Plotinos Complete Works, v. 3
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~120,000 words · 559 passages
Cite this work
- APAPlotinus. (n.d.). Plotinos Complete Works, v. 3. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plotinus/plotinos-complete-works-v-3
- MLAPlotinus. "Plotinos Complete Works, v. 3." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plotinus/plotinos-complete-works-v-3.
- ChicagoPlotinus. Plotinos Complete Works, v. 3. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plotinus/plotinos-complete-works-v-3.
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.
1. Does manifoldness consist in distance from unity? Is infinity this distance carried to the extreme, because it is an innumerable manifoldness? Is then infinity an evil, and are we ourselves evil when we are manifold? (That is probable); or every being becomes manifold when, not being able to remain turned towards itself, it blossoms out; it extends while dividing; and thus losing all unity in its expansion, it becomes manifoldness, because there is nothing that holds its parts mutually united. If, nevertheless, there still remain something that holds its parts mutually united, then, though blossoming out, (the essence) remains, and becomes manifoldness. HOW MANIFOLDNESS IS AN EVIL. But what is there to be feared in magnitude? If (the essence) that has increased could feel (it would feel that which in itself has become evil; for) it would feel that it had issued from itself, and had even gone to a great distance (from itself). No (essence), indeed, seeks that which is other than itself; every (essence) seeks itself. The movement by which (an essence) issues from itself is caused either by "audacity," or necessity. Every (being) exists in the highest degree not when it becomes manifold or great, but when it belongs to itself; now this occurs when it concentrates upon itself. That which desires to become great in some other manner is ignorant of that in which true greatness consists; instead of proceeding towards its legitimate goal, it turns towards the outside. Now, on the contrary, to turn towards oneself, is to remain in oneself. The demonstration of this may be seen in that which participates in greatness; if (the being) develop itself so that each of its parts exist apart, each part will indeed exist, but (the being) will no longer be what it originally was. To remain what it is, all its parts must converge towards unity; so that, to be what it was