Platonists beginning in the Old Academy itself and up to and including Plotinus struggled to understand and articulate the relation between Plato's Demiurge and the Living Animal which served as the model for creation. The central question is whether 'contents' of the Living Animal, the Forms, are internal to the mind of the Demiurge or external and independent. For Plotinus, the solution depends heavily on how the Intellect that is the Demiurge and the Forms or intelligibles are to be understood in relation to the first principle of all, the One or the Good. The treatise V.5 (32) sets...
Platonists beginning in the Old Academy itself and up to and including Plotinus struggled to understand and articulate the relation between Plato's ...
How was the universe created, and what is our place within it? These are the questions at the heart of Plotinus' Against the Gnostics. For the Gnostics, the universe came into being as a result of the soul's fall from intelligible reality--it is the evil outcome of a botched creation. Plotinus challenges this, and insists that the soul's creation of the world is the necessary consequence of its contemplation of the ideal forms. While the Gnostics claim to despise the visible universe, Plotinus argues that such contempt displays their ignorance of the higher realities of which the...
How was the universe created, and what is our place within it? These are the questions at the heart of Plotinus' Against the Gnostics. For t...
A succinct and concentrated analysis of key themes in Plotinus' psychology and ethics. It focuses on the soul-body relation, discussing various Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoic views before arguing that there is only a soul-trace in the body (forming with the body a "compound"), while the reasoning soul itself is impassive and flawless.
A succinct and concentrated analysis of key themes in Plotinus' psychology and ethics. It focuses on the soul-body relation, discussing various Platon...
Originally part of a single work (with III.8, V.5, and II.9), it provides the foundation for a positive view of the universe as an image of divine beauty against the Gnostic rejection of the world.
Originally part of a single work (with III.8, V.5, and II.9), it provides the foundation for a positive view of the universe as an image of divine bea...