Although his philosophical teachings have had a strong influence on many great philosophers, and the Neoplatonic school he founded lasted almost half a millennium, we have very little information about Plotinus’ life before coming to Rome. We know that he was born in Lykopolis in Egypt around 204 AD, and that at the age of twenty-eight he came to Alexandria, where he met Ammonius Saccas, a great teacher who deeply impressed him and with whom he stayed for eleven years.
At the age of thirty-nine, he joined the army of Emperor Gordian III when he set out on a campaign against the Persians. His desire was to learn the wisdom of the Gymnosophists, as the Greeks called the Indian yogis. However, the campaign failed, and after many adventures, Plotinus found himself in Rome in 244 AD. There, he soon founded a philosophical school that gained great renown. From that time, we have more information about his life and him as a person because his disciple
Porphyry will write a work On the Life of Plotinus and the Order of his Writings.
His teachings
Anja did not have a strict form, but Plotinus led his listeners to question and debate certain topics. He did not create his own original philosophical system, as is common among philosophers today, but studied and interpreted Plato. In ancient times, loyalty to tradition was more highly valued, and just as Plotinus referred to Plato, whom he often called “divine,” Plato himself referred to the wisdom of the Egyptians, Pythagoreans, and Orphics. Plotinus literally says:
Our discussions do not contain anything new and are not of today, but have already been spoken many years ago, although indirectly. Our present discussions are only interpretations of those old discussions; Plato’s own words confirm to us that these teachings are ancient. (V.1,8)
Plotinus’ high regard for Plato can be seen in his dream of founding Platonopolis, a city of philosophers based on the principles laid out by Plato in his works. Emperor Galien was inclined to support this idea, but the people around the emperor conspired against it. They succeeded in realizing her achievement.
Plotinus did not write anything for a long time. It was not until 253 AD that he wrote his first work, and over the years that number increased to about forty-five. Thirty years after Plotinus’ death, Porphyry prepared these works for publication, dividing some of them into several parts and thus increasing the number of texts to fifty-four. He did not arrange the works chronologically, according to the time of their creation, but thematically, classifying them into six groups of nine texts each, from which the work itself got its name – Enneads (Nines).
His disciples continued Plotinus’ teachings, and the Neoplatonic school would be the last spark of the old age.
SYSTEM OF EMANATION
One of the fundamental tasks of any philosophy, if it doesn’t want to be just another intellectual discipline, is to interpret reality, create a certain image of the world, and determine the position and fate of man in that world. Philosophy is required to find order and meaning in this immense about the multitude of everything that exists.
Plotinus’ response to this demand is the system of emanation. This entire multitude has arisen through emanation from the One.
It is necessary for the One to exist before the multitude, as the One precedes every number. (V.3,12)
Therefore, the multitude exists and there is the One that is behind the multitude, its source, cause, and purpose. The question immediately arises: how does the multitude arise from this One?
Plotinus proves that it does not arise through division, as what is One must also be First. If it were divided, it would mean that it is composed of parts, and a part always precedes the whole in time, so the One would not be first. Instead, Plotinus says, everything arises through emanation (flowing forth, pouring out, emerging) from this One. The One is like a source from which rivers flow in all directions, but this giving does not exhaust the source – it is tranquil and inexhaustible.
In this emanation from the One, Plotinus distinguishes three levels of being, three hypostases: the One, the Mind, and the Soul. The Mind (nous, intellect) is the first emanation from the One From God, the Soul arises.
One
One is the first and indivisible. It is one in the true sense of the word. When we say One, we do not mean a number, but the negation of plurality.
