Aristotle and Plotinus on the Intellect

Aristotle and Plotinus on the Intellect
Author: Mark J. Nyvlt
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2012
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0739167758

This book emphasizes that Aristotle was aware of the philosophical attempt to subordinate divine Intellect to a prior and absolute principle. Nyvlt argues that Aristotle transforms the Platonic doctrine of Ideal Numbers into an astronomical account of the unmoved movers, which function as the multiple intelligible content of divine Intellect. Thus, within Aristotle we have in germ the Plotinian doctrine that the intelligibles are within the Intellect. While the content of divine Intellect is multiple, it does not imply that divine Intellect possesses a degree of potentiality, given that potentiality entails otherness and contraries. Rather, the very content of divine Intellect is itself; it is Thought Thinking Itself. The pure activity of divine Intellect, moreover, allows for divine Intellect to know the world, and the acquisition of this knowledge does not infect divine Intellect with potentiality. The status of the intelligible object(s) within divine Intellect is pure activity that is identical with divine Intellect itself, as T. De Koninck and H. Seidl have argued. Therefore, the intelligible objects within divine Intellect are not separate entities that determine divine Intellect, as is the case in Plotinus.-- Book Description from Website.

Plotinus the Platonist

Plotinus the Platonist
Author: David J. Yount
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2014-10-23
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1472575237

In this insightful new book David J. Yount argues, against received wisdom, that there are no essential differences between the metaphysics of Plato and Plotinus. Yount covers the core principles of Plotinian thought: The One or Good, Intellect, and All-Soul (the Three Hypostases), Beauty, God(s), Forms, Emanation, Matter, and Evil. After addressing the interpretive issues that surround the authenticity of Plato's works, Plotinus: The Platonist deftly argues against the commonly held view that Plotinus is best interpreted as a Neo-Platonist, proposing he should be thought of as a Platonist proper. Yount presents thorough explanations and quotations from the works of each classical philosopher to demonstrate his thesis, concluding comprehensively that Plato and Plotinus do not essentially differ on their metaphysical conceptions. This is an ideal text for Plato and Plotinus scholars and academics, and excellent supplementary reading for upper-level undergraduates students and postgraduate students of ancient philosophy.

Plotinus on Intellect

Plotinus on Intellect
Author: Eyjólfur Kjalar Emilsson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2007-02-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 019928170X

Plotinus (205-269 AD) is considered the founder of Neoplatonism, the dominant philosophical movement of late antiquity, and a rich seam of current scholarly interest. Whilst Plotinus' influence on the subsequent philosophical tradition was enormous, his ideas can also be seen as the culmination of some implicit trends in the Greek tradition from Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics.Emilsson's in-depth study focuses on Plotinus' notion of Intellect, which comes second in his hierarchical model of reality, after the One, unknowable first cause of everything. As opposed to ordinary human discursive thinking, Intellect's thought is all-at-once, timeless, truthful and a direct intuition into 'things themselves'; it is presumably not even propositional. Emilsson discusses and explains this strong notion of non-discursive thought and explores Plotinus' insistence that this mustbe the primary form of thought.Plotinus' doctrine of Intellect raises a host of questions that Emilsson addresses. First, Intellect's thought is described as an attempt to grasp the One and at the same time as self-thought. How are these two claims related? How are they compatible? What lies in Plotinus' insistence that Intellect's thought is a thought of itself? Second, Plotinus gives two minimum requirements of thought: that it must involve a distinction between thinker and object of thought, and that the object itselfmust be varied. How are these two pluralist claims related? Third, what is the relation between Intellect as a thinker and Intellect as an object of thought? Plotinus' position here seems to amount to a form of idealism, and this is explored.

The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus

The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus
Author: Lloyd P. Gerson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 482
Release: 1996-08-13
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1139825259

Each volume of this series of companions to major philosophers contains specially commissioned essays by an international team of scholars, together with a substantial bibliography, and will serve as a reference work for students and non-specialists. One aim of the series is to dispel the intimidation such readers often feel when faced with the work of a difficult and challenging thinker. Plotinus was the greatest philosopher in the 700-year period between Aristotle and Augustine. He thought of himself as a disciple of Plato, but in his efforts to defend Platonism against Aristotelians, Stoics, and others, he actually produced a reinvigorated version of Platonism that later came to be known as 'Neoplatonism'. In this volume, sixteen leading scholars introduce and explain the many facets of Plotinus' complex system. They place Plotinus in the history of ancient philosophy while showing that he was a founder of medieval philosophy.

Aristotle and Other Platonists

Aristotle and Other Platonists
Author: Lloyd P. Gerson
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2017-12-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1501716964

"Aristotle versus Plato. For a long time that is the angle from which the tale has been told, in textbooks on the history of philosophy and to university students. Aristotle's philosophy, so the story goes, was au fond in opposition to Plato's. But it was not always thus."—from the Introduction In a wide-ranging book likely to cause controversy, Lloyd P. Gerson sets out the case for the "harmony" of Platonism and Aristotelianism, the standard view in late antiquity. He aims to show that the twentieth-century view that Aristotle started out as a Platonist and ended up as an anti-Platonist is seriously flawed. Gerson examines the Neoplatonic commentators on Aristotle based on their principle of harmony. In considering ancient studies of Aristotle's Categories, Physics, De Anima, Metaphysics, and Nicomachean Ethics, the author shows how the principle of harmony allows us to understand numerous texts that otherwise appear intractable. Gerson also explains how these "esoteric" treatises can be seen not to conflict with the early "exoteric" and admittedly Platonic dialogues of Aristotle. Aristotle and Other Platonists concludes with an assessment of some of the philosophical results of acknowledging harmony.

Evil in Aristotle

Evil in Aristotle
Author: Pavlos Kontos
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2018-02-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1107161975

Provides the first full study of Aristotle's notion of evil and sheds light on its content, potential, and influence.

The Enigmatic Reality of Time

The Enigmatic Reality of Time
Author: Michael Wagner
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2008-11-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9047443608

The nature and existence of time is a fascinating and puzzling feature of human life and awareness. This book integrates interdisciplinary work and approaches from such fields as physics, psychology, biology, phenomenology, and technology studies with philosophical analyses and considerations to explain a number of facets of the perennnial question of time's nature and existence, both in contemporary and in its initial classical Greek context; and it then explores and explains two of the most influential investigations of time in classical Western thought: Aristotle's, as presented in his Physics, and the (neo)Platonist Plotinus' in his treatise On Time and Eternity. Original interpretative perspectives are argued in both cases, and special attention is paid to Plotinus as partly responding to and critiquing Aristotle's account.

Plotinus' Legacy

Plotinus' Legacy
Author: Stephen Gersh
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2019-04-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108415288

Using a series of case-studies from across European philosophical traditions, this book traces the influence of Neoplatonism over the centuries.

Plato and Aristotle in Agreement?

Plato and Aristotle in Agreement?
Author: George E. Karamanolis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 430
Release: 2006-04-06
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199264562

George Karamanolis breaks new ground in the study of later ancient philosophy by examining the interplay of the two main schools of thought, Platonism and Aristotelianism, from the first century BC to the third century AD. Arguing against prevailing scholarly assumption, he argues that the Platonists turned to Aristotle only in order to elucidate Plato's doctrines and to reconstruct Plato's philosophy, and that they did not hesitate to criticize Aristotle when judging him to be at odds with Plato. Karamanolis offers much food for thought to ancient philosophers and classicists.