Plotinos Complete Works, v. 3
- 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:
- ~120,000 words · 559 passages
Cite this work
- APAPlotinus. (n.d.). Plotinos Complete Works, v. 3. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plotinus/plotinos-complete-works-v-3
- MLAPlotinus. Plotinos Complete Works, v. 3. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plotinus/plotinos-complete-works-v-3.
- ChicagoPlotinus. Plotinos Complete Works, v. 3. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plotinus/plotinos-complete-works-v-3.
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 third 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.
therefore exist before the essences? It might be well preliminarily to assert that number is posterior to the Essence, and proceeds therefrom. But then if essence be one essence, and if two essences be two essences, one will precede essence, and the other numbers will precede the essences. (Would number then precede the essences) only in thought and conception, or also in the hypostatic existence? We should think as follows. When you think of a man as being one, or the beautiful as being one, the one that is thus conceived in both (beings) is something that is thought only afterward. Likewise, when you simultaneously consider a dog and a horse, here also two is evidently something posterior. But if you beget the man, if you beget the horse or the dog, or if you produce them outside when they already exist in you, without begetting them, nor producing them by mere chance (of seeing them), you will say, "We should go towards one (being), then pass to another, and thus get two; then make one more being, by adding my person." Likewise, (beings) were not numbered after they were created, but before they were created, when (the creator) decided how many should be created. NUMBER SPLIT THE UNITY INTO PLURALITY; PYTHAGOREAN IDENTIFICATION OF IDEAS AND NUMBERS. The universal Number therefore existed before the essences (were created); consequently, Number was not the essences. Doubtless, Number was in Essence; but it was not yet the number of Essence; for Essence still was one. But the power of Number, hypostatically existing within it, divided it, and made it beget the manifold. Number is either the being or actualization (of Essence); the very Organism and Intelligence are number. Essence is therefore the unified number, while the essences are developed number; Intelligence is the number which moves itself, and the Organism is the number that contains.…