PLOTINUS PLOTINUS A AN AN A N N D DTT H H EE RESOCRATICS PPRESOCRATICS A APhilosophical PhilosophicalStudy StudyofofPresocratic Presocratic Influences InfluencesininPlotinus Plotinus Enneads Enneads ’
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GIANNIS GIANNISSTAMATELLOS STAMATELLOS
Plotinus and the Presocratics
Plotinus and the Presocratics
SUNY series in Ancient Greek Philosophy Anthony Preus, editor
Plotinus and the Presocratics A Philosophical Study of Presocratic Presocratic Influences in Plotinus’ Enneads
Giannis Stamatellos
State University of New York Press
To my grandparents Nikos and Elpinike Tetradi
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Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
xi
INTRODUCTION
1
1
3
THE ORIGINS OF PLOTINUS’ PHILOSOPHY
1.1 Plotinus’ Predecessors
3
1.2 Plotinus’ Philosophical Method
4
1.2.1 Lectures and Writings
5
1.2.2 Language, Simile, and Metaphor
6
1.2.3 Quoting Predecessors
8
1.3 Plotinus’ Philosophical Sources
10
1.3.1 Plato
11
1.3.2 Aristotle
14
1.3.3 Stoics and Epicureans
14
1.3.4 Middle-Platonists, Aristotelians, and Neopythagoreans
15
1.3.5 Gnostics, Christians, the Orient, and Other Contemporary Movements
17
1.4 Plotinus and the Presocratics
19
2
ONE AND UNITY
23
2.1 The One in Plotinus
23
2.2 The Presocratic One in the Enneads
26
2.3 Parmenides’ Monism
30
2.4 The Ineffable One
33
2.4.1 The Apophatism of the First Principle
35
2.4.2 The Pythagorean Apophatism of the Monad
36
vii
viii
Contents
2.5 The One as First Principle
42
2.5.1 Heraclitus’ One
44
2.5.2 Empedocles’ Philia
48
2.5.3 Anaxagoras’ Mind
53
INTELLECT AND BEING
59
3.1 Plotinus’ Theory of Intellect
59
3.2 Eleatic Being in the Enneads
64
3.3 The Nature of Being
65
3
3.3.1 Parmenides’ Theory of Being
66
3.3.2 Plotinus on Parmenides’ Being
70
3.3.3 Thinking and Being
72
3.4 The Predicates of Being
4
80
3.4.1 Ungenerated and Indestructible
81
3.4.2 Indivisible and Self-identical
83
3.4.3 Imperturbable and Changeless
84
ETERNITY AND TIME
89
4.1 Plotinus’ Theory of Eternity and Time
89
4.2 Eternity and Time in the Presocratics
94
4.3 The Presocratic Theories of Eternity and Time in the Enneads
96
4.4 The Timelessness of Being
99
4.4.1 Philolaus’ Eternal Continuance and Plato’s Eternity of the Forms
101
4.4.2 Parmenides’ Timelessness of Being
105
4.4.3 Plotinus’ Timelessness of Eternity
111
4.5 The Eternal Life of Intellect
112
4.5.1 Eternity in Heraclitus
114
4.5.2 Eternal Life in Empedocles
117
Contents
ix
4.6 The Everlastingness of Time
120
4.6.1 The Myth of Time
121
4.6.2 The Everlastingness of the Cosmos
123
4.6.3 The Movement of the Spheres, Eternal Recurrence, and Spiral Time
129
MATTER AND SOUL
135
5
5.1 Matter and Ensouled Body in Plotinus
135
5.2 Plotinus’ Criticism of Presocratic Matter
138
5.2.1 Anaximander’s apeiron
139
5.2.2 Empedocles’ Theory of the Four Elements
142
5.2.3 Anaxagoras’ Theory of Matter
145
5.2.4 The Atomic Theory of Matter
150
5.3 Plotinus’ Theory of the Ensouled Body
156
6
5.3.1 The Presocratic Theories of the Ensouled Body in the Enneads
158
5.3.2 Heraclitus’ Theory of Soul and Physical Alteration
158
5.3.3 The daimo¯n in Empedocles
166
CONCLUSION
173
APPENDIX: TEXT OF PRESOCRATIC FRAGMENTS IN PLOTINUS’ ENNEADS
