Plotinus

204/5-270 CE · Greek · Metaphysics, Late Antique Platonism, Mysticism, Philosophical Anthropology

Our concern is not to be free of sin, but to be god.

Born in Roman Egypt around 205 CE, Plotinus spent eleven years under Ammonius Saccas in Alexandria, then joined a military expedition to Persia hoping to encounter Eastern wisdom — the campaign collapsed when the emperor was murdered. He settled in Rome, taught in a salon attracting senators and imperial courtiers, and published nothing until his fifties, when Porphyry arranged his lectures into six groups of nine — the Enneads.

Topics Plotinus addresses

• the One
• the three hypostases
• Intellect (Nous)
• Soul (Psyche)
• procession (proodos)
• reversion (epistrophê)
• undiminished giving
• the Good beyond being
• emanation
• mystical union (henôsis)
• the flight of the alone to the Alone
• contemplation (theoria)
• two activities of substance
• ineffability
• negative theology
• the undescended soul
• matter as evil
• matter as non-being
• intelligible matter
• intellect as identity of being and thinking
• World Soul
• eternity and time
• Forms of individuals
• intelligible beauty

Converse with Plotinus on Symposium. Every reply is grounded in Plotinus's own writing and cites the page it came from. The corpus is public-domain text.