Everything about Plotinus totally explained
Plotinus (
Greek: Πλωτῖνος) (ca. AD
204–
270) was a major
philosopher of the ancient world who is widely considered the founder of
Neoplatonism (along with his teacher
Ammonius Saccas.) Much of our biographical information about him comes from
Porphyry's preface to his edition of Plotinus'
Enneads. His
metaphysical writings have inspired centuries of
Pagan,
Christian,
Jewish,
Islamic and
Gnostic metaphysicians and mystics.
Biography
Porphyry reported that Plotinus was 66 years old when he died in 270, the second year of the reign of the emperor
Claudius II, thus giving us the year of his teacher's birth as around
204.
Eunapius reported that Plotinus was born in the
Deltaic Lycopolis (
Latin: Lyco) in
Egypt, which has led to speculations that he may have been a native Egyptian of
Roman,
Greek, or
Hellenized Egyptian descent.
Plotinus had an inherent distrust of materiality (an attitude common to
Platonism), holding to the view that phenomena were a poor image or mimicry (
mimesis) of something "higher and intelligible" [VI.I] which was the "truer part of genuine Being". This distrust extended to the body, including his own; it's reported by Porphyry that at one point he refused to have his portrait painted, presumably for much the same reasons of dislike. Likewise Plotinus never discussed his ancestry, childhood, or his place or date of birth. From all accounts his personal and social life exhibited the highest moral and spiritual standards.
Plotinus took up the study of
philosophy at the age of twenty-seven, around the year
232, and travelled to
Alexandria to study. There Plotinus was dissatisfied with every teacher he encountered until an acquaintance suggested he listen to the ideas of
Ammonius Saccas. Upon hearing Ammonius lecture, he declared to his friend, "this was the man I was looking for," and began to study intently under his new instructor. Besides Ammonius, Plotinus was also influenced by the works of
Alexander of Aphrodisias,
Numenius, and various
Stoics.
Expedition to Persia and return to Rome
After spending the next eleven years in Alexandria, he then decided to investigate the philosophical teachings of the
Persian philosophers and the
Indian philosophers around the age of 38. In the pursuit of this endeavour he left Alexandria and joined the army of
Gordian III as it marched on Persia. However, the campaign was a failure, and on Gordian's eventual death Plotinus found himself abandoned in a hostile land, and only with difficulty found his way back to safety in
Antioch.
At the age of forty, during the reign of
Philip the Arab, he came to
Rome, where he stayed for most of the remainder of his life. There he attracted a number of students. His innermost circle included Porphyry,
Amelius Gentilianus of
Tuscany, the Senator
Castricius Firmus, and
Eustochius of Alexandria, a doctor who devoted himself to learning from Plotinus and attended to him until his death. Other students included:
Zethos, an
Arab by ancestry who died before Plotinus, leaving him a legacy and some land;
Zoticus, a critic and poet;
Paulinus, a doctor of
Scythopolis; and
Serapion from Alexandria. He had students amongst the
Roman Senate beside Castricius, such as
Marcellus Orontius,
Sabinillus, and
Rogantianus. Women were also numbered amongst his students, including Gemina, in whose house he lived during his residence in Rome, and her daughter, also Gemina; and
Amphiclea, the wife of
Ariston the son of
Iamblichus. Finally, Plotinus was a correspondent of the philosopher
Cassius Longinus.
Later life
While in Rome Plotinus also gained the respect of the Emperor
Gallienus and his wife
Salonina. At one point Plotinus attempted to interest Gallienus in rebuilding an abandoned settlement in
Campania, known as the 'City of Philosophers', where the inhabitants would live under the constitution set out in
Plato's
Laws. An Imperial subsidy was never granted, for reasons unknown to Porphyry, who reports the incident.
Porphyry subsequently went to live in
Sicily, where word reached him that his former teacher had died. The philosopher spent his final days in seclusion on an estate in
Campania which his friend Zethos had bequeathed him. According to the account of Eustochius, who attended him at the end, Plotinus' final words were: "Strive to give back the Divine in yourselves to the Divine in the All." Eustochius records that a snake crept under the bed where Plotinus lay, and slipped away through a hole in the wall; at the same moment the philosopher died.
