DRAFT

Forthcoming in Brill Companion for the Reception of Plato in Antiquity. Edited by

Harold Tarrant, Dirk Baltzly, Danielle Layne, and Franois Renaud
Plotinus and Platonism
Lloyd P. Gerson
University of Toronto
1.
G.W.F. Hegel thought that Proclus was a more authentic interpreter of Plato than was
Plotinus because Plotinus was too influenced by Aristotle. 1 Proclus himself thought that Plotinus
was the leading exegete of the Platonic revelation. 2 Proclus knew perfectly well that, as
Porphyry says in his Life of Plotinus, the Enneads are full of Peripatetic and Stoic doctrines. 3
But Proclus did not think that Plotinus exegesis was for that reason less accurate or profound. It
is worth reflecting for a moment on the different evaluations of the Enneads by Hegel and by
Proclus.
Hegel evidently believed that the Aristotelian elements in the Enneads compromised or
diluted the pure Platonism found, above all, in Proclus Platonic Theology. It probably did not
occur to Hegel that Aristotles objections to facets of Platos philosophy or his employment of
new technical terms and distinctions could have been made within the framework of Platonism
such that one could absorb, endorse, or otherwise employ Aristotle without compromising ones
commitment to Plato. Indeed, even if Hegel considered this possibility, he certainly would not
have countenanced a similar explanation for Plotinus use of Stoicism. There is no question that
Plotinus thought himself to be an orthodox Platonistwhatever this meant exactly in the 3rd
century CEand that this orthodoxy was not at all compromised by having recourse to the truth
wherever it may be found. That it should be found in Arisotle is perhaps somewhat less
surprising than that it should be found among the Stoics. Nevertheless, Plotinus was sensible
enough to realize that in the 600 or so years that separated him from Plato, philosophy was not
frozen or dead. Indeed, though Plotinus believed that Plato was the supreme philosophical
master, he also believed that Plato was not the first or the only one to hit on the truth.
Unlike Plotinus, modern scholars tend to blur the distinction between what we find in the
dialogues of Plato and a general philosophical position or world-view that we name Platonism.
Hence, it seems strange to ask if Plato was a Platonist. 4 Plotinus, of course, does think Plato was
a Platonist, that is, a proponent of this general philosophical position, but he is quite clear on the
distinction between the position and its expression, whether in writing or orally. Precisely
1

See G.W.F. Hegel, Vorlesungen ber die Geschichte der Philosophie, Bd. 19 of Werke in Zwanzig Bnden. Edited
by E. Moldenhauer and K.M. Michel. Frankfurt, 1970, 2nd edition, 1986, 438, 443.
2
See Thologie Platonicienne. Edited by H.D. Saffrey and L.G. Westerink. Paris, 1968, t. 1, I 1, p.6, 16-20.
3
See Life of Plotinus, 14, 5.
4
Strange or not, there are some who ask this question and answer it definitely in the negative. H.G. Gadamer (1985,
2:508) held that Platon war kein Platoniker and G. Ryle (1966, 9-10) averred that If Plato was anything of a
philosopher, then he cannot have been merely a lifelong Platonist. Similarly, Willy Theiler (1960, 67), held that
Plotinus Plato is a Platon dimidiatus precisely because Plotinus focused on the Platonism, not the exegesis of the
dialogues.

because of this distinction, Plotinus does not pay serious attention to the structural integrity of
any dialogue. That is, he is willing to cite or allude to three, four, five, or even more dialogues in
one argument over a few sentences. 5 It is not that Plotinus is oblivious to the dramatic unity of
each of the dialogues. Rather, he denies that the dramatic unity in any one case points us to a
doctrinal or systematic unity. 6
Where, then, does that unity come from? We may, I think, infer from Porphyrys account
that it comes principally from the oral tradition to which Plotinus adhered. 7 Plotinus received his
Platonic doctrine from his teacher Ammonius Saccas, who himself wrote nothing. Plotinus, we
are told, vowed to transmit the doctrine he had acquired from Ammonius exclusively in speech.
As Porphyry tells it, when one, and then another, of Plotinus classmates broke the pledge not to
write anything, Plotinus decided that there was no point in his not committing his understanding
of Platonism to paper. The period during which Plotinus was teaching in Rome and writing
nothing was ten years or so. That means that Plotinus did not write a thing until he was about 50
years old. One can scarcely suppose that what Plotinus was refraining from writing was exegesis
of widely available dialogues limited to those dialogues themselves. On the contrary, he
evidently pledged to Ammonius not to put in writing the doctrine that was other than the contents
of dialogues dramatically defined. This does not mean, of course, that the dialogues were
irrelevant or anything but essential to helping us acquire the doctrine. The 1,500 or so references
to the dialogues in the Enneads are evidence sufficient to eliminate that possibility as far as
Plotinus is concerned. It means only that the systematic structure of Platonism is not
reproducible from the dialogues alone. 8 It is this systematic structure that makes the dialogues
intelligible. And it is also what justifies the exegetical parataxis.
What Hegel found objectionable in the Enneads was, in fact, the presence of material (far
more than Aristotle and the Stoics) that testify to this systematic doctrine. The testimony is
relevant and important especially when it is critical of Plato, for that criticism reveals to us the
doctrine that is being scrutinized.9 Plotinus thinks that Aristotle is a dissident Platonist, both
embracing the general principles of Platonism and rejecting Platos application of those
principles to metaphysical, epistemological, psychological, and ethical matters. Everything that
Plotinus says in the Enneads about Platos dialogues is conditioned by his understanding of
Platos Platonism.10 This is true as much for his exegesis of myths as well as of philosophical
argumentation. Let us begin, then, with Plotinus basic understanding of Platonism.
5

A good example is IV 8 [6], 1 On the Descent of Soul into Bodies, where Phaedo, Republic, Phaedrus, Cratylus,
and Timaeus are cited in short order in a sort of exegetical parataxis. A bit of Heraclitus and Empedocles are also
thrown in for good measure. Also, see IV 8, 1.26-31. Plotinus is here arguing for the coherence of his account of
Platonism with what is found in the dialogues. See Koch (2014, 67) on the absence of any ordering of the dialogues
by Plotinus for the purpose of exposition.
6
Plotinus interpretation of Plato is a stellar example of fidelity to the principle found in Arius Didymus apud
Stobaeus, Ecl. II 7.3f, 4a, 49.25-50.1, 55.5-6 that Plato in the dialogues is but not .
7
See Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, 3, 25ff.
8
See Charrue (1978, 135-138) on Plotinus recognition of the difficulties of constructing a systematic expression of
Platonism from the dialogues alone.
9
The principal objection to the thesis of Harold Cherniss that Aristotles testimony about Platos philosophy is
unreliable is that Cherniss assumed that Aristotle was focusing exclusively on the dialogues, which do not in many
cases seem to contains the claims that Aristotle is criticizing. But nowhere does Arisotle say that his criticisms are
aimed at the dialogues, although he certainly cites them abundantly. But more or less like Plotinus, he cites them as
evidence of the underlying doctrine as he understands that, not as self-standing philosophical discourses.
10
There is an intriguingand rarestatement of a Plotinian hermeneutical principle at III 7 [45], 13.15-18, where
Plotinus suggests that Aristotle has perhaps not made his view on the nature of time sufficiently precise in his

2.
The passage most widely cited as the basis for Plotinus systematic interpretation of Plato
is from V 1 [10] where Plotinus refers to Platos Parmenides:
But Parmenides in Plato [as opposed to the historical Parmenides] speaks more
accurately when he distinguishes from each other the primary One, which is
strictly One, from the secondary One which is a one-many, and the third which
is one and many. In this way he, too, is in harmony with the three natures. 11

We should begin by noting that Plotinus says that what the literary Parmenides (a
mouthpiece for Plato, according to Plotinus) says is in harmony with the three natures. He
does not suppose that Parmenides is the locus classicus, so to speak, for the doctrine itself. The
doctrine, according to Plotinus, is expressed, alluded to, or employed, in the 2nd Epistle,
Republic, Philebus, and elsewhere. 12 The point is of some importance since there are many
things that Plotinus says about the primary One that cannot plausibly be drawn from the second
part of Parmenides. 13 The evaluation of Plotinus account of Platonism and, by a sort of
attraction, his interpretation of the dialogues, for many scholars hinges on the above passage.
The most widely held view in the English-speaking worldDodds and Cornford being two of
the main catalystsis that Plotinus understanding of the second part of Parmenides is obviously
wide of the mark. 14 And this error infects all, or almost all, of his other interpretative claims.
writings because he was writing for people who already knew his view from his lectures. I take this point to be
plausibly applicable to Plotinus attempts to clarify and systematize what he finds in the dialogues.
11
V 1[10], 8. 23-27: ,
, , .
. Most translators supply something like the doctrine of or die Lehre von or la thorie des
before the words the three natures. I would resist this as unnecessary and misleading since it is implausible to
take the second part of Parmenides as directly or straightforwardly expressing doctrine. Igal has the more accurate
version: Parmnides est de acuerdo con las tres Naturalezas. On my interpretation, Plato has Parmenides make
logical remarks about hypothetical principles. What he says is indeed in harmony with a doctrine of principles,
but one has to go elsewhere for a positive expression of that doctrine. This is the passage Trouillard (1973, 9)
refers to as announcing the beginning of Neoplatonism. Cf. Brisson (1994, 287).
12
Plotinus accepted the authenticity of the 2nd Epistle, although he uses the crucial passage (312E) merely as
confirmatory of the primacy of the three natures. We might well consider the possibility that, given the fact that
the letter is spurious, it provides us with evidence of how the oral tradition adheres to the interpretation to which
Plotinus adheres.
13
This is in contrast to Proclus who, following his teacher Syrianus, believes that the second part of Parmenides
contains the main expression of Platos theology. See Proclus, In Parm. 630.26-643.4. For the likely Iamblichean
origin of the view of the primacy of Parmenides, see Proclus, In Tim. I 13.14-19 and Anonymous Introduction to
Platos Philosophy 26, 39.18-21. Proclus expands on this claim at some length in his PT I 7, 31.7-32.12 and I 8,
32.15-18 in reply to an objection that Platos theological principles are found variously and unsystematically in all
the dialogues. Against this objection, he claims that all Platos principles of theology are contained in Parmenides.
Cf. I 12, 56.17-24. This dialogue is the baseline for the interpretation of all the rest. Proclus approach is radically
different from that of Plotinus, as Hegel saw. It is also worth noting that the medieval Latin Liber de causis,
translated from what is essentially a compendium of Proclean metaphysics, deviates from Proclus and employs
Plotinus wherever Proclus metaphysics was thought to be in variance from the metaphysical basis of Islamic
theology. My point is not the suitability of Plotinus for Islamic theology, but the awareness by the author of this
anonymous work of a fundamental difference between Plotinus and Proclus, particular with regard to the nature of
the first principle of all. See DAncona (2014, 144-47).
14
See Dodds (1928); Cornford (1939); Trouillard (1973).

