Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #142575 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-30
• Format: Abridged
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 688 pages

Customer Reviews

The Enneads for Dummies
The Enneads is a staggering vision of unity. The concept of the soul plays a central part. Here's my take at a very brief summation:

1. The source of the soul ... and of everything else lies in a oneness (the One) that can be inferred but never contacted. So the One isn't a personal God. It isn't aware of us, so it doesn't intervene in our affairs.

2. What the soul receives ... are the goodness and intelligence that emanated from the source and are the principal characteristics of our cosmos. We exist in a cosmos that is fundamentally good and intelligent and we can sense and see that.

3. The mixed blessing for the soul ... is embodiment in matter, which, on the positive side, provides a context for helping and for personal growth. In a world of many, the one soul appears as many souls.

4. The downside of that blessing ... are pain, isolation, and the suffering and distraction caused by attachment to material things. Evil is real but we're created in a fundamentally good and intelligent place and with powers to deal with it.

5. The way to live ... includes recognizing that the many souls are in fact one. Individuality is the reward and the price the soul paid to become embodied. Just as the One gives richly via its emanations, so we should give to the cosmos. Enjoy and feel awed by the beauty around and within you.

6. We're no small things ... but a product of the One, of its Intelligence and Soul... each of our souls linked to each other via that one soul.

7. Soul and body go well together. The individual body being material isn't permanent. But the soul and the cosmos are, so the soul re-enters material life via a new body.

Unlike some religious positions that may seem similar, all of this and more can be demonstrated in a rational presentation that begins with just a few stated assumptions. That's what you'll find in The Enneads, a culmination of centuries of ancient Greek philosophy. As much a treasure as a book can be.

This is an important book because-
it influenced 10 centuries of European Medieval thought, even though
no European had read it! But important Medieval writers and thinkers like St Augustine and the Pseudo-Dionyseus acted as conduits for his thought.

Plotinus borrowed from all the philosophies of the Classical and Ancient World. At the same time he placed great emphasis on the individual, so in this sense he is a kind of bridge between the modern and ancient worlds. Although his ideas are quarried by later Christian thinkers, Plotinus regards negative acts or behaviour as the product of a lack of intelligence, rather than the later Christian idea of evil itself being a kind of positive force. In fact pure intellect Plotinus regards as intrinsically good. It is this idea that becomes the foundation of Christian mysticism in the West, the idea that it is possible to know God through the intellect. God has three parts, the hightest of which is also a pure intelligence, according to Plotinus, who calls this highest part 'The Good.'

This book is really about the structure and order of Man, the Universe and Everything as it was seen in the late classical period, from a Platonist viewpoint. Interesting sections are on things like Astrology, then seen as a science: 'Are stars causes?'

One of the problems early Christians had is that the New Testament, unlike say Islam, does not provide a model of the Universe, a system ofmetaphysics or a detailed idea of what it is to be human, save in being sinful and requiring redemption. This book, like many others, was used as a source material by theologians such as St Thomas Aquinus, who were trying to construct an intellectual foundation around Christianity.

One of the problems people had in the past was not understanding biochemistry, of how matter can live, so they constructed a beautiful and interesting series of ideas about how souls enter and leave beings causing them to live or die.

One of the many interesting ideas here is how ideas themselves can have independent lives, as spirits as it were. This could be a forerunner of CG Jung's archetype theory of psychology.

This book is beautifully translated and very easy to read.

Excellent both as influential philosophical work and mystical classic
Plotinus' Enneads are certainly not an easy read. The metaphysical ideas expressed are complex and he lacks the clarity of a Plato. This is partly because, as Plotinus had failing eyesight, he couldn't revise his works beyond the original drafts. For this reason they are also apparently very difficult to translate.

With all this in mind, I would still unhesitatingly call Plotinus' work an indisputable classic, both of philosophy and mystical literature. Although the treatises 'On Beauty' and 'On the One' are the most famous, all of the treatises are worth reading, so it is a shame that this Penguin version is abridged. Plotinus, as founder of Neoplatonism, heavily influenced Late Antiquity, the Medieval Era and the Renaissance, and his influence was felt down to Leibniz. It is with the rise of science in the seventeenth century that complex metaphysical schema such as Plotinus' were increasingly discredited, as we moved towards the Cartesian-Newtonian materialistic model.

His ideas on ethics and the soul are still very relevant, from a psychological point of view. More importantly, his positing of the Ideal world of Forms existing beyond the material universe sets the ground for his contemplative and spiritual philosophy. Above this world of Forms ('Intellect', or 'Intellectual-Realm' in the MacKenna translation) is the One, ultimate Godhead, and below it is the world of soul, which in turn informs the material universe.

This schema is, whilst wholly out of credence in mainstream, modern materialistic thought, nevertheless an inspiring and absorbing vision of a universe beyond the senses. It in fact has much in common with the Medieval world view, and indeed figures such as Pseudo-Dionysius of the 6th Century AD helped to transmit Neoplatonic ideas into Christianity.

Recommended in the highest possible terms, although do not by any means expect this to be an easy read!