Plotinus

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Asger Ousager. Plotinus

Introduction. Selfhood

Freedom

Politics

PART I

SELFHOOD

CHAPTER I.A. Unification with Soul

CHAPTER I.B. Unification with Intellect

I.B.1. Memories of the body

I.B.2. Potentiality or actuality of Intellect?

I.B.2.a. Actualisation of Intellect

I.B.2.b. Actualisation of Forms

I.B.2.c. A failing criterion

I.B.3. Forms of particulars within Intellect

I.B.4. Intentionality within Intellect

I.B.5. The gaze of souls

I.B.6. In-esse and determinism

I.B.7. Is Intellect unified?

CHAPTER I.C. Unification with the One. I.C.1. Envisioning the One

I.C.2. The One within

I.C.3. Inferences from Proclus and Augustine

I.C.4. Annihilation or preservation?

I.C.4.a. Preservation of particularity

I.C.4.b. Annihilation of the particular self

I.C.5. Unity or plurality first?

PART II

FREEDOM. CHAPTER II.A. Sufficient reason behind causes

II.A.1. Reason and cause in Plato and Plotinus

II.A.2. Causa sui or ratio sui?

II.A.3. Plotinus interpreting the Euthyphro

II.A.4. Sufficient Providence

CHAPTER II.B. Distinguishable souls

CHAPTER II.C. Determinism disrupted. II.C.1. The causal nexus of ultimate unification

II.C.2. Absolute freedom attained

II.C.3. Two concepts of necessity

II.C.4. Determinism put into perspective

II.C.5. The absolute Self

II.C.6. Self-determination, self-causation and self-motion

II.C.7. Puppets, slaves or assistants?

PART III

POLITICS

CHAPTER III.A. Coming to imperial Rome

CHAPTER III.B. Political philosophy

III.B.1. The king

III.B.2. Inequality of worth

III.B.3. The general

III.B.4. The legislator

III.B.5. War

III.B.6. Power and wealth

III.B.7. The city-state

III.B.8. Homeland and empire

III.B.9. Dialogue, democracy and human rights

III.B.9.a. Gender, sex and love

III.B.10. Efforts of individuals

CHAPTER III.C. The “Plotinus sarcophagus”

III.C.1. The chair of Plotinus?

III.C.2. Emperor Gallienus in the chair?

III.C.3. The iconographic touch of Plotinianism

Conclusion

Literature. Ancient and medieval authors with translations* Poetry

Presocratic philosophy

Drama

Platonism

Aristotelianism

Pythagoreanism

Stoicism

Epicureanism

Natural science

Declamation

Judaic theology

Christian theology

Manichaean theology

Astrology

History of philosophy

General history

Atlas and dictionaries

Modern authors

Index of passages. Alexander of Aphrodisias

Ammianus Marcellinus

Anaxagoras

Anaximander

Anonymous (Neopythagorean)

Anonymous (Platonist)

Anonymous (senator)

Anselm

Apuleius

Aristotle

Arrian

Athanasius

Augustine

Aurelius Victor

Cassius Dio

Cicero

Dio Chrysostom

Diogenes Laertius

Empedocles

Epictetus

Epicurus

Eunapius

Euripides

Eutropius

Firmicus Maternus

Fragments of ancient Stoics

Giovanni Dominici

Greek commentaries on Aristotle

Heraclitus

Herodotus

Hesiod

Hippolytus

Homer

Johannes Zonaras

John Stobaeus

Julian the Apostate

Latin inscriptions (CIL)

Mani

New Testament

Numenius

Old Testament

Orosius

Parmenides

Philo

Philostratus

Plato

Plotinus

Plutarch

Porphyry

Proclus

Pseudo-Aelius Aristides

Seneca

Sibyl

Simonides

Sophocles

Suetonius

Tertullian

Thomas Aquinas

Virgil

Writers of Augustan History

Xenophon

Zosimus

General index

Noter

Отрывок из книги

ASGER OUSAGER

ON SELFHOOD, FREEDOM AND POLITICS

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Given that human souls have their origin directly in the One, what, then, distinguishes them from each other? There has to be a sufficient reason for the distinction. The One itself is not only the ultimate cause (aition) of everything, but also the ultimate reason (aitia) for everything including itself, according to Plotinus’ interpretation of Plato, which he formulates as a response to the problem surrounding the relation between arbitrary will and modal necessity in the Euthyphro. I argue that Hadot’s thesis of the One in Plotinus as a cause of itself (causa sui) on the other hand, is unwarranted.

Providence is the name of the sufficient reason that governs everything flown from the One towards the best, i.e. towards unification. In order to avoid indistinctness with the resulting identity of human souls in only one human soul, it would be necessary for the preference (proairesis) of each soul to be different from that of any other soul from the very beginning. Consequently, the series of resulting choices and dispositions of souls will be quite different from each other. The series and the decisive beginning of the series are contained within the Form of the particular soul. Providence also determines which human souls will ascend to ultimate unification with the One. Human unification with the necessary determinant, namely the One as “absolute freedom”, must have indeterministic causal consequences for the whole causal hierarchy. In particular, such indeterministic causal consequences will follow for the human soul attaining ultimate unification, as the determinism of Providence again determining the Form of the particular is disrupted by this intervention. This Form will, however, be recreated and adjusted to the new state of affairs generated from ultimate freedom, as the human soul must descend again. Here, Plotinus is probably giving what he believed to be the Platonic answer to the problem surrounding the relation between self-determination and determinism discussed by the Stoics and Alexander of Aphrodisias – a discussion most recently scrutinised by Susanne Bobzien. Plotinus denies self-determination of the One and consequently the One as a causa sui because this premise would restrict the One’s absolute measure of freedom. Instead he affirms human self-determination as derived from that absolute freedom.

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