Without meaning to suggest that the passage in V 1 is trivial in its implications, I would insist
that Plotinus understanding of the three natures is both more nuanced than is often supposed
and, most important, is firmly and widely grounded in the dialogues, taken in conjunction with
Aristotles testimony and with the other indirect sources.
The first of the three nature, the primary One, is, following Aristotles testimony,
identical with the Idea of the Good of Republic. 15 The Idea of the Good is the unhypothetical
first principle of all and beyond existence and being ( ). 16 Aristotle
testifies that Plato identified the Good with the One and that the Forms were derived from the
One and the Indefinite Dyad by the former acting on the latter. The One of the first hypothesis
of the second part of Parmenides is also said to be beyond existence and being because it is
nothing but One that is, uniquely self-identical. Of course, the positing of such a first principle,
the identification of it with the Good, its mode of activity, and the motivation for introducing an
Indefinite Dyad are among the many deep puzzles that the dialogues and the testimony have
bequeathed us. Much of the history of Platonism, at least until the middle of the 6th century CE,
is devoted to addressing these puzzles. My point here is only that Plotinus has no doubtand he
has good reason to have no doubtthat Plato is committed to such a principle. Moreover, since
Plotinus, like Plato (and Aristotle) believes that philosophy begins and ends in first philosophy,
that is, a search for ultimate explanations, it is hardly surprising that the One has either explicitly
or implicitly a role to play in virtually all Plotinus interpretations of Plato arguments and claims
in the dialogues. For example, Plotinus is never content to say that a Form is an ultimate
explanation or that Forms in general are termini of explanatory paths except in narrowly
constrained circumstances. It probably never even occurred to him that the absence of an explicit
step beyond Forms to the One in a given dialogue meant that it was somehow illicit to adduce
that principle in behalf of understanding Platos solution to a particular problem.
As for the second nature, which in Parmenides is found in the second hypothesis and is
paraphrased by Plotinus as one-many, Plotinus assumes that this is to be identified with the
Demiurge in Timaeus, an eternal Intellect () which is the locus of and provider of
intelligibility to the sensible cosmos. 17 An important facet of Plotinus interpretation of the
Demiurge or Intellect as the second nature is that he argues that Aristotles Unmoved Mover,
though not explicitly identified with the Demiurge or Intellect, is intended by Aristotle to serve
the functional role that Platos principle is intended to serve. 18 That is, just as the Demiurge is
posited by Plato as the unique cause of a range of possible and actual effects in the sensible
world, so is the Unmoved Mover similarly posited. The very fact that the latter does not quite fit
the characterization of the Demiurge in Timaeus or elsewhere only means for Plotinus that a
shared principle that of the necessity of a unique cause for a specific range of phenomena
can be variously characterized by Plato, on the one hand, and his disciples more or less faithful
to the master, on the other.
Platos Demiurge is eternally a contemplator of Forms. But he is also a maker of the
cosmos. 19 Although Plotinus dismisses as metaphorical and heuristic much of the talk in
See Aristotle, Meta. 6, 987a29-988a17, N 4, 1091b13-15; EE 8, 1218a15-28; Aristoxenus, The Elements of
Harmony II 20.16-31.3 Macran (= pg.111 Ross).
16
See Rep. 509B6-10.
17
See II 3 [52], 18.15; IV 4 [28], 10.1-4; V 1 [10], 1.8.5, etc.
18
See V 9 [5], 3.25-26.
19
See III 9 [13], 1.23-36, where Plotinus says that Plato, cryptically, seems to hold that the maker of the cosmos is
the cosmic soul and not Intellect eternally contemplating intelligibles. The cryptic nature of this claim arises from
15

Timaeus about the discursive activity of the Demiurge, he does not take the situation of the
Demiurge within the Platonic system as problematic. 20 So, the Demiurge acts because his
contemplation of the Good is the way he partakes of it. And since Good is essentially selfdiffusive, the Demiurge naturally and spontaneously produces all that it can. This is to say that
the Demiurge or Intellect is the instrument of the Good. 21 In other words, the contemplative
activity and the productive activity of the Demiurge could not be reconciled or made consistent if
both were not situated within the larger metaphysical framework. Thus, systematization is
necessary to bring consistency to Platos multifarious claims in particular dialogues and among
the dialogues.
The third nature, which Plotinus calls one and many, is supposedly found in the third
hypothesis. 22 It is less clear than in the above two cases that this passage in the dialogue refers to
what Plotinus calls the principle Soul, that which, distinct from and inferior to Intellect, is the
principle of the soul of the cosmos and all individual souls, whether divine, human, animal, or
plant. It is beyond doubt, however, that Soul plays the role of principle in Plato, especially, but
not only, as the principle of motion in the cosmos. 23 That is sufficient ground for Plotinus to
make it a distinct hypostasis. The relation between Intellect or the Demiurge and Soul, however,
is not straightforward either in Plato or in Plotinus. In particular, it has been argued by a number
of scholars that if the Demiurge has a life, then it must itself have soul which, if anything, makes
its creation of soul, somewhat obscure. On the one hand, one could say that the Demiurge is
himself a soul who creates the souls of the cosmos and the gods and the other living animals.
But this leaves the relation between his soul and his intellect especially problematic since the
Demiurge makes souls out of ingredients markedly different from the Demiurges own
composition. In particular, created soul has a form of existence that is a combination of
indivisible and divisible being . 24 The Demiurge, by contrast, must be made of the same stuff as
the Forms if he is to know them eternally. 25 In addition, souls are made to be joined with bodies,
which is why they have a form of divisible being whereas the Demiurge has no such
requirement. 26
There is some reason to believe that Plotinus supposed the hypostasis Soul to be the life
of the Living Animal, that is, the locus of the Forms which the Demiurge uses as model for the
cosmos. The key passage in Plato in support of this is one to which Plotinus turns repeatedly. In
Sophist, we find the famous refutation of the Idealists, with the rhetorical affirmation:

the fact that the maker has been also identified with the Intellect or Demiurge. See Tim. 47E3-48A2 with 29D-31A.
Cf. IV 8 [6], 1.23-28 on the difficulties in reconciling Platos remarks on soul.
20
See e.g., III 2 [47], 2.12-15; IV 8 [6], 8.11-16.
21
See VI 7 [38], 42.21-24. Also, see II 9 [33], 6.14-24 where Plotinus excoriates Gnostics for their uncritical
reading of Platos Timaeus.
22
It is perhaps the case that Plotinus does not mean to suggest that the entire third hypothesis (155E-157B) is
focused exclusively on the hypostasis Soul. Rather, since that hypothesis is concerned with the realm of temporal
becoming, Plotinus supposed that the generation of the soul of the cosmos and the other souls by the Demiurge in
Tim. 34Aff, along with the generation of time, provides the relevant background for the logical deductions made in
Parmenides.
23
See Phdr. 246Bff and Lg. X.
24
See Tim. 35A1-4.
25
See Tim. 29E1-3 with 30C2-D1 and the so-called Affinity Argument of Phd. 78B4-84B4.
26
The immortal parts of human and divine souls, namely, their intellects, are, like the Demiurge, of course, capable
of knowing Forms. But insofar as a disembodied intellect is in principle able to be reinserted into a body, we must
suppose that this is because soul is a composite being different from intellect.

