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Rating: 
Summary: head-first into the rarefied....
Review: If you adore the intellect and see in it the only way to the highest, purest, and most divine knowledge, than this is your book--but it isn't mine. Page after page of speculation about the higher realms open only to a mind freed from the crude considerations of the flesh....I kept hoping that Plotinus would realize his vision and disappear before finishing, but it didn't happen.
Rating:
Summary: head-first into the rarefied....
Review: If you adore the intellect and see in it the only way to the highest, purest, and most divine knowledge, than this is your book--but it isn't mine. Page after page of speculation about the higher realms open only to a mind freed from the crude considerations of the flesh....I kept hoping that Plotinus would realize his vision and disappear before finishing, but it didn't happen.
Rating: 
Summary: The most important book I have read! In a the "perfect" ed.
Review: It seems to me that the previous reviewer just doesn't like books in this genre at all... Why review a Western - even the best Western ever written - if you hate Westerns?Anyway, I think most people who likes the writings of Rudolf Steiner, Jacob Boehme, Plato, Meister Eckhart, Madame Blavatsky, Manly Hall and the like will value this book. It's in an intellectual style, so although what he thinks is similar to what Krishnamurti or Joseph Campbell think, the style will put some people off... I personally can take either style depending on my mood, and find a certain kind of precision is won by addressing things to this extent from the intellect and another kind of poetic or musical precision is lost in this intellectual style. But then I'm basically a very nerdy sort of person trying to disguise myself as a citizen. I think just by reading a sentence here or there from the book, you can judge in a few moments whether the style and content are for you. Plotinus is a mystic. He believed the transcendent realm to be more REAL than this material realm. He believed the material realm to emanate from the transcendent realms... or to be more accurate, he didn't BELIEVE this, but he SAW this through mystical insight. And this book is just a series of some of his notes regarding the nature of things from the perspective of this higher consciousness. I just read this book for the first time a couple weeks ago at the local university library, and it immediately fell in with my favorite books. I'm the sort of person that spends a couple months preoccupied with a certain range of questions, and when I reach a certain level of clarity about them, my curiosity drifts to something else. Plotinus struck me as a wellspring of perspectives on the kinds of issues that interest me... something I'll keep returning to. If you will indulge me, let me offer a case in point... recently I have found myself interested in the question of what the relationship is between events that happen sequentially in time and the general laws of nature which govern them. My brother is a nuclear physicist. I was telling him about a couple premonitory experiences I had, and he started musing about how the current laws of physics would have to be modified account for travel backward in time... I didn't follow what he said entirely, but he did mention that the only major physical law which presumed that time moved in one direction was the second law of thermodynamics. He said that the big problem with backward motion in time was that there would have to be some kind of constraints to prevent obvious paradoxes... like you go back before you were born and kill your mother. He said that perhaps stronger constraints could be applied to the wave function to allow for this. ??? Then we started discussing how a lot of people are uncomfortable with the 'counter-intuitiveness' of quantum theory. Our tendency is to ask which particle hit which particle when, and from the perspective of QED, that question makes no sense. You just have to calculate probablities over all possible paths and not ask what exactly happened - who the guilty party is, so to speak. We like a knee-bone-connected-to-shin-bone sort of outlook. This whole range of questioning concerns (to my mind) the nature of the relationship between motion in time and general laws which govern it. In order to 'explain' or understand certain kinds of phenomena in nature, you have to back away one step from the specifics and fly up into the realm that transcends them. This was Plotinus' specialty. Well, a couple days later, I ran across Plotinus in the library and in the 4th Ennead, I found a whole range of questioning that joggled my thinking relative to this in some way I can't define. I saw, for example, that this is similar to the linguist deSaussure's distinction between langue and parole. (I'm a linguist.) A whole range of questions on the structure of language might be profitably viewed from this perspective. So I can't say, "Read this book because it's fun and it will help you build a better bridge." But I'm absolutely convinced that the guy was for real, that he spent a lifetime patiently wandering through certain realms which seem the most irrelevant to us, but are in fact the most relevant... that he was unquestionably an expert in what he did. An example of Plotinus writing to give you a flavor: "No doubt the task of the soul in its more emphatically reasoning phase is intellection: but it must have another as well, or it would be indistinguishable from the Intellectual Principle. To its quality of being intellective, it adds the quality by which it attains its particular manner of being... It looks toward its higher and has intellection toward itself and it conserves its particular being, toward its lower and orders, administers, governs." (Website removed)
