Completing Plato's Project: Plotinus's Arguments for a First Principle (2024)

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This is a supplement to my two published books, "Plotinus The Platonist: A Comparative Account of Plato and Plotinus’ Metaphysics" (Bloomsbury, 2014), and "Plato and Plotinus on Mysticism, Epistemology, and Ethics" (Bloomsbury, 2017), wherein I argue that the philosophies of Plato and Plotinus do not essentially differ on more than 100 philosophical claims (for the complete list of 180 philosophical claims, including the Supplement, see Appendix II for where I address them in my two books and this supplement). However, since Bloomsbury Publishing gave me word count restrictions for each book, I needed to cut out portions of my original research in order to get the manuscripts down to size. Thus, I have put the material together that I was not able to publish, in order to show even more areas in which Plato and Plotinus do not essentially differ, and to cite the passages to leave the accuracy of my claims to the readers’ judgments.

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The aspect of Plato’s theory of the soul: on soul’s constitution, education and developments - PDF-Powerpoint for the NATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE, DEDICATED TO WORLD PHILOSOPHY DAY - Philosophical Sciences Department at the Union of Scientists in Bulgaria, Sofia, 17th November 2022

Gianluigi Segalerba

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The aspect of Plato’s theory of the soul: on soul’s constitution, education and developments - PDF-Powerpoint for the NATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE, DEDICATED TO WORLD PHILOSOPHY DAY - Philosophical Sciences Department at the Union of Scientists in Bulgaria, Sofia, 17th November 2022. In my inquiry, I shall analyse some aspects of the association among being, knowledge and soul in Plato. For my investigation, I shall consider passages from Republic, Phaedrus, Phaedo, Timaeus and Laws. My attention will be directed to the education and transformation of the soul. Through the process of learning, the individual becomes acquainted with the entities belonging to the dimension of being: this acquaintance brings about a complete transformation of the individual. The presence or absence of knowledge determines the moral ascent or the moral descent of the individual. Basing on the education programme of Republic book vii, I shall expose Plato’s aims, which consist in bringing the soul from the dimension of becoming to the dimension of being. The educational thread of the Republic proves to be, among other things, a progressive diminution of the influence of the senses and a corresponding growth of the rational part within the individual soul. The knowledge of the dimension of being leads the soul to the development of the rational part, to the acquisition of internal stability, to the harmony between the different components and to the correct composition of the elements of the soul. The education programme turns out to be a road of liberation from the bonds of the sense dimension. Correspondingly, the absence of knowledge is the cause of the individual’s liability to instability and moral degeneration: the effects of the absence of knowledge are described by Plato throughout his exposition of the degeneration of the forms of individuals and the forms of constitutions in Republic books viii and ix.

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Some Problems with Plotinus’ Theory of Matter/Evil. An Ancient Debate Continued

Jan Opsomer

Quaestio, 2007

In Ennead I,8 [51] Plotinus famously claims that matter, more precisely inferior matter (which is to be distinguished from intelligible matter, but also from «relative» or «designated» matter), is evil itself. Evil can be predicated of it, and evil is what it causes in other things. This view is attacked by Proclus in his treatise De malorum subsistentia (= DMS)2. I have examined Proclus’ arguments in more detail elsewhere and refer the reader to my previous discussion of these issues for references to the relevant texts3. What I want to do here is to address some issues that have been brought up in attempts to bolster Plotinus’ position against Proclus’ criticism. The attractiveness of Proclus’ arguments against Plotinus resides in the fact that both philosophers belong to the same school of thought and are committed to roughly the same metaphysical assumptions. When Proclus refutes Plotinus, or thinks he does, Plotinus is held to be proven wrong on his own premises. In order to give a fair assessment of the debate we should examine whether indeed Plotinus is committed to principles that undermine his own views on matter and evil. A good deal of the arguments are exegetical in nature. They pertain to the question whether the views held are in agreement with the letter of the Platonic texts. A related but not identical question is which author is closer to Plato’s spirit. Interesting as these questions may be, I will pay no attention to them here4.

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Completing Plato's Project: Plotinus's Arguments for a First Principle (2024)
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