Eyjolfur Emilsson

Plotinus’s views on _sympatheia_ are the subject of this chapter. His application of this concept builds on Stoic doctrine as well as on Plato’s view as expressed in the _Timaeus_. There is a very marked difference between Plotinus and the Stoics, however, in that Plotinus entirely rejects the physicalism of the Stoics. Thus, for Plotinus, _sympatheia_ is altogether founded on the unity of an incorporeal soul. He appeals to _sympatheia_ to account for evident causal connections between phenomena that are spatially apart. Such phenomena depend on the unity of the soul, whether that of an ordinary organism or the universe at large. The main spheres of application are the phenomena of astral influence, magic, divination, prayers, and sense perception: the distant senses, sight and hearing work by means of an affection at a distance on the organ of sense. Plotinus is eager to uphold that _sympatheia_ is a natural phenomenon and as such more widespread than the occult phenomena that it is invoked to explain. It concerns things and events in the sensible realm, and does not involve affecting or influencing the higher causes from below.

The main focus in this chapter is the relationship between Plotinus' ontology and his epistemology. It is argued that at the level of Intellect being and knowledge coincide, that to be is to be known or thought. It is further argued that this is a necessary consequence of a principle in Plotinus' philosophy claiming that to know something as it is in itself is to know that thing from its internal activity, and that this kind of knowledge is impossible unless the activity of the knower coincides with the activity constituting the being known.

This chapter deals with the kindred notions of double activity, emanation, and image. It is argued that the notion of double activity is central to all of Plotinus’ thought. It is argued that the relationship between a walk and the footprints made by the walk can illuminate the relationship between the internal and the external act: there is only agent and one exertion but it is unclear whether the external act is a ‘lower phase’ of the internal act or a consequence of it that reflects its traits. Finally, it is agued that Plotinus' double act doctrine is by him conceived as an interpretation of central tenets of Plato's metaphysics.

The central question of this chapter is how Plotinus accounts for the fact that two seemingly quite different kinds of plurality arise at the level of Intellect: a duality of subject and object of thought and a plurality within the object of thought. It is proposed, with support from some central passages, that for him the thought of Intellect is first‐personal in the sense that its basic form is ‘I am F’. It is further argued that this kind of thought involves the merging of the two kinds of plurality, which coincide in the self‐thought characteristic of Intellect.

How should I live? How can I be happy? What is happiness, really? These are perennial questions, which in recent times have become the subject of diverse kinds of academic research. Ancient philosophers placed happiness at the centre of their thought, and we can trace the topic through nearly a millennium. While the centrality of the notion of happiness in ancient ethics is well known, this book is unique in that it focuses directly on this notion, as it appears in the ancient texts. Fourteen papers by an international team of scholars map the various approaches and conceptions found from the Presocratics through Plato, Aristotle, and Hellenistic philosophy, to the Neoplatonists and Augustine in late antiquity. They address questions raised by ancient thinkers that are still of deep concern today.

Plotinus (AD 205–270) was the founder of Neoplatonism, whose thought has had a profound influence on medieval philosophy, and on Western philosophy more broadly. In this engaging book, Eyjólfur K. Emilsson introduces and explains the full spectrum of Plotinus’ philosophy for those coming to his work for the first time. Beginning with a chapter-length overview of Plotinus’ life and works which also assesses the Platonic, Aristotelian and Stoic traditions that influenced him, Emilsson goes on to address key topics including: Plotinus’ originality the status of souls Plotinus’ language the notion of the One or the Good Intellect, including Plotinus’ holism the physical world the soul and the body, including emotions and the self Plotinus’ ethics Plotinus’ influence and legacy. Including a chronology, glossary of terms and suggestions for further reading, _Plotinus _is an ideal introduction to this major figure in Western philosophy, and is essential reading for students of ancient philosophy and classics.

Plotinus (AD 205–270) was the founder of Neoplatonism, whose thought has had a profound influence on medieval philosophy, and on Western philosophy more broadly. In this engaging book, Eyjólfur K. Emilsson introduces and explains the full spectrum of Plotinus’ philosophy for those coming to his work for the first time. Beginning with a chapter-length overview of Plotinus’ life and works which also assesses the Platonic, Aristotelian and Stoic traditions that influenced him, Emilsson goes on to address key topics including: Plotinus’ originality the status of souls Plotinus’ language the notion of the One or the Good Intellect, including Plotinus’ holism the physical world the soul and the body, including emotions and the self Plotinus’ ethics Plotinus’ influence and legacy. Including a chronology, glossary of terms and suggestions for further reading, _Plotinus _is an ideal introduction to this major figure in Western philosophy, and is essential reading for students of ancient philosophy and classics.