Are we really going to be so easily persuaded that motion, life, soul, and
thought have no place in that which is completely real; that is has neither life
nor thinking, but stands immovable, holy, and solemn, devoid of intellect? 27

This much discussed passage presents its own problems. But Plotinus never doubted that
here Plato intends to situate life and soul in that which is really real, namely, the Living Animal
which is the paradigm for all intelligibility in the cosmos. There is no indication that the Living
Animal has a particular life or soul any more than Intellect is or has a particular intellect. It
seems reasonable that Plotinus would assume that the intelligible reality of the hypostasis Soul
just is the property of the Living Animal. 28
The bulk of Plotinus writings is devoted to working out a consistent and systematic
expression of these three hypostases and in that expression applying them to the solution of
particular philosophical problems concerning the nature of evil, freedom of the will, divine
providence, embodied and disembodied cognition, etc. The claim that systematic expression of
the One, Intellect, and Soul in the dialogues is absent hardly requires a defense. What does seem
today to require a defense is Plotinus belief that a systematic expression is to be had. 29 Plotinus,
reasonably enough, assumes that Plato believes that there is a superordinate Idea of the Good, a
Demiurge, and soul which is evidently rooted in a principle. Aristotle and the other members of
the Academy evince no doubt that a systematic expression of Platonism is possible and underlies
everything that we read in the dialogues. I will take it as sufficient for my purposes here that
what Plotinus does with the dialogues is both philosophically and exegetically defensible, while
having no intention whatsoever of asserting his infallibility in either regard.
In the remainder of this paper, I want to discuss several of the main problems Plotinus
faced in systematizing Platonism and then briefly discuss how he applies the system to some of
the most important problems facing philosophers in the 3rd century.
3.
The first problem is, as Plotinus somewhat plaintively puts it, how are we supposed to
derive a many from the One. 30 If the One is to be the unhypothetical first principle of all,
there must be some sort of derivation, the converse of the Ones role as the ultimate explanation
for any many or plurality. And yet, if it is to be the first principle, it must be absolutely simple
or incomposite. Plotinus follows Plato exactly in holding that even the minimal complexity of
something that exists and has a nature of some sort cannot be attributed to the One. 31 So, once
Soph. 248E6-249E2:
, , , ,

28
As we later learn in Sophist 254Dff, the greatest Kinds namely, Identity, Difference, Being, Motion, and Rest
are that which enables the Forms to be articulated. The Demiurge, insofar as he is identical with all that he
cognizes, must, accordingly, possess these. But he does not possess any of these in their divisible form.
29
I would suggest that Plotinus attitude to the systematic expression of the written thoughts of Plato is analogous to
Thomas Aquinas attitude to the systematic theological expression of Scripture.
30
See V 3 [49] 15, 6-7. Henceforth, I shall just refer to the One or the Good as required rather than the awkward
One/Good. But I ask the reader to bear in mind that Plotinus can scarcely be supposed to have ever reflected on
the One without supposing its identification with the Idea of the Good or on the Good without supposing that it is
the One.
31
See Parm. 142B5-6 where a putative one that exists and partakes of oneness cannot be first. Because there
would then be a distinction between it and the nature in which it partakes.
27

again, how can any many be derived from the first principle? Another way to characterize the
problem is to take it as following from the Parmenidean principleembraced by Plato, Aristotle,
Plotinus, and virtually every philosopher in pagan antiquitythat no thing can be derived from
nothing. That is, if there is no complexity in the One, how can any sort of complexity arise?
Plotinus solution is a wonderful example of the way he combines what he certainly takes
to be faithful exegesis of Platos thought and his own philosophical reflection. Although the One
is simple, there are a number of things that, following Plato, can be said of it, the most important
here being that it is beyond being (or essence), surpassing in seniority and in power (
). 32 To this, we need to add the claim in Sophist
made on behalf of the argument against materialists that the definition or mark of that which is
real is that it has or is power () of some sort, power to do anything or experience
anything at all. 33 So, that would seem to make the One the most powerful of all if for no other
reason at least because any diminution or limitation on its power would involve it having some
property or nature that caused that limitation. But since having any properties would
immediately introduce complexity, it can have none. The One, then, is absolutely powerful. 34
But how is this possible?
In order to understand how Plotinus receives Plato and Platonism, it is, I think,
important to emphasize that there is nothing explicit in the dialogues or in Aristotles testimony
or in the indirect tradition to indicate how Plato solves this problem. Let us say simply that
Plotinus obtains the solution from Aristotle, especially in the sense that he employs an
Aristotelian term in working out the solution that does not even appear in Plato. How does this
turn to Aristotle not betray Plotinus allegiance to Plato? Plotinus understands that Aristotle,
exactly like Plato, has come to the conclusion that there must be a first principle of all and that it
must be absolutely simple. This first principle is supposed to provide ultimate explanatory
adequacy. So, any insight Aristotle is able to attain in regard to the nature of this principle is
valuable for Plotinus in articulating the system that is Platonism. The principal Aristotelian
insight is that the first principle of all must be nothing but activity (). 35 There can be no
potentiality in it because that would imply compositeness or complexity, analogous to but not
identical with the complexity that would be implied by a one having both existence and
essence.
Aristotle goes on to make what for Plotinus is a crucial mistake. He identifies this activity
as thinking or the activity of thinking. 36 This is a mistake because thinking, Plotinus argues,
involves intentionality and hence the internal complexity consisting of thinker and object of
thinking to say nothing of an additional complexity introduced if the objects of thinking are
multiple. 37 Plotinus sees Aristotle as more or less correctly characterizing what is in fact the
second principle Intellect, but falsely characterizing the first principle of all. And yet, Plotinus
embraces the Aristotelian insight that the first principle can be absolutely simple if it is nothing
but activity or . So, Plotinus combines the claim from Plato that the first principle is
absolutely simple and powerful with Aristotles claim that the first principle must be nothing but
activity.
32

See Rep 509B8-9.