Plotinus wrote the essays that became the
Enneads over a period of several years from
ca. 253 until a few months before his death seventeen years later. Porphyry makes note that the Enneads, before being compiled and arranged by himself, were merely the enormous collection of notes and essays which Plotinus used in his lectures and debates, rather than a formal book. Plotinus was unable to revise his own work due to his poor eyesight, yet his writings required extensive editing, according to Porphyry: his master's handwriting was atrocious, he didn't properly separate his words, and he cared little for niceties of spelling. Plotinus intensely disliked the editorial process, and turned the task to
Porphyry, who not only polished them but put them into the arrangement we now have.
Plotinus' theory
One
Plotinus taught that there's a supreme, totally transcendent "One", containing no division, multiplicity or distinction; likewise it's beyond all categories of
being and non-being. The concept of "being" is derived by us from the objects of human experience, and is an attribute of such objects, but the infinite, transcendent One is beyond all such objects, and therefore is beyond the concepts that we derive from them. The One "cannot be any existing thing", and can't be merely the sum of all such things (compare the
Stoic doctrine of disbelief in non-material existence), but "is prior to all existents". Thus, no attributes can be assigned to the One. We can only identify it with the Good and the principle of Beauty. [I.6.9]
For example,
thought can't be attributed to the One because thought implies distinction between a thinker and an object of thought. Even the self-contemplating intelligence must contain duality. "Once you've uttered 'The Good,' add no further thought: by any addition, and in proportion to that addition, you introduce a deficiency." [III.8.10] Plotinus denies sentience, self-awareness or any other action to the One [V.6.6], rather if we insist on describing it further we must call the One a sheer Dynamis or potentiality without which nothing could exist. [III.8.10] As Plotinus explains in both places and elsewhere [for exampleV.6.3], it's impossible for the One to be Being or a self-aware Creator God. At [V.6.4], Plotinus compared the One to "light", the Divine
Nous (first will towards Good) to the "Sun", and lastly the Soul to the "Moon" whose light is merely a "derivative conglomeration of light from the 'Sun'". The first light could exist without any celestial body.
The One, being beyond all attributes including being and non-being, is the source of the world -- but not through any act of creation, willful or otherwise, since activity can't be ascribed to the unchangeable, immutable One. Plotinus argues instead that the multiple can't exist without the simple. The "less perfect" must, of necessity, "emanate", or issue forth, from the "perfect" or "more perfect". Thus, all of "creation" emanates from the One in succeeding stages of lesser and lesser perfection. These stages are not temporally isolated, but occur throughout time as a constant process. Later Neoplatonic philosophers, especially
Iamblichus, added hundreds of intermediate beings as emanations between the One and humanity; but Plotinus' system was much simpler in comparison.
Emanation by the One
Plotinus offers an alternative to the orthodox
Christian notion of creation
ex nihilo (out of nothing), which attributes to God the deliberation of mind and action of a will, although Plotinus never mentions Christianity in any of his works. Emanation
ex deo (out of God), confirms the absolute transcendence of the One, making the unfolding of the cosmos purely a
consequence of its existence; the One is in no way affected or diminished by these emanations. Though the emanations are, since as they become farther away from the source they became diminished. Plotinus uses the analogy of the
Sun which emanates light indiscriminately without thereby diminishing itself, or reflection in a mirror which in no way diminishes or otherwise alters the object being reflected.
The first emanation is
nous (thought or the divine mind, logos or order, reason), identified metaphorically with the
demiurge in Plato's
Timaeus. It is the first
will towards Good. From
nous proceeds the
world soul, which Plotinus subdivides into upper and lower, identifying the lower aspect of Soul with
nature. From the world soul proceeds individual
human souls, and finally, matter, at the lowest level of
being and thus the least
perfected level of the cosmos. Despite this relatively pedestrian assessment of the material world, Plotinus asserted the ultimately divine nature of material creation since it ultimately derives from the One, through the mediums of
nous and the world soul. It is by the Good or through beauty that we recognize the One, in material things and then in the
Forms.
