DAM (Plotinos)

Plotinus; Plotinos, OK. 204-OK. 269 years. n. e., the Greek philosopher, founder of Neoplatonism. Place from Likopolya in Egypt. Youth held in Alexandria, listened to the lectures of many philosophers, but SAMO strong impression on him produced Ammonium Sacco, whose student he was 11 years old. After 40 year of his life he moved to Rome, where his teaching has found many followers, among them were the Emperor himself Gallen and his wife Salonina. Using their patronage P. proposed a project basis in the City Campaign philosophers' Platonopolya ", whose residents could realize the social ideals of Plato. It also had to settle myself P. with his students. But this plan was not implemented. P. enjoyed in Rome, highly respected and popular. He taught there for over 25 years. Write started late, about the fiftieth year of life. He left behind a 54 labor, which his pupil Porphyry published under the title of Ennead. Our knowledge of life and activity of P. we are also obliged Porfiry, who prefaced his edition of an extensive entry on the life of Plotinus and his books.

Porfiry, Amelia and physician Evstioh were the closest friends and most outstanding pupils P. The first edition of the works of P. should be considered works, personally written by the author and distributed in a circle of friends and students. Second edition, apparently, shortly after the death of PA, has prepared Evstioh, placing the works in chronological order. Ennead Porfiry is the third edition of the works of P. It pushed the previous edition and has had an enormous influence on the history of human thought. Porphyry abandoned the chronological principle Evstioha and arranged the works according to their themes: namely, a group works together on similar topics and found that, in this case, we see 6 large sections of 9 works in every (Ennead). Three first Ennead include books on ethics and the empirical world, the fourth and fifth - a book about the soul and mind, the sixth - a book about the good (Absolute). Each book Porphyry gave "title" (kephalaion): a brief recapitulation, . supplemented by observations about the circumstances of writing the book - as well as "pin" (epicheirema), . kind afterword, . containing the necessary comments and clarifications to the text,
. The titles of works in its edition belonged not to the AP, but his readers. The division of labor on problem groups facilitated familiarity with the difficult teachings P. Artworks P. were diatribe.

We find in them all the features of modern P. literary diatribe: a dispute with an assumed enemy, poetic quotations, improvisation, linguistic liberties. Despite this, the works of P. are individual and unique character. To understand them, you want really good to know the philosophy of P. and mindful of its abstract nature. P. in his philosophy repelled by Plato. He took Plato's separation of ideal and real worlds, but tried to destroy the gulf separating them, to approve the unity of being and create a monistic system, linking the elements separated by Plato. To achieve this goal, he looked at the world from the perspective of its birth and development. Various forms of life was in his stages of the development of a single. The real world is indeed different from the ideal, the earth - from the divine, but one comes from another. There is a plurality of worlds, there is one being, in its development which has taken on various forms. According to AP, the characteristic feature of being an act of creation, it creates ever new forms which are submitted to the emanations. The theory of emanations - the basic core of the system P. Emanations are subject to certain laws: the more perfect being, the more creative power given to him, and every form of life comes from other, more perfect.

The order of birth emanations corresponds reduce their perfection. In this regard, UR There are three basic forms of existence: 1) by being - the Absolute, 2) an ethereal world of reason (kosmos noetos) and 3) the material world of the senses (kosmos aisthetos): the soul and matter. From the Absolute, which is P. presents as the supreme beauty, supreme good and higher unity, born emanations, other forms of life, less sophisticated and more dependent. These forms of P. called hypostasis. He distinguishes two or three hypostasis: 1) peace of mind, 2) the empirical world: the soul and matter. Only the peace of mind really exists, embodies the full and continued existence, that is ontological; sensible world is always "is", and therefore bears gigneticheskoe being. Both the world has always existed and will exist, but if the first could not exist without the second, the second without the first - no. Infinity existence of both worlds is based on the eternity of the Absolute. Distinction peace of mind and world of the senses corresponds to the Platonic division of the material world and the world of ideas. New from P. was the concept of the Absolute and emanations. First hypostasis of the Absolute is the world of spirit, or ideal, the second - the psychic world, understood P. a single world soul, which contains all the individual soul. Last hypostasis - this matter. She - the limit of the process of emanation. This process is inevitable, it must stem from the nature of being. This postulate is a basic principle of philosophical monism P. In the human heart M. singled out two main components: the lowest and highest per capita. Inf soul performed all functions related to the body, plants and animals - P. gives it responsibility for all the imperfections and errors. But supreme soul is free from them and thus able to achieve the highest levels being. This return journey of the soul to perfection P. calls the "way up". Thus, on the one hand we have a series of emanations from the most perfect form of existence to the less sophisticated, and with another - the rapture of the soul from being less perfect to more perfect. The soul can soar in various ways: 1) through the knowledge (ecstasy, . who was the supreme mystery and true to the philosophy of AP), 2) through aesthetic perception (the art, . according to P., . is the embodiment of ideas and a means of assimilation of the deity, for the first time in his theory of art has become a necessary element of a philosophical system), and 3) by improving the moral (ethics),
. After the death of P. acted already 3 famous Neo-Platonic school: Alexandrian-Roman (Porphyry and Longinus, III in. n. e.) Syriac (its founder - lamblichus, IV in. n. e.) and Athens (the most prominent representative - Proclus, V in. n. e.). Influenced by the philosophy P. was Augustine, as well as many Christian theologians and philosophers of modern times, such as Maine de Biran in France or Schelling in Germany.