Plotinos Complete Works, v. 2
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~110,000 words · 536 passages
Cite this work
- APAPlotinus. (n.d.). Plotinos Complete Works, v. 2. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plotinus/plotinos-complete-works-v-2
- MLAPlotinus. Plotinos Complete Works, v. 2. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plotinus/plotinos-complete-works-v-2.
- ChicagoPlotinus. Plotinos Complete Works, v. 2. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plotinus/plotinos-complete-works-v-2.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The second of the four volumes of Plotinus in Kenneth Guthrie's translation: the other edition in the corpus.
Context and history
Plotinus taught in Rome in the third century and did not write for publication; his pupil Porphyry gathered his writings after his death and arranged them in six groups of nine treatises — hence 'Enneads', 'nines' — an order that is not Plotinus's own. His philosophy starts from Plato and goes further: from the One, which is beyond being and beyond thought, the Intellect proceeds by emanation, and from that the Soul, and from that the sensible world; the human soul can retrace the way upwards, and Porphyry says his master achieved it four times. From this comes the whole of Neoplatonism, and through it pass Augustine, Dionysius, the Arabs, Ficino and the Renaissance. NOTE TO THE READER: the catalogue holds TWO English editions of the same material, 'Select Works of Plotinus' (Thomas Taylor's translation) and the four volumes of 'Plotinos Complete Works' (Kenneth Guthrie's), differently translated and differently arranged; and 'An Essay on the Beautiful' is Ennead I.6, which is inside both. This is not an error: they are different editions of the same author. A citation must always say which edition it uses, and had better give the Ennead and treatise number as well.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
divisible in the bodies is indivisible by its nature. But the bodies possess extension because the soul is present with them; or rather, it is because there are bodies in the sense-world; it is because the power of the Soul (that is universal) which is in them manifests itself in all their parts, that the Soul herself seems to have parts. What proves that she is not divided as they are, and with them, that she is entirely present everywhere, is that by nature she is essentially one and indivisible. Thus, the unity of the Soul does not exclude the plurality of souls, any more than the unity of essence excludes the plurality of (beings), or that the plurality of intelligibles does not disagree with the existence of the One. It is not necessary to admit that the Soul imparts life to the bodies by the plurality of souls, nor that that plurality derives from the extension of the body (of the world). Before there ever were any bodies, there was already one (universal) Soul and several (individual) souls. The individual souls existed already in the universal Soul, not potentially, but each in actuality. The unity of the universal Soul does not hinder the multitude of the individual souls contained within her; the multitude of the individual souls does not hinder the unity of the universal Soul. They are distinct without being separated by any interval; they are present to each other instead of being foreign to each other; for they are not separated from each other by any limits, any more than different sciences are within a single soul. The Soul is such that in her unity she contains all the souls. Such a nature is, therefore, infinite. THE GREATNESS OF THE SOUL HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SIZE OF THE BODY. 5. The magnitude of the Soul does not consist in being a corporeal mass; for every corporeal mass is small, and reduces to nothing, if it be made to undergo a diminution.…