Two of Ammonius's students-Origen the Pagan, and Longinus-seem to have held philosophical positions which were closer to Middle Platonism than Neoplatonism, which perhaps suggests that Ammonius's doctrines were also closer to those of Middle Platonism than the Neoplatonism developed by Plotinus ( see the Enneads ), but Plotinus does not seem to have thought that he was departing in any significant way from that of his master.

Plotinus also elucidates the equation of matter with nothing or non-being in his Enneads which more correctly is to express the concept of idealism or that there is not anything or anywhere outside of the " mind " or nous ( c. f.

Before Numenius of Apamea and Plotinus ' Enneads, no Platonic works ontologically clarified the Demiurge from the allegory in Plato's Timaeus.

Hence the title of Plotinus ' refutation " Enneads ", The Second Ennead, Ninth Tractate-Against Those That Affirm the Creator of the Kosmos and the Kosmos Itself to be Evil: quoted as " Against the Gnostics ".

Whereas Plotinus specifically addresses his target in the Enneads as the gnostics.

A. H. Armstrong identified the so-called " Gnostics " that Plotinus was attacking as Jewish and Pagan, in his introduction to the tract in his translation of the Enneads.

Similarly, in regard to passages from the Enneads, " The only space or place of the world is the soul " and " Time must not be assumed to exist outside the soul ", Ludwig Noiré wrote: " For the first time in Western philosophy we find idealism proper in Plotinus, However, Plotinus does not address whether we know external objects, unlike Schopenhauer and other modern philosophers.

Much of the biographical information about Plotinus comes from Porphyry's preface to his edition of Plotinus ' Enneads.

Plotinus wrote the essays that became the Enneads over a period of several years from ca.

Porphyry makes note that the Enneads, before being compiled and arranged by himself, were merely the enormous collection of notes and essays which Plotinus used in his lectures and debates, rather than a formal book.

Because happiness is beyond anything physical, Plotinus stresses the point that worldly fortune does not control true human happiness, and thus “… there exists no single human being that does not either potentially or effectively possess this thing we hold to constitute happiness .” ( Enneads I. 4. 4 ) The issue of happiness is one of Plotinus ’ greatest imprints on Western thought, as he is one of the first to introduce the idea that eudaimonia ( happiness ) is attainable only within consciousness.

Even in daily, physical action, the flourishing human ’ s “… Act is determined by the higher phase of the Soul .” ( Enneads III. 4. 6 ) Even in the most dramatic arguments Plotinus considers ( if the Proficient is subject to extreme physical torture, for example ), he concludes this only strengthens his claim of true happiness being metaphysical, as the truly happy human being would understand that which is being tortured is merely a body, not the conscious self, and happiness could persist.

( Enneads I. 4. 4 ) A happy person will not sway between happy and sad, as many of Plotinus ’ contemporaries believed.

Plotinus was not claiming to innovate with the Enneads, but to clarify aspects of the works of Plato that he considered misrepresented or misunderstood.

Here Pletho met and influenced Cosimo de ' Medici to found a new Platonic Academy, which, under Marsilio Ficino, would proceed to translate into Latin all Plato's works, the Enneads of Plotinus, and various other Neoplatonist works.

Varieties of the doctrine may be found in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim philosophical theologians, especially during the heyday of scholasticism, though the doctrine's origins may be traced back to ancient Greek thought, finding apotheosis in Plotinus ' Enneads as the Simplex.

# Plotinus – The Enneads

The primary classical exponent of emanationism was Plotinus, wherein his work, the Enneads, all things phenomenal and otherwise were an emanation from the One ( Hen ).

Evola refers to Plotinus, who deemed homosexual loves to be shameful and abnormal, like diseases of degenerate persons " which do not arise from the essence of being and are not the outcome of the development thereof " ( Enneads, III ).

The Six Enneads, sometimes abbreviated to The Enneads or Enneads (), is the collection of writings of Plotinus, edited and compiled by his student Porphyry ( c. 270 AD ).

His Enneads had a wide-ranging influence on European thought until at least the 17th century.