Rating:
Summary: A River of Good Thoughts
Review: It seems to me that the previous reviewer just doesn't like books in this genre at all... Why review a Western - even the best Western ever written - if you hate Westerns? Anyway, I think most people who likes the writings of Rudolf Steiner, Jacob Boehme, Plato, Meister Eckhart, Madame Blavatsky, Manly Hall and the like will value this book. It's in an intellectual style, so although what he thinks is similar to what Krishnamurti or Joseph Campbell think, the style will put some people off... I personally can take either style depending on my mood, and find a certain kind of precision is won by addressing things to this extent from the intellect and another kind of poetic or musical precision is lost in this intellectual style. But then I'm basically a very nerdy sort of person trying to disguise myself as a citizen. I think just by reading a sentence here or there from the book, you can judge in a few moments whether the style and content are for you. Plotinus is a mystic. He believed the transcendent realm to be more REAL than this material realm. He believed the material realm to emanate from the transcendent realms... or to be more accurate, he didn't BELIEVE this, but he SAW this through mystical insight. And this book is just a series of some of his notes regarding the nature of things from the perspective of this higher consciousness. I just read this book for the first time a couple weeks ago at the local university library, and it immediately fell in with my favorite books. I'm the sort of person that spends a couple months preoccupied with a certain range of questions, and when I reach a certain level of clarity about them, my curiosity drifts to something else. Plotinus struck me as a wellspring of perspectives on the kinds of issues that interest me... something I'll keep returning to. If you will indulge me, let me offer a case in point... recently I have found myself interested in the question of what the relationship is between events that happen sequentially in time and the general laws of nature which govern them. My brother is a nuclear physicist. I was telling him about a couple premonitory experiences I had, and he started musing about how the current laws of physics would have to be modified account for travel backward in time... I didn't follow what he said entirely, but he did mention that the only major physical law which presumed that time moved in one direction was the second law of thermodynamics. He said that the big problem with backward motion in time was that there would have to be some kind of constraints to prevent obvious paradoxes... like you go back before you were born and kill your mother. He said that perhaps stronger constraints could be applied to the wave function to allow for this. ??? Then we started discussing how a lot of people are uncomfortable with the 'counter-intuitiveness' of quantum theory. Our tendency is to ask which particle hit which particle when, and from the perspective of QED, that question makes no sense. You just have to calculate probablities over all possible paths and not ask what exactly happened - who the guilty party is, so to speak. We like a knee-bone-connected-to-shin-bone sort of outlook. This whole range of questioning concerns (to my mind) the nature of the relationship between motion in time and general laws which govern it. In order to 'explain' or understand certain kinds of phenomena in nature, you have to back away one step from the specifics and fly up into the realm that transcends them. This was Plotinus' specialty. Well, a couple days later, I ran across Plotinus in the library and in the 4th Ennead, I found a whole range of questioning that joggled my thinking relative to this in some way I can't define. I saw, for example, that this is similar to the linguist deSaussure's distinction between langue and parole. (I'm a linguist.) A whole range of questions on the structure of language might be profitably viewed from this perspective. So I can't say, "Read this book because it's fun and it will help you build a better bridge." But I'm absolutely convinced that the guy was for real, that he spent a lifetime patiently wandering through certain realms which seem the most irrelevant to us, but are in fact the most relevant... that he was unquestionably an expert in what he did. An example of Plotinus writing to give you a flavor: "No doubt the task of the soul in its more emphatically reasoning phase is intellection: but it must have another as well, or it would be indistinguishable from the Intellectual Principle. To its quality of being intellective, it adds the quality by which it attains its particular manner of being... It looks toward its higher and has intellection toward itself and it conserves its particular being, toward its lower and orders, administers, governs." (Website removed)
Rating:
Summary: Arguably the greatest mind in Western culture
