Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Here is a highly original synthesis of Platonism, mystic passion, ideas from Greek philosophy, and variants of the Trinity and other central tenets of Christian doctrine by the brilliant thinker who has had an immense influence on mystics and religious writers.
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Synopsis
Regarded as the founder of Neo-Platonism, Plotinus (AD 204-70) was the last great philosopher of antiquity, producing 0works that proved in many ways a precursor to Renaissance thought. Plotinus was convinced of the existence of a state of supreme perfection and argued powerfully that it was necessary to guide the human soul towards this state. Here he outlines his compelling belief in three increasingly perfect levels of existence - the Soul, the Intellect, and the One - and explains his conviction that humanity must strive to draw the soul towards spiritual transcendence. A fusion of Platonism, mystic passion and Aristotelian thought, The Enneads offers a highly original synthesis of early philosophical and religious beliefs, which powerfully influenced later Christian and Islamic theology.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [554]-558) and index.
About the Author
John Dillon is Regius Professor of Greek at Trinity College in Dublin.
John Dillon is Regius Professor of Greek at Trinity College in Dublin.
John Dillon is Regius Professor of Greek at Trinity College in Dublin.
Table of Contents
Stephen MacKenna: A Biographical Sketch
Extracts from the Explanatory Matter in the First Edition
The Place of Plotinus in the History of Thought by Paul Henry, S. J.
Plotinus: An Introduction
Porphyry: On the Life of Plotinus and the Arrangement of His Work
Preface
The First Ennead
First: The Animate and the Man
Second: The Virtues
Third: Dialectic
Fourth: Happiness
Sixth: Beauty
Eighth: The Nature and Source of Evil
Ninth: "The Reasoned Dismissal"
The Second Ennead
Third: Are the Stars Causes?
Fourth: Matter
Ninth: Against the Gnostics; or Against Those That Affirm the Creator of the Cosmos and the Cosmos Itself to be Evil
The Third Ennead
Second: Providence: First Treatise
Third: Providence: Second Treatise
Fourth: Our Tutelary Spirit
Fifth: Love
Sixth: The Impassivity of the Unembodied
Seventh: Time and Eternity
Eighth: Nature, Contemplation, and the One
The Fourth Ennead
Third: Problems of the Soul (I)
Fourth: Problems of the Soul (II)
Eighth: The Soul's Descent into Body
The Fifth Ennead
First: The Three Initial Hypostases
Second: The Origin and Order of the Beings following on the First
Third: The Knowing Hypostases and the Transcendant
Fourth: How the Secondaries rise from The First; and on The One
Fifth: That the Intellectual Beings are not outside the Intellectual-Principle: and on The Nature of the Good
Seventh: Is there an Ideal Archetype of Particular Beings?
Eighth: On the Intellectual Beauty
Ninth: The Intellectual Principle, the Ideas, and the Authentic Existence
The Sixth Ennead
Fourth: On the Integral Omnipresence of the Authentic Existent (I)
Fifth: On the Integral Omnipresence of the Authentic Existent (II)
Seventh: How the Multiplicity of the Ideal-Forms came into Being; and on The Good
Eighth: On Free Will and the Will of the One
Ninth: On the Good, or the One
Appendix I: The Chronological Order of the Tractates
Appendix II: Index of Platonic References
Selected Bibliography