Speaker 1: You see, something's going to happen. What's going to happen?
Speaker 2: What? Welcome to the Occult Rejects. In today's episode, we
Speaker 2: reach four and a half turns of the cosmic spiral,
Speaker 2: back past Renaissance Hermeticists, past Augustine's Confession, passed the last
Speaker 2: fires of pagan Rome, and we land in the Candle
Speaker 2: Light Salon, where an Egyptian born philosopher named Plotinus speaks
Speaker 2: of an invisible fountain that overflows into everything that breathes.
Speaker 2: Why give him a show on the Occult Rejects podcast,
Speaker 2: because that very architecture of modern occultism, emanation ascent, the
Speaker 2: purification of perception, was mordered to get by this one
Speaker 2: man's vision of.
Speaker 1: The one and its living rays.
Speaker 2: Plotinus is the hinge between classical mystery schools and every
Speaker 2: later map of hidden worlds. He duels with gnostics over
Speaker 2: whether matter is a curse or a mirror. He out
Speaker 2: argues fatalistic astrologers by insisting the stars are signs, not chains.
Speaker 2: He describes mystical union in language that echoes through Kabbala,
Speaker 2: Sufiism and Rosicrucian ritual alike. Even his optics never did
Speaker 2: I eye see the sun unless it had first become
Speaker 2: sun like. Has fueled centuries about chemical imagery about turning
Speaker 2: lead in sight to gold. So in this episode, we're
Speaker 2: not just talking about a dusty neoplatonist retracing the inner
Speaker 2: workings of Western Esotericism will follow Plotinus from Alexander's lecture
Speaker 2: holes to Rome's plague stricken streets, watching build a metaphysical
Speaker 2: ladder from matter to mind the One and test whether
Speaker 2: his promise that every soul can slip the body's dim
Speaker 2: whole way and step into unbroken light still holds weight
Speaker 2: from magicians, mystics, and everyday seekers in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: So it sharpened our nriy light that flame and get
Speaker 2: right into it. Life is the flight of the alone
Speaker 2: to the alone. The year is two seventy CE, and
Speaker 2: the Roman Empire is coming apart. At every scene. Emperors
Speaker 2: fall with the seasons, Plague drains the streets, and soldiers
Speaker 2: borrow loyalty for silver. Yet amid the collapsing institutions a
Speaker 2: quiet figure on an estate, and Campania turns his falling
Speaker 2: eyes inward and speaks of something far older and steadier
Speaker 2: than Rome, a reality he calls the One a well
Speaker 2: spring of light from which every soul has spilled, into
Speaker 2: which every soul can return. Today we retrace Plotonus's extraordinary
Speaker 2: passage from an obscure Egyptian birthplace, through the electual holes
Speaker 2: of Alexandria, across a failed Persian campaign, and into the
Speaker 2: chambers of Rome, where senators, mystics, and widows gathered to
Speaker 2: watch a man who witnesses swear slipped across the frontier
Speaker 2: of consciousness itself. Plutonus believed that the cosmos is an
Speaker 2: unbroken hymn, the one singing itself out into mind, soul,
Speaker 2: and manner, so that every star, every breath, every heartbeat
Speaker 2: is a syllable of that single continuous word. Against the
Speaker 2: despair of his error, he argued that the world is
Speaker 2: not in error to escape, but the best the possible
Speaker 2: image of its own hidden source. In this episode, we
Speaker 2: will follow the logic of his fountain like emanations, debate
Speaker 2: his gentle war with gnostics and the astrologers, and listened
Speaker 2: for the moment when philosophy slides into mysticism, when the
Speaker 2: thinker himself becomes alone with the alone. Wisdom is but
Speaker 2: the act of the intellectual principle, which drawn from the
Speaker 2: lower places and leading the soul to the above. Plotinus
Speaker 2: was born around two to four to two to five CE,
Speaker 2: during the reign of Roman Emperor Septimius Severus and Roman
Speaker 2: controlled Egypt. Later writers give his birthplace as leco Alecopolis.
