Download or read book PLOTINUS Ennead IV 4 30 45 IV 5 written by Gary M. SJ Gurtler and published by Parmenides Publishing. This book was released on 2015-04-30 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ennead IV.4.30-45 and IV.5 retrieves the unity in this last section of Plotinus' treatise on Problems concerning the Soul. Combining translation with commentary, Gurtler enhances both the accuracy of the translation and the recovery of Plotinus' often unsuspected originality. This is especially true for IV.5, where previous translations fail to convey the concise nature of his argument against both the Aristotelian and Platonic theories of vision. Plato and Aristotle each claim that vision depends on the light between the eye and the object, but Plotinus presents evidence that this is not the case and develops a novel theory of light as a second activity that moves from source to object directly, even arguing that color is in the light itself rather than merely a quality of the object. This theory of vision, in turn, depends on the nature of sympathy developed especially in IV.4.30-45, where Plotinus shows how action at a distance is both possible and necessary for the proper unity in diversity of the sensible cosmos.
Download or read book PLOTINUS Ennead V 5 written by Lloyd Gerson and published by Parmenides Publishing. This book was released on 2013-07-15 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 "e;contents"e; 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 out the case for the internality of Forms and argues for the necessary existence of an absolutely simple and transcendent first principle of all, the One or the Good. Not only Intellect and the Forms, but everything else depends on this principle for their being.
Download or read book Marsilio Ficino as Reader of Plotinus The Enneads Commentary written by Stephen Gersh and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2024-07-25 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book represents the first ever systematic philosophical study of Marsilio Ficino’s Commentary on Plotinus’ ‘Enneads’ (first published in Florence, 1492), this work of Ficino being arguably as definitive for the Florentine thinker’s later work as the Platonic Theology was for his earlier. Publication of the present study uniquely illuminates the extent to which Plotinus had always been the crucial influence over Ficino’s revolutionary projects of introducing Platonic thought based on original Greek sources to western Europe, correcting certain features of late medieval and Renaissance Aristotelianism, and laying the foundations of a new Christian Platonism. The study can be read both as an independent introduction to Ficino’s later philosophy and as the complement to the first modern edition and translation of the Commentary on the 'Enneads' itself also by Stephen Gersh (I Tatti Renaissance Library, 2017-).
Download or read book PLOTINUS Ennead IV 7 written by Barrie Fleet and published by Parmenides Publishing. This book was released on 2016-03-30 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ennead IV.7 is a very early treatise (second according to Porphyry's chronological table), and unlike the many treatises devoted to attempts at untangling various issues Plotinus found problematic in Plato's thinking, this one presents the teachings of the other main schools current in Plotinus' day: the Stoics, Epicureans, Pythagoreans, and Peripatetics, all of whom presented soul as something material or as contingent upon material soul, and so as being neither truly immortal nor imperishable. It includes observations on many mainly Stoic doctrines on perception, memory, sensation, thought, virtue, powers of material bodies, mixture and reproduction (Chapters 1-83); on Pythagorean attunement (84); and on Peripatetic entelechy (85). In Chapters 9-10 Plotinus presents, in broad terms, Plato's doctrines on soul's immortality-mainly that of the individual soul, but a fortiori that of the soul of the cosmos. These chapters offer some of Plotinus' most powerful prose. He is not concerned to prove the soul's immortality-that was an uncontroversial tenet of Platonism, to be taken for granted. In this treatise Plotinus is laying down the indisputable foundations for his later writings.
Download or read book PLOTINUS Ennead III 4 On Our Allotted Guardian Spirit written by Wiebk-Marie Stock and published by Parmenides Publishing. This book was released on 2020-11-03 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On Our Allotted Guardian Spirit is a lively and at times perplexing text combining general reflections on the nature of the soul with a discussion of the phenomenon of a personal guardian spirit. Plotinus wants to interpret Plato, and aims to integrate Plato's various statements about daimones into one comprehensive theory. This leads to some views that are, if not exotic, then at least strange on first encounter. However, a closer reading reveals that Plotinus is not interested in demonology per se. Instead, the central concern of the treatise are ideas about the soul, the self, and self-consciousness. Plotinus' explorations produce a theory of the mind as the agent and activity responsible for a person’s ethical choices and conduct of life. The demon emerges as a philosophical tool passed down from Plato, but adapted and rationalized to try to explain motivation to action, the impulse toward the ethical life, and even the various differences in human ethical and psychological constitution. This innovative theory is a response to a strong and ongoing current of thought in the philosophical tradition. The introduction offers an overview of ancient demonologies, starting with Homer and the Presocratics, and is followed by an in-depth examination of Plato, the Stoics, Plotinus, and later Neoplatonic developments. As such the book presents Plotinus’ specific rationalizing response to the idea of a guardian spirit in the context of ancient philosophical demonologies.
