The Concepts of 'Power' and 'Mass' in Plotinus' Metaphysics, JLARC 8 (2014), 14-25 (original) (raw)
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The aim of this paper is to highlight the importance of ἕξις in Plotinus’ virtue ethics. It is argued that since ἕξις signifies a quality of being in a permanent state of possession and virtue is defined as an ἕξις that intellectualizes the soul, therefore, it is suggested that virtue is an active ἕξις of the soul directed higher to the intelligible world in permanent contemplation of the Forms.
The object of this essay is to provide valuable insight into the discussion arisen inside Platonic circles, in particular Numenius' and Plotinus' (with special attention to the position of Plotinus' 'Gnostic' 1 disciples) about the true nature of the Intellect (noÕv). The choice of Numenius' position as term of comparison with the doctrines of the Intellect developed by Plotinus and his 'Gnostic' pupils is grounded on the fact that both Numenius, Plotinus and the latter's 'Gnostic' disciples developed their understanding of the nature of the Intellect on the basis of their interpretation of Plato's Timaeus 39E 7-9.
Christian insights into Plotinus’ Metaphysics and his Concept of Αptitude (Ἐπιτηδειότης)
2017
Modern scholarship on Late Antique philosophy seems to be more interested than ever before in examining in depth convergences and divergences between Platonism and Early Christian thought. Plotinus is a key figure in such an examination. This paper proposes a preliminary study of the Plotinian concept of aptitude, as it emerges throughout the Enneads and aims at shedding light to certain aspects of Plotinian metaphysics that bring Plotinus into dialogue with the thought of Church fathers by means either of similarities or differences between Neoplatonist and Christian thought. It will be argued that the concept of aptitude is crucial as it involves the relation between the One and the many, the reality of participation, the relation of the cosmos with, and its dependence on, the superior spheres of being, the bestowal of divine gifts upon beings, and the possibility of the deification of the human being.
"Plotinian Henadology," Kronos Philosophical Journal Vol. V (2016), 143-159.
ABSTRACT: Plotinus’ famous treatise against the Gnostics (33), together with contemporary and thematically related treatises on Intelligible Beauty (31), on Number (34), and on Free Will and the Will of the One (39), can be seen as providing the essential components of a Plotinian defense of polytheism against conceptual moves that, while associated for him primarily with Gnostic sectarians overlapping with Platonic philosophical circles, will become typical of monotheism in its era of hegemony. When Plotinus’ Gnostics ‘contract’ divinity into a single God, they not only devalue the cosmos for its multiplicity and diversity, but also multiply intelligible principles unreasonably. This is because they have foreclosed the distinction, which is to become increasingly explicit in the later antique Platonists, between the intelligible and that which is given existentially, the domain belonging to Plotinus’ indeterminate multiplicity of ‘intelligible Gods’, as opposed to the dialectically determinate number of intelligible principles. Plotinus is prescient in recognizing that incipient monotheism threatens to erase the distinction between philosophy and theology, and between both of these and psychology, the final outcome of which can only be solipsism or nihilism. The defense of polytheism is seen in this fashion to be essential to the preservation of the space for philosophical discourse.