Plotinus And The Presocratics: A Philosophical Study Of Presocratic Influences In Plotinus' Enneads (s U N Y Series In Ancient Greek Philosophy)

PLOTINUS PLOTINUS AND ANDTHE THE PPRESOCRATICS RESOCRATICS AAPhilosophical PhilosophicalStudy StudyofofPresocratic Presocratic Influences InfluencesininPlotinus’ Plotinus’Enneads Enneads GIANNIS GIANNISSTAMATELLOS STAMATELLOS Plotinus and the Presocratics SUNY series in Ancient Greek Philosophy Anthony Preus, editor Plotinus and the Presocratics A Philosophical Study of Presocratic Influences in Plotinus’ Enneads Giannis Stamatellos State University of New York Press To my grandparents Nikos and Elpinike Tetradi This page intentionally left blank. 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