However, we are, due to our struggles, in a predicament of having to speak at all, so we speak about something inexpressible, and give it names in an attempt to explain it to ourselves, as much as we can. And it seems that even the name “One” represents (only) a negation in relation to plurality. For this reason, the Pythagoreans symbolically explained Apollo among themselves as the negation of plurality. (V.5,6)
Plotinus speaks about the One with awe, as the sublime and unattainable goal of every living being. The One is God in that absolute sense. It is beyond every reality, beyond everything, and at the same time in everything. We cannot express anything real about it, nothing that it is, but only by using analogy:
For we speak of what It is not; but what It is, we do not speak. Therefore, we speak about It based on what comes after (from It). (V.3,14) When we talk about him at all, we do it only to encourage the soul towards him. He gives being to everything, and he is above being itself. Everything that exists, exists only through the One. The One is eternal, the one that always and truly is. It is the cause and source of everything. The One is the supreme Good because everything that exists strives for the source from which it originated.
Spirit
The One gives birth to Spirit (nous). Plotinus says that the One sees itself by turning towards itself, and this vision is Spirit. It is the first sphere of divine activity. Thus, the sublime unity is divided into the duality of thought and being, the duality of consciousness and its objects: namely the subject that thinks and the object that is thought of.
Spirit necessarily exists in thought… And if he is both what he thinks and the object of thought at the same time, then he must be twofold, he is not simple nor is he One. (VI.9,2)
By thinking of himself, Spirit is in a sense unity, but at the same time, because of duality, he is the first cause of diversity, and therefore Plotinus says that Spirit is the unity of multiplicity.
Spirit is a demiurge. rg, creator of the world. It contains all ideas, archetypes. These ideas that the Spirit imagines make up the spiritual (intellectual, intelligible) world, and they are also the causes of all manifest things in the sensory world.
Soul
Spirit, therefore, creates, and the product of its activity is the Soul (psyche), which shapes matter in this physical world. Unlike the Spirit which is at rest because it thinks of itself and creates from itself, the Soul creates by looking towards something other than itself:
The Spirit is always what it is in the activity that it stands; movement towards it and around it is already the work of the Soul. (II.9,1)
The Soul is a reflection (image) of the Spirit. Just as the spoken word is an image of the word that is in the soul, so is the Soul the logos of the Spirit, and its effectiveness and the life it sends into the existence of something else.
Therefore, it seems that whoever wants to understand what the Spirit is, needs to consider the Soul first and what is most divine in the soul. This could be achieved in the following way: if you reject the First of all, there is the body, then the soul that forms it, and certainly perception, desire, passions, and all similar trifles and illusions, because all of that strongly tends towards the mortal (within us), that remaining part of the soul is precisely what we call the image of the Spirit that guards some of its light, just as after the sphere of the Sun its light sparkles around it and from it. (V.3,9)
The soul looks towards the Spirit, towards the world of ideas, and creates this sensory world based on those primordial forms. Therefore, it is characterized by duality: in relation to the Spirit, it is the principle that receives, and in relation to matter, the principle that acts. When it contemplates the world of ideas, it is the higher soul, or soul in the true sense of the word (psyche); as a creative force, it is the lower soul – nature (physis). It is not correct to say that there are two parts of the soul, because the soul is truly indivisible, but rather that the soul has a twofold life – one when it contemplates, and another when it creates.
Matter
In order for the material, sensory world to come into existence, something is needed that will act upon it and shape it. It is difficult to receive the action of the Soul. It is matter (hyle), the fourth concept in Plotinus’ system of emanation, however, it is not a hypostasis because it is not the foundation of anyone’s existence, but rather receptivity itself. Hyle is matter in the most general sense and as such, no qualities can be attributed to it: neither color, nor warmth, nor coldness, nor weight, nor lightness, nor density, nor rarity, nor size, nor shape.
It relates to the One as darkness relates to light, emptiness relates to fullness. In one sense, matter is evil. According to Plotinus, evil does not exist, it is only the absence of Good, and since matter is lack, complete poverty in everything, even in prudence, virtue, beauty, strength, it is evil as a lack.
With the realm of emanation, it reaches its ultimate limits.
Two worlds, two orders (cosmos)
Plotinus states that there are two worlds, two orders. One of them is this world in which we live, which is accessible to our senses. Plotinus refers to it as the sensual, perceptible world (cosmos). The world of sensory perception (aistheton) is often referred to as “here” (entautha) by Plotinus, meaning what we are daily present in. This is a world in constant flux, an unstable world subject to time, where everything arises and disappears.
