Plotinus: Psychic and Physical Treatises, Comprising the Second and Third Enneads

by Plotinus, Stephen MacKenna (Translator)

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262 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 270

About the author

Egyptian-born Roman philosopher Plotinus and his successors in the 3rd century at Alexandria founded and developed Neoplatonism, a philosophical system, which, based on Platonism with elements of mysticism and some Judaic and Christian concepts, posits a single source from which all existence emanates and with which one mystically can unite an individual soul; The Enneads collects his writings.

Saint Thomas Aquinas combined elements of this system and other philosophy within a context of Christian thought.

People widely consider this major of the ancient world alongside Ammonius Saccas, his teacher.
He influenced in late antiquity. Much of our biographical information about Plotinus comes from preface of Porphyry to his edition. His metaphysical writings inspired centuries of pagan, Islamic, and Gnostic metaphysicians and mystics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plotinus

Reviews

[Judyta Szacillo]

This is my first and likely the last attempt at reading Plotinus. It's never easy to read ancient writers, but Plotinus's personal style makes it a lot harder. You can see why he was so popular with Christian mystics, with his 'Intellectual Principle' being a lot like Logos, his anti-gnostic stance, or his condemnation of materialism (he was not a fan of atomism and called it 'absurdity').

Even though he wrote deploringly about 'sluggish minds' and praised inquisitiveness, his own mind doesn't seem to have been very much agile. He had a habit of supporting his statements with a phrase 'approved by the ancients' - which was, admittedly, a frequently used endorsement at the time, but still... Not every writer in that era was so enslaved by 'the ancients', and it certainly shows some lack of independence of thought.

But I did find parts of this volume interesting, particularly those referring to the wandering of souls from one body to another. Plotinus was a firm believer of reincarnation, and he wrote at length about it. And there was something oddly satisfying in reading this Late Roman author claim that 'a man that wrongs a woman will become a woman, to be wronged'. He most likely never heard the word 'karma' in his life, but he was by all means familiar with the concept!