See Soph. 248D8-E4.
34
See esp. Aubry (2006, chs. 6 and 7).
35
See Aristotle, Meta. 7, 1071b19-20: .
36
See Aristotle, Meta. 7, 1072b14ff.
37
See V 6 [24] 1.1-14 and Gerson (2005, 205-208).
33

With these two claims in hand, Plotinus reflects on the nature of activity. The activity of
the absolutely simple first principle is indicated in two ways in the Platonic system. First, there
is the analogy of the Good and the sun. The salient characteristic of the analogy is the
overflowing () of the sun and the Good, the first providing light and warmth, the
other providing existence and essence to the Forms. 38 Second, in Timaeus the Demiurge is
characterized as good for which reason he is not grudging (). 39 It is his goodness that
necessitates his productivity. 40 From the fact that association with the Good in any way results
in production, and from the fact that that the Good itself is necessarily productive, Plotinus draws
the natural conclusion that the activity of the Good is productive activity. If, though, the Good is
absolutely simple and hence perfect, how can it produce anything outside of itself since this
would imply that it has a goal to be achieved outside of itself by means of its production?
Plotinus answer to this question is a model of philosophical acumen. If that which the
Good produces it outside of it, then that production would immediately result in a relation
between the Good and its product or products. But if the Good is related to anything, then it
would have to have an illicit complexity, that is, there would have to be a distinction within it
between it and a property in virtue of which it has the relation. But there is no such property
because there is not within the Good the complexity required to have a property. So, the Good is
not really related to anything. 41 But this does not preclude things, i.e., its products, from being
related to it. Since the Good is not related to anything, there is nowhere where it is not;
counterfactually, this would again erect a relation, whether spatial or otherwise. So, the One is
everywhere and everything produced by it can be said to be within it. But since everything
produced by the Good is related to it, we can explore these relations, that is, the various
properties of goodness and unity possessed in relation to the Good. Thus, for example, if A has a
unity greater than B, then A has the relation of being closer to the One than B.
The philosophical analysis of the activity of the absolutely simple first principle of all is
the key to the systematic construction that is Platonism. With this analysis in place, Plotinus
now has the means of ultimate explanation at least with respect to goodness and unity. If the
One is everywhere, then it would seem that the desire for the Good possessed by everything is
satisfied by ascending to anywhere, which is to say, not ascending at all. But this cannot be
the case at least if the systematic construction of Platonism is to have any relevance to ethics.
What is needed is the articulation of another terminus of all psychic activity such that, despite the
fact that the One is everywhere, it makes sense to say that one can be closer or further from it. 42
The problem Plotinus faces is this. On the one hand, since the One cannot in principle be
limited in its productive activity, there is nothing outside its causal scope. If the One went this
far but no further, then that would indicate a limitation in it. So, everything that is caused to be,
that is everything that is caused to be by the One, has this principle somehow in it. On the other
hand, if evil is a turning away from the Good and vice is psychic movement in the direction of
evil, how can there be such a thing as absence of Good, that is, evil?
Here is another central moment in which Plotinus, while scrupulously faithful to the text
of the dialogues, needs to proceed further philosophically. In Timaeus, we learn that before there
was a cosmos, there were three principles, namely, the real being of Forms, becoming, and space
38

Rep. 508B6-7.
Tim. 29E2. Cf. Rep. 508E5-509A5 on truth and knowledge as good-like but not the Good.
40
Cf. Symp. 212A2-7 where the achievement of the vision of the Good necessarily produces true virtue.
41
See I 7 [54], 1.16-17; VI 8 [39], 8.12-18
42
See I 8 [51] 15, 3-5, where Plotinus argues that if evil is eliminated so, too, is the Good.
39

or the receptacle of becoming. 43 Following Aristotle, Plotinus identifies the receptacle with
matter, the absence of all intelligibility. It is clear enough that this principle is independent of
the Demiurge, that is, of Intellect. 44 But it is far from clear that it is or, on Plotinus analysis,
could possibly be, independent of the One. 45 For as such, the power of the One would be limited
by its opposite.
Plotinus reasoning is as follows. The One is, as Aristotle reports, a principle of limit.
The Indefinite Dyad is a principle of unlimitedness. It is by the operation of the former on the
latter that intelligible being is produced. It is the One and the Indefinite Dyad that are the
principles of the complexity necessary for there to be anything intelligible at all. The One alone
could not produce anything intelligible; neither could the Indefinite Dyad. This is not a
limitation on the One since it is already all things, but not as an articulated array of intelligible
entities. The Indefinite Dyad is, as we shall see in a moment, the logically prior state of Intellect.
The important point here is that Intellect, being cognitively identical with all the Forms, is the
paradigm of all intelligibility in the cosmos. 46 So, wherever we find intelligibility we not only
find the One, but also its instrument, Intellect. But a principle of indefiniteness or unlimitedness
is inextricable from anything intelligible owing to its being an imitation of the paradigm in which
such a principle is eternally present. 47 Matter, according to Plotinus, is just this principle of
unlimitedness in things that imitate the paradigm of unlimitedness. 48 Matter is produced by the
One inasmuch as everything that exists is produced by the One. But it is not directly produced
by it since the only thing it produces directly is that which is closest to it, Intellect in its initial
phase as the Indefinite Dyad. The One is the cause of matter via the instrumentality of Intellect
and Soul.
What, then, does it mean to claim that matter is evil itself? A principle of unlimitedness
is the logical terminus opposite the One and that is all it means to call it evil. 49 It is not a thing or
a property; it has no intelligibility whatsoever. To say that it is a principle is not to say that it is a
causal principle. Plotinus is more interested in evil as a terminus of perverted desire than as a
causal principle. That is, everything and everyone desires the Good. Embodiment, however,
opens up the possibility of the confusion of the real Good with that which is only apparently the
Good. To turn from the real Good to the apparent Good is to take a trajectory the terminus of
which is evil or unlimitedness. Since the One is the causal principle of the being of everything,
this terminus is, were it to be achieved, necessarily the destruction of being. Thus does Plotinus
structure an entire philosophical anthropology. Metaphysics provides the criteria by which the
actions and progress of human beings can be judged. Virtue is that which contributes to
unification or decrease in the proximity to the One; vice is just the opposite. Moreover, following

