Plotinus (; , Plōtînos; – 270 AD) was an ancient Greek philosopher, born and raised in Roman Egypt. He is widely regarded by modern scholars as the founder of Neoplatonism.
Plotinus was a student of the self-taught philosopher Ammonius Saccas, who belonged to the Platonic tradition. Historians in the 19th century coined the term "Neoplatonism" to describe Plotinus and his philosophy. This philosophical tradition was vastly influential during late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance.
In his metaphysical writings, Plotinus described three fundamental principles: the One, the Intellect, and the Soul. His works have inspired generations of pagan, Jewish, Christian, Gnostic, and early Islamic metaphysicians and mystics. His ideas shaped metaphysical works, particularly his work on duality of the One. These ideas later influenced several mainstream theological concepts within different religions.
Early life Plotinus' student and biographer Porphyry records in his Life of Plotinus that Plotinus died at the age of sixty-six at the end of the second year of the reign of the Roman emperor Claudius II (269/70 AD), and therefore calculates that Plotinus was born in the thirteenth year of the reign of Septimius Severus (204/5 AD). Eunapius reported that Plotinus was born in Lyco, which could either refer to the modern Asyut in Upper Egypt or Deltaic Lycopolis, in Lower Egypt. This has led to speculations that his family was either (Hellenized) Egyptian,Bilolo, M.: La notion de « l’Un » dans les Ennéades de Plotin et dans les Hymnes thébains. Contribution à l’étude des sources égyptiennes du néo-platonisme. In: D. Kessler, R. Schulz (Eds.), "Gedenkschrift für Winfried Barta ḥtp dj n ḥzj" (Münchner Ägyptologische Untersuchungen, Bd. 4), Frankfurt; Berlin; Bern; New York; Paris; Wien: Peter Lang, 1995, pp. 67–91. Greek, or Roman."Plotinus." The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Columbia University Press, 2003. Historian Lloyd P. Gerson states that Plotinus was "almost certainly" a Greek. A.H. Armstrong, one of the foremost authorities on the philosophical teachings of Plotinus, writes that: "All that can be said with reasonable certainty is that Greek was his normal language and that he had a Greek education". Plotinus himself was said to have had little interest in his ancestry, birthplace, or that of anyone else for that matter. His native language was Greek.McGroarty, Kieran (2001) The Ethics of Plotinus. In: Eklogai: Studies in Honour of Thomas Finan and Gerard Watson. Department of Ancient Classics, National University of Ireland Maynooth, p. 20. ISBN 0901519340 "His [Plotinus'] language was certainly Greek."Castel, Toni Leigh. (2014) "The Plotinian first hypostasis and the Trinity: points of convergence and of divergence in Augustine's De doctrina Christiana liber primus." (thesis). University of Johannesburg. p. 15 "Plotinus' name may be Roman but his native tongue was certainly Greek"
Plotinus had an inherent distrust of materiality (an attitude common to Platonism), holding to the view that phenomena were a poor image or mimicry (mimesis) of something "higher and intelligible" (Enneads VI.I) which was the "truer part of genuine Being". This distrust of material world extended to the human body, including his own; it is reported by Porphyry that at one point he refused to have his portrait painted, presumably because he regarded bodily appearance as an inferior representation. Likewise, Plotinus never discussed his ancestry, childhood, or his place or date of birth. From all accounts his personal and social life exhibited the highest moral and spiritual standards.
Thought Plotinus took up the study of philosophy at the age of twenty-eight, around the year 232, and travelled to Alexandria to study. There he was dissatisfied with every teacher he encountered, until an acquaintance suggested he listen to the ideas of the self-taught Platonist philosopher Ammonius Saccas. Upon hearing Ammonius' lecture, Plotinus declared to his friend: "this is the man I was looking for". He began to study intently under his new instructor and remained with him as his student for eleven years. Besides Ammonius, Plotinus was also influenced by the philosophical works of Aristotle, the pre-Socratic philosophers Empedocles and Heraclitus, the Middle Platonist philosophers Alexander of Aphrodisias and Numenius of Apamea, along with various Stoics and Neopythagoreans.
Career Expedition to Persia and return to Rome After having spent eleven years in Alexandria, he then decided, at the age of around thirty-eight, to investigate the philosophical teachings of the Persian and Indian philosophers.Porphyry, On the Life of Plotinus and the Order of His Books, Ch. 3 (in Armstrong's Loeb translation, "he became eager to make acquaintance with the Persian philosophical discipline and that prevailing among the Indians"). In the pursuit of this endeavor he left Alexandria and joined the army of the Roman emperor Gordian III as it marched on Persia (242–243). However, the campaign ended in a failure and after Gordian's eventual death, Plotinus found himself abandoned in a hostile land. It was with great difficulty that found his way back to safety in Antioch.
