.22].8 See Blumenthal [11.17].9 See O’Brien [11.23].10 That Plotinus’s distinction between the internal and the external act has itsroots in Aristotle’s account of actualization is suggested by Lloyd [11.6], 98–103. Hadot [11.33], 228, n. 4. and others suppose that the two acts doctrineoriginates in a Stoic distinction between substantial qualities and theirexternal effects. Plotinus may well be drawing on both kinds of sources.11 See Emilsson [11.21].12 See Dodds[11.20], 145–8.13 See O’Daly [11.24].14 See Hadot [11.33].15 See Armstrong [11.1], 287–93.16 See Smith [11.35], 5 ff.17 See Dodds [11.41], xxv.18 See Sorabji [11.52].SELECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHYThe bibliography below is mostly limited to works in English of a fairlygeneral scope. Literature on Neo-Platonism and translations of the ancienttexts in other languages, especially French and German, is abundant. In[11.5] below there are extensive bibliographies of Neo-Platonic studies toand including Porphyry. In addition to the bibliographical items [11.16],[11.19] and [11.36], item [11.5] vol. 2, 36.1 contains a bibliography onMiddle Platonism by L.Deitz, ‘Bibliographie du platonisme imperialantérieur a Plotin: 1926–1986’.GENERAL11.1 Armstrong, A.H. (ed.)The Cambridge History of Later Greek and EarlyMedieval Philosophy.Cambridge, 1970.11.2 Baine Harris, R. (ed.)The Significance of Neoplatonism.Norfolk, Va, 1976.11.3 Dillon, J.The Middle Platonists.London, 1977.11.4 Goodman, L.E. (ed.)Neoplatonism and Jewish Thought.Albany, NY, 1992.11.5 Haase, W. (ed.)Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt.Vols 2, 36, 1,and 2, 36, 2. Berlin, 1987.11.6 Lloyd, A.C.The Anatomy of Neoplatonism.Oxford, 1990. A philosophicallypenetrating study, rewarding even if not easy reading.11.7 Merlan, P.From Platonism to Neoplatonism.The Hague, 1968.11.8 O’Meara, D.J. (ed.)Neoplatonism and Christian Thought.Norfolk, Va,1982.11.9 ——Pythagoras Revived.Oxford, 1989.11.10 Sambursky, S.The Physical World of Late Antiquity.London, 1962.11.11 Wallis, R.T. and J.Bregman (eds)Neoplatonism and Gnosticism.Albany, NY,1992.11.12 Wallis, R.T.Neoplatonism.London, 1972. This is the best general overviewover the whole of Neo-Platonism.PLOTINUS11.13PlotinusI–VII. Trans. A.H.Armstrong. Cambridge, Mass., 1966–88. Thistranslation, accompanied by the Greek text, is based on the authoritativeeditions of P.Henry and H.-R.Schwyzer.11.14Plotinus. The Enneads.Trans S.MacKenna, abridged with an introductionand notes by J.Dillon. Harmondsworth, 1991.11.15 Armstrong, A.H.The Architecture of the Intelligible Universe in thePhilosophy of Plotinus.Cambridge, 1940.11.16 Blumenthal, H.J. ‘Plotinus in the Light of Twenty Years’ Scholarship, 1951–1971’. In [11.5], 36, 1.11.17——Plotinus’ Psychology.The Hague, 1971.11.18 Bussanich, J.The One and Its Relation to Intellect in Plotinus.Leiden, 1988.11.19 Corrigan, K. and O’Cleirigh, P. ‘The Course of Plotinian Scholarship from1971 to 1986’. In [11.5], 36, 1.11.20 Dodds, E.R. ‘The Parmenides of Plato and the Origin of the Neoplatonic“One”’,Classical Quarterly, 22 (1928), 129–43.11.21 Emilsson, E.K.Plotinus on Sense-Perception: A Philosophical Study.Cambridge, 1988.11.22 Gurtler, G.M.Plotinus: The Experience of Unity.New York, 1988.11.23 O’Brien, D.Plotinus on the Origin of Matter.Naples, 1991.11.24 O’Daly, G.Plotinus’ Philosophy of the Self.Shannon, 1973.11.25 O’Meara, D.J. ‘Plotinus’, in F.Cranz and P.Kristeller (eds)Catalogustranslationum et commentariorum,vol. 7. Washington, D.C., 1992. Anoverview of Plotinus’s impact.11.26——Plotinus: An Introduction to the Enneads.Oxford, 1993. Highlyrecommendable as an introduction to Plotinus.11.27 