From Intellect to matter: the return to the One

doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521040549.017

Chapter 16 - From Intellect to matter: the return to the One

from Part III - PLOTINUS

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008

A. H. Armstrong

Edited by

A. H. Armstrong

Book contents

Get access

Summary

Soul and the material world

Soul is, of Plotinus' three hypostases, the most wide-ranging and various in its activities. At the top of its range it lives on the highest level, in the world of Intellect, and with Intellect can rise in self-transcendence to union with the One. At the bottom, it is responsible for the formation of bodies in the visible world. But, however widely Soul may range, Plotinus never allows the distinction between it and Intellect to disappear (though it may in some passages become a little blurred), and he preserves its distinctive Platonic function of being the intermediary between the worlds of intellect and sense-perception, the immediate cause of the latter, and the representative in it of the former. Its proper and most characteristic activity is discursive thinking, reasoning from premises to conclusions; but it possesses the whole range of lower forms of consciousness, with the external activities appropriate to them; and it can and should, and, it seems, while it remains universal always does, rise above its reasoning to share Intellect's life of immediate intuitive thought. The initiative in this self-transcendence, as always in Plotinus, comes from above. It is Intellect which, by illuminating Soul, raises it to its own level. The relationship between the three hypostases in Plotinus is one of hierarchical distinction in unity. They are not cut off from each other. The One and Intellect are always present to Soul and acting on it, and this eternal presence and action is the most important thing which we (who are Soul) discover in philosophical reflection.

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy , pp. 250 - 268

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521040549.017 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 1967

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Armstrong, A. H. ‘Was Plotinus a Magician?’, in Phronesis, 1, 1 (1955).CrossRef Google Scholar

Armstrong, A. H.The Architecture of the Intelligible Universe in the Philosophy of Plotinus.Cambridge, 1940 (reprinted Amsterdam 1967).Google Scholar

Arnou, R.Le Désir de Dieu dans la philosophie de Plotin.Paris, 1921.Google Scholar

Aubin, P. ‘L'“Image” dans l'Œuvre de Plotin’, in Recherches de Science Religieuse, 41, 3 (1953).Google Scholar

Bourbon de Petrella, F.Il Problema dell'Arte e della Bellezza in Plotino.Florence, 1956.Google Scholar

Bréhier, E.La philosophie de Plotin.Paris, 2nd edn. 1961.Google Scholar

Crouzel, H. ‘Origène et Plotin, élèves d'Ammonios Saccas’, in Bulletin de Littérature Ecclésiastique de Toulouse (1956), 4; (1958), 1.Google Scholar

Dodds, E. R. ‘Tradition and Personal Achievement in the Philosophy of Plotinus’, in Journal of Roman Studies, 50 (1960).CrossRef Google Scholar

Gandillac, M.La Sagesse de Plotin.Paris, 1952.Google Scholar

Hadot, P.Plotin.Paris, 1963.Google Scholar

Harder, R. ‘Plotins Leben, Wirkung und Lehre’, in Kleine Schriften, ed. Marg, W.. Munich, 1960.Google Scholar

Harder, R.Zur Biographie Plotins, in Kleine Schriften, ed. Marg, W.. Munich, 1960.Google Scholar

Heinemann, F.Plotin.Leipzig, 1921.Google Scholar

Henry, Paul in his introduction to the third edition of MacKenna's translation of the Enneads (London, 1962), section VII, Structure and Vocabulary of the Mystical Experience.

Henry, P. ‘La dernière parole de Plotin’, in Studi Classici e Orientali (Pisa), 11 (1953).Google Scholar

Himmerich, W.Eudaimonia : die Lehre des Plotin von der Selbstverwirklichung des Menschen.Würzburg, 1959.Google Scholar

Inge, W. R.The Philosophy of Plotinus, 2 vols., 3rd edn. London, 1929 (reprinted 1948).Google Scholar

Keyser, E.La signification de l'art dans les Ennéades de Plotin.Louvain, 1955.Google Scholar

Kristeller, O. O.Der Begriff der Seele in der Ethik des Plotin.Tübingen, 1929.Google Scholar

Lloyd, A. C. ‘Neoplatonic and Aristotelian Logic’, in Phronesis, 1 (1955–6) and (also for Part IV, ch. 19).Google Scholar

Merlan, P. ‘Plotinus and Magic’, in Isis, 44 (1953).CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Pepin, j., Théologie cosmique et théologie chrétienne (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1964).Google Scholar

,plotinusEnneads An English translation, with notes, of the revised Henry-Schwyzer text, by Armstrong, A. H., is appearing in the Loeb Classical Library (vols, i–iii. London, 1966–7).Google Scholar

,plotinusEnneads Ed. Bréhier, E. (with French translation, introductions and notes), 7 vols. Paris, 1924–38.Google Scholar

,plotinusEnneads ed. Henry, P. and Schwyzer, H. R. (ed. minor, extensively revised: vol. I (Enn. I–III) so far published. Oxford, 1964–.

,plotinusEnneads ed. Henry, P. and Schwyzer, H. R. (vols. I–II (Vita Plotini and Enn. I–V) so far published, vol. III (Enn. VI) still to appear). Paris and Brussels, 1951–.

,plotinusEnneads ed. Harder, R., continued by Beutler, R. and Theiler, W. (with German translation and notes). Hamburg, 1956–67.Google Scholar

,plotinusEnneads English translation by MacKenna, S., 3rd edn., revised by Page, B. S.. Introduction by Henry, P.. London, 1962.Google Scholar

,plotinusEnneads French translation by Bouillet, M. M. (of value only for its extensive commentary), 3 vols. Paris, 1857–61.Google Scholar

,plotinusEnneads German translation by Harder, R. (first edition of the translation later revised and reprinted with text and notes: see above), 5 vols. Leipzig, 1930–7.Google Scholar

,plotinusEnneads Italian translation, with critical commentary, by Cilento, V., 3 vols, (the last contains an extensive bibliography by Mariën, B.). Bari, 1947–9.Google Scholar

,plotinusEnneads Latin translation by Ficinus, Marsilius. Florence, 1492.Google Scholar

Rist, J. M. ‘Plotinus on Matter and Evil’, in Phronesis, 6 (1961).CrossRef Google Scholar

Schwyzer, H. R. ‘Plotinos’, in Paulys Realencyclopädie, 21. 1 (1951).Google Scholar

Trouillard, J. ‘Valeur critique de la mystique plotinienne’, in Revue philosophique de Louvain, 59 (1961).CrossRef Google Scholar

Trouillard, J.La Purification Plotinienne.Paris, 1955.Google Scholar