The other world is the super-sensible, spiritual, intelligible, or noetic world (kosmos noetos, mundus intelligibilis), and Plotinus refers to it as “there” (ekei), emphasizing its transcendence. This is the world of ideas, perfect and always the same in itself. It exists in eternity, and true life resides in it. This sensible world is merely an imitation (mima) of that intelligible, spiritual world. In this world, there is nothing that is not just a reflection of something that exists in the spiritual world, for being and true existence are there, while here, as Plotinus says, everything is a representation (fantasia).
Everything concerning the soul takes place between these two worlds. Its true dwelling is in the upper world, its fate is the descent into this lower world, and its task is to ascend and return to its true home. et into your true abode.
THE NATURE OF THE SOUL
The soul occupies a special place in Plotinus’ system because, as Plotinus says:
What could a person be more concerned with, speaking broadly and exploring, than the soul? … Through this exploration, we would listen to and follow the advice of God to know ourselves. (IV.3,1)
The Soul is Immortal
Plotinus’ fundamental claim is that the soul is immortal and divine because, as already mentioned, it is an image of the Spirit, not as something separate from the Spirit, but as the very same Spirit in its emanation. The soul is the one that gives life to everything, and no being can exist without it:
Firstly, every soul should keep in mind that it herself created all living beings. This applies to the living beings that the earth nourishes, and to those in the air, and to those nourished by the sea, and to the divine stars in the sky; it (the soul) created the Sun, and this vast heaven, and it is the one that arranges it and leads it in order around itself, and it is a different nature from everything that it arranges, moves, and And it revives. And it is necessary for it to be more valuable than anything else because it becomes valuable when its soul gives it life and disappears when the soul leaves it, and the soul itself is eternal because “it cannot abandon itself.” (V.1,2)
The Soul is indivisible
Although the soul is inherently indivisible, it cannot be one in the true sense of the word because then it would be One. The soul must be both one and many, divided and indivisible. Plotinus says that based on its multiple unity, it gives life to everything, and based on its indivisible unity, it wisely guides everything.
Nature, which is both divisible and indivisible, the nature that we consider the soul, is not one as something continuous, since it doesn’t have different parts. Instead, it is divisible because it is present in all parts of what it is in, and indivisible because it is whole in all parts and because it is whole in any part of it (in which it is). (IV.2,1)
On one hand, Plotinus speaks of the Soul of everything, the Soul of the world, the one that creates The Soul and the Body
On one hand, Plotinus speaks about the Soul of All, which encompasses everything, organizes everything, and governs everything. On the other hand, he talks about the individual soul that all beings, including humans, possess. Plotinus argues that these are not two separate souls, but rather that the soul present in multiple bodies (individual soul) is like a reflection of the soul that exists in unity (the Soul of All). The division of the soul into bodies occurs because the bodies, due to their own divisible nature, cannot contain an undivided soul.
The difficulty of explaining the relationship between the soul and the body is best illustrated by Porphyry’s words: To me, Porphyry [Plotinus] explained and answered questions about the connection between the soul and the body for three days straight… Taking into consideration that Porphyry was a great philosopher, who had been a student of Plotinus himself for many years and eventually became the publisher of his work, it becomes clear how challenging it is for today’s reader of the Enneads to comprehend.
Plotinus’ system is not merely a logical elaboration of certain initial principles; it is primarily a description of a sublime reality that is inaccessible to our perception. He describes what he sees and immediately afterwards logically explains it in order to convince us of the truth of what he presents. While reading the Enneads, the reader sometimes feels helpless, somewhat like a blind person whom someone is trying to describe the colors of flowers, the blueness of the sea and sky, and all the other beauties visible to the eye. In fact, according to Plotinus himself, we are not in the position of a blind person, but rather of a person with healthy vision who, for some reason, stubbornly keeps their eyes closed.