The essentially devotional nature of Plotinus' philosophy may be further illustrated by his concept of attaining ecstatic union with the One (
henosis see
Iamblichus). Porphyry relates that Plotinus attained such a union four times during the years he knew him. This may be related to
enlightenment,
liberation, and other concepts of
mystical union common to many Eastern and Western traditions. Some have compared Plotinus' teachings to the Hindu school of
Advaita Vedanta (
advaita "not two", or "non-dual"),.
True Human and Happiness
Authentic human happiness for Plotinus consists of the true human identifying with that which is the best in the universe. Because happiness is beyond anything physical, Plotinus streses the point that worldly fortune doesn't control true human happiness, and thus “… there exists no single human being that doesn't either potentially or effectively possess this thing we hold to constitute happiness.” (Enneads I.4.4) The issue of happiness is one of Plotinus’ greatest imprints on Western thought, as he's one of the first to introduce the idea that
eudaimonia is attainable only within consciousness.
The true human is an incorporeal contemplative capacity of the soul, and superior to all things corporeal. It then follows that real human happiness is independent of the physical world. Real happiness is, instead, dependent on the metaphysical and authentic human being found in this highest capacity of Reason. “For man, and especially the Proficient, isn't the Couplement of Soul and body: the proof is that man can be disengaged from the body and disdain its nominal goods.” (Enneads I.4.14) The human who has achieved happiness won't be bothered by sickness, discomfort, etc., as his focus is on the greatest things. Authentic human happiness is the utilization of the most authentically human capacity of contemplation. Even in daily, physical action, the flourishing human’s “…Act is determined by the higher phase of the Soul.” (Enneads III.4.6) Even in the most dramatic arguments Plotinus considers (if the Proficient is subject to extreme physical torture, for example), he concludes this only strengthens his claim of true happiness being metaphysical, as the truly happy human being would understand that that which is being tortured is merely a body, not the conscious self, and happiness could persist.
Plotinus offers a comprehensive description of his conception of a person who has achieved eudaimonia. “The perfect life” involves a man who commands reason and contemplation.(Enneads I.4.4) A happy person won't sway between happy and sad, as many of Plotinus’ contemporaries believed. Stoics, for example, question the ability of someone to be happy (presupposing happiness is contemplation) if they're mentally incapacitated or even asleep- Plotinus disregards this claim, as the soul and true human don't sleep or even exist in time, nor will a living human who has achieved eudaimonia suddenly stop using its greatest, most authentic capacity just because of the body’s discomfort in the physical realm. “…The Proficient’s will is set always and only inward.” (Enneads I.4.11)
Overall, happiness for Plotinus is "...a flight from this world's ways and things." (Theat 176AB) and a focus on the highest, for example Forms and The One.
Against causal astrology
Plotinus seems to be one of the first to argue against the still popular notion of causal
Astrology. In the late tractate 2.3, "Are the stars causes?", Plotinus makes the argument that specific stars influencing one's fortune (a common
hellenistic theme) attributes
irrationality to a perfect universe, and eliminates moral turpitude. He does, however, claim the stars and planets are
ensouled, as witnessed by their
movement.
Plotinus and the Gnostics
Modern conferences within the Hellenic philosophy fields of study have been held in order to address what Plotinus stated in his tract
Against the Gnostics and who he was addressing it to. In order to separate and clarify the events and persons involved in the origin of the term "Gnostic". From the dialogue, it appears that the word had an origin in the Platonic and Hellenistic tradition long before the group calling themselves "Gnostics" -- or the group covered under the modern term "Gnosticism" -- ever appeared. It would seem that this shift from Platonic to Gnostic usage has led many people to confusion. The strategy of sectarians taking
Greek terms from philosophical contexts and re-applying them to religious contexts was popular in
Christianity, the
Cult of Isis and other ancient religious contexts including
Hermetic ones (see
Alexander of Abonutichus for an example).
