Plotinus Quotes and Neoplatonism's impact on Christianity

Описание: Plotinus and the Philosophy of Neoplatonism
Plotinus is arguably the most influential philosopher few people know about, and even fewer have read. His most famous work, The Enneads, established the systematic philosophy known as Neoplatonism. Plotinus’s metaphysics, ontology, and aesthetics would later become very important to Christianity, Humanism, medieval mysticism, the revival of Neoplatonism during the Renaissance, and also German Idealism and Romanticism (especially Hegel). From this lineage, Plotinus is even a hidden influencer upon Marxism. Furthermore, much of our inherited predisposition to understanding Plato comes through the lens of Plotinus and how he understood Plato.

Admittedly, Neoplatonism is a rather poor name for those not trained in philosophy. Although Plotinus was a devotee of Plato, Neoplatonic philosophy equally owes a great deal to Pythagoreanism and Aristotelianism too; in some sense, Plotinus can be seen as a reaction against the empiricism of Aristotelianism while still retaining a strong Aristotelian influence. Plotinus’s philosophy is also a direct challenge to Epicurean materialism, placing emphasis back on the primacy of one’s soul (the seat of rational intellect) against sensation and bodily pleasure.

Plotinus’s metaphysics is rooted in Plato’s metaphysics, but he ultimately builds upon Plato rather than recoursing back and promoting strict Platonism. Where Plato promoted the Theory of Forms, Plotinus embraces “the One.” The One is “the good” and the beautiful, it is ultimately the source of the Forms. The problem with the traditional Platonist Theory of the Forms is there are many Forms. Plotinus ultimately understood this to mean the Forms are the single foundation of reality, hence why Plato is recognized as a metaphysic monist. However, Plotinus felt that Plato’s Forms was left unfinished. Just like how Aristotle thought Platonic philosophy only grasped the material and formal causes, Plotinus’s return to Plato is to advance Plato to the Final Cause that Aristotle speaks of in his Metaphysics. Thus, we can already identify Aristotelian influences upon Plotinus – though Plotinus rejects the quasi-utilitarianism of Aristotle. Plotinus, then, identifies the One as the Final Cause, so to speak, the source that all the Forms are rooted in – the “Absolute Idea.”