43

Tim. 51E6-52D1.
We may leave aside what was in antiquity an extremely controversial matter, namely, whether the imposition of
order on the pre-existent chaos by the Demiurge was temporal or not.
45
That the Good was in the background but not explicitly adduced in the cosmological account was accepted as
obvious on the basis of Tim. 48C2-6 and 53D4-7 two passages which are almost entirely ignored by modern
scholars.
46
See VI 2 [43], 8.14; 21.39-40; VI 7 [38], 36.12; 39.5; VI 8 [39], 9.30-31.
47
See II 4 [12], 4.7-9; 15.17-20; II 9 [33], 8.16-29; VI 2 [43], 22.37-38. Cf. Aristotle, Phys. 4, 203a9-10.
48
See II 4 [12], 5.18-19, where Plotinus is willing to say that the receptacle, as matter, is an imitation or image of
intelligible matter, that is, of the Indefinite Dyad. This does not, however, require him to say that the Demiurge
intervenes in the pre-cosmic chaos prior to his intervention when he introduces intelligibility into it.
49
See I 8 [51] 7.17-23.
44

Plato, grades of virtue can be distinguished according to whether the virtue is more or less
efficacious in orienting the person in the direction of the real Good. 50
Returning to the Indefinite Dyad, Plotinus identification of it with Intellect in its initial
phase is based on nothing directly in the dialogues. There is, though, quite a bit of indirect
guidance for Plotinus. First, since production from the One is not arbitrary, or gappy, the first
product must be that which is minimally complex. Intellect is, indeed, the least complex product
generally speaking, but the Indefinite Dyad is logically more simple or less complex that the
product that is Intellect, cognitively identical with the entire array of intelligible being. Since
everything other than the One desires it, the Indefinite Dyad desires it. And since there is
nothing to prevent it from achieving its desire, it does so, not by reabsorbing back into the One,
so to speak, but by thinking all that the One is virtually, that is, by thinking all that is intelligible.
Intellect as the Indefinite Dyad is that which makes it possible for there to be eternally
distinct Forms. 51 The systematizing impetus in this claim is patent. According to Plato, the
Demiurge is eternally contemplating all the Forms. Plato leaves open the explanation of how
the immaterial intelligible entities can be differentiated such that they can provide a foundation
for eternal or necessary truths. Aristotles testimony is that the One and the Indefinite Dyad are
the principles underlying the Forms or, to use the alternative metaphor, those principles to which
the Forms are reduced. So, acknowledging the accuracy of Aristotles testimony, and at the
same time trying to integrate the Idea of the Good into a system that includes Intellect and
Forms, Plotinus hypothesizes primal Intellect as the intelligible matter for the array of Forms.
That Intellect thinks these Forms means that it is cognitively identical with them. That is, what
Intellect is is a one-many. It is the material basis for the multiplicity of Forms.
Remarkably, Plotinus thinks that it is also his task to integrate into this system what Plato
in Sophist calls the greatest kinds ( ). 52 These are: Being, Identity, Difference,
Motion, and Rest. Plotinus interpretation of the greatest kinds is best considered after reflecting
on the contemporary interpretations of this long passage in Sophist. These range mostly from the
view that the five greatest kinds are not really intended by Plato to have a superordinate status to
the view that postulation of greatest kinds, that is, primary Forms is gibberish, to the view that
because this postulation is obviously gibberish the dialogue itself must be spurious. 53 By
contrast, Plotinus question is how to understand the greatest kinds within the framework of the
system of the three natures.
Plotinus takes the five greatest kinds as the fundamental properties of Intellect which is
cognitively identical with the Forms. 54 Among the many problems with making sense of Being
as a genus is that the other greatest kinds are co-ordinated with this genus instead of subordinate
to it. Here is how Plotinus addresses this problem.
50

See I 2 [9] and Gerson (2013, 293-299) on the systematization of gradations of virtue based principally on Phaedo
and Republic. See below n. 64.
51
See II 4 [12], 1.14-18, citing Aristotles testimony on intelligible matter and the Indefinite Dyad. Intellect as
Indefinite Dyad is intelligible matter for the Forms. Also, II 4, 4.15-20.
52
Soph. 254B7ff.
53
Accordingly, there are those who take Plotinus interpretation to be significantly distortive. See Brisson (1997)
and Santa Cruz (1997).
54
At II 6 [17], 1.1-8, where the suggestion seems to be that the intelligible matter is itself (as opposed to
, Being, one of the greatest kinds), the generic intelligible matter for the greatest kinds. But is just what
Intellect is. See V 3 [49], 11.14, V 9 [5], 8.2. So, one way of characterizing Intellect is as substance (), the
matter of which is Intellect in the first phase of its generation (= Indefinite Dyad) and Intellect as informed by the
entire array of Forms.