Speaker 1: In Egypt, if I'm even saying that right.
Speaker 2: But Platinus himself was notably silent about his family and origins.
Speaker 2: In fact, according to his student Porphyry, if I'm even
Speaker 2: saying that right, Plotinus never disclosed his ancestry, parentage, or birthplace,
Speaker 2: reflecting a sense of shame at being in the body
Speaker 2: and a philosophy that valued the spiritual over the material.
Speaker 2: This leaves historians uncertain about his ethnic background. Some speculate
Speaker 2: he was Hellenized, Egyptian, or Greek, but all that is
Speaker 2: reasonably certain is that Greek was his native language and.
Speaker 1: Who received a Greek education.
Speaker 2: Plotinus showed little interest in his genealogy or homeland, focusing
Speaker 2: instead on intellectual and spiritual pursuits. The world into which
Speaker 2: Plotinus was born was one of great cultural and religious unrest.
Speaker 1: Egypt in the.
Speaker 2: Third century was a diverse province of the Roman Empire,
Speaker 2: where indigenous Egyptian traditions mingled with Hellenistic Greek culture and
Speaker 2: the universalizing reach of Rome. Plotinus grew up as the
Speaker 2: classical Greco Roman world was nearing the end of its
Speaker 2: Pax Romana and entering into a period of crisis. The
Speaker 2: Empire was sliding towards the third century Crisis, a turbulent
Speaker 2: era of frequent wars and political upheavals and economic difficulties.
Speaker 2: Despite these challenges, cities like Alexandria, where Platinus would later study,
Speaker 2: remained vibrant centers of learning. Alexandria, in particular was a
Speaker 2: metropolis filled with philosophers, scholars of various schools, mystics, and
Speaker 2: the early stirrings of Christian theology. This was the intellectual
Speaker 2: setting that would shape Platinus's formative years. Again, little is
Speaker 2: known of Platinus's childhood, but is clear that he was
Speaker 2: drawn to philosophy relatively late in youth. By his own account,
Speaker 2: as reported by Porphyry, it was not until about age
Speaker 2: twenty seven or twenty eight that Platinus felt an impulse
Speaker 2: to study philosophy. He traveled to Alexandria, the intellectual capital
Speaker 2: of Roman Egypt, in search of a teacher. Alexandria at
Speaker 2: this time had various philosophical instructors Stoics, Aristolians, and Platonists,
Speaker 2: but Platinus found their teachings unsatisfying. After listening to the
Speaker 2: prominent lectures of the city, he grew disheartened, feeling they
Speaker 2: did not reveal the.
Speaker 1: Deeper truths he sought.
Speaker 2: But everything changed when an acquaintance recommended he attend the
Speaker 2: lectures of his self taught Platonic philosopher named Ammonius Sacus.
Speaker 2: Poultonus went to hear Ammonius, and upon the first lecture,
Speaker 2: he was overcome with excitement, reportedly exclaiming to his friend,
Speaker 2: this is the man I was looking for. At least
Speaker 2: Plutonis had found a philosophical mentor who resonated with his ideas.
Speaker 2: He became Ammonius's devoted pupil. For the next eleven years.
Speaker 2: Under his guidance, Platinus made rapid progress in philosophy. Ammonius
Speaker 2: is a somewhat mysterious figure in philosophy.
Speaker 1: He left no.
Speaker 2: Writings and is known mainly through his famous students. He
Speaker 2: is credited with a revival of Platonic thought and Alexandria,
Speaker 2: and is sometimes considered a precursor to Neoplatonism. What is
Speaker 2: clear is that his teachings profoundly shaped Platinus. It was
Speaker 2: common in antiquity for a student to join a philosophical school,
Speaker 2: almost like entering a spiritual community, often for many years.