Download or read book PLOTINUS Ennead IV 3 4 29 written by John Blumenthal H.J. Dillon and published by Parmenides Publishing. This book was released on 2015-03-18 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For Plotinus, the nature and status of the human soul is one of the central problems of philosophy. Ennead IV.3-4.29 constitutes his most penetrating enquiry into this topic, addressing the issues of the relation of the individual soul to the World Soul, the descent of the soul into body, its relations with that body, problems of personal identity and the nature of memory, sense perception, and the true seat of the emotions -many of which still have a resonance today. The treatise is an excellent example of Plotinus' distinctive method of enquiry: not dogmatic (though he is no sceptic), but worrying away at questions until he has uncovered their complexities to the best of his ability. Such a work requires detailed commentary, such as is provided here, to tease out fully the fascinating convolutions of his thought.
Download or read book PLOTINUS Ennead I 1 written by Gerard O'Daly and published by Parmenides Publishing. This book was released on 2017-12-28 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ennead I.1 is 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 "e;compound"e;), while the reasoning soul itself is impassive and flawless. The soul-trace hypothesis is used to account for human emotions, beliefs, and perceptions, and human fallibility in general. Its problematic relation to our rational powers, as well as the question of moral responsibility, are explored. Plotinus develops his original and characteristic concept of the self or "e;we,"e; which is so called because it is investigated as something common to all humans (rather than a private individual self), and because it is multiple, referring to the reasoning soul or to the "e;living thing"e; composed of soul-trace and body. Plotinus explores the relation between the "e;we"e; and consciousness, and also its relation to the higher metaphysical entities, the Good, and Intellect.
Download or read book PLOTINUS Ennead VI 9 On the Good or the One written by Stephen Clark and published by Parmenides Publishing. This book was released on 2020-10-30 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This early treatise is placed by Plotinus’ editor at the very end of the Enneads, as the culmination of his thought, matching Plotinus’ own last recorded instruction, “to bring the god in you back to the god in the all.” It is a cosmological sketch, arguing that the being of anything depends on its being unified by its orientation to its own good, and so also the being of Everything, the All. The One, or the Good, is at once the goal of all things both individually and collectively, and also the transcendent source of all that we experience, mediated through an intelligible order. But it is also, and perhaps more importantly, intended as a guide to the proper education and discipline of our own motives and experience. We are encouraged to put aside immediate sensory data, egoistic prejudice and sensual impulse, first to grasp at least a little of the intelligible order within which we all live, and at last to purge even those last intellectual attachments and experience what cannot be adequately described: the unity of being.
Download or read book Plotinus Enneads IV written by Plotinus and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PLOTINUS (A.D. 204/5-270), possibly of Roman descent, but certainly a Greek in education and environment, was the first and greatest of Neoplatonic philosophers. Practically nothing is known of his early life, but at the age of 28 he came to Alexandria, and studied philosophy with Ammonius 'Saccas' for 11 years. Wishing to learn the philosophy of the Persians and Indians he joined the expedition of Gordian III against the Persians in 243, not without subsequent danger. Aged 40 he came to Rome and taught philosophy there till shortly before his death. In 253 he began to write and continued to do so till the last year of his life. His writings were edited by his disciple Porphyry, who published them many years after his master's death in six sets of nine treatises each (the Enneads). He regarded Plato as his master, and his own philosophy is a profoundly original development of the Platonism of the first two centuries of the Christian era and the closely related thought of the Neophthagoreans, with some influences from Aristotle and his followers and the Stoics, whose writings he knew well but used critically. There is no real trace of Oriental influence on his thought, and he was passionately opposed to Gnosticism. He is a unique combination of mystic and Hellenic rationalist. He was deeply respected by many members of the Roman aristocracy and a personal friend of the Emperor Gallienus and his wife. He devoted much of his time to the care of orphan children to whom he had been appointed guardian. But before his death his circle of friends had broken up, and he died alone except for his faithful friend and doctor Eustochius. His thought dominated later Greek philosophy and influenced both Christians and Moslems, and is still alive today because of its union of rationality and intense religious experience.
Download or read book Aristotle s Empiricism written by Jean De Groot and published by Parmenides Publishing. This book was released on 2014-02-05 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Aristotle's Empiricism, Jean De Groot argues that an important part of Aristotle's natural philosophy has remained largely unexplored and shows that much of Aristotle's analysis of natural movement is influenced by the logic and concepts of mathematical mechanics that emerged from late Pythagorean thought. De Groot draws upon the pseudo-Aristotelian Physical Problems XVI to reconstruct the context of mechanics in Aristotle's time and to trace the development of kinematic thinking from Archytas to the Aristotelian Mechanics. She shows the influence of kinematic thinking on Aristotle's concept of power or potentiality, which she sees as having a physicalistic meaning originating in the problem of movement.De Groot identifies the source of early mechanical knowledge in kinesthetic awareness of mechanical advantage, showing the relation of Aristotle's empiricism to more ancient experience. The book sheds light on the classical Greek understanding of imitation and device, as it questions both the claim that Aristotle's natural philosophy codifies opinions held by convention and the view that the cogency of his scientific ideas depends on metaphysics.
