87 - A God is My Co-Pilot: the Life and Works of Plotinus
Peter introduces Plotinus, the greatest philosopher of late antiquity and the founder of Neoplatonism.
Further Reading
For the works of Plotinus the best English translation is that in the 7 volume Loeb series, by A.H. Armstrong. The evocative older translation of S. MacKenna is available here or from Penguin books. Both include Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus.
• P. Adamson, Studies on Plotinus and al-Kindī (Aldershot: 2014).
• G. Clark, “Philosophic Lives and the Philosophic Life: Porphyry and Iamblichus,” in T. Hägg and P. Rousseau, Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: 2000), 29-51.
• R. Dufour, Plotinus: A Bibliography 1950–2000 [special issue of Phronesis] (Leiden: 2002).
• L.P. Gerson, Plotinus (London, 1998).
• L.P. Gerson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus (Cambridge: 1996)
• D. O’Meara, Plotinus: an Introduction to the Enneads (Oxford: 1993).
• J.M. Rist, Plotinus: The Road to Reality (Cambridge: 1967).
Stanford Encyclopedia: Plotinus
Comments
Great start to the
Great start to the Neoplatonism series, I look forward to the rest!
I have a quick question, do you know of any online sources where I could sample the Armstrong translation? I have the MacKenna, but I′ve never found it to be particularly good reading.
Armstrong translation
Well, no doubt it could be downloaded illegally from somewhere but as far as I know Armstrong is not on the internet. It is a far better translation, though, and also is printed facing the Greek. The only downside is that it is 7 volumes so buying all of it is a bit pricey.
Greek terminilogy
I seem to remember that in one of the episodes (on Neoplatonism?) a Greek term was mentioned that is used to signal that the statement being made (about God) is not to be taken literally (as this would create a problem for negative theology). Do you remember such a term being mentioned?
Non-literal
Maybe I mentioned when talking about Plotinus, Enneads 6.8 that he modifies positive statements about the one with "as if" - the Greek is "hoion".
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