Speaker 2: Plutinus indeed stayed with him for eleven years, embracing a
Speaker 2: lifelong quest for truth and liberation of the spirit. During
Speaker 2: these Alexandrian years, Plautinus also absorbed the wide range of
Speaker 2: earlier Greek philosophy. Besides Ammonius's Platonic doctrines, he studied Aristotle,
Speaker 2: the Presocratics, Middle Platonists such as Numinius of Epimea, and
Speaker 2: Stoic and Neo Pythagorean ideas. This broad background would later
Speaker 2: enable Platinus to synthesize ideas from multiple traditions. His contemporaries
Speaker 2: in Alexandria likely included scholars of many types. Indeed, one
Speaker 2: tradition holds that Origin, the great Christian theologian of Alexandria,
Speaker 2: and another student named Herrenius, studied with Ammonia at the
Speaker 2: same time as Plotinus. According to Porphyry, the three students Plotinus,
Speaker 2: Origin and Herrenius agreed to keep Ammonius's teaching secret, but
Speaker 2: that pact was later broken by others when they began
Speaker 2: publishing doctrines that may have stemmed from Ammonius. Plotinus, however,
Speaker 2: kept faith and did not divulge Emonius's specific teachings in
Speaker 2: writing a testament to his loyalty and perhaps to the
Speaker 2: oral esoteric nature of Ammonius's school. Therefore, we must descend
Speaker 2: again toward the good the desire of every soul. After
Speaker 2: eleven years in Alexandria, Plotinus developed an ambition to explore
Speaker 2: Eastern wisdom firsthand. He had heard of the feigned stages
Speaker 2: of Persia and India, and wished, as porphyry rites to
Speaker 2: learn directly from the philosophy practiced among the Persians in
Speaker 2: that which is held in esteem among the people of India.
Speaker 2: Two forty two CE, an opportune moment arrived. The young
Speaker 2: Roman emperor Jiarden the third launched a military expedition against
Speaker 2: the Persian Empire. Seeing a chance to travel east under
Speaker 2: imperial auspices, Plotinus joined the expedition at age thirty eight.
Speaker 2: We do not know in what capacity he traveled, perhaps
Speaker 2: a kind of intellectual attached to the campaign, but it
Speaker 2: was unusual for a philosopher to accompany a Roman army.
Speaker 2: Some later interpreters special and speculate Poltanis may have had
Speaker 2: aristocratic connections that enabled him to attach himself to the
Speaker 2: emperor's entourage. In any case, his goal was clear to
Speaker 2: reach the heart of Persian and Indian thought. The world
Speaker 2: beyond Rome's eastern frontier beckoned with ancient wisdom traditions. However,
Speaker 2: Plotinus's eastern journey went awry almost as soon as it began.
Speaker 2: Emperor Gordian's campaign ended in a disaster in early two
Speaker 2: forty four CE. Gordian third was killed and murdered by
Speaker 2: his own troops in Mesopotamia during the Persian War. The
Speaker 2: Roman army fell into disarray, and Plotinus subtly found himself
Speaker 2: stranded deep and hostile territory. He barely escaped his life,
Speaker 2: making his way to north of Antioch and Syria with difficulty.