At the age of forty, during the reign of Emperor Philip the Arab, he came to Rome, where he stayed for most of the remainder of his life. There he attracted a number of students. His innermost circle included Porphyry, Amelius Gentilianus of Tuscany, the senator Castricius Firmus, and Eustochius of Alexandria, a doctor who devoted himself to learning from Plotinus and attended to him until his death. Other students included: Zethos, an Arab by ancestry who died before Plotinus, leaving him a legacy and some land; Zoticus, a critic and poet; Paulinus, a doctor of Scythopolis; and Serapion from Alexandria. He had students amongst the Roman Senate beside Castricius, such as Marcellus Orontius, Sabinillus, and Rogantianus. Women were also numbered amongst his students, including Gemina, in whose house he lived during his residence in Rome, and her daughter, also Gemina; and Amphiclea, the wife of Ariston, the son of Iamblichus.Porphyry, Vita Plotini, 9. See also Emma C. Clarke, John M. Dillon, and Jackson P. Hershbell (1999), Iamblichus on The Mysteries, page xix. SBL. who say that "to gain some credible chronology, one assumes that Ariston married Amphicleia some time after Plotinus's death" Finally, Plotinus corresponded with the philosopher Cassius Longinus.
Works The Enneads Plotinus wrote the essays that became the Enneads (from Greek ἐννέα (ennéa), or group of nine) over a period of several years from c. 253 until a few months before his death seventeen years later. Porphyry makes note that the Enneads, before being compiled and arranged by himself, were merely the enormous collection of notes and essays which Plotinus used in his lectures and debates, rather than a formal book. Plotinus was unable to revise his own work due to his poor eyesight, yet his writings required extensive editing, according to Porphyry: his master's handwriting was atrocious, he did not properly separate his words, and he cared little for niceties of spelling. Plotinus intensely disliked the editorial process, and turned the task to Porphyry, who polished and edited them into their modern form.
Later life
While living in Rome, Plotinus gained the respect of the Roman Emperor Gallienus and his wife Salonina. At one point, Plotinus attempted to persuade Gallienus to rebuild an abandoned settlement in Campania as the 'City of Philosophers', where the inhabitants would live under the constitution as set out in Plato's Laws. An Imperial subsidy was never granted for reasons unknown to Porphyry, who reports the incident.
Death Plotinus subsequently went to live in Sicily. He spent his final days in seclusion on an estate in Campania which his friend Zethos had bequeathed him. According to the account of Eustochius, who attended him at the end, Plotinus' final words were: "Try to raise the divine in yourselves to the divine in the all."Mark Edwards, Neoplatonic Saints: The Lives of Plotinus and Proclus by Their Students, Liverpool University Press, 2000, p. 4 n. 20. Eustochius records that a snake crept under the bed where Plotinus lay, and slipped away through a hole in the wall; at the same moment the philosopher died.
Porphyry reported that Plotinus was sixty-six years old when he died in 270 AD and calculated his birthdate from that figure.
Philosophy
The One
Plotinus taught that there is a supreme, totally transcendent "One" (τὸ Ἕν, tò Hén), containing no division, multiplicity, or distinction; beyond all categories of being and non-being. His "One" "cannot be any existing thing", nor is it merely the sum of all things (compare the Stoic doctrine of disbelief in non-material existence), but "is prior to all existents". Plotinus identified his "One" with the concept of 'Good' and the principle of 'Beauty'. (I.6.9)
His "One" concept encompassed thinker and object. Even the self-contemplating intelligence (the noesis of the nous) must contain duality. "Once you have uttered 'The Good,' add no further thought: by any addition, and in proportion to that addition, you introduce a deficiency." (III.8.11) Plotinus denies sentience, self-awareness or any other action (ergon) to the One (V.6.6). Rather, if we insist on describing it further, we must call the One a sheer potentiality (dynamis) without which nothing could exist. (III.8.10) As Plotinus explains in both places and elsewhere (e.g. V.6.3), it is impossible for the One to be Being or a self-aware Creator God. At (V.6.4), Plotinus compared the One to "light", the Divine Intellect/Nous (Νοῦς, Nous; first will towards Good) to the "Sun", and lastly the Soul (Ψυχή, Psyche) to the "Moon" whose light is merely a "derivative conglomeration of light from the 'Sun'". The first light could exist without any celestial body.
The One, being beyond all attributes including being and non-being, is the source of the world—but not through any act of creation, since activity cannot be ascribed to the unchangeable, immutable One. Plotinus argues instead that the multiple cannot exist without the simple. The "less perfect" must, of necessity, "emanate", or issue forth, from the "perfect" or "more perfect". Thus, all of "creation" emanates from the One in succeeding stages of lesser and lesser perfection. These stages are not temporally isolated, but occur throughout time as a constant process.
The One is not just an intellectual concept but something that can be experienced, an experience where one goes beyond all multiplicity.Stace, W. T. (1960) The Teachings of the Mystics, New York, Signet, pp. 110–123 Plotinus writes, "We ought not even to say that he will see, but he will be that which he sees, if indeed it is possible any longer to distinguish between seer and seen, and not boldly to affirm that the two are one."Stace, W. T. (1960) The Teachings of the Mystics, New York, Signet, p. 122
Emanation by the One