Plotinus

The History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell

Ch. XXX - Plotinus

Plotinus, founder of Neoplatonism lived from A.D. 204 - 270, possibly one of the worst times to live in the Roman Empire, full of war, pestilence and instability. His writings however, make no mention of it. Instead of studying the actual world and its miseries, he contemplated an eternal world of goodness and beauty.

"To all of them, Christians and pagans alike, the world of practical affairs seemed to offer no hope, and only the Other World seemed worthy of allegiance. To the Christian, the Other World was the Kingdom of Heaven, to be enjoyed after death; to the Platonist, it was the eternal world of ideas, the real world as opposed to that of illusory appearance. Christian theologians combined these points of view, and embodied much of the philosophy of Plotinus" (Russell, 284).

Plotinus is historically important as an influence in the Christianity of the Middle Ages and of Catholic theology. (Augustine noted that if Plotinus had been a little bit older or born in a different place he would have been called a Christian without too much change to his theories).

Plotinus is also important because he is an archetype for a melancholy optimist. His world was awful and rather than be dragged down by it he escaped it by contemplating happiness on a metaphysical level that is untouchable by the ravages of the real world surrounding him.

Plotinus also improved on Plato by clarifying him and his arguments against materialism are good.

Plotinus' works were edited and arranged by Porphyry who was more Pythagorean and thus, more supernatural than Plotinus. Neoplatonism took on the more supernatural angle of Porphyry in development.

Plotinus begins his metaphysical theory with The One, Spirit, and Soul. The One is similar to the God of Aristotle and is transcendent of everything. Spirit or nous is the image of the One. To know the One then one must study themselves and everything godlike in the Spirit.

Through divine possession and inspiration we can see not only the nous, but also the One. In contact with the One we cannot reason or express this vision in words, we can only do that after the fact.

Soul, lower than nous, is the author of all living things and the author of the created, visible world.

For Plotinus though, the visible world isn't evil. It is just less good than the world of nous.

Matter is created by Soul and matter has no independent reality. Soul desires to entire matter in something analogous to sexual desire. "When the soul leaves the body, it must enter another body if it has been sinful, for justice requires that it should be punished... Sin must be punished; but the punishment happens naturally, through the restless driving of the sinner's errors" (Russell, 292).

The goal of soul is to become one with nous, not in a destruction type of way. "Nous and the individual soul will be simultaneously two and one" (Russell, 293).

"The soul is neither matter nor the form of a material body, but Essence, and Essence is eternal. This view is implicit in Plato's argument that the soul is immortal because ideas are eternal; but it is only with Plotinus that it becomes explicit" (Russell, 293).

The soul desires to copy the creativity of the nous. The soul contemplates the inward realm of nous and seeks to produce something as akin to it as possible. Unfortunately, to create the soul joins itself to a body and cuts itself off from other souls and the nous.

Plotinus believed that the world was imperfect because it was copied from the forms. But, he does not think this is necessarily bad. The copy cannot be both a symbol of the real and the real itself. Therefore, the copy is good enough for us because it is the best copy that could be made.

Plotinus does have to deal with sin because he suggests against determinists and astrologers that sin is the result of free will.

Plotinus marks both a beginning and an end for Russell. He is an end of Greek thought and a beginning to Christendom.