Speaker 2: After the armies collapsed, his dream of meeting Persian or
Speaker 2: Indian philosophers was cut short. He never reached India, nor
Speaker 2: did he directly encounter the famed Persian sages. It is
Speaker 2: worth noting that Platinus's interest in Eastern philosophies was not
Speaker 2: unusual for a man of his time. Hellenistic thinkers had
Speaker 2: long been intrigued by Indian gymnosophists from saying that correct
Speaker 2: Persian magi and Egyptian priests, while Plotinus did not to
Speaker 2: learn from Eastern masters in person. Later scholars have observed
Speaker 2: some striking parallels between Platinus's ideas and Indian philosophy. These
Speaker 2: similarities have spurred debate over whether Platinus was influenced by
Speaker 2: Indian thought or arrived at a similar conclusion independently. In
Speaker 2: the mid twentieth century, historian Emil Breheer argued that certain
Speaker 2: elements of Platinus's philosophy, such as the infinite nature of
Speaker 2: the one, were alien to prior Greek thought and might
Speaker 2: reflect Indian influence. However, this view was convincingly refuted by
Speaker 2: the scholar A. H. Armstrong in nineteen thirty six. Armstrong
Speaker 2: demonstrated that Platinus's ideas can be explained as a natural
Speaker 2: development of Greek Platonic traditions without needing to posit directly
Speaker 2: borrowing from India. Today, most scholars argue that while Platinus
Speaker 2: was curious about Eastern wisdom, there is no concrete evidence
Speaker 2: of direction influence. The resemblances likely arise from convergent philosophical
Speaker 2: insight rather than any secret contact. In Armstrong's words, Plotinus's
Speaker 2: own thought shows some striking similarities to Indian philosophy, but
Speaker 2: he never actually made contact with Eastern sages. The resemblances
Speaker 2: were more likely in natural development of the Greek tradition
Speaker 2: that he inherited. This debate illustrates how Plotinus sits at
Speaker 2: a crossroads of cultures rooted in Hellenic philosophy, yet with
Speaker 2: interesting comparisons with broader mystical traditions. After the failed expedition,
Speaker 2: Platinus regrouped at Antioch. In two forty four CE, at
Speaker 2: age forty, he traveled to Rome, then the Empire's capital,
Speaker 2: and decided to settle there. The choice of Rome was
Speaker 2: somewhat unusual for a philosopher. Many preferred Athens or Alexandria,
Speaker 2: but Rome offered Platinus a fresh start and a new audience.
Speaker 2: He arrived during the reign of Emperor Philip the Arab,
Speaker 2: the time when the Empire was turbulent externally, but Roman
Speaker 2: high society still nurtured literary and philosophical establishments. Plutonus would
Speaker 2: spend the next quarter century in Rome, teaching, writing, and
Speaker 2: becoming the center of an influential intellectual circle. Which draw
Speaker 2: into yourself, and look, if you do not find yourself beautiful,
Speaker 2: yet never cease chiseling your statue until there shall shine
Speaker 2: out on you the god like splendor of virtue. When
Speaker 2: Platinus came to Rome in two forty four CE, the
Speaker 2: city and empire were in flux. The mid third century
Speaker 2: saw a rapid succession of emperor's wars on the frontiers,
Speaker 2: economic strife.
Speaker 1: And even plague.
Speaker 2: Yet amid this chaos, Plutonus created a haven of philosophy.
Speaker 2: He quickly attracted students and patrons, gaining a reputation as
Speaker 2: a charismatic teacher. By all accounts, Plutinus's personal demeanor and
Speaker 2: ethics were exemplary, which helped him win him respect in
Speaker 2: elite Roman circles. He lived a simple and disciplined life. Reportedly,
Speaker 2: he abstained from indulgence and fine foods, avoided bants in
Speaker 2: favor of simple daily massages, and even refused to sit
Speaker 2: for a portrait because he disdained the bodily image. In
Speaker 2: one famous incident, his friend Emilius had to smuggle an
Speaker 2: artist into Platinus's lecture to sketch his likeness from observation.
Speaker 2: Since Plutinus would not pose, the resulting portrait, done without
Speaker 2: the philosopher's knowledge, was the only one of him. Plultinus's
Speaker 2: aesthetic attitude and distrust of the body were aligned with
Speaker 2: Platonist's thought that the material world is a poor shadow
Speaker 2: of higher reality. He seemed, as Porphyry said, ashamed of
Speaker 2: being in a body. Despite his private lifestyle, Platinus was
Speaker 2: deeply engaged in society Through his teaching in Rome. He
Speaker 2: formed a circle of students and friends that included some
Speaker 2: of the city's intellectual and political elite. Amongst his closest
Speaker 2: disciples were Porphyry of Tire, who would become his biographer.
