Plotinus ENNEAD V.5: That the Intelligibles are not External to the Intellect, and on the Good: Translation, with an Introduction, and Commentary (The Enneads of Plotinus) - Softcover

Gerson, Lloyd P.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1930972857 ISBN 13: 9781930972858

Publisher: Parmenides Publishing, 2013

Synopsis

Platonists beginning in the Old Academy itself and up to and including Plotinus struggled to understand and articulate the relation between Plato’s Demiurge and the Living Animal which served as the model for creation. The central question is whether “contents” of the Living Animal, the Forms, are internal to the mind of the Demiurge or external and independent. For Plotinus, the solution depends heavily on how the Intellect that is the Demiurge and the Forms or intelligibles are to be understood in relation to the first principle of all, the One or the Good. The treatise V.5 [32] sets out the case for the internality of Forms and argues for the necessary existence of an absolutely simple and transcendent first principle of all, the One or the Good. Not only Intellect and the Forms, but everything else depends on this principle for their being.

About this title

Book Description:

Background on Plotinus

Plotinus was a Platonist, committed to expounding the doctrines put forward by Plato some seven centuries earlier. He was born and educated in Egypt, where he studied the teachings of Plato under the guidance of Ammonius Saccas. He came to Rome in 244 BCE and built up a circle of followers devoted to studying Plato through Plato's own works and those of philosophers, both Platonist and non-Platonist, of the intervening centuries. From his fiftieth year Plotinus himself wrote down, in Greek, the findings of the seminars, and these writings were later edited by one of his pupils, Porphyry, and published in six groups of nine treatises entitled the Enneads (from the Greek word for nine – ennea).

About the Author:

Lloyd P. Gerson is professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto. He is the author or editor of some 20 books and approximately 200 articles and reviews, mainly in ancient philosophy. He works especially on Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus. He has also translated woks of Aristotle (with H. G. Apostle), Hellenistic philosophy (with Brad Inwood), and Neoplatonic philosophy (with John Dillon). Among his authored works are God and Greek Philosophy (Routledge, 1990), Plotinus. (Arguments of the Philosophers Series. Routledge, 1994), Knowing Persons. A Study in Plato (Oxford, 2004), Aristotle and Other Platonists (Cornell, 2005), Ancient Epistemology (Cambridge, 2009). 

About this edition

• Publisher: Parmenides Publishing
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1930972857
• ISBN 13: 9781930972858
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 225
• Editor: Dillon John M., Smith Andrew