Some philosophers who have had more noteworthy theories are Parmenides, Leucippus, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Plotinus, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, Heidegger, and Sartre.

By the third century criticism of Christianity had mounted, partly as a defense against it, and the 15 volume Adversus Christianos by Porphyry was written as a comprehensive attack on Christianity, in part building on the pre-Christian concepts of Plotinus.

It appears that Plotinus attempted to clarify how the philosophers of the academy had not arrived at the same conclusions ( such as Dystheism or misotheism for the creator God as an answer to the problem of evil ) as the targets of his criticism.

With the neoplatonist Plotinus, wrote Nathaniel Alfred Boll ; " there even appears, probably for the first time in Western philosophy, idealism that had long been current in the East even at that time, for it taught … that the soul has made the world by stepping from eternity into time …".

However, Plotinus attempted to clarify how the philosophers of the academy had not arrived at the same conclusions ( such as misotheism or Dystheism of the creator God as an answer to the problem of evil ) as the targets of his criticism.

Plotinus ' philosophy had a great influence on the development of Christian theology.

Plotinus advocated negative theology in his strand of neoplatonism ( although he may have had precursors in neopythagoreanism and middle Platonism ).

As a speculative theory, Neoplatonism had received its highest development from Plotinus.

On returning to Rome, he lectured on philosophy and completed an edition of the writings of Plotinus ( who had died in the meantime ) together with a biography of his teacher.

According to his student Porphyry, Plotinus stated that he had this experience of God four times.

In the 3rd century AD, Plotinus added mystical elements, establishing Neoplatonism, in which the summit of existence was the One or the Good, the source of all things ; in virtue and meditation the soul had the power to elevate itself to attain union with the One.

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.

There the Septuagint translation had been made ; there that that fusion of Greek philosophy and Jewish religion took place which culminated in Philo ; there flourished the mystic speculative Neoplatonism associated with Plotinus and Porphyry.

For Plotinus, emanation, or the " soul's descent ", is a result of the Indefinite Dyad, the primordial agnosis inherent to and within the Absolute, the Godhead.

The focus of Canto CI is around the Greek phrase kalon kagathon (" the beautiful and good "), which calls to mind Plotinus ' attitude to the world of things and the more general Greek belief in the moral aspect of beauty.

", Plotinus makes the argument that specific stars influencing one's fortune ( a common hellenistic theme ) attributes irrationality to a perfect universe, and invites moral turpitude.

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.

Middle Platonism is the modern name given to a stage in the development of Plato's philosophy, lasting from about 90 BC, when Antiochus of Ascalon rejected the scepticism of the New Academy, until the development of Neoplatonism under Plotinus in the 3rd century.

In the third century, Plotinus recast Plato's system, establishing Neoplatonism, in which Middle Platonism was fused with oriental mysticism.

St. Augustine was heavily influenced by Platonism as well, which he encountered through the Latin translations of Marius Victorinus of the works of Porphyry and / or Plotinus.

Apart from historical Platonism originating from thinkers such as Plato himself, Numenius, Plotinus, Augustine and Proclus, we may wish to consider the theory of abstract objects in the modern sense.

The English art historian David Davies asserts that the philosophies of Platonism and ancient Neo-Platonism, the works of Plotinus and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, the texts of the Church fathers and the liturgy offer the keys to the understanding of El Greco's style.

Plotinus sought to reconcile Aristotle's energeia with Plato's Demiurge, which, as Demiurge and mind ( nous ), is a critical component in the ontological construct of human consciousness used to explain and clarify substance theory within Platonic realism ( also called idealism ).

The majority of scholars tend to understand Plotinus ' opponents as being a Gnostic sect — certainly ( specifically Sethian ), several such groups were present in Alexandria and elsewhere about the Mediterranean during Plotinus ' lifetime.

The Neoplatonic philosophers, including Plotinus, rejected followers of gnosticism as being un-Hellenistic and anti-Plato due to their vilification of Plato's creator of the universe ( the demiurge ), arriving at dystheism as the solution to the problem of evil, taking all their truths over from Plato.

540 ), on the Dionysian Corpus constitutes the first defense of its apostolic dating, wherein he specifically argues that the work is neither Apollinarian nor a forgery, probably in response both to monophysites and Hypatius — although even he, given his unattributed citations of Plotinus in interpreting Dionysius, might have known better.

Plotinus offers an alternative to the orthodox Christian notion of creation ex nihilo ( out of nothing ), which attributes to God the deliberation of mind and action of a will, although Plotinus never mentions Christianity in any of his works.

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.

Iamblichus of Calcis ( Syria ), a student of Porphyry ( who was himself a student of Plotinus ) taught a more ritualized method of theurgy that involved invocation and religious, as well as magical, ritual.

David Lodge's novel Changing Places tells the story of exchange of professors between the universities of Rummidge and Euphoric State, Plotinus ( thinly disguised fictional versions of Birmingham and Berkeley ), which in the book both have replicas of the Leaning Tower of Pisa on campus.

* Neoplatonism: Plotinus ( Egyptian ), Ammonius Saccas, Porphyry ( Syrian ), Zethos ( Arab ), Iamblichus ( Syrian ), Proclus

In addition to all these he published Denkwürdigkeiten aus der Geschichte des Christentums ( 1823-1824, 2 vols., 1825, 3 vols., 1846 ); Das Eine und Mannichfaltige des christlichen Lebens ( 1840 ); papers on Plotinus, Thomas Aquinas, Theobald Thamer, Blaise Pascal, John Henry Newman, Blanco White and Thomas Arnold, and other occasional pieces ( Kleine Gelegenheitsschriften, 1829 ), mainly of a practical, exegetical and historical character.

* Plotinian Bibliography 2001-by Richard Dufour ( French and English versions ), continues his research presented in Plotinus: a Bibliography 1950-2000, referred above.

In this integral philosophy ( inspired in part by the works of Plotinus, Hegel, Sri Aurobindo, Eric Jantsch, and many others ) reality is said to consist of several realms or stages, including more than one of the following: the physical, the vital, the psychic, ( after the Greek psyche, " soul "), the causal ( referring to " that which causes, or gives rise to, the manifest world "), and the ultimate ( or non-dual ), through which the individual progressively evolves.

David Lodge's novel Changing Places tells the story of exchange of professors between the universities of Rummidge and Euphoric State, Plotinus ( thinly disguised fictional versions of Birmingham and Berkeley ), which in the book both have replicas of the Leaning Tower of Pisa on campus.

This ultimate reality can be called " Spirit " ( Sri Aurobindo ), " Brahman " ( Shankara ), " God ", " Shunyata " ( Emptiness ), " The One " ( Plotinus ), " The Self " ( Ramana Maharshi ), " The Dao " ( Lao Zi ), " The Absolute " ( Schelling ) or simply " The Nondual " ( F. H. Bradley ).

The traditional view of Gregory is that he was an orthodox Trinitarian theologian, who was influenced by the neoplatonism of Plotinus and believed in universal salvation following Origen.

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.

In his view not only Plotinus, but also Syrianus, Proclus, and Ammonius, are great philosophers, who have penetrated into the depths of the wisdom of Plato.

The traditional view is summed in the doctrine of emanation formulated by Plotinus.

Fludd cites the 3rd century view of Plotinus, concerning the aether as penetrative and non-material.