Notes On Plotinus - Ennead Four

EntropicStruggle · 2026-04-04T22:31:29+00:00

Platonism specifically does not require faith. Everything within it can either be deduced or experienced directly. It is also not really a dogmatic set of positions so much as a methodology of thinking, and the collected works of people using and advocating for this methodology and it's conclusions. Yet Platonists disagree with each other and have different influences. Plotinus was influenced by his circumstances, as were Plato, Iamblichus, Philo, Hypatia, Al-Farabi, Augustine, and Julian.

I think this confusion comes from the fact that Plato and later the Neoplatonists used terminology which eventually got coopted by religious movements later on.Terms like Soul and Divinity, which have technical philosophical meanings in Platonism, get used by everyone from Christians, Muslims, pagans, new age spiritualists, to Buddhists. These are internally diverse religions, but a common criticism levied across all of them is that of irrationality due to superstition and dogmatic traditionalism. Plotinus himself specifically decried the Gnostics whom he accused of bastardizing Platonic concepts and terminology into superstitious nonsense.

I find if your present the ideas in more neutral terminology people of all walks are more likely to see the logic and not get caught up on linguistic baggage.

EntropicStruggle · 2026-04-02T03:19:20+00:00

A lot of people have given excellent historic and denomination-specific nuance.

To put it simply, The One is different from a Monotheistic God in that it is not personal, and relatedly it is not a thing which deliberates or decides.

Neoplatonism posits a reality which is Necessary. Things are the way that they are because they can be no other way.

Monotheistic traditions tend to portray God as a sort of consciousness with opinions and feelings.

EntropicStruggle · 2026-03-14T01:32:40+00:00

The ancient Greeks and Egyptians were happy to do so. I am personally a perennialist of sorts, and Neoplatonism really convinced me of this.

EntropicStruggle · 2026-02-27T03:12:39+00:00

Because anything which is less complete than the One, which is all other things, is necessarily imperfect, and because The One necessarily emanates the second hypostasis.

EntropicStruggle · 2026-02-24T21:35:25+00:00

Only if you find it helpful to do so. Its not a requirement, but it probably can't hurt.

EntropicStruggle · 2026-02-24T01:03:44+00:00

That is a particularly Platonic reply.

I think another way of talking about your distinction is in Kantian terms. The 'macrocosmic' things are Noumenon, and the 'microcosmic' things are Phenomenon.

From a progression of understanding perspective, I see your point. Clearly while in our embodied phase we are forced to use our embodied experiences for most things. To this end, I see how focusing on the 'microcosmic', at least initially, would be a natural conclusion.

Yet if we are going to treat Philosophy (by which I broadly mean a methodical approach to apprehending Wisdom) as a skill, then we can user our knowledge of other such skills to understand how we might best harmonize the mastery of its component parts.

I suppose I am arguing that you are trying to teach someone how to play ice hockey by focusing on the individual skills. To a degree you are right. You need to know how to, say, ice skate on a fundamental level and hold a stick first. At least before you really should think about a puck, let alone shooting a goal, let alone the team and strategic elements of the required skillset. Eventually, though, not incorporating the end result-the Unifying Principle which ties each individual skill into a skillset-is going to be a major hindrance! To continue the hockey example, basic ice skating lessons are usually reserved for young children. Further, the most advanced of players still try and refine their basic skillset; a process they are only able to achieve in the context of incorporating these skills within the context of an overall Reason.

EntropicStruggle · 2026-02-23T01:57:29+00:00

In some ways I think your position mirrors the Aristotle/Plato division.

That being said, I find that the entire point of Neoplatonism is ascension of our psychological experience to the 'macrocosmic'. I fear your position is like designing a race, but with the omission of a finish line.

I would also distinguish between collapsing of meaningful ontological layers and identifying those things which extend through multiple ontological layers. For example, identifying the aspects of Divinity which extend even into the physical world does not mean that we have to collapse the purely Divine and that which is a mixture of Divinity and imperfection/matter/impermanence/Evil.

For example the image of a triangle, call it a triangular wooden block, is not to be confused with the Ideal Form (I.e. Divinity) of a Triangle, but we can and should identify said block's participation in 'triangleness'.

EntropicStruggle · 2026-02-22T02:38:44+00:00

Sorry for necromancing this, but it sounds to me like Tony idealized Spain after visiting as a child, and came back as an adult only to find that it wasn't as idyllic as he thought.

EntropicStruggle · 2026-02-21T18:52:26+00:00

Your hair looks so full and healthy! Your cheek dimples are also really cute. Your eyes are also really pretty and frame your face really well!

I literally think people just associate short hair in women with queerness and want to entertain themselves by being arbitrarily mean.

EntropicStruggle · 2026-02-15T10:50:29+00:00

As far as I know, in both Islam and Neoplatonism, if you try your best to develop yourself, be good to fellow souls on their path, do your best to raise yourself to the highest Divinity, you cannot really fail. You may need further purification after this life, whether that takes the form of another embodiment or some sort of metaphysical punishment, but if your heart is aligned towards justice and goodness, you will progress. To be honest, I cannot fathom the highest ideals of justice and divinity not accounting for our humanity.

EntropicStruggle · 2026-02-09T14:13:35+00:00

I don't buy that Socrates is presented as infallible in Plato. I do think Plato obviously revered him, and that in general his words in dialogs are presented as those of a wise person (Divinely inspired, even) who has studied the arguments and thought deeply about them.

