Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

[ xxiv ] A version of the Platonic philosophy inaugurated by Plotinus (204–70 ce ), who developed a mystical interpretation of Plato's teaching ( see P hilosophia ). Starting from the Platonic doctrine of the soul's ability to ascend by a purified love to contemplation of the ‘forms’ – perfect archetypes of which the sensible world is merely a flawed reflection – Plotinus postulated three ‘hypostases’ or levels of true reality beyond the material world. These were the soul ( psyche ), the intellect ( nous ) and the One or the Good; they could be viewed as metaphysical entities or as states which the philosopher might experience in contemplation. The soul corresponded to mind in the individual: it was the agent of thought, memory and sensory perception. It survived death, and if insufficiently purified from worldly desires would be reincarnated in a new body. The intellect was the timeless repository of the ‘forms’: ascending to this level, man might perceive truth intuitively, without discursive thought. The One was God, the ultimate reality and hence indescribable. Union of the individual with the One was the goal of the philosophic life and was to be attained by the practice of virtue and contemplation [29]. Plotinus's successors – Porphyry ( c. 232–305 ce ), Proclus ( c. 412–85), Iamblichus ( c. 250–350) and others – elaborated the hypostases into a complex hierarchy, some ... log in or subscribe to read full text