Select Works of Plotinus
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Some scanning errors (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand) · 1 illegible passage, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~180,000 words · 853 passages
Cite this work
- APAPlotinus. (n.d.). Select Works of Plotinus. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plotinus/select-works-of-plotinus
- MLAPlotinus. Select Works of Plotinus. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plotinus/select-works-of-plotinus.
- ChicagoPlotinus. Select Works of Plotinus. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plotinus/select-works-of-plotinus.
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 selection from Plotinus translated by Thomas Taylor: one of the two editions in the corpus, and the older.
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.
in. Since, however, Plato indicates that this similitude to God pertains to a greater virtue [than that which is political], let us speak concerning it; in which discussion also, the essence of political virtue will become more manifest, and likewise the virtue which is essentially more ON THE VIRTCJES. 7 excellent, which will in short be found to be different from that which is political. Plato, therefore, when he says that a similitude to God is a flight from terrestrial concerns, and when besides this he does not admit that the virtues belonging to a polity are simply virtues, but adds to them the epithet political, and elsewhere calls all the virtues purifications, evidently admits that the virtues are twofold, and that a similitude to divinity is not effected according to political virtue. How, therefore, do we call these purifications ? And how being purified, are we especially assimilated to divinity ? Shall we say, that since the soul is in an evil condition when mingled with the body, becoming similarly passive and concurring in opinion with it in all things, it will be good and possess virtue, if it neither consents with the body, but energizes alone, (and this is to perceive intellectually and to be wise,) nor is similarly passive with it, (and this is to be temperate,) nor dreads a separation from the body, (and this is to possess fortitude,) but reason and intellect are the leaders (and this will be justice). If any one, however, calls this disposition of the soul, according to which it perceives intellecttually, and is thus impassive, a resemblance of God, he will not err. For divinity is pure, and the energy is of such a kind, that the being which imitates it will possess wisdom. What then ? Is not divinity also disposed after