Review: Plotinus ought to be read and digested by anyone who asks the ultimate question. Ultimately, his words point to a central experience - and presuppose that we wish to tread the same way. Western philosophy has had a lot of 'stick' in recent years, an inevitable reaction - given the fact that since the 18th c., much if not most Western philosophy has become a head trip - a tangle of knots. Modern philosophers like Heidegger have located the problem further back - with Platonism, and it has become a common place to see all Western philosophy as chopped logic, resulting in a fragmented perception of reality. Everything Plotinus says - points to a crowning experience, what he termed 'henosis' - realising a state of 'at-onement.' Hence, any idea of identifying Plotinus use of the term 'Nous' (translated as 'intellect' in English) with its narrower, modern equivalent, would be a fatal misunderstanding. Plotinus leaves no room for distinctions between the knower and the known, presenting a marked parallel with Buddhist intuitions. Given the extensive influence that Buddhism has exerted upon western culture in recent years, it would be a crime to ignore the fruit-ful parallels afforded by Plotinus. More to the point, a reading of Plotinus raises some serious questions about the verdict of people like Heidegger - when it comes to the history of Western philosophy. Moreover, it would not do to whinge about the Christian refutation of 'pagans,'as if the Church ignored Plotinus. His ideas influenced the early Church fathers - an influence that continued with people like Aquinus, Augustine - Eckhart etc.Hence, Heidegger's view of Western philosophy/theology as a kind of degeneration and fragmentation of 'Being' - is open to question, and one wonders why a whole generation of scholars like him, have persistently ignored what philosophers like Plotinus had to say. It is not all 'bad news.' A certain kind of 'Platonism' may well amount to what Nietzsche called 'the palest and thinnest ideas of all,' but by the same token, another form of it helped shape the intuitions of Meister Eckhart, and inspired Renaissance thinkers like Ficino. W.Y. Evans-Wentz, the noted American scholar-gypsy, a Rhodes scholar who sat at the feet of eminent Tibetan Lamas, and helped pave the way for a Western absorption of Buddhist ideas, held Plotinus in great esteem - seeing a perennial philosophy in the best of Western and Oriental civilisation.Hence, the Paul Brunton foundation endeavoured to promote a proper study of Plotinus' thought. Stephen Mackenna's translation of the Enneads was a labour of love, and gave his life to the task. It taxed Mackenna's strength, some portions of the text being completed by people like B.S. Page. The Larson edition is of especial value here, examining the nuance of various terms found in Plotinus' work - all told, the best single volume edition of the Enneads. Thanks to John Dillon's endeavours, an economically priced, abridged version of Mackenna's work is available in p/back. Dillon's comments are well worth taking into account. A.H. Armstrong's translation (with the Greek text) is available in separate volumes, but the Larson/Mackenna version - with plentiful notes, cross references etc., is the best buy for the general reader who wants to devote some time to the idioms used by Plotinus. Nobody finds Plotinus an easy read, but as the other reviews testify, those who allow Plotinus' intuitions to play upon their minds, and read between the lines, will find their vision enlarged. It is no small thing to discover that our microcosmic selves participate in the life of the divine energeia - embodying some-thing of its power, enabling us to share in the life of the whole - to feel and know that we are at one with it. Like the Yi-Ching, the Upanishads, or Prajnaparamita, Plotinus' is one of those seminal influences, providing the pinnacle of insight for a whole civilisation. Wells may be forgotten or blocked over, but the water is always there to drink.
Rating:
Summary: the ultimate sky-hook
Review: Readers of mine may notice that I rarely speak of fiction and prefer
the term "imaginative literature." Plotinus, by trade, was a
philosopher, and some of the greatest in his profession, apart from
unusual powers of reasoning, are not exactly conspicuous for their
imagination. But others did great and displayed fertile imagination
and linguistic felicity. Even if totally refuted in a strictly
philosophical sense, their work remains to be a source of inspiration
and a joy to read.
Plotinus began publishing in the advanced
age of 49. His work became the hidden nursery of Christian theology;
something he certainly didn't intend. The Christian apologist
Tatian, in his address "Against the Greeks," expressed an
increasingly popular sentiment when he said: "I am not to worship
God's creation made for our use. The Sun and the Moon were made on
our account. How then shall I worship my own ministers?" Plotinus,
usually never shrill, replied in strong terms:
"Human
temerity is only too willing to accept such grandiloquent ravings. The
simple folks hear: 'People whose worship is inherited from
antiquity are not His children - you are!' So you address the
lowest of men as brothers, but you deny this courtesy to the Sun and
disown your ties with the Cosmos?" Plotinus created the last great
synthesis of antique philosophy. It combined Plato's theory of Ideas
with a doctrine of emanation, a constant flux of creative energy from
the primeval One through several agencies all the way down to humans,
animals, and matter in various states of lesser reality.
In
this vision even the polytheistic pantheon participates in the
ultimately undivided unity of the cause for our
existence. Plotinus' reasoning is not difficult to follow, but for
us modern semi-barbarians, his discerning subtlety often seems to
verge on empty verbiage. However the basic premise is endearingly
simple: "It is unity that makes a being. The members of every plant
and animal form a unity; separation means loss of existence."
