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 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 Plato s Parmenides written by Samuel Scolnicov and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2003-07-08 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all Plato’s dialogues, the Parmenides is notoriously the most difficult to interpret. Scholars of all periods have disagreed about its aims and subject matter. The interpretations have ranged from reading the dialogue as an introduction to the whole of Platonic metaphysics to seeing it as a collection of sophisticated tricks, or even as an elaborate joke. This work presents an illuminating new translation of the dialogue together with an extensive introduction and running commentary, giving a unified explanation of the Parmenides and integrating it firmly within the context of Plato's metaphysics and methodology. Scolnicov shows that in the Parmenides Plato addresses the most serious challenge to his own philosophy: the monism of Parmenides and the Eleatics. In addition to providing a serious rebuttal to Parmenides, Plato here re-formulates his own theory of forms and participation, arguments that are central to the whole of Platonic thought, and provides these concepts with a rigorous logical and philosophical foundation. In Scolnicov's analysis, the Parmenides emerges as an extension of ideas from Plato's middle dialogues and as an opening to the later dialogues. Scolnicov’s analysis is crisp and lucid, offering a persuasive approach to a complicated dialogue. This translation follows the Greek closely, and the commentary affords the Greekless reader a clear understanding of how Scolnicov’s interpretation emerges from the text. This volume will provide a valuable introduction and framework for understanding a dialogue that continues to generate lively discussion today.
Download or read book PLOTINUS Ennead VI 4 VI 5 written by Eyjolfur Strange Emilsson, Steven and published by Parmenides Publishing. This book was released on 2015-01-14 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ennead VI.4-5, originally written as a single treatise, contains Plotinus' most general and sustained exposition of the relationship between the intelligible and the sensible realms, addressing and coalescing two central issues in Platonism: the nature of the soul-body relationship and the nature of participation. Its main question is, How can soul animate bodies without sharing their extension? The treatise seems to have had considerable impact: it is much reflected in Porphyry's important work, Sententiae, and the doctrine of reception according to the capacity of the recipient, for which this treatise is the main source, resonated in medieval thinkers.
Download or read book The Six Enneads written by Plotinus and published by Library of Alexandria. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 1407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 written by Dominic J. O'Meara and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the ideal introduction to the thought of the third-century AD writer Plotinus, one of the greatest of ancient philosophers, now enjoying a major revival of interest. Dominic O'Meara has tailored the book carefully to the requirements of students: he writes clearly and authoritatively, assumes no knowledge of Greek or expertise in ancient philosophy, stays close to the texts, and relates Plotinus's ideas to modern philosophical concerns.
Download or read book Plotinus on Beauty Enneads 1 6 and 5 8 1 2 written by Andrew Smith and published by SBL Press. This book was released on 2019-11-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Greek edition of Plotinus's philosophical works with notes for students of Classical Greek Plotinus, the father of Neoplatonism, composed the treatise On Beauty (Ennead 1.6) as the first of a series of philosophical essays devoted to interpreting and elucidating Platonic ideas. This treatise is one of the most accessible and influential of Plotinus's works, and it provides a stimulating entrée into the many facets of his philosophical activity. In this volume Andrew Smith first introduces readers to the Greek of Plotinus and to his philosophy in general, then provides the Greek text of and English notes on Plotinus's systematic argument and engaging exhortation to foster the inner self. The volume ends with the text of and notes on Plotinus's complementary statements in On Intelligible Beauty (Ennead 5.8.1–2). Features: An overview of Plotinus's life Background discussion of Plotinus's thought and outline of his philosophical system Analysis of the relationship of Plotinus's thought to Plato’s
Download or read book Plotinus Arg Philosophers written by Lloyd P. Gerson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-08-21 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1999. We are fortunate in possessing a fascinating document, The Life of Plotinus, written by the philosopher Porphyry, a pupil and associate of Plotinus for the last eight years of his life. The basic facts contained in this Life can be quickly recounted. Plotinus was likely a Greek born in Egypt in AD 205. It is possible, though, that he came from a Hellenized Egyptian or Roman family. In his 28th year, Plotinus discovered in himself a thirst for philosophy. This is a collection of his works- Ennead I contains treatises on what Porphyry calls “ethical matters”; Enneads II–III contain treatises on natural philosophy or cosmology, with some rationalizations for the inclusion of III. 4, 5, 7, and 8. Ennead IV concerns the soul; V Intellect or and VI being, numbers, and the One. The thematic unity of Enneads I, IV, and V is somewhat greater than the rest.
Download or read book Ennead VI 9 written by Plotinus and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A translation and commentary on Plotinus' Ennead VI.9 on the Good, being the treatise chosen by Porphyry as the culmination of Plotinus' Collected Works"--
Download or read book Platonism and Christian Thought in Late Antiquity written by Panagiotis G. Pavlos and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-06-07 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Platonism and Christian Thought in Late Antiquity examines the various ways in which Christian intellectuals engaged with Platonism both as a pagan competitor and as a source of philosophical material useful to the Christian faith. The chapters are united in their goal to explore transformations that took place in the reception and interaction process between Platonism and Christianity in this period. The contributions in this volume explore the reception of Platonic material in Christian thought, showing that the transmission of cultural content is always mediated, and ought to be studied as a transformative process by way of selection and interpretation. Some chapters also deal with various aspects of the wider discussion on how Platonic, and Hellenic, philosophy and early Christian thought related to each other, examining the differences and common ground between these traditions. Platonism and Christian Thought in Late Antiquity offers an insightful and broad ranging study on the subject, which will be of interest to students of both philosophy and theology in the Late Antique period, as well as anyone working on the reception and history of Platonic thought, and the development of Christian thought.
