The Essential Plotinus (Hackett Classics)

THE BRIDGE BETWEEN PLATO AND CHRISTIANITY1. ALL IS CONTEMPLATION: even action is contemplation; considered from the point of view of “dialectic”2. THE MYSTICAL PATH OF EK-STASIS: EK (OUT OF); STASIS (EXISTENCE); sanctification means climbing the ladder of divine ascent; and that means contemplation and theosis- unification with the NOUS-INTELLIGENCE (later to become “Christ”)3. PATHEMA: the space of being acted-upon by GOD; between our soul and the WORLD-SOUL4. THAT SPACE BETWEEN SUBJECTIVITY AND OBJECTIVITY: IS the “KENTRON”; precise point of contact where we confront true transcendence5. INTRODUCTION: is sparce; but it gives the reader enough to get started; plus, there are introductions to each new section6. 5 STARS; HIGHLY RECOMMENDED; submitted July 12; 2020

Although it was sold used/like new, there were plenty of notes and some underlining/highlighting by a previous owner-- **I'm docking a star ONLY because I feel this ought to have been disclosed by the description** However, the condition was otherwise great-- and the content is a must-read for anyone that's looking into a good, thought-provoking summary of some deep historic Western Philosophy. Plotinus deserves an hour of reflection for every paragraph-- this translator was recommended online in some videos I watched about him, and I see why. If you've not read much Greek philosophy, you can develop a strong feeling for "the point" many of them were making with this short book.

If folks don't get what this translation/intro accomplishes with its compressed clarification/critique and referential breadth (and related readings) all rolled into a manageable, hand held text.. I can't help you. I actually purchased 3 of these to give away or just to have an extra for "around. " The ordering of the chapters/selections (without even mentioning the text intros ) is pedagogically brilliant, an opening up into Plotinus and The Enneads...by way of The Enneads themselves

This is a very fine selection from the Enneads, in a lucid, quite readable translation. Far more accurate than McKenna's paraphrase, it is also much more euphonious than Armstrong's Loeb translation.I have used this text with an undergraduate reading group; we read one of the selected Enneads (or two of the shorter ones) per week over the course of half a semester. It was a great success. The Enneads here are arranged in a logical order, leading students deeper and deeper into the metaphysics. There is a clear introduction to each treatise; and, what I like most about this edition, a group of related readings (from Plato, Aristotle, the presocratics and Stoics) keyed to the Plotinus readings. The edition also comes with a helpful glossary, defining Plotinian terms and crossreferencing them to the selected Enneads, and a 20-page introduction to Plotinus's thought. Taken all together, it is a (nearly) complete self-contained course in Plotinus, either for private study or in a group.I have only a few criticisms. The selections concentrate on the distinction among the three hypostases and their natures. It can thus get a little repetitive: after reading Intelligence, Ideas and Being (V.9), The Good or the One (VI.9) and The Three Primal Hypostases (V.1), one does begin to feel that the same ideas are being hammered into one's head again and again (though Plotinus can be a bit like that...). It would have been interesting, for variety's sake, to have a little more on such subjects as providence, the nature of evil, free will etc. To supplement the text, I had my students read Pierre Hadot's wonderful "Plotinus or the Simplicity of Vision," which avoids getting too much into the complexity of the metaphysics, stressing the transformative and ethical sides of Plotinus's philosophy; and Dillon & Gerson's "Neoplatonic Philosophy," which has (less finely translated) substantial excerpts from Plotinus on evil, providence etc., and continues on through to Proclus.But having said that, I still think that this is the book to start with for anyone who wants to discover for him or herself the beauty and subtlety of Plotinus's philosophy.

Plotinus was an unusual philosopher: Gibbon lambasted him and his fellow neo-Platonists for trying to turn philosophy into religion. Be that as it may, Plotinus is surely one of the very few pagan philosophers who could be called a mystic, and, of that group, he was beyond doubt the most influential. He was imitated and "reincarnated" many times during the centuries to come.He's also legendarily difficult, and that's where this book comes in. If you want to get your feet wet, and get at least a beginner's understanding of Plotinus, this would seem to be the book to get. At the very least, a careful reading of the introduction and the first selection ("On Beauty") will give you an idea of how far you want to go with Plotinus.Notice, though, Balzac's thought on the matter: "Man only lives, in fact, by some personal satisfaction. The passionless, perfectly righteous man is not human; he is a monster, an angel wanting wings." :-)By the way, and ignoring Balzac, Plotinus seems to go rather well with Bruckner.

Good enough

If you are interested in ancient Greek thought and philosophy, this is one you will want to read or have !

This book gives the best of Plotinus without diluting his spiritually charged prose. A very good interpretation of, what I hear is, a demanding, studious, text.

