Who Is Plotinus

After the fall of Plato's Academy, a period of Platonic thought we retroactively call Middle Platonism began. This lasted until Plotinus, who almost singlehandedly started a new wave of Platonic thought, which we retroactively call Neoplatonism.

Plotinus, a student of the mysterious Ammonius Saccas, built upon the works of Middle Platonism to redefine Platonism. Most inspired by Plato's Timaeus and Parmenides, he build a metaphysical system that influenced almost all Platonists after him.

The One

For Plotinus, the First Principle of reality is the One. An utterly simple, ineffable, beyond being and non-being, unknowable subsistence which is both the creative source of the Universe and the teleological end of all existing things.

All things «emanate» from the One. Emanation, according to Plotinus, is akin to a ray radiating from a source of light, heat spreading from fire, cold emanating from snow or a smell rising from a fragrant substance. The One is like a spring from which eternal water gushes.

The One remains in itself, in its perfection. Yet from this overflowing perfection something else emerges. The One overflows and its abundance gives rise to something other than itself. This procession finds its counterpart in a movement of return to the source and cause. According to Plotinus, the true cause is always the final one.

Given that this movement of return arises from a desire and sense of deficiency, the generated thing must somehow be aware of its separation and, in this respect, recognize itself as distinct from its source. At the moment of return, then, the generated thing produces its own interpretation of the generating cause. It is at this stage that a new order of reality is produced.

The Intellect

Out of the overflowing potential of the One comes something, which becomes the Intellect. The One, however, does not generate the Intellect directly. The One gives birth to something undifferentiated, which is therefore not yet the Intellect, but will become so, not out of virtue, but because it constitutes itself as the Intellect through a movement of return to its own origin.

The Intellect fragments the original simplicity into the multiplicity of Forms. This means that the multiplicity of Forms that constitute the Intellect — and which forms the model for physical reality — is not something inherent in the One, but something that is produced by the act of the Intellect to return to its source.

The Soul

In relation to the Intellect, the hypostasis of the Soul represents a further increase in multiplicity and dispersion. As something intelligible, the Soul remains immaterial, unextended and free from spatial conditioning. However, its activity unfolds in the world of matter.

The Soul therefore forms the link between the intelligible realm of Forms and the sensible world. It represents the intelligible plane responsible for the sensible world and ensures the unity of all. Therefore, we should not think that the Soul is locked up in bodies, for it is the bodies that are locked up in the Soul.

The Sensible World

After the Soul comes the world of matter, the lowest point in the Plotinian system. The physical universe, however, is still produced by the Soul. And its agency makes the universe something harmonious and partaker of a higher beauty. However imperfect, the physical universe is still an image of the divine realm.