Speaker 2: We had Emilius Gentilanius from Tuscany, who reportedly wrote down
Speaker 2: many of Platinus's discussions, the senator Kastrakis Firmis, and eustci
Speaker 2: Us Eustacius of Alexandria, a physician who attended Platinus till
Speaker 2: his death. Other notable associates include Zethos, an Arab aristocrat
Speaker 2: who left Platinus property and Campania, Zodicus, a literary critic
Speaker 2: and poet. They have Politus, a doctor from Sethopolis, and
Speaker 2: Serapian of Alexandria. Remarkably, women were also counted among Platinus's students,
Speaker 2: which was somewhat exceptional for the era. A wealthy Roman woman, Gemena,
Speaker 2: hosted Platinus in her house for years, and her daughter,
Speaker 2: also named Gemena, studied with him, as did a woman
Speaker 2: named Amphilia, the wife of the philosopher Amblicus' brother. This
Speaker 2: diverse group indicates Platinus's broad appeal. He was able to
Speaker 2: inspire senators, scholars, and women of high status with his philosophy.
Speaker 2: Platinus's daily activity revolved around informal lectures and discussions, where
Speaker 2: his biographer Porphyry calls conferences or meetings. He did not
Speaker 2: establish a formal school with institutional structure like Plato's academy,
Speaker 2: but rather as salon light gathering of eager learners. According
Speaker 2: to Pophary, Platinus's teaching style was conversational and unforced. His
Speaker 2: lectures had the air of conversation, and he welcomed questions
Speaker 2: and objections during sessions. He might have passages from earlier philosophers.
Speaker 2: Read aloud Atticus, Numinus, Aristotle's work, historic writings, etc. As
Speaker 2: a springboard for discussion, But he was no mere commentator.
Speaker 2: Porphyry emphasizes that Platinus followed his own path rather than tradition,
Speaker 2: using Ammonius's method of inquiry, but thinking for himself. Observers
Speaker 2: noted that when Platinus spoke intently, his intellect visibly illuminated
Speaker 2: his face. He radiated, sometimes even sweating slightly from the
Speaker 2: fervor of thought. He was always gracious, yet formidable in debate.
Speaker 2: Porphyry relates how for three days he prepped Plutinus with
Speaker 2: questions about how soul connects to body, and Platinus patiently
Speaker 2: answered until even an impatient visitor had to concede the
Speaker 2: value of resolving those difficulties before moving on. For how
Speaker 2: two fifty four CE, a decade after settling in Rome,
Speaker 2: Platinus began to write essays to capture the fruits of
Speaker 2: these philosophical discussions. Initially, he had written nothing, preferring oral teachings,
Speaker 2: but as his circle grew and new questions arose, Plutinus
Speaker 2: started composing treaties as reminders for those in the circle.
Speaker 2: These writings were often prompted by debates or problems posed
Speaker 2: during the meetings. Porphyry notes that Platinus's treaties echo the
Speaker 2: manner of analysis from his classroom, and that their purpose
Speaker 2: was to record the insights reached in discussion. Plotinus, however,
Speaker 2: was not a polished writer. He wrote rapidly in a
Speaker 2: single draft, with little concern for stylistic niceties or even
Speaker 2: correct spelling. His handwriting was reportably terrible, and he frequently
Speaker 2: omitted words, separations, and punctuations. Because of his poor eyesight,
Speaker 2: he did not revise his manuscripts much. He also disliked
Speaker 2: revisiting or editing his work. Thus many treaties remained somewhat rough.
Speaker 2: This placed a heavy burden on his students, especially Porphyry,
Speaker 2: to later edit and arrange the writings into a coherent collection.
Speaker 2: In Rome, Platinus became more than just a private teacher.
Speaker 2: He was respected in wider society and even at the
Speaker 2: empirical court. The Emperor Gallianis and his wife Selenina held
Speaker 2: Plotinus in esteem, calling him philosopher and honoring him with
Speaker 2: their presence. By this imperial favor, Ploltanus once attempted a
Speaker 2: grand practical project he petitioned to rebuild a ruined city
Speaker 2: in Campagna as a utopian community for philosophers. This abandoned settlement,
Speaker 2: which Plutonus referred to as the City of Philosophers, was
Speaker 2: to be refounded and governed according to the laws outlined
Speaker 2: in Plato's Laws. Plultanus requested that the emperor designate the
Speaker 2: territory for the community, which he proposed to name Platonopolis.