Download or read book Plotinus and the Presocratics written by Giannis Stamatellos and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Filling the void in the current scholarship, Giannis Stamatellos provides the first book-length study of the Presocratic influences in Plotinus' Enneads. Widely regarded as the founder of Neoplatonism, Plotinus (204–270 AD) assimilated eight centuries of Greek thought into his work. In this book Stamatellos focuses on eminent Presocratic thinkers who are significant in Plotinus' thought, including Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, the early Pythagoreans, and the early Atomists. The Presocratic references found in the Enneads are studied in connection with Plotinus' fundamental theories of the One and the unity of being, intellect and the structure of the intelligible world, the nature of eternity and time, the formation of the material world, and the nature of the ensouled body. Stamatellos concludes that, contrary to modern scholarship's dismissal of Presocratic influence in the Enneads, Presocratic philosophy is in fact an important source for Plotinus, which he recognized as valuable in its own right and adapted for key topics in his thought.
Download or read book Neoplatonism and Nature written by Michael F. Wagner and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Original essays by leading scholars on Plotinus' philosophy of nature.
Download or read book Philosophic Silence and the One in Plotinus written by Nicholas Banner and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-29 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plotinus, the greatest philosopher of Late Antiquity, discusses at length a first principle of reality - the One - which, he tells us, cannot be expressed in words or grasped in thought. How and why, then, does Plotinus write about it at all? This book explores this act of writing the unwritable. Seeking to explain what seems to be an insoluble paradox in the very practice of late Platonist writing, it examines not only the philosophical concerns involved, but the cultural and rhetorical aspects of the question. The discussion outlines an ancient practice of ‛philosophical silence' which determined the themes and tropes of public secrecy appropriate to Late Platonist philosophy. Through philosophic silence, public secrecy and silence flow into one another, and the unsaid space of the text becomes an initiatory secret. Understanding this mode of discourse allows us to resolve many apparent contradictions in Plotinus' thought.
Download or read book Reading Plotinus written by Kevin Corrigan and published by Purdue University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plotinus was one of the most influential philosophers of the early Christian world, whose life was dedicated to the care of others and whose extensive treatises were recorded and preserved by his pupil and colleague Porphyry. This book provides a guide to reading and understanding Plotinus and covers many of the topics that he contemplated.
Download or read book Plotinus on the Good or the One Enneads VI 9 written by Meijer and published by BRILL. This book was released on 1992-01-01 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amazing as it may be, to this day few commentaries on the treatises of Plotinus' Enneads are written. The classic ninth treatise (VI,9 in Porphyrius' order), for example, has hardly been studied. This treatise, however, is of vital importance, because it is in this work that for the first time in the Enneads, the One in its superform emerges and Plotinus dwells on the remarkable phenomenon of a 'mystical union' of the soul with the One. A thorough analysis of the argument and its development next to philosophical and philo-logical support will be welcome to any reader of this in-triguing but difficult treatise. These aims are pursued in the main part of Meijer's work, the commentary. The first part of the book, preceding the commentary, examines the philosophical history of the concept of the One and its status in the first eight treatises. This new approach to the problem of the One leads to striking conclusions. It appears that while Plotinus was writing these first eight treatises, the concept of the One developed from that of a Supreme Entity of a Mesoplatonian character, viz. the upper part of the mind, to One of a Superone above mind. This casts an entirely new light on the position of the One in Plotinus and that of the ninth treatise itself. The third part not only examines the mystical union as pictured in the ninth treatise, but also provides a full scale discussion of Plotinus' descriptions of this union in his en-tire work. The degree of unification, viz. the question whether a part of the mystic self remains intact during the unification, is a matter of vigorous scholarly debate. Meijer shows that, in spite of some inconsistencies in his doctrine about the union, one must accept that Plotinus basically considered the union as a complete absorption of the soul into the Supreme Entity.
Download or read book Nature Contemplation and the One written by John N. Deck and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 1967-12-15 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plotinus has been so highly regarded as a mystic that his importance as a philosopher has sometimes been thrown into eclipse. Yet neoplatonic philosophy lives in and through his works; indeed, his original development of Platonic and Aristotelian themes stands as a kind of summation of Greek philosophy as it first came to be known in the Christian West. In Nature, Contemplation, and the One, Professor Deck has undertaken a reappraisal of Plotinus' thought from the standpoint of a central doctrine in the Enneads, that of nature as contemplation. This new view enables him to show that the producing of the physical world by means of contemplation is an internally consistent doctrine with ramifications throughout the Plotinian view of being, causality, and the generation of a plural universe by the self-subsistent One. The result is a systematic account of Plotinus' major teachings, and a fresh view of their meaning and philosophic importance. Professor Deck has appended a new translation of the parts of the Enneads which are central to the doctrine of nature as contemplation, and his study proceeds by careful reference to the original texts. Students, philosophers, and historians will welcome this important and unusually clear-headed approach to a major figure in Western thought.