Rist, J.M.Plotinus: The Road to Reality.Cambridge, 1967.11.28 Schroeder, F.M.Form and Transformation: A Study in the Philosophy ofPlotinus.Montreal and Kingston, 1992.PORPHYRY11.29Life of Plotinus.In [11.13], vol. 1 and [11.14].11.30The Sentences.Trans. T.Davidson,Journal of Speculative PhilosophyIII(1869), 46–73.11.31On Aristotle’s Categories.Trans. S.K.Strange. London, 1992.11.32Isagoge.Trans. and commentary E.W.Warren. Toronto, 1975.11.33 Hadot, P.Porphyre et Victorinus.2 vols, Paris, 1968. Text and French trans.ofAnonymous Commentary on the ‘Parmenides’,attributed to Porphyry invol. 2.11.34Porphyrios’ ‘Symmikta zetemata’.German trans. and comentary by H.Dörrie.Munich, 1959.11.35 Smith, A.The Place of Porphyry in the Neoplatonic Tradition. A Study in Post-Plotinian Neoplatonism.The Hague, 1974.11.36 Smith, A. ‘Porphyrian Studies since 1913’. In [11.5], 36, 1. Contains a reviewof the state of Porphyrian studies in addition to a bibliography.11.37 Evangeliou, C.Aristotle’s Categories and Porphyry.Leiden, 1987.IAMBLICHUS, PROCLUS AND LATER NEOPLATONISM11.38Iamblichi Chalcidensis in Platonis Dialogos Commentariorum Fragmenta.With text, trans. and comm. by J.M.Dillon. Leiden, 1973.11.39Iamblichus, Les Mystères d'Égypte.Ed. and French trans. by E.des Places.Paris, 1966.11.40Iamblichus, De anima.French trans. by A.J.Festugière. In vol. 3 ofLa.Revelation d’Hermès Trismégiste.Paris, 1953.11.41Proclus, The Elements of Theology.Ed., trans and comm. E.R.Dodds. 2ndedn. Oxford, 1992. An indispensable aid both for novice as well as for theexpert.11.42Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides.Trans. G.R.Morrow and J.M.Dillon with introduction and notes by J.M.Dillon. Princeton, 1987.11.43Proclus, Théologie Platonicienne.Ed. and French trans. H.D.Saffrey and L.G.Westerink. 4 vols of 6 have appeared. Paris, 1968–81.11.44Proclus, Dix Problèmes concernant la, Providence.Ed. D.Isaac. Paris, 1977.11.45Proclus, Providence, Fatalité, Liberté.Ed. D.Isaac. Paris, 1979.11.46Boethius, The Theological Tractates,trans. H.F.Stewart and E.K.Rand,TheConsolation of Philosophy,trans. S.J.Tester. Cambridge, Mass. 1973.11.47Boethius’s De Topicis Differentiis.Trans. with notes and essays on the textby E.Stump. Ithaca, NY, 1978.11.48 Dillon, J.M. ‘Iamblichus of Chalcis (c.240–325 AD)’ in [11.5], 36, 2.11.49 Blumenthal, H.J. and A.C.Lloyd (eds)Soul and the Structure of Being in LateNeoplatonism.Liverpool, 1982.11.50 Rosán, L.J.The Philosophy of Proclus.New York, 1949.11.51 Baierwaltes, W.Proklos, Grundzüge seiner Metaphysik.Frankfurt am Main,1965.11.52 Sorabji, R. (ed.)Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science.London, 1987.11.53 Chadwick, H. (ed.)Boethius. The Consolations of Music, Logic, Theology,and Philosophy.Oxford, 1981.

neoplatonism—NeoPlatonism translation NeoPlatonism Article by William Turner covering this movements principal figures and later influence dd Catholic Encyclopedia.Kevin Knight NeoP...Catholic encyclopedia
neoplatonism—Neoplatonism translation A school of philosophical thought founded by Plotinus in the sixth century. Inspired by the writings of Platostrong Plotinus concluded that it is...Dictionary of Renaissance art
neoplatonism—Neoplatonism translation Philosophical system or group of systems derived from the ancient Athenian philosopher Plato B.C. it is called Neoplatonism rather than Platonis...Historical Dictionary of Renaissance
neoplatonism—Neoplatonism translationThe fusion of Platos philosophy with religious Pythagorean and other classical doctrines originated by Plotinus in his Enneadsem . Plotinus concei...Philosophy dictionary
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