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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 186.4
EAN num: 9780140445206
Format: Abridged
ISBN number: 014044520X
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 688
Printing Date: November 05, 1991
Publishing house: Penguin Classics
Sale Popularity Level: 258428
Studio: Penguin Classics
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Rated by buyers 
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plotinus seeks to delve into conflicting views on the nature of reality and being. he studied in the library at alexandria and i know that he did favour certain approaches over others, as rightfully he should.
it seems to me that the age old question of whether we are animated by a supersoul like the fingers on a glove, or whether we are discrete individuals comes up. this interests me very much. my own view is that if we seek union with the super soul that all is then this we shall achieve.
like wise if we seek an independent discrete enlightenment then this we shall find. what one seeks for creates what one finds. seeking is a process of creating. one should be careful about what one wants because what one wants is what one will look for and what one looks for one will find. (jesus "seek and ye shall find"). so we are all creating our own unique reality. plotinus was unique, there has never been another plotinus, but then so too is joe bloggs!
some will say that what is just is... whatever you say about God or reality (gods creation) falls short of the mark, statements may be helpful, but only on a practical level. this helpfulness is what makes them true in a practical sense, but the opposite approach too will be just as fruitful at another time or period. reality just is.
so, some will say that all is relative, as with anything you can answer yes and no... there will always be two sides to any argument. however at a given time one approach may be favourable over another.
i have two hands, both are equally hands and this is their symetry... however my right hand i favour to use more often than my left hand. this is asymetry within symetry. there will always be two sides, equal (water), and yet one hand will always be favoured over the other (fire). and so even within equality we find degrees of perfection.
water states (the ultimate leveller) that all is equally important. yes. fire states that there are degrees of perfection. this can be seen as the cross with a vertical (fire) and a horizontal (water). degrees or layers of perfection over and against equality. to me there is really only one supreme truth and that is true love. and God is this love. i dont think it really matters whether you believe this or not, what matters is that i must try to practice this in my daily life. knowledge is not important, nor is ignorance, what matters is truth, and love is truth. the one love that unites all is the one truth.
one day i hope i shall be able to read this book more carefully, with a better understanding of things and then perhaps i shall benefit from it... however for now its vocabulary remains too technical for me.
[c. 3 months later...]
i am ploughing my way through the very first tractate "the animate and the man". plotinus believes in a pure self that animates the body. he admits that individual/discrete self is at the same time part of the shared/essential self, (sometimes known as paramatman or the monad). the ideal self is what he calls the divine. this view is paralleled by that found in hinduism... i find this interesting since neoplatonism was adopted to some degree by the christian church.
he asks questions such as whether the soul/self is affected by the experiences of the body. he clearly says 'no'. the soul remains pure and unaffected by experience and bodily desires, fears, etc etc etc (the affections/experiences of the body).
he asks whether the soul is outside or interwoven with the body and draws no firm conclusion on this, he does however assert that whether interwoven or separate... that it is not affected by the body. this must be so since he sees the self as 'ideal' in the platonic sense.
he sees the intellect as ideal too. reason/logos is pure and comes from the pure 'self', not from the body. he believes the soul and body act in partnership, but that it is the soul that remains perfect and unaffected by the body. he therefore concludes that childhood is inferior to adulthood since it is in later life that we start to use the higher/soul tool of reason.
The fourth Anead is on the soul, and here, Plotinus the father of Neoplatonism makes it clear that his views parallel quite closely with those of hinduism. one All-soul animates all other souls. this ideal (see platonic ideals) is for want of a better word 'God'. at once all souls are individual and yet part of the All-soul. the all soul is both within and beyond the universe. all things are expressions of the all-soul. this i disagree with since i think not that God is All, or everything... though i do think that all things subsist and have their being through the one true God.
Neo-platonism in my opinion is not Christian, and the use of the word Logos is not used in the same way as plato used it. Logos in a christian usage is the Word, not reason. the two are incompatible. ... Read More
Rated by buyers 
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it influenced 10 centuries of European Medieval thought, even though
no European had read it! But important Medieval writers and thinkers like St Augustine and the Pseudo-Dionyseus acted as conduits for his thought.
Plotinus borrowed from all the philosophies of the Classical and Ancient World. At the same time he placed great emphasis on the individual, so in this sense he is a kind of bridge between the modern and ancient worlds. Although his ideas are quarried by later Christian thinkers, Plotinus regards negative acts or behaviour as the product of a lack of intelligence, rather than the later Christian idea of evil itself being a kind of positive force. In fact pure intellect Plotinus regards as intrinsically good. It is this idea that becomes the foundation of Christian mysticism in the West, the idea that it is possible to know God through the intellect. God has three parts, the hightest of which is also a pure intelligence, according to Plotinus, who calls this highest part 'The Good.'
This book is really about the structure and order of Man, the Universe and Everything as it was seen in the late classical period, from a Platonist viewpoint. Interesting sections are on things like Astrology, then seen as a science: 'Are stars causes?'
One of the problems early Christians had is that the New Testament, unlike -say- Islam, does not provide a model of the Universe, a system of metaphysics or a detailed idea of what it is to be human, save in being sinful and requiring redemption. This book, like many others, was used as a source material by theologians such as St Thomas Aquinus, who were trying to construct an intellectual foundation around Christianity.
One of the problems people had in the past was not understanding biochemistry, of how matter can live, so they constructed a beautiful and interesting series of ideas about how souls enter and leave beings causing them to live or die.
One of the many interesting ideas here is how ideas themselves can have independent lives, as spirits as it were. This could be a forerunner of CG Jung's archetype theory of psychology.
This book is beautifully translated and very easy to read.
Rated by buyers 
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The Enneads: Abridged Edition (Penguin Classics) translated by Stephen MacKenna (ISBN number 014044520X).
The Penguin edition of Stephen MacKenna's translation Of Plotinus' 'Enneads' is printed on newsprint in a miniscule font, is sadly and inexplicably incomplete, and has a lengthy and condescending 40-page introduction by the Jesuit Paul Henry followed by a more interesting though much shorter one of 18 pages by editor John Dillon.
If it's the MacKenna translation you want - and there are some who feel it is one of the truly great translations of the age - skip this Penguin travesty of a book and treat yourself instead to a copy of the freshly edited 'Plotinus: The Enneads' (Larson Publications Classic Reprint Series) (ISBN number 0943914558) which has been annotated, not as here with mere references to Plato's dialogues (as if we didn't know that Plotinus had read Plato), but with useful and interesting alternate translations of many passages.
Unlike the Penguin which, with its glued spine that cracks when opened and seems to have been designed to self-destruct after minimal use, the LP Classic Reprint is a PERMANENT BOOK, well-printed in a readable font on excellent paper, sewn in the traditional manner so that it opens flat, and is both clothbound and COMPLETE.
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Precise, beautiful and fine translation. Excelent work, this book is well worth buying. I strongly recommend it.
Rated by buyers -
On one hand, it's pointless reviewing this Penguin edition, because the only translation of Plotinus that is generally available and widely quoted is Stephen Mackenna's legendary, rhapsodic life-work presented here. This abridgement is still lengthy (500+ pages) and probably more of Plotinus than most readers want, but there it is. Armstrong's translation, available only at high price for many volumes, in the Loeb Library, is more literal. But as far as I know, the only time selections were made from that set, in an all English edition, was 1953, by Allen and Unwin. It was a gem, and I'm sorry I lost it. So this IS Plotinus.
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