Plotinus vigorously proves that the soul did not arise from the body, nor is it some kind of harmony between its parts. Since the soul rules over the body, it dominates it and often fights against it, it would not do so if it were truly some kind of harmony. Furthermore, the soul is not in the body as in a vessel, but it is the one that gives life to the body, and the body is alive as long as it is present, and it dies when the soul leaves it. The soul uses the body as a tool, because perception and touch with perceptible things can only arise through something that has a nature similar to those things.
Plotinus never Stan emphasizes that the connection of the soul with the body is not a blessing, but that the soul is truly free when without a body; then it is fully in the spiritual world and then through and with the Spirit effortlessly strives for the Good.
The Soul Participates in Both Worlds
Our soul participates in both worlds. It is like an “amphibian”. It partly lives in the intelligible world and partly in the sensory world. There is, so to speak, a middle part of the soul that is between these two. However, since it is of a unified nature, it sometimes completely agrees with its better part, and sometimes its lower part, pulled down, also drags the middle part along, but it never drags the upper part because, according to Plotinus, the law is such that it cannot drag it all along:
And, if I may express more clearly what seems right to me despite what others may think: our soul has not completely sunk into the sensory world, but there is a part of it that perpetually resides in the spiritual world. (IV.8,8)
Since the soul never completely distances itself from that world, but There always remains a part of her that has not descended here, she is the bridge between the spiritual and sensory worlds.
THE FATE OF THE SOUL
If the soul is immortal and divine, and if we are truly souls and our bodies are just tools that it uses, then a whole range of questions arise. Why did the soul descend into the body? Why are we condemned to suffer in this sensory world? Why do we not remember our divine origin? And finally, can the soul return to its true abode, and if so, how?
Why did the soul descend into the body?
Plotinus says that the cause of this is a kind of audacity (tolma). The souls desired to be independent, and when they became so, when they became free, they fled to the opposite side and completely separated themselves from their father – the Spirit.
In addition to having a tendency towards the spiritual world, the soul also has the power to govern what is lower than itself, and when it does so, it changes, transitioning from a whole to a part, isolating itself and weakening. Because of its separation from the whole, it falls into the shackles of the body, as Plato said. In different words, her wings lose feathers and she can no longer soar towards the realm of the spiritual. Therefore, her effectiveness is reduced only to perception in this sensory world, and it is said that she is buried in the body.
Why are we condemned to suffer in this sensory world?
According to Plotinus, the soul itself does not suffer – suffering belongs to the body, not the soul. There is a higher part of the soul that, being in the intelligible world, has nothing to do with suffering, and a lower part that also does not suffer, but participates in the suffering of the body. The soul must in some way participate in the suffering of the body, because even perception is a kind of suffering. Therefore, in order to be effective in this sensory world, the soul must be in some kind of companionship with the body.
Why don’t we remember our divine origin?
To this question, Plotinus answers with an example: Our souls are like children who are separated from their fathers from birth. Due to not knowing their own origin, these children do not know how to appreciate themselves, but strive for something else that is They admire her for it. The same goes for the soul, as long as it is fascinated by the mortal body and transient things of this sensory world, it cannot be conscious of its divine nature.
How can the soul return to its true abode?
Plotinus gives advice: people need to use double language if they want to turn them towards the One. The first one is to show the worthlessness of what the soul currently values, and the second one is to teach and remind the soul of its true origin and its invaluable worth:
Being filled with God is the principle and purpose of the soul; the principle because it comes from there, and the purpose because there is Good there and because, when it arrives there, it becomes what it was before. …
… we are not separated from the One – even if the nature of the body imposes itself and pulls us towards it – but we live and exist precisely through it. It didn’t give us existence and then went away, but it eternally gives us, as long as it is what it is. Even here, we lean towards it. Being far from Good means just being a little less Good. (VI.9,9)
Our soul is weak not because something has been taken away from it – the soul is indivisible, so nothing can be taken away from it – but because something foreign has been added to it while it was falling down here, something that is not its own. Our true, divine nature remains untouched despite the fall into matter. It’s like someone falling into mud, they are no longer beautiful, but the ugliness only occurred because something foreign, mud, was added. It’s enough to wash off the mud for the beauty to shine again. It’s the same with the soul: due to the mingling with the body and matter, its true nature cannot be expressed, but if it rejects and eliminates everything that is not itself, if it separates from the desires possessed through the body, if it frees itself from passions and purifies from what the embodied possesses, it will shine in all its beauty.