In the case of
gnosticism it's important to understand that
Plotinus and the
Neoplatonists viewed it as a form of heresy or
sectarianism to the
Pythagorean and
Platonic philosophy of the Mediterranean and Middle East. He accused them of using senseless jargon and being overly dramatic and insolent in their distortion of Plato's Ontology.
Plotinus attacks his opponents as untraditional, irrational and immoral and arrogant. He also attacks them as elitist and blasphemous to Plato for the Gnostics despising the material world and its maker.
Plotinus, for example, attacked the Gnostics for vilifying Plato's
ontology of the universe contained in
Timaeus, and the universes' creation by the
demiurge. In this view the Demiurge is an artist or craftsman, in that he creates through mixing or what already is. Plotinus accused Gnosticism of vilifing the Demiurge or craftsman that crafted the material world, even thinking of the material world as evil or a prison.
The Neoplatonic movement (though Plotinus would have simply referred to himself as a philosopher of Plato) seems to be motivated by the desire of Plotinus to revive the pagan philosophical tradition. Plotinus wasn't claiming to innovate with the
Enneads, but to clarify aspects of the works of Plato that he considered misrepresented or misunderstood. Plotinus referred to tradition as a way to interpret Plato's intentions. Because the teachings of Plato were for members of the academy rather than the general public, it was easy for outsiders to misunderstand Plato's meaning. However, Plotinus attempted to clarify how the philosophers of the academy hadn't arrived at the same conclusions (such as
misotheism or
Dystheism of the creator God as an answer to the
problem of evil) as the targets of his criticism.
Influence
Neoplatonism was a philosophical foundation for
paganism, and as a means of defending the theoretic of paganism against
Christianity (see
Porphyry,
Eunapius). However, many Christians were also influenced by Neoplatonism, most notably
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.
St. Augustine, though often referred to as a "Platonist," acquired his Platonist philosophy through the mediation of Plotinus' teachings.
In the Renaissance the philosopher Marsilio Ficino set up an Academy under the patronage of Cosimo de Medici in Florence, mirroring that of Plato. His work was of great importance in reconciling the philosophy of Plato directly with Christianity. One of his most distinguished pupils was Pico della Mirandola, author of An Oration On the Dignity of Man. Our term 'Neo Platonist' has its origins in the Renaissance. In England, Plotinus was the cardinal influence on the 17th-century school of the
Cambridge Platonists, and on numerous writers from
Samuel Taylor Coleridge to
W.B. Yeats and
Kathleen Raine.
Indeed, Plotinus' philosophy still exerts influence today: in the
20th century,
American integral theorist Ken Wilber has drawn heavily upon the Enneads in his
cosmology, reaching some
metaphysical conclusions comparable to Plotinus' own. Robert Pirsig's "Metaphysics of Quality" is similar to Plotinus's philosophy in that Pirsig posited a preconscious dynamic quality that precedes the subject/object dichotomy.
Many of the Indian philosophers of great renown such as
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan,
Ananda Coomaraswamy and others used the writing of Plotinus in their own texts as a superlative elaboration upon Indian
monism, specifically
Upanishadic and
Advaita Vedantic thought. In more recent times, the ideas of Plotinus have been considered and included in the philosophical movement,
Integral theory, and in particular, quoted heavily by leading integral philosopher
Ken Wilber.
Neo-Platonism and the ideas of Plotinus influenced medieval Islam as well, since the
Sunni Abbasids fused Greek concepts into sponsored state texts, and found great influence amongst the
Ismaili Shia. Persian philosophers as well, such as Muhammad al-Nasafi and
Abu Yaqub Sijistani. By the 11th century, Neo-Platonism was adopted by the
Fatimid state of Egypt, and taught by their
da'i (Islam). The teachings of Kirmani in turn influenced philosophers such as
Nasir Khusraw of Persia.
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