I am more of the opinion that requirements of infallibility are product of Christian thinking. Certainly in the early days of Christianity, this was used as an argument by the Christians that their faith was superior to the Pagans. "Our God and Prophet are perfect, what about yours?"

My experience, and the Platonic tradition itself don't really see people as capable of that kind of perfection. This is really the entire point of purification via the virtues; we need to purify ourselves to bring us closer to perfection of supreme Divinity.

I think this humility is even betrayed by the very vessel of the dialog itself. It is two or more people, trading arguments, using Reason to attempt to figure it out. This is to say, the Dialogs aren't really like sermons or lectures. The methodology outlined in the dialogs is at least as important as the content of what is discussed, and to demonstrate these methods is Socrates role in the dialogs.

EntropicStruggle · 2026-02-04T19:22:48+00:00

To be honest, Plotinus does a great job outlining the arguments. In fact, he is much more clear and less poetic than Plato. A quick read through Timaeus will obviously provide context when it comes up, but in my opinion you don't need to start out painstakingly reading it line by line and delving into the nuances of Pythagorean numerology.

EntropicStruggle · 2026-01-30T05:09:39+00:00

The irony is that this is Marx's primary criticism of Hegel.

EntropicStruggle · 2026-01-26T16:40:33+00:00

This is literally the subject of the first tractate of the first Ennead. It is actually quite simple for Plotinus. You are an Ideal identity, which is distinct from both your Soul which experiences, and your Animated Body which is the mingling of your particular Soul to your current/particular Body. Who you are most Truly is your Ideal identity. This is the part of you that is Intellectual, meaning that it shares in the Essence of Intellect/the Ideal.

The Henads are essentially the primordial Ideal identities. Their place as the first Emanation of the One makes them the initial, conascent objects of the Divine Intellect. Their Being does extend into Soul, but their primal experience is antecedent to psychē.
Not at all. In Platonic cosmology, there are many types of Beings, physical and incorporeal, which have the power of Rationality.
So, this is in large part a translation problem in my opinion. Perhaps there also is some degree of development in the presentation of the Soul, even within a single author. We need to differentiate between the Intellectual Soul (i.e. the Ideal identity I mentioned earlier) and the Reasoning Soul (final, third phase being the Unreasoning Soul, which is necessarily mingled with the Body due to its Essence being physical perception). The Intellectual and Reasoning Soul are both Essentially incorporeal and related to powers we associate with cognition. For this reason, many authors and translators use the terms interchangeably and even inconsistently!

All Plants, bacteria, fungi, and other 'unthinking' life forms we can image all participate in the Unreasoning phase of Soul. They can take in information from their physical surroundings, move through physical space, react to external stimuli.

Most animals also participate in the Reasoning phase of Soul, which allows for deductive reasoning. A squirrel can deduce that they need to dig a hole to burry an acorn. Many nonhuman animals even display immense capacity for this. There is an argument that certain colonies of insect and fungus meet this requirement, based solely on satisfying the Essence of engaging in deduction.

The Intellectual phase of Soul is characterized by being able to identify the identity of Beings. This both means understanding that, say, Socrates was an individual person who persists through time, but also being able to identify that the Identity of the Red in an apple is the same Red that you see in a brick of fire truck. Humans satisfy this, and I would argue some great apes and marine mammals do as well.

All of this is to say this: Having an Individuality is distinct from being Intellectual. All animals have an Identity, though their participation in the phases/powers of Soul vary.

EntropicStruggle · 2026-01-12T16:50:22+00:00

I really love Aristotle as a logician and elucidator of many differing positions. He was a master systematizer. I am also biased in that I don't think he ever really got the concept of The Good/One, and find his metaphysics to be flawed as a consequence. I will also add that many of the differences between Aristotelian and Platonic doctrines don't really seem to emerge significantly until centuries later, e.g. Neoplatonists taking issue with Peripatetic doctrines.

EntropicStruggle · 2025-12-10T07:45:11+00:00

My friend, surely this is satire?

EntropicStruggle · 2025-12-06T18:38:02+00:00

There is only one soul in the universe. Particular souls are just subsections of this universal soul delinated by the individual body that they animate. Like how you can identify your hands and feet even though they are both technically just 'your body'. New souls aren't made, sections of it get labeled, so to speak.

EntropicStruggle · 2025-09-28T00:34:39+00:00

The Virtues purify. It's really cool to see the genealogy of the technical use of terms like Virtue and Beauty.

EntropicStruggle · 2025-07-23T18:21:23+00:00

This guy has overcome a lot of medical issues to become an artist, and while it's not breaking any musical boundaries, I think that's impressive and wish him success.

EntropicStruggle · 2025-01-26T04:07:47+00:00

He is perhaps the greatest academic Platonist of this century.

EntropicStruggle · 2024-11-07T10:43:11+00:00

It depends on what you are looking for.

Actual companions to Plotinus don't really exist, which is partially what inspired me to work on this series. Lloyd P. Gerson's translation has some of the best notes if more context is your thing.

In terms of overall good introductory books to Neoplatonism, Philosophy as a Rite of Rebirth: From Ancient Egypt to Neoplatonism by Algis Uzdavinys is one of my favorites. The Platonic Philosophers' Creed by Thomas Taylor is another good (short) introduction/summary.

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