Speaker 2: He and his associates would live there, embodying Plato's ideal
Speaker 2: society under wise philosophical rule. Galianis and Salonina were initially
Speaker 2: receptive and would have granted the request, Porphyry says without
Speaker 2: more Ado, but interference at court, jealousy, or political obstacles
Speaker 2: ruined the plan. Thus the dream of Platonopolis died, showing
Speaker 2: the limits of even an esteemed philosopher's influence and a
Speaker 2: volatile imperial system. Within Platinus's household in Rome lived a
Speaker 2: noble widow named Chione and her cho which led to
Speaker 2: anecdotes of Platinus's almost uncanny insight. When Chione's valuable necklace
Speaker 2: was stolen by his servant, Platinus gathered all the servants
Speaker 2: scrutinized them closely and pointed out one man, declaring, this
Speaker 2: man is the thief. Under pressure, the man eventually confessed
Speaker 2: and returned the necklace. On another occasion, Platinus accurately foretold
Speaker 2: futures of she own's children, for example, predicting that a
Speaker 2: boy named Polman would be amorous and short lived, which
Speaker 2: proved true. These stories circulated as evidence of the philosopher's
Speaker 2: almost extraordinary intuition, or perhaps the favor of his personal
Speaker 2: daemon or guardian spirit. Indeed, one famous incident involved Platinus's
Speaker 2: guardian spirit. A certain Egyptian priest visiting Rome offered to
Speaker 2: invoke Platinus's protective damon to visible appearance. Intrigued, Platinus agreed.
Speaker 2: The ritual was performed in the Temple of Isis, which
Speaker 2: was chosen by the priest as a spiritually pure location
Speaker 2: in Rome. When the priest conjured the spirit, a divine
Speaker 2: being appeared, not a lowly spirit or demon, but a god.
Speaker 2: The Egyptian was astonished and exclaimed that Platinus's Agatho's daon
Speaker 2: was of the higher divine order. Unfortunately, the manifestation abruptly
Speaker 2: ended when the priest's assistance, foolishly strangled the sacrificial birds,
Speaker 2: either at a jealousy or panic, disrupting the rite. Nonetheless,
Speaker 2: this result implied that Platinus's soul was under the guidance
Speaker 2: of a higher divinity and not a mere intermediary spirit.
Speaker 2: Porphyry remarks that this revelation inspired Platinus to write a
Speaker 2: treatise on our Tutelary Spirit, analyzing the nature of different
Speaker 2: guardian spirits and why they differ in rank for different individuals.
Speaker 2: It also goes along with Platinus's own lofty self conception.
Speaker 2: When his student Emilius invited him to participate in certain
Speaker 2: religious observances of the moon, Platinus refused, reportedly saying it
Speaker 2: is for those beings to come to me, not for
Speaker 2: me to go to them. In other words, he felt
Speaker 2: the higher power should seek the philosopher, rather than the
Speaker 2: philosophers seeking them. This remarkable statement, which even his followers
Speaker 2: found mystifying, underscores Platinus's confident sense.
Speaker 1: Of communion with the divine realm.
Speaker 2: During these Roman years, Platinus's reputation spread beyond his immediate circle.
Speaker 2: He corresponded with renowned thinkers such as Cassius Longinus, a
Speaker 2: scholar in Athens who admired Platinus's writings. Longanis wrote letters
Speaker 2: praising Platinus as a man worthy of the highest veneration
Speaker 2: and eagerly sought copies of all his treaties, though lamenting
Speaker 2: the poor state of some manuscripts and begging Porphyries for
Speaker 2: corrected copies. There were also detractors. Some jealous philosophers in
Speaker 2: Greece accused Platinus of merely plagiarizing the ideas of Numinius.