Plotinus (AD 205-270) was the founder of Neoplatonism, whose thought has had a profound influence on medieval philosophy, and on Western philosophy more broadly. In this engaging book, Eyjólfur K. Emilsson introduces and explains the full spectrum of Plotinus' philosophy for those coming to his work for the first time. Beginning with a chapter-length overview of Plotinus' life and works which also assesses the Platonic, Aristotelian and Stoic traditions that influenced him, Emilsson goes on to address key topics including: Plotinus' originality the status of souls Plotinus' language the notion of the One or the Good intellect, including Plotinus' holism the physical world the soul and the body, including emotions and the self Plotinus' ethics Plotinus' influence and legacy. This second edition has been revised and updated throughout, and includes a new chapter on badness, freedom, providence and responsibility. Also including a chronology, glossary of terms, and suggestions for further reading, Plotinus is an ideal introduction to this major figure in Western philosophy, and essential reading for students of ancient philosophy and classics.

Ennead VI.8 gives us access to the living mind of a long dead sage as he tries to answer some of the most fundamental questions we in the modern world continue to ask: are we really free when most of the time we are overwhelmed by compulsions, addictions, and necessities, and how can we know that we are free? Can we trace this freedom through our own agency to the gods, to the Soul, Intellect, and the Good? How do we know that the world is meaningful and not simply the result of chance or randomness? Plotinus' On the Voluntary and on the Free Will of the One is a groundbreaking work that provides a new understanding of the importance and nature of free human agency. It articulates a creative idea of agency and radical freedom by showing how such terms as desire, will, self-dependence, and freedom in the human ethical sphere can be genuinely applied to Intellect and the One while preserving the radical inability of all metaphysical language to express anything about God or gods.

This chapter considers the different views of Herodotus (Solon) and Aristotle, on the one hand, and post-Aristotelian thinkers such as the Epicureans, the Stoics, and Plotinus, on the other, on happiness in relation to the passage of time. The latter consider the length of happy time lived and the direction for the better or the worse as irrelevant to the question of whether one is happy at a given time, whereas the former think that this matters. It is argued that Aristotle’s claims about happiness reveal a tension between a position that insists on the narrative structure of life, and in particular on a successful ending, and a view that does not. The position of the post-Aristotelian thinkers is expounded. The conclusion is that at least two very different views on happiness and time were advocated by the ancient philosophers, and that this difference amounts to different conceptions of happiness itself.

This paper discusses the role of innate concepts derived from Intellect in Plotinus’ account of cognition of the sensible realm. Several passages have been claimed as evidence for such innateness, but an analysis of them shows that they do not support this claim. It is tentatively suggested that, nevertheless, some very general concepts such as difference, sameness and being are integral to the faculty of sense and play a crucial role in concept formation. It is further argued that reasoning about the sensible realm takes place to a large extent without the involvement of the higher realms of Plotinus’ hierarchy of being. Clearly, however, for value concepts such as those of goodness, justice and beauty human beings are dependent upon an illumination from Intellect.

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores, inter alia, the strategy employed by Augustine in using Plato as a pseudo-prophet against later Platonists and explores Eusebius’ reception of Porphyry’s daemonology. It examines Plotinus’ claim that matter is absolute badness and focuses on Maximus the Confessor’s doctrine of creation and asks whether one may detect any influence on Maximus from Philoponus. The book addresses Christian receptions of Platonic metaphysics and also examines the philosophy of number in Augustine’s early works. It argues that the aspect of Augustine’s philosophy must be read in context with the intellectual problems that occupied him at the beginning of his career as a writer. It draws on a number of sources to investigate the development of the doctrine and the various intellectual issues it confronted, including Plato’s Timaeus, Philo of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Plotinus and, finally, Athanasius.

Platonism and Christian Thought in Late Antiquity examines the various ways in which Christian intellectuals engaged with Platonism both as pagan competitors and as a source of philosophical material useful to the Christian faith. The chapters are united in their goal to explore transformations that took place in the reception and interaction process between Platonism and Christianity in this period. The contributions in this volume explore the reception of Platonic material in Christian thought, showing that the transmission of cultural content is always mediated, and ought to be studied as a transformative process by way of selection and interpretation. Some chapters also deal with various aspects of the wider discussion on how Platonic, and Hellenic, philosophy and early Christian thought related to each other, examining the differences and common ground between these traditions. Platonism and Christian Thought in Late Antiquity offers an insightful and broad ranging study on the subject, which will be of interest to students of both philosophy and theology in the Late Antique period, as well as anyone working on the reception and history of Platonic thought, and the development of Christian thought. uity offers an insightful and broad ranging study on the subject, which will be of interest to students of both philosophy and theology in the Late Antique period, as well as anyone working on the reception and history of Platonic thought, and the development of Christian thought.