Just as there is an important Arabic paraphrase of Plotinus ' Six Enneads -- The Theology of Aristotle, blending it with Aristotle's thought — so there is an Arabic paraphrase of the De Anima, blending it with Plotinus ' thought.

Platonism had a profound effect on Western thought, and many Platonic notions were adopted by the Christian church which understood Platonic forms as God's thoughts, whilst Neoplatonism became a major influence on Christian mysticism, in the West through St Augustine, Doctor of the Catholic Church whose Christian writings were heavily influenced by Plotinus ' Enneads, and in turn were foundations for the whole of Western Christian thought.

Life of Plotinus, chapters. 24-26 ) that the First Ennead deals with Human or ethical topics ; the Second and Third Enneads are mostly devoted to cosmological subjects or physical reality ; The Fourth concerns about Soul ; the Fifth to knowledge and intelligible reality ; and finally the Sixth has for topics Being and what is above it, the One or first principle of all.

In recent years, Ichazo has pointedly asserted that his understanding of the Enneagram originated with reading classical philosophy and Plotinus ' Enneads and not as any consequence of any writing or work of Gurdjieff.

“… The Proficient ’ s will is set always and only inward .” ( Enneads I. 4. 11 )

“ For man, and especially the Proficient, is not the Couplement of Soul and body: the proof is that man can be disengaged from the body and disdain its nominal goods .” ( Enneads I. 4. 14 ) The human who has achieved happiness will not be bothered by sickness, discomfort, etc., as his focus is on the greatest things.

Porphyry's edition does not follow the chronological order in which Enneads were written ( see Chronological Listing below ), but responds to a plan of study which leads the learner from subjects related to his own affairs to subjects concerning the uttermost principles of the universe.

Oxford: Claredon Press, 1964-1984 ) there is an academic convention of quoting the Enneads by first mentioning the number of Ennead ( usually in Romans from I to VI ), the number of treatise within each Ennead ( in arabics from 1 to 9 ), the number of chapter ( in arabics also ), and the line ( s ) in one of the mentioned editions.

In the Enneads of Plotinus, a founder of Neoplatonism, everything is contemplation ( theoria ) and everything is derived from contemplation.

His criticism is contained in the ninth tractate of the second of the Enneads.

Plotinus writes, " We ought not even to say that he will see, but he will be that which he sees, if indeed it is possible any longer to distinguish between seer and seen, and not boldly to affirm that the two are one.

Medieval aesthetics in the realm of philosophy built upon Classical thought, continuing the practice of Plotinus by employing theological terminology in its explications.

He learned theurgy from Maximus of Ephesus, a student of Iamblichus ; his system bears some resemblance to the Neoplatonism of Plotinus ; Polymnia Athanassiadi has brought new attention to his relations with Mithraism, although whether he was initiated into it remains debatable ; and certain aspects of his thought ( such as his reorganization of paganism under High Priests, and his fundamental monotheism ) may show Christian influence.

However, some significant differences between neoplatonism and Gregory's thought exist, such as Gregory's statement that beauty and goodness are equivalent, which contrasts with Plotinus ' view that they are two different qualities.

Many renowned Indian philosophers such as Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Ananda Coomaraswamy and others used the writing of Plotinus in their own texts as a superlative elaboration upon Indian monism, specifically Upanishadic and Advaita Vedantic thought.

As a student of Pseudo-Dionysius, Maximus was one of many Christian theologians who preserved and interpreted the earlier Neo-Platonic philosophy, including the thought of such figures as Plotinus and Proclus.

Some propose that he did not in fact have a revelation at all, but rather developed his theological ideas from sources ranging from his father to earlier figures in the history of thought, notably Plotinus. This position was first and most notably taken by the Swedish writer Martin Lamm, who wrote a biography of Swedenborg in 1915, which is still in print.

Plotinus relied heavily on the concept of Logos, but no explicit references to Christian thought can be found in his works, although there are significant traces of them in his doctrine.

The first and highest One ( nous ), which Plotinus represented under the three stages of ( objective ) being, ( subjective ) life, and ( realized ) intellect, is distinguished by Iamblichus into spheres of intelligible and intellective, the latter sphere being the domain of thought, the former of the objects of thought.

Plotinus argues instead that the multiple cannot exist without the simple.