Understanding Plotin

Reputedly difficult, the thought of Plotinus (205-270) is the culmination of ancient philosophy. Inspired first and foremost by Platonism, but also by Aristotelianism and Stoicism, it requires the ability to move with ease through the labyrinth of Greek philosophy, which was completed by Neoplatonism.

The present work offers a kind of Ariadne’s thread for finding one’s way through the Plotinian maze of vigorous dialogues, organized in the form of enneads after his death by his disciple Porphyry. Describing and analyzing the soul’s ascent to the One, showing the pitfall of the duality between the knowing and the known, scrutinizing the power but also the limits of the soul, the Enneads are not just abstract metaphysics: they are fully deployed in ethical and aesthetic terrain, the full scope of which is restored here.