There are not many books on Plotinus available to the general reader and of these this seems to be the cheapest, which is remarkable as it is a serious book. It provides a good Introduction followed by ten carefully selected treatises of the thoughts of Plotinus, each preceded by a short explanation provided by the translator Elmer O'Brian.Interestingly O'Brien suggests in the Introduction that besides Plato a major influence on Plotinus was  Philo . Philo of Alexandria was the synthesiser of Greek and Jewish thought. O'Brien suggests that his influence was indirect via Numenius, the Pythagorean.HOWEVER, despite the introduction and the short overviews before each treatise, most of this book is a selection of treatises by Plotinus. Personally, I would have preferred much more explanation and commentary. Ultimately this is philosophy as religion and as such requires belief. If you do not believe in the body-soul duality then you will not believe in Neo-PlatonismPLOTINUS (205 - 270 AD) was a Neo-Platonism philosopher. His work influenced early Christianity. Elmer O'Brien S.J. is presumably a Jesuit. Plotinus studied at Alexandria then in middle age he settled in Rome, where he taught. His work dominated later Greek thought. Plotinus appointed his student Porphyry to collect and arrange his writings. The result was the writings of Plotinus collected into six Enneads, where Ennead is Greek for nines, and each contained nine treatisesFor Plotinus there is only the First Principle, also known as the One or the Good. This is beyond description, beyond our understanding and beyond space and time. But the First Principle is not remote. It is everywhere and in everything. From the First Principle there is a non-spatial hierarchy. First there is the Divine Mind or The Intelligence, then the Universal Soul. This is divided into the higher and lower Souls. It is the lower soul which produces the principles of life.THE TREATISES are given in their order of writing, a different order to that found in the Enneads. The selection begins with "On Beauty", where beauty is far more than the sense-perception of vision and music but the "beauty of a good soul" and upwards to the beauty of The Good. This is followed by "The Intelligence" and "The Descent of the Soul" where the descent, or the fall, of a soul to a body is never total as it is always united to its higher part. Next comes "The Good or The One" that cannot be known or described. "The Three Primal Hypostases" discusses the The Soul, The Intelligence and The One. Then there are "The Post Primals" and "Virtue" where virtue is not ethics or morality, "Dialectic", "The Soul" where he discusses the relationship of The Soul to the individual souls and finally "Contemplation".THE BOOK: The price to pay for this inexpensive book is a heavy typeface on slightly rough paper, but it is perfectly readable. It would make a good e-book. O'Brien provides a good 20 page Introduction. This is followed by ten treatises which he considers to be "the essence of the Enneads", covering 143 pages. Of the appendices, there is a 40 page "Related Readings" of quotations from other philosophers, mainly Plato but some Aristotle and others. There is also a short "Plotinus Glossary". This is useful as some words used by Plotinus have a different meaning today. The full text of all the Enneads can be found on-line, for example at hhtp: //oaks .nvg .org / sa1ra6 .html Philo

This book has something of Plotinus (204-270) about it. It is not just another presentation of the works, of perhaps the greatest mind the Western world has ever produced, but rather the product of a completely fresh translation from a number of sources in the original Greek. This book carries the subtitle 'Representative Treatises From The Enneade'. This is an apt description, as O'Brien has managed to achieve exactly what he set out to do. Porphyry (232-304), the most famous of the students of Plotinus, gathered his works together shortly after his death. This work consisted of an enormous amount of notes and essays, usually scribbled in bad handwriting, and often compounded by a poor use of Greek. Plotinus, the student of Ammonius Saccas, (sharing the same teacher as the Christian thinker Origen), wrote in an often hasty manner, preparing rough notes to be used for lecturing or in debate. Plotinus was uninterested in the editing process, and left this process to his students. As well as possibly being considered the attitude of a genius, his approach to editing has sometimes been blamed on his poor eyesight. Porphyry gathered this huge amount notes and edited them into 54 treatises, he then arranged these treatises into six groups of 'nine'. From that time, the worksof Plotinus have been referred to by the Greek word for 'nine', namely 'Ennead',or in the case of Plotinus, 'The Enneads'.Ennead I - Human - Ethical Topics.Ennead II - Cosmology - Physical Reality.Ennead III - Cosmology - Physical Reality.Ennead IV - Soul.Ennead VI - Beyong Being - The One.This book offers an over-view of the teachings of Plotinus, it has and Introduction and 10 chapters:Beauty - (Ennead I).Intelligence, The Ideas and Being - (Ennaed V).The Descent of the Soul - (Ennead IV).The Good of The One - (Ennead VI).The Three Primal Hypostases - (Ennead V).The Post Primals - (Ennead V).Virtue - (Ennead I).Dialectic (Ennead I).The Soul - (Ennead IV).Contemplation - (Ennead III).O'Brien includes four Appendices:I) Related Readings.II) A Plotinus Glossary.III) Selected Annotated Bibliography.IV) Guide to Sources.The paperback (1978) edition contains 223 numbered pages. It is a very well constructed study of the work of Plotinus, who trained in philosophy for 11 years in Alexandia. He was born in Egypt and is believed to have been of Greek descent. In his 38th year, he decided that he wanted to study both Persian and Indian philosophy. To this end, he joined the army of Gordian III, and took part in a military expedition to Persian. The campaign failed, and Plotinus found himself alone in a hostile land, but he managed to eventually make his way to safety. At the age of 40, he journied to Rome, where he settled and spent the rest of his life teaching both men and women. Plotinus taught that 'The One', and undivided totality exists beyond all phenomena, and that this 'oneness' is realisable through meditation and contemplation. For Plotinus, this reality is not 'thought' as thought is dependent upon a dulaity (or 'division'), between a thought and its thinker. The One is beyond all that can be readily known, and can not be limited or defined by that which readily presents itself to the senses. Plotinus equates The One with both the 'good' and the 'beautiful'.'As The One begets all things, it cannot be any of them - neither thing, nor quality, nor quantity, nor intelligence, nor soul. Not in motion, nor at rest, not in space, not in time, it is "the in itself uniform," or rather it is the "with-out-form" preceding form, movement, and rest, which are characteristics of Being and make Being multiple.'This is a very good book that warrants a careful study - its merits are many, as a reliable introduction to the life and philosophy of Plotinus.

Absolutely beautiful book. What can I say but if you're looking for something to help expand your horizon of thinking. This is one of the Keystones to go to.

As expected, budget paperback copy.