History has been written by the victorious, so our views reflect the
dim opinions of paganism's worst enemy; but let me assure you, in
their days, the Pagans had the better thinkers on their side.
So, once in the saddle, Christians went on the offensive. Egged on
by their bishop, Alexandria's mob flayed alive the philosopher
Hypathia in her own lecture-hall, because she was a mathematician, a
philosopher, a pagan, and - what in the eyes of her Christian
opponents was her worst sin - a woman. Two centuries later, Emperor
Justinian, the bigot, switched off the lights, and drove Athen's
last philosophers into exile. It took a treaty with foreign powers,
that the last pagan intellectuals got permission to go home to their
families and end their lives in peace and darkness.
Plotinus
was always honest about the possibility to actually get it wrong:
"Consider sense knowledge: its objects seem most patently artified,
yet the doubt remains whether the apparent reality may not lie in the
states of the percipient rather than in the material before him."
He even seems to have anticipated the modern concept of gravity: "The
heavens, by their nature, will either be motionless or move by circle;
all other movement indicates outside compulsion."
In a
series of papers from 1969-1978, Professor Robert Fischer (not the
chess-champion) made explicit reference to Plotinus' description
of his mystical ecstasy. Based on controlled experiments with
mind-enhancing substances, Fischer mapped out an ascending continuum
of nervous arousal that bridges the state of meditative torpor on one
end with the surrender to white hot hysteria on the other. Such
ecstasy occurs when amphetamine or LSD or some kind of prayer
discipline breach the amnesic state boundaries, that structure our
layers of memory, and causes an overload of data which freezes the
mental "hard drive."
In Plotinus' own words:
"Abandon the duality of seer and seen, and count both as one, so that
he in its vision does not distinguish, nor even imagines a duality. He
has changed, does no longer own himself, but belongs to the One, a
center in sync with the center. He will behold a solitary light
suddenly revealing itself - not from some perceived object, but pure
and self-contained. We must not enquire its origin, for there is no
"origin." The primal One does not come on cue, it is not
like one who enters, but who is eternally present. Like one who has
entered the temple's inner sanctuary and left the images behind,
the self is perfectly still and alone. This is liberation from the
alien that besets us here ..."
Plotinus enjoyed this
experience only four times in the five or six years that his
biographer Porphyry knew him. Given the choice, I am not quite sure,
whether I really would like to relinquish my distance as separate
observer, but it is a noted fact, that everyone who ever
"returned" from the bright light of such schizoid stupor (which
includes so called "near death experiences") did so with deep
regret. It is a fact of our empirical existence, though not effected
by some numinous sky hook, as Plotinus would like us to think. Still,
the most fantastic of all philosophies could actually be the most
realistic description of the intellect and its evolution, to date.
"The Universe is organized, effective, complex, lavish, but
it cannot be at once symbol and reality. As we look upon the world,
its vastness and beauty and the order of its eternal march, and think
of the gods seen and hidden, and the life of animal and plant, let us
ascend to its archetype, to the yet more authentic sphere of unsoiled
intelligence. That archetypal world is the true Golden Age, age of
Kronos, who is the Intellectual-Principle, the exuberance of the
One." Paganism at its best.
Rating:
Summary: the ultimate sky-hook
Review: Readers of mine may notice that I rarely speak of fiction and prefer
the term "imaginative literature." Plotinus, by trade, was a
philosopher, and some of the greatest in his profession, apart from
unusual powers of reasoning, are not exactly conspicuous for their
imagination. But others did great and displayed fertile imagination
and linguistic felicity. Even if totally refuted in a strictly
philosophical sense, their work remains to be a source of inspiration
and a joy to read.
Plotinus began publishing in the advanced
age of 49. His work became the hidden nursery of Christian theology;
something he certainly didn't intend. The Christian apologist
Tatian, in his address "Against the Greeks," expressed an
increasingly popular sentiment when he said: "I am not to worship
God's creation made for our use. The Sun and the Moon were made on
our account. How then shall I worship my own ministers?" Plotinus,
usually never shrill, replied in strong terms:
"Human
temerity is only too willing to accept such grandiloquent ravings. The
simple folks hear: 'People whose worship is inherited from
antiquity are not His children - you are!' So you address the
lowest of men as brothers, but you deny this courtesy to the Sun and
disown your ties with the Cosmos?" Plotinus created the last great
synthesis of antique philosophy. It combined Plato's theory of Ideas
with a doctrine of emanation, a constant flux of creative energy from
the primeval One through several agencies all the way down to humans,
animals, and matter in various states of lesser reality.
