The Long ConversationA timeline of world philosophy

Philosopher

Plotinus

c. 204 – 270 CE

Founder of Neoplatonism, who taught that all reality flows from a single, indescribable source, the One, and that the soul can return to it.

Damaged marble head of an older, bearded man
Marble head in the museum at Ostia, one of several copies of a portrait sometimes identified as Plotinus; the identification is uncertain.Photo: Paolo Monti, 1969 (BEIC) · CC BY-SA 4.0 · See the original

Plotinus studied philosophy in Alexandria and taught in Rome from the mid-240s until shortly before his death. His writings were edited after his death by his student Porphyry, who arranged them into six groups of nine treatises, the Enneads.

Developing ideas from Plato, Plotinus described reality as a hierarchy flowing from the One, which is beyond being and beyond description, through Intellect and Soul down to the physical world. Human beings can turn inward and rise towards the One through philosophy and contemplation. His thought shaped late ancient philosophy and, through Augustine and others, Christian, Jewish and Islamic thought.

Tradition
Western
Region
Alexandria and Rome
Influenced by
Plato
Aristotle
Influenced
Augustine

Key works

  • Enneads

Sources

  1. Paul Kalligas, Plotinus, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy