Plotinus - Biography

Plotinus was born in Lycopolis, Egypt, in the year 204 or 205 CE. He died in the year 270 CE in Campania, Italy. Plotinus was a Greek philosopher.

Being an adherent of Plato, Plotinus’ primary aim was to provide a coherent interpretation and defence of Plato’s philosophy. For centuries most of Plato´s works were predominantly apprehended and understood through Plotinus’ reading and explication of the great philosopher. Yet while he is considered to be the most important commentator and interpreter of Plato, and consequently, the founder of Neoplatonism, Plotinus was also a truly original thinker who was influenced not only by Plato, but also by the Stoics and Neo-Pythagoreans (and, of course, he was very familiar with Aristotle as well).

The early life of Plotinus is not well known. However, in his mid-to late twenties, Plotinus went to Alexandria to undertake studies in philosophy. After having attended various lectures from the most important philosophers of the day, he finally found his teacher and mentor in Ammonius Saccas, with whom he studied with until 242. Plotinus pursued further studies in Persian and Indian philosophy, and consequently accompanied Emperor Gordian III on a military expedition. After the latter’s assassination in 244, the expedition was thus cancelled in Mesopotamia. Via Antioch, Plotinus then went to Rome to establish a school of philosophy, where he remained as teacher for the next twenty years.

Plotinus spawned many students-cum-followers; among them were the philosophers Amelius and Eustochius, the emperor Gallienus and his wife, Salonina, and the important Porphyry. It was Porphyry who truly documented Plotinus and not only urged Plotinus to collect his lectures but also edited them into the Enneads (Gr. “ennea”: nine), which Porphyry published roughly thirty years after the philosopher’s death.

It is due to Porphyry that we owe most of our knowledge about Plotinus’ life, and it is because of him that most all of Plotinus’ work has survived, unlike the works of most other ancient philosophers. Porphyry divided Plotinus’ collected lectures into six books of nine treatises each. They do not follow the order in which they were actually written and tend also to vary greatly in length.

After their initial publication, the Enneads were first published and translated into Latin by Marsilio Ficino in 1492 and subsequently, soon gained great importance for generations of thinkers, especially those of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

In the first Ennead Plotinus writes about ethics and virtue, beauty and happiness, the second and third are mostly concerned with cosmology, covering topics such as matter, time, but also love. The fourth concentrates on the soul while the fifth focuses on the intellect and knowing or know-ability. The sixth and final text, addresses being, numbers, and the “one”.

Plotinus’ metaphysics is based on three hypostases that together form reality: the One (or Plato’s “Good”), the Intellect, and the Soul. According to him, all existence is created from the unity of these three hypostases. It is through dialectics that this hierarchy is maintained and thus reality, as the eternal return to the origin, the One, is understood.

The One, of which it is said to have had a great impact on the Christian conception of God, is the first (and last) principle, wherefrom all Being is emanated. Transcendent, indivisible, unchangeable, self-sufficient, and perfect, the One is everything and can therefore be defined only as what it is not. Beyond description, it is also beyond being. It creates the world, but it is itself not created.

The Intellect (also named “Spirit” or “nous”) is emanated from the One and represents “true Being.” For Plotinus, there is no difference between Being and Intellect; both are one and the same. The Intellect, outside of time and space, is an explanatory principle within which Forms or Ideas are actualized. It contemplates the One and the Forms or Ideas by which the union of all three hypostases is achieved. Yet, the Intellect is itself a Form, containing the Ideas or Forms of all things. There is no difference whatsoever between Form and Intellect. The Intellect communicates with things through the Soul, the principle governing desire.

The World Soul, emerging from nous, is situated between “true Being” and matter, and forms the connection between the Intellect and the material world. Plotinus divides this World Soul into a higher level, which is both intelligible and unchangeable as well as the source of all souls, and a lower, fragmented level, which represents nature. Yet all souls are one and just as the One nurtures the Intellect, the Intellect nurtures the Soul.

Following the Platonist tradition, Plotinus regards “material” as being inferior. As a result, Matter, represents the fourth and lowest level of Plotinus’ emanation--it lacks actual actuality or intelligibility. In sum, matter embodies everything the One is not: changeability, imperfection, and plurality. Unlike the intelligible, which lacks time and space, matter (or the sensible in general) is spatial. Lacking the “Good,” matter is thus “evil” and this evil is experienced only in the realm of the lower souls that are in contact with matter.

Plotinus conceives of “living beings” as being composed of a lower part (the body) and a higher, rational part. Human beings, though somewhere in between the sensible and the intelligible, between thought and emotions, are first and foremost souls, their bodies being inferior tools. Consequently, rationality--that is, the focus on the “One” or the “Good,” which also leads to a lack of desire--is not only the ultimate goal of life, but also provides the only key to happiness, for it is only outside of the body that suffering can be avoided and a perfect life be lived. Only the lower part of the soul is subject to suffering, and accordingly, is not of too much importance to his philosophy.

Striving to leave the material world, the human soul reaches the world of pure spirit—nous—a state of self-knowledge. Hence, the One can ultimately be reached by means of an ecstatic union, which is also Plotinus’ conception of beauty. Beauty is nothing but unity and resides in the nous, and its source lies in the Good. Beauty is a Form of the Intellect/Spirit. It can only exist as a whole--all parts must be beautiful—parts or fragments themselves cannot attain beauty on their own. Beauty, being unchangeable, can only be perceived through rationality and for Plotinus, love is the love of beauty.

Not surprisingly, Plotinus’ ethics are less oriented towards practical life and are rather designated to lead the way towards the Good in which a likeness to the One is of course the highest end possible. This possibility takes place through means of contemplation. Since it is always possible for the lower soul to reach towards a higher end, Plotinus does not need to provide an ethics in, what is understood as, the more traditional and/or practical sense.

However, humans have to undergo a catharsis in order to reach the One. This consists of three levels: the practical or ethical virtues, which governing the sensible world, remain attached to the worldly sphere and are therefore prone to evil; the dianoetic or theoretical/intellectual virtues, which possess contemplative traits and are further divided into aesthetic virtues within which man is united with the world soul and rational virtues, and where man is thus united with the Intellect/Spirit. The highest level, and hardly attainable state, is that of the ecstatic virtues, which, if attainable, leads to an ultimate union with the One.

Arguably the last great Greek philosopher, Plotinus did not only have great influence on Porphyry, Proclus and Saint Augustine (as well as early medieval philosophy in general), but also on Erasmus of Rotterdam, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and Henri-Louis Bergson, among others. He continued to teach in Rome until approximately 268. Plotinus then retired to an estate in Campania, where he died in 270. His famous last words are said to read as follows: “Try to bring back the God in yourself to the God in the All”.