Plotinus

The One God or the One is absolutely transcendent it is beyond thought, being and any kind of categorisation. The One is thus ineffable and incomprehensible. We cannot say anything about the One. Any predication will limit it. However Plotinus uses some positive predicates. This is inevitable in order to communicate and talk about the One. He calls it the One and the Good (not good, but the Good). The One implies there is no plurality; the Good because it has effect on something else (for Plotinus the One is identical to the Good of the Republic). The One is not identical to the sum of individual things (the sum of contingent beings can never make up a necessary being); individual things require a source and the One is distinct and logically prior to them. The One of Plotinus is distinct from the One of Parmenides (the former is transcendent, the latter is immanent). The One has no thought, no will, and no activity. All of these imply a division in the One (thought: between the thinker and what is thought; will: between that which wills and what is willed; activity: between the agent and the object on which he acts. The One is even beyond self-consciousness, as opposed to the Aristotelian Thought Thinking itself).

Emanation Reality emanates from the One. It is important to distinguish between creation and emanation; the former implies that there is an agent that thinks, wills and acts (creates), whereas the latter entails that the generation of reality is necessary, without any thinking, willing and acting. Emanation revolves around the principle of giving without changing and the principle that the less perfect is derived from the most or more perfect. Reality emanates from the One without any change in the One (this can be compared to any image that is produced in a mirror there would be no change in the being whose image is being created in the mirror). There is no change involved in the state of self-contaidness in the One.

The Nous

The first being to emanate from the One is the Nous (Thought or Mind). The Nous has two objects in it (or thinks about two objects): the One and itself. It contemplates the One as the source of its own existence, and thinks about itself. Plotinus says that the first division or multiplicity appears in the nous. In it, there is a distinction between that which thinks and the object of thought. The nous is eternal, and is in a state of eternal possession; the knowledge it has is not acquired, but is in it eternally. Plotinus says that the Platonic forms are located in the nous; however the nous knows the forms together and not distinctly.

The World-Soul The second being is the world-soul; the world-soul emanates from the Nous. Plotinus distinguished between the upper and lower soul. The upper soul looks towards the Nous, and has the Nous as its object of thought. The lower soul looks downwards towards the next being, matter. The lower soul informs matter; it is that which animates it. Individual souls proceed from the world-soul. Like Plato (Phaedrus, the myth of the charioteer), Plotinus conceives the union of the human soul with the body as a fall. Plotinus admits both pre-existence and individual immortality of the soul.

Matter Matter emanates from the world-soul, and unlike the three beings that precede it, is subject to time. Compared to the One, matter is conceived as total darkness. Plotinus distinguishes between metaphysical and moral evil. Metaphysical evil is conceived as a lack, as privation; the material world, so far removed from the One that compared to it, it is imperfect, and thus evil. Evil is thus defined by Plotinus negatively; there is no being that is evil in itself (positive evil). Evil is so only because it lacks goodness, i.e. furthest away from the One.

The Souls ascent towards the One Moral evil is understood by Plotinus as that which impedes the soul from returning to its source of existence. Like metaphysical evil, it is conceived as a privation. The individual soul is attracted by the One; it longs to return to it. It thus inclines towards harmony and order. Matter, however, inclines towards disorder and chaos. The soul thus has to detach from inclinations that are caused by matter in order to ascent towards the One. Plotinus considers the passions (to be compared with the appetitive part of the soul in Platos theory of the soul) as the major obstacle in the souls journey to the One. Plotinus divides the souls journey towards the One in five stages:

o The first stage is that of art and perception. Plato had argued that the artist makes a copy of a copy (since that which the artist copies, is already a copy of the ideal). For Plotinus the artist seeks to bring out the ideal in his work. In this way, through perception and art, the individual is able to glimpse the ideal. o The second stage is that of love or desire. The human being is attracted by physical things, yet again, this attraction is ultimately triggered, even if indirectly, by the ideal. o The third stage is of dialectic. Through the practice of the dialectic, the individual is able to grasp the ideal intellectually the dialectic leads to an intellectual seeing. o The fourth stage is that of catharsis, or moral purification. The soul at this stage has to detach itself from material concerns. This is necessary if it wants to unite with the One, the complete opposite of anything that is material. o The final stage is that of mystical union. This stage, unlike the other four, does not depend on the efforts of the individual. In ecstasy, the soul becomes one with the One, the source of all being. This experience lasts only for a short period.