In
this vision even the polytheistic pantheon participates in the
ultimately undivided unity of the cause for our
existence. Plotinus' reasoning is not difficult to follow, but for
us modern semi-barbarians, his discerning subtlety often seems to
verge on empty verbiage. However the basic premise is endearingly
simple: "It is unity that makes a being. The members of every plant
and animal form a unity; separation means loss of existence."
History has been written by the victorious, so our views reflect the
dim opinions of paganism's worst enemy; but let me assure you, in
their days, the Pagans had the better thinkers on their side.
So, once in the saddle, Christians went on the offensive. Egged on
by their bishop, Alexandria's mob flayed alive the philosopher
Hypathia in her own lecture-hall, because she was a mathematician, a
philosopher, a pagan, and - what in the eyes of her Christian
opponents was her worst sin - a woman. Two centuries later, Emperor
Justinian, the bigot, switched off the lights, and drove Athen's
last philosophers into exile. It took a treaty with foreign powers,
that the last pagan intellectuals got permission to go home to their
families and end their lives in peace and darkness.
Plotinus
was always honest about the possibility to actually get it wrong:
"Consider sense knowledge: its objects seem most patently artified,
yet the doubt remains whether the apparent reality may not lie in the
states of the percipient rather than in the material before him."
He even seems to have anticipated the modern concept of gravity: "The
heavens, by their nature, will either be motionless or move by circle;
all other movement indicates outside compulsion."
In a
series of papers from 1969-1978, Professor Robert Fischer (not the
chess-champion) made explicit reference to Plotinus' description
of his mystical ecstasy. Based on controlled experiments with
mind-enhancing substances, Fischer mapped out an ascending continuum
of nervous arousal that bridges the state of meditative torpor on one
end with the surrender to white hot hysteria on the other. Such
ecstasy occurs when amphetamine or LSD or some kind of prayer
discipline breach the amnesic state boundaries, that structure our
layers of memory, and causes an overload of data which freezes the
mental "hard drive."
In Plotinus' own words:
"Abandon the duality of seer and seen, and count both as one, so that
he in its vision does not distinguish, nor even imagines a duality. He
has changed, does no longer own himself, but belongs to the One, a
center in sync with the center. He will behold a solitary light
suddenly revealing itself - not from some perceived object, but pure
and self-contained. We must not enquire its origin, for there is no
"origin." The primal One does not come on cue, it is not
like one who enters, but who is eternally present. Like one who has
entered the temple's inner sanctuary and left the images behind,
the self is perfectly still and alone. This is liberation from the
alien that besets us here ..."
Plotinus enjoyed this
experience only four times in the five or six years that his
biographer Porphyry knew him. Given the choice, I am not quite sure,
whether I really would like to relinquish my distance as separate
observer, but it is a noted fact, that everyone who ever
"returned" from the bright light of such schizoid stupor (which
includes so called "near death experiences") did so with deep
regret. It is a fact of our empirical existence, though not effected
by some numinous sky hook, as Plotinus would like us to think. Still,
the most fantastic of all philosophies could actually be the most
realistic description of the intellect and its evolution, to date.
"The Universe is organized, effective, complex, lavish, but
it cannot be at once symbol and reality. As we look upon the world,
its vastness and beauty and the order of its eternal march, and think
of the gods seen and hidden, and the life of animal and plant, let us
ascend to its archetype, to the yet more authentic sphere of unsoiled
intelligence. That archetypal world is the true Golden Age, age of
Kronos, who is the Intellectual-Principle, the exuberance of the
One." Paganism at its best.
Rating:
Summary: the ultimate sky-hook
Review: Readers of mine may notice that I rarely speak of fiction and preferthe term "imaginative literature." Plotinus, by trade, was aphilosopher, and some of the greatest in his profession, apart fromunusual powers of reasoning, are not exactly conspicuous for theirimagination. But others did great and displayed fertile imaginationand linguistic felicity. Even if totally refuted in a strictlyphilosophical sense, their work remains to be a source of inspirationand a joy to read.