Download or read book PLOTINUS Ennead IV 8 written by Barrie Fleet and published by Parmenides Publishing. This book was released on 2012-06-06 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plotinus was much exercised by Plato's doctrines of the soul. In this treatise, at chapter 1 line 27, he talks of "e;the divine Plato, who has said in many places in his works many noble things about the soul and its arrival here, so that we can hope for some clarity from him. So what does the philosopher say? It is clear that he does not always speak with sufficient consistency for us to make out his intentions with any ease."e; The issue in this treatise is one that has puzzled students of Plato from ancient to modern times-and is indeed a popular topic for undergraduate essays even today: Why should the philosopher, who has ascended through a long and painful process of dialectic to "e;assimilation to the divine,"e; ever descend back into the body? Plotinus himself is said by Porphyry to have attained such a state of other-worldly transcendence on at least four occasions during his lifetime, so this was a very real and personal issue for him. In this treatise we see him grappling with it.
Download or read book Devil s Grinder written by Mircea Ionescu Quintus and published by Parmenides Publishing. This book was released on 2013-08-08 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of Poems-offered as a dual-language English-Romanian edition-together with a critical Expose by the translators, a Preface by the author, a Chronicle and Biography, conveys to the reader a very personal tale of a human tragedy of unspeakable horrors the author endured alongside tens of thousands of other political prisoners at forced labor camps, so-called "e;Gulags"e; at the Danube-Black Sea Canal (the "e;Canal"e;) during Romania's Communist regime after WWII. This book is a Zeitzeugnis-a witness of the time-an account not only of a reprehensible past time but a very pertinent manifest for hope for younger generations everywhere in the world. This book is based on Moara Dracilor by Mircea Ionescu-Quintus, published in Romanian in 1999 by Editura Ion Creanga S.A., Romania. The new title is a dual-language (English-Romanian) edition, with a new Foreword, a new Preface by the author, a new About the Translators, seven additional Poems, three new Illustrations, and a new author Biography.It is a must-read for students and anyone interested in politics, political history, Eastern-European history, Communist regimes, Romania, Romanian history, Romanian politics, History of Political Oppression, Testimonial Literature, Poetry, Eastern-European poetry, Romanian poetry, and socio-political poetry.
Download or read book PLOTINUS Ennead VI 8 written by Kevin Turner Corrigan, John and published by Parmenides Publishing. This book was released on 2017-11-17 with total page 501 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ennead VI.8 gives us access to the living mind of a long dead sage as he tries to answer some of the most fundamental questions we in the modern world continue to ask: are we really free when most of the time we are overwhelmed by compulsions, addictions, and necessities, and how can we know that we are free? Can we trace this freedom through our own agency to the gods, to the Soul, Intellect, and the Good? How do we know that the world is meaningful and not simply the result of chance or randomness? Plotinus' On the Voluntary and on the Free Will of the One is a groundbreaking work that provides a new understanding of the importance and nature of free human agency. It articulates a creative idea of agency and radical freedom by showing how such terms as desire, will, self-dependence, and freedom in the human ethical sphere can be genuinely applied to Intellect and the One while preserving the radical inability of all metaphysical language to express anything about God or gods.
Download or read book Plotinus Cosmology written by James Wilberding and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2006-03-23 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Ennead II.1 (40) Plotinus is primarily concerned to argue for the everlastingness of the universe, the heavens, and the heavenly bodies as individual substances. Here he must grapple both with the philosophical issue of personal identity through time and with the rich tradition of cosmology which pitted the Platonists against the Aristotelians and Stoics. What results is a historically informed cosmological sketch explaining the constitution of the heavens as well as sublunar and celestial motion. This book contains an extensive introduction aimed at providing the necessary background in Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoic cosmology, the text itself, and a line-by-line commentary designed to elucidate its philosophical, philological and historical details.
Download or read book PLOTINUS Ennead II 9 written by Sebastian Gertz and published by Parmenides Publishing. This book was released on 2017-03-28 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 cosmos is a beautiful image.
Download or read book The Enneads of Plotinus written by Paul Kalligas and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-02-07 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume 2: "An English-language commentary on the Fourth and Fifth Enneads of Plotinus"--
Download or read book Plotinus on Love An Introduction to His Metaphysics through the Concept of Eros written by Alberto Bertozzi and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-12-29 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Plotinus on Love, Alberto Bertozzi argues that love is the origin, culmination, and regulative force of the double movement that characterizes Plotinus' metaphysics: the derivation of all reality from the One and the return of the soul to it.