10

Now, there are many species of Being, and there is a genus of Being. But
Motion is not classed under Being nor over Being, but is alongside Being. It is
found in Being but not as inhering in a subject. For it is an activity of Being
and neither is without the other except in our conception of them. And the two
natures are one. For Being is in actuality not in potency. 55

The key to Plotinus understanding of the matter is the claim that Motion and Being are
not without the other except in our conception of them. We can conceive of something having
being without being in motion, even the motion of Intellect. We can even conceive of something
in motion, that is, matter, that is bereft of being. What the intelligible realm is supposed to do,
according to Plotinus understanding of Platonism, is explain, among other things, the
diminished intelligibility of things of which we have conceptions; what, for example, is the
nature of the being without motion? In our conceptions, we can distinguish the activity of
Intellect from the array of essences with which it is actually cognitively identical. And so we can
conceive of the images of intelligibility here below without conceiving of them as thinking,
though if Intellect were not eternally thinking them, they would not be distinguishable, even in
thought. 56
In Sophist, we learn that the kinds Motion and Rest are contrary, that Being blends with
each of these, but they do not blend with each other. 57 Plotinus acknowledges these
distinctions. 58 But the question that Plotinus asks and those who believe that Plotinus is
deviating from Plato neglect to ask is what is the ontological claim being made by one says that
two of the kinds (Motion and Rest) are unmixed with each other ( )? The
claim is not that the two kinds are distinct; this is also true for Being, which is distinct from
Motion and Rest, but nevertheless blends with each. It is certainly true that from the absence of
blending we can deduce that if something is at rest, then in the respect that it is at rest, it is not in
motion, and vice versa. But this is only to avoid the question, since this follows because of the
absence of blending of the kinds; it does not constitute that absence of blending. If this were not
so, then the entire point of separating Forms in order for them to be explanatory entities would be
lost.
It is precisely here that the rationale for claiming that Intellect is a one-many becomes
especially perspicuous. The oneness of Intellect is the oneness of a multiplicity. So, Being is
See VI 2 [43], 7.16-20: ,
,
, , . See Hadot (1960, 111), Les genres de ltre
du Sophiste (254-55): tre, movement, repos, identit, et altrit, apparaissent comme les different aspects souls
lesquels notre intelligence morcelante saisit la vue unique de lintelligence. Mais cest bien parce que la ralit
intelligible est dou de vie et de pense que cette multiplicit de points de vue est possible.
56
See Silverman (2002, 294), They are the greatest kinds also because they are required for metaphysical (and all
other types of) inquiry and because they allow the postulated Forms and particulars to play the sorts of roles required
of them by Platos special metaphysical theory. They are formal conditions on Formhood and, therefore,
derivatively apply to particulars, souls, and everything else in a fashion appropriate to each.
57
See Soph. 252D6-20; 254D4-10. At 256B6 the Eleatic Stranger says that there is nothing outrageous if in fact
motion did partake of rest in some way and therefore was stable. Heindorf conjectured a lacuna after this claim,
though the reply by Theaetetus is absolutely correct, so long as we agree that some kinds blend and some do not.
Heindorf filled the lacuna with words to the effect that motion does not partake of rest at all, though it does partake
of identity and difference. Thus, according to Heindorf, Theaetetus reply does not confirm that motion does
partake of rest in some way. But this elaborate reversal of the text as received is not necessary on Plotinus
interpretation.
58
See VI 2 [43], 7.31-32; 8.44.
55

11

necessarily complex. 59 This makes sense only if the first principle of all is, as Plato says, above
Being ( ). The multiplicity is manifested among the objects of Intellects thinking and in the
duality of Intellect and these objects of thinking. As objects of thinking, Being, which we may
understand here as essence, is a genus, the genus of all that which is intelligible. The duality
entails difference; the oneness entails identity. The activity of Intellect is its intellectual motion.
Rest is the one-many as the static array of Forms. So, it can be true that motion and rest do not
mix; otherwise, there would not be a multiplicity in Intellect. And it can be true that Being
mixes with each, because the Being that Intellect is is the Being of the one-many. 60
An interpretation of the greatest kinds that eschews systematization altogether would be
more cogent that one which accepts systematization while at the same time rejecting Plotinus
account. This is evident from the literature merely by inspection.
In this light of his analysis of the one-many that is Intellect and Being, Plotinus appears
to move even further from the explicit words of Plato when he argues that we possess
undescended intellects.
How, then, since the intelligible is separate, does the soul enter the body? It is
like this: the part of it that is only intellect is impassive remaining always
among the intelligibles having and an intellectual life only in the intelligible
worldfor it has no impulse or desirewhile that which acquires desire,
following immediately on that intellect, by the addition of desire in a way
extends further and desires to produce order according to what it saw in
intellect, as if being pregnant by the intelligibles and laboring to give birth, and
is eager to make and construct the world. 61

The point of insisting on the fact that the real identity of each individual human being is
with an intellect that is eternally contemplating Forms now is entirely epistemological. If we did
not have undescended intellects, then intellection or thinking would not be possible for us. Since
it obviously is possible, we must have such intellects. Plato, of course, speaks frequently about
the existence of souls prior to embodiment and after embodiment, and, indeed, re-embodiment as
a punishment for sins committed during previous embodiments. But nowhere does he suggest
that our intellects are undescended even if we suppose that the disembodied soul is solely an
intellect. Plotinus, however, thinks this is what the Platonist must say and, indeed, what Plato
does say, albeit discreetly (). 62 Why does Plotinus insist on this very unusual claim. 63
See V 3 [49], 13.25: Also, II 4 [112] 4, 14-15: .
The integration of this account of the greatest kinds into the interpretation of the second nature in the second
hypothesis of Parmenides is outside the scope of this paper. Suffice to say, if those deductions amount to an
analysis of the one-many logically, then the systematic construct will arise out of that matrix.
61
IV 7 [2], 13.1- 8: , ,

,
, , . Cf. IV 8 [6], 8 where Plotinus
acknowledges that his view is not shared by others, that is, by other interpreters of Plato. Indeed, Porphyry recounts
that he himself rejected this view until Plotinus persuaded him of it. Cf. See IV 4 [28],7.13; VI 7 [38], 5.26-29; VI 8
[39], 6.41-43.
62
See IV 8 [6], 4.35. Plotinus here refers to the generation of souls by the Demiurge in Tim. 41D5-8. Our souls are
composed of two kinds of Being, Identity, and Difference, one eternal and one dispersed or sensible. Plotinus
understands the former to refer obliquely to our undescended intellects.
63
This view is rejected by virtually all later Platonists. See, e.g, Proclus, ET 211.1-2; In Parm. 948.12-30 and on
Proclus report of Iamblichus as also rejecting this view, In Tim. 3.334.10-14. See Szlezk 1979, ch.4.
59
60