Plotinus began publishing in the advancedage of 49. His work became the hidden nursery of Christian theology;something he certainly didn't intend. The Christian apologistTatian, in his address "Against the Greeks," expressed anincreasingly popular sentiment when he said: "I am not to worshipGod's creation made for our use. The Sun and the Moon were made onour account. How then shall I worship my own ministers?" Plotinus,usually never shrill, replied in strong terms:
"Humantemerity is only too willing to accept such grandiloquent ravings. Thesimple folks hear: 'People whose worship is inherited fromantiquity are not His children - you are!' So you address thelowest of men as brothers, but you deny this courtesy to the Sun anddisown your ties with the Cosmos?" Plotinus created the last greatsynthesis of antique philosophy. It combined Plato's theory of Ideaswith a doctrine of emanation, a constant flux of creative energy fromthe primeval One through several agencies all the way down to humans,animals, and matter in various states of lesser reality.
Inthis vision even the polytheistic pantheon participates in theultimately undivided unity of the cause for ourexistence. Plotinus' reasoning is not difficult to follow, but forus modern semi-barbarians, his discerning subtlety often seems toverge on empty verbiage. However the basic premise is endearinglysimple: "It is unity that makes a being. The members of every plantand animal form a unity; separation means loss of existence."History has been written by the victorious, so our views reflect thedim opinions of paganism's worst enemy; but let me assure you, intheir days, the Pagans had the better thinkers on their side.
So, once in the saddle, Christians went on the offensive. Egged onby their bishop, Alexandria's mob flayed alive the philosopherHypathia in her own lecture-hall, because she was a mathematician, aphilosopher, a pagan, and - what in the eyes of her Christianopponents was her worst sin - a woman. Two centuries later, EmperorJustinian, the bigot, switched off the lights, and drove Athen'slast philosophers into exile. It took a treaty with foreign powers,that the last pagan intellectuals got permission to go home to theirfamilies and end their lives in peace and darkness.
Plotinuswas always honest about the possibility to actually get it wrong:"Consider sense knowledge: its objects seem most patently artified,yet the doubt remains whether the apparent reality may not lie in thestates of the percipient rather than in the material before him."He even seems to have anticipated the modern concept of gravity: "Theheavens, by their nature, will either be motionless or move by circle;all other movement indicates outside compulsion."
In aseries of papers from 1969-1978, Professor Robert Fischer (not thechess-champion) made explicit reference to Plotinus' descriptionof his mystical ecstasy. Based on controlled experiments withmind-enhancing substances, Fischer mapped out an ascending continuumof nervous arousal that bridges the state of meditative torpor on oneend with the surrender to white hot hysteria on the other. Suchecstasy occurs when amphetamine or LSD or some kind of prayerdiscipline breach the amnesic state boundaries, that structure ourlayers of memory, and causes an overload of data which freezes themental "hard drive."
In Plotinus' own words:"Abandon the duality of seer and seen, and count both as one, so thathe in its vision does not distinguish, nor even imagines a duality. Hehas changed, does no longer own himself, but belongs to the One, acenter in sync with the center. He will behold a solitary lightsuddenly revealing itself - not from some perceived object, but pureand self-contained. We must not enquire its origin, for there is no"origin." The primal One does not come on cue, it is notlike one who enters, but who is eternally present. Like one who hasentered the temple's inner sanctuary and left the images behind,the self is perfectly still and alone. This is liberation from thealien that besets us here ..."
Plotinus enjoyed thisexperience only four times in the five or six years that hisbiographer Porphyry knew him. Given the choice, I am not quite sure,whether I really would like to relinquish my distance as separateobserver, but it is a noted fact, that everyone who ever"returned" from the bright light of such schizoid stupor (whichincludes so called "near death experiences") did so with deepregret. It is a fact of our empirical existence, though not effectedby some numinous sky hook, as Plotinus would like us to think. Still,the most fantastic of all philosophies could actually be the mostrealistic description of the intellect and its evolution, to date.
"The Universe is organized, effective, complex, lavish, butit cannot be at once symbol and reality. As we look upon the world,its vastness and beauty and the order of its eternal march, and thinkof the gods seen and hidden, and the life of animal and plant, let usascend to its archetype, to the yet more authentic sphere of unsoiledintelligence. That archetypal world is the true Golden Age, age ofKronos, who is the Intellectual-Principle, the exuberance of theOne." Paganism at its best.
Rating:
Summary: The most important book I have read! In a the "perfect" ed.
Review: There is no other book that I have come across that contains all I need for the rest of my life! The Enneads is a veritable treasure and guide. I love the Larson edition because it is using MacKenna's poetic translation and compares it with four other translations, using unobstrusive endnotes. Also, the appendix by Anthony Damiani is probably the best piece on Plotinus' philosophy that I have ever read. I cannot too highly recommend this book for its beauty, rapture and yet deep rationality. It's philosophic poetry at its best!
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