Plotinus and Tarkovsky on Experience and the Transparency of Reality (original) (raw)

Aesthetics and Mysticism Plotinus, Tarkovsky and the Question of 'Grace'

Plotinus confronts us with a "unification of rationalism and mysticism" (Bréhier). Also Tarkovsky’s "spiritualist" penchant flows out of a religious, "non-modern" attitude. But Tarkovsky and Plotinus are also heirs of a rationalist tradition strongly marked by scientific formalism. Tarkovsky was well aware of the philosophical problems linked to the subjectivism of perception. He intended to modify the final result obtained by the materialist deconstruction of subjectivist empathy carried out before by the Eisensteinian materialism-formalism. Plotinus was confronted with problems of the same order. He aspires a "mystical union," Plotinus could be classified as a subjectivist. Still, the "mystical union" of Plotinus’ design is not as simplistic as that which is usually advanced by subjectivism. I detect the development of Russian formalism towards a Plotinian "formalism" realized by Tarkovsky. The conception of the image as "an organic link between idea and form" culminates in an aesthetics of non-symbolic images communicated without passing through the intermediary of the intellect, directly representing the Intelligible.

Plotinus and the Artistic Imagination

In the thought of Plotinus, the imagination is responsible for the apprehension of the activity of Intellect. If creativity in the arts involves an exercise of the imagination, the image-making power that links sense perception to noetic thought and the nous poietikos, the poetic or creative intellect, then the arts exercise the apprehension of intellectual activity. According to John Dillon in “Plotinus and the Transcendental Imagination,” Plotinus’ conception of the imagination led to the formulation of the imagination as a basis of artistic creativity. In Plotinus, imagination operates on several different levels: it produces images in sense perception, it synthesizes images in dianoetic thought, and it produces images in correspondence with the articulation through logos of noetic thought. The imagination is what connects the intelligible in intellect and the form in sense perception. Plotinus imagines an art which is a product of noetic thought as made possible by the imagination. The primary principle of beauty is Intellect, from which all images should be taken, as facilitated by imagination. Forms of art, like the forms of nature, are the product of Intellect. The production of a work of art is an intellectual or spiritual exercise of the imagination that allows apprehension of Intellect and noesis in nous poietikos. All art is metaphysical, and is an expression of intelligible form in imagination, an expression of an intellectual idea that can be differentiated from sensible form in intellectual apprehension. There are many ways in which the tenets of the thought of Plotinus become currents of art and aesthetic theory as it develops to the present day.

Aesthetics and the 'Inner' Life .pdf

The Private Language Argument (Philosophical Investigations, §§243-315) is often accused of seeking to abolish ‘inner life’. However, reading it together with Wittgenstein’s remarks on perception and aesthetics in Part II, iv and xi, reveals potential for a nuanced account of discernment of other people’s intentions and ‘inner’ states. And his scattered references to Dostoevsky’s novels—which reflect the role of art in the refinement of perception—point towards an aesthetic-ethical account of emphatic perception.

A PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTION ON PLOTINUS' CONCEPT OF BEAUTY AS AN ECSTATIC EXPERIENCE OF THE SOUL

Aquino Journal of Philosophy, 2021

This paper posits Plotinus' conception of beauty as not only one of the answers to the question on how to fill the lacuna created by the demise of religious sublimity and awareness in many. But is the most persuasive and transforming way for individual spiritual transformation and by extension the transformation of the world. It focuses on Plotinus' concept of beauty, from the perspective of the human person. Attention has been given to Plotinus' aesthetics mostly within the general scope of Platonism, focusing on the notion of beauty as form (intellectual beauty) and on the question of whether or not beauty is conceived as symmetry both in Plato and Plotinus. This paper claims that the notion of beauty for Plotinus is an ecstatic experience of the soul. Thus, for Plotinus, beauty is not just aesthetical, it is more so a spiritual experience in the soul. This focus on Plotinus' notion of beauty is considered important as an alternative way for the cultivation of the interior life, in a world that is increasing becoming secularized. It is also relevant because the philosophical focus on beauty has largely been on the object out there. Even when a subjective focus is given on the concept of beauty, it is not largely focused on the spiritual transformation of the human person. Hence, this paper, is an analytical exposition of Plotinus' works on beauty.

Plotinus and the Moving Image: The book's Introduction

2017

Plotinus and the Moving Image offers the first philosophical discussion on Plotinus' philosophy and film. It discusses Plotinian concepts like "the One" in a cinematic context and relates Plotinus' theory of time as a transitory intelligible movement of the soul to Bergson’s and Deleuze’s time-image. Film is a unique medium for a rapprochement of our modern consciousness with the thought of Plotinus. The Neoplatonic vestige is particularly worth exploring in the context of the newly emerging “Cinema of Contemplation.” Plotinus' search for the "intelligible" that can be grasped neither by sense perception nor by merely logical abstractions leads to a fluent way of seeing. Parallels that had so far never been discussed are made plausible. This book is a milestone in the philosophy of film.