RETURNING TO ONENESS
Plotinus’ metaphysics explains how the soul came into this world, into this state where it no longer recognizes itself. In himself, his ethics is the reverse path, the path of return through the purification of the soul from everything that has been added to it. Purification leads us to the One.
Plotinus mentions Plato’s words that we are most similar to God when we are purified, because the divine is pure. Since evil is here, and the soul wants to escape from evil, it needs to flee from here. However, this escape is not a change of place, but becoming similar to God, and we achieve this, says Plato, when we are righteous and if we live virtuously. Purification consists in the soul remaining alone and not being with something else, because all additions are some kind of evil for the soul, and when it is purified, it possesses everything that is best, reason and all other virtues.
Virtue
When speaking about virtue, Plotinus follows Plato’s teaching according to which all virtues are some kind of purification. He also divides virtues into ordinary, civic virtues that arise from habit and enable coexistence in society, and into true or philosophical virtues through which we become similar to God.
Civic virtues lead us they bring order and make them better by limiting and giving measure to our desires and sufferings in general: prudence is when the soul does not mingle with the body but is active on its own; temperance is when the soul does not endure the same sufferings as the body, courage is when the soul is not afraid of separation from the body, and justice is when the soul is guided by reason or mind, and the rest is not in opposition.
True, higher virtues only arise when prudence is added to them, as an activity directed towards the spirit:
For the soul, justice is a higher virtue directed towards the spirit, prudence is an inner turning towards the spirit, and courage is impatience by similarity to what the soul sees, and what is naturally without patience; the soul is unyielding based on the virtue in order not to suffer together with its inferior cohabitant. (I.2,6)
Philosophy
Plotinus says that all virtues are imperfect without philosophy because it not only separates the soul from the body but also causes the lower part of the soul to turn upwards. Dialectic plays a special role in this, as it is, as Plotinus says, a According to Plotinus, the purest part of the mind and reason, and our most valuable power:
It is a skill that can rationally analyze every thing, distinguish it from other things, and identify its commonalities. It determines the category to which something belongs and its position within that category. It questions whether something truly is what it is… It discusses both the Good and what is not good, as well as everything related to good or its opposite. It provides clarity on eternity and that which is not eternal, relying on knowledge rather than opinion.
Plotinus extensively argues that one should strive towards the Good and the first principle, and that the philosopher is naturally inclined towards this. The virtues are already present within the philosopher, they just need to be guided towards perfection. The philosopher is already oriented towards the higher realm and only requires someone to show them the way.
Ecstasy:
According to Plotinus, the ultimate goal is to return to the One, but philosophy does not lead to the ultimate goal. The union of the soul with the One occurs in ecstasy. Ecstasy is essentially the abandonment of philosophy, as philosophy is a mental pursuit. Rational activity is characterized by a dualism of thought, a division into a thinking subject and a thought object, and merging with the One is precisely the cessation of all duality. The soul, at the end of the journey upwards, must free itself from all thinking and all knowledge in order to merge with the One:
It has been said that we must ascend towards the One, and towards the truly One, … We must therefore now ascend towards the One, not attaching anything more to it, but completely stopping in fear and from the slightest distance from it and from progressing towards duality. (V.5,4)
It often happens to me that I rise from the body into myself and be outside everything else, and within myself. Then I see an amazingly great beauty, and I firmly believe that I have a better destiny. (IV.8,1)
And then, afterwards, one must return down here and speak about that union as much as possible. Plotinus did precisely that. His life and his teachings had the same goal – to ascend to the spiritual world and merge with the One. His philosophy is truly like a guide in which that path upwards is described. Plotinus tirelessly convinces us that we too can see that sublime reality that is our destiny – we just need to open our eyes. The process of opening our eyes requires patient learning and diligent practice – what else should we truly be doing in life?