12

Given that being and intellect are two sides of the same coin, so to speak, if we are
separated from intellect, our thinking will have to be in terms of images or, more broadly,
representations of being. We will not be cognitively identical with being itself. Plotinus
recognizes that much of our cognition is representation, for example, sense-perception and
belief. But these would not be for usas in fact they arerational activities unless they were
founded on our cognition of Forms. For example, we could not have the rational belief that this
man is pale unless we understood what a man is and what paleness is. But such understanding
cannot amount to another type of representation. Ultimately, there must be non-representational
cognition if there is to be rational representation of any sort. The non-representational
cognitionthe cognitive identity of our intellects and real beinghas to be somehow accessible
to us for us to engage in any rational embodied cognition. Broadly speaking, the accessibility is
possible because our individual souls are rational projections of the hypostasis Soul which is
itself a rational projection of Intellect. So, as Plotinus puts it, the Forms operate in us as laws
(), which are images of intelligible reality. 64 The laws themselves would not be sufficient
unless they were images of what we really are, intellectual loci of intelligible being.
For Plotinus, the great drama of human life is not primarily focused on whether or not we
can attain knowledge of Forms, but on whether or not we can re-connect with our own true
identities as loci of Forms. To attain this identity is perforce to know Forms. Within the
framework of the three nature, human life is viewed as profoundly alienated from eternal
reality. The argument for the undescended intellect entails that this alienation is a self-alienation.
Accordingly, Plotinus understands as a central Platonic text Theaetetus 176A5-C5. There,
Socrates exhorts his interlocutors to flee from here where such flight () is assimilation to
the divine as much as is possible ( ). This assimilation amounts to
the practice of virtue. 65
Given the above, Plotinus obviously takes the assimilation to be a process of selfidentification, alternatively understood as purification (). 66 Self-identification is the
obverse of separation from the bodily, not via mortification of the flesh but by the practice of
philosophy. 67 What is initially puzzling for any interpreter is that Plato has assimilation to the
divine consist in the practice of virtue with wisdom. The practice of virtue alone or without
wisdom is not sufficient, which is of course not to say that it is a bad thing. 68 It is wisdom that
transforms human beings into the intellects that they really are already. The practice that
achieves wisdom, namely, philosophy, makes us progressively ill at ease in bodies and
progressively more at ease in the intelligible realm. To interpret Plato otherwise is to risk
viewing our rewards and punishments for lives lived here below in decidedly anachronistic
terms. I mean that on this view the virtuous lifewhether it includes philosophy or notis
64

See V 3 [49], 4.2.

It is instructive to read alongside Plotinus interpretation of this passage within the systematic framework of
Platonism contemporary efforts either to discount or to completely ignore the passage. What was for Plotinus and
Platonists after him perhaps the main emblem of Platonism is for contemporary scholars useless for shedding any
insight on the dialogues much less on Platonism itself. See Irwin (1977, 1995) for nearly 800 pages of analysis of
Platos ethics which nowhere discuss the meaning and significance of assimilation to the divine.
66
See Phd. 68B8-C3 along with I 2 [19], 1.1-10, II 3 [52], 9.19-24, III 6 [26], 5.13-15, V 1 [10], 10.24-32.
67
See the treatise On Dialectic, I 3 [20], 1.1ff where philosophical dialectic is explicitly the technique for
purification and hence for assimilation to the divine.
68
At Rep. 619B7-D1 we learn of a man who, having lived a virtuous life is given the opportunity to choose his next
life. Incredibly, he chooses the life of a tyrant. And Platos explanation for this is that shared in virtue by habit
without philosophy ( ). Cf. 518D11 where it is wisdom ( ) that
is the term used.
65

13

rewarded in the way that a parent rewards a child. And this can only be if we endow the
intelligible realm with real parents or with persons caring for us. Plotinus rejection of the view
can be otherwise represented as his rejection of a literal interpretation of Platos eschatological
myths.
If there is virtue with and without philosophy, then it is reasonable to interpret Plato as
implicitly endorsing grades of virtue. 69 The impact of this interpretation on later Platonism, no
doubt via Porphyrys thematization of it in his Sentences, is immense. The popular and political
virtue ( ) of Phaedo is not vice. 70 But it is not philosophical
virtue either. It is, according to Plotinus, the social virtue of a human being. We are not,
however, primarily human beings. We are intellects. The valorization of human virtue without
the recognition of this truth is not the solution to any important philosophical problem; it is the
problem itself. The very idea of grades of virtue, already implicit for Plotinus in the distinction
between the lower and higher mysteries of Symposium, is unintelligible apart from the
metaphysical framework within which it is set. Taking Plato seriously, Plotinus assumes that he
does not aim to say unintelligible things or that he has nothing particular in mind when he makes
extraordinary claims such as the exhortation to assimilation to the divine in Theaetetus. On the
contrary, with the framework in place, all or most of what Plato does say becomes readily
intelligible.
If we possessed more than a handful of fragments of the works of the perhaps 100-200
self-declared Platonic philosophers of the period known unhelpfully as Middle Platonism, we
would perhaps see Plotinus distinctive contribution to Platonism more clearly. For after
Plotinus, and despite disagreement over details, Platonists generally followed in his path. It is
not that Plotinus was unique as a systematizer of Platonism. This project was well under way in
the Old Academy, beginning with Plato himself. It is that Plotinus strovewith what I claim is
considerable successto situate within that systematic framework virtually everything Plato
says of consequence. That meant that the system is bigger, so to speak, than its concrete
applications, especially in the dialogues, but also in the oral teachings.

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