Speaker 2: One of Platinus's devoted students, Emilius, answered discharge in a
Speaker 2: tract titled the Difference between the Doctrines of Platinus and Numinius,
Speaker 2: arguing point by point that Plutinus's system was original and
Speaker 2: not an uncredited copy. This debate over originality shows that
Speaker 2: Platinus's teachings were making enough waves to prompt comparisons with
Speaker 2: established philosophers. Plutinus himself was above the fray. His focus
Speaker 2: was on articulating truth as he saw it, rather than
Speaker 2: claiming personal innovation. In fact, he saw his work as
Speaker 2: deeply rooted in the Platonic tradition, and if anything, he
Speaker 2: viewed himself as reviving and clarifying Plato's insights rather than
Speaker 2: inventing a whole doctrine. Even Porphyry, upon first hearing Platinus's lecture,
Speaker 2: struggled to grasp some doctrines, he wrote a paper arguing
Speaker 2: against Platinus's position. Instead of taking offense, Platinus had Porphyry's
Speaker 2: critique read aloud by Emilius, and, after hearing it, simply
Speaker 2: smiled and gently said, Porphyry doesn't understand our position. He
Speaker 2: tasked Emilius to respond in writing, which led to an
Speaker 2: exchange of essays between porphy and Emilius. Only on Porphyri's
Speaker 2: third rebuttal that he finally, with difficulty, grasped the doctrine
Speaker 2: and convert to Platinus's viewpoint. Porphyry then composed a public
Speaker 2: recantation of his earlier objections, winning Platinus's approval. Now, this
Speaker 2: situation shows Platinus's patient and non dogmatic approach. He allowed
Speaker 2: debate to unfold and guided his student to understanding, rather
Speaker 2: than demanding blind acceptance. It also exemplifies how rigorous dialect
Speaker 2: was integral to his school's life, much as it had
Speaker 2: been in Plato's academy. Seek Nothing possessing nothing, lacking nothing,
Speaker 2: the one is perfect. Its exuberance has produced the new.
Speaker 2: By the late two hundred and sixties, Platinus's health was declining.
Speaker 1: In two sixty.
Speaker 2: Eight, his disciple Porphyri, who suffered a bout of depression
Speaker 2: and suicidal thoughts, was advised by Platinus to leave.
Speaker 1: Rome for a change of scenery.
Speaker 2: Porphyri departed for Sicily, and during Porphyri's absence, Platinus's own
Speaker 2: condition worsened. He developed symptoms such as horseness, vision problems,
Speaker 2: and possibly skin ulcers. Porphyry suggested it might have been
Speaker 2: diphtheria or some things similar. As his health failed, Platinus
Speaker 2: withdrew from bustling Rome to the more peaceful countryside of
Speaker 2: Campania in southern Italy. He retired to an estate at
Speaker 2: Mintone that had belonged to his deceased friend Zethos, where
Speaker 2: another friend, Castresius helped provide.
Speaker 1: For his needs.
Speaker 2: Only his student Eustacius the physician, remained by his side
Speaker 2: in those final days. Platinus died in Campania and laid
Speaker 2: two hundred and seventy at the age of sixty six.
Speaker 2: Porphyry reports a mystical and serene end. As Platinus was
Speaker 2: on his deathbed, a snake, symbol of the soul in
Speaker 2: many traditions, crawled from beneath his bed and.
Speaker 1: Slipped out through the hole in the wall.
Speaker 2: At the very moment Platinus passed away, it was as
Speaker 2: if his soul had departed the body in that guise.
Speaker 2: His last words, as recorded, encapsuling his life's goal, try
Speaker 2: to raise the divine in yourselves to the divine in all.
Speaker 2: By this, Plutinus meant that one should elevate the divine
Speaker 2: spark within one soul back to union with the ultimate
Speaker 2: divine reality of the universe. He fitting final words from
Speaker 2: a philosopher who had always taught the assent of the soul.
Speaker 2: Platinus died during the reign of Emperor Claudius the Second,
Speaker 2: and Porphyry calculates his birth to have been in the
Speaker 2: thirteenth year of Septimius Severus, based on the age of
Speaker 2: sixty six at death. Importantly, Plautinus had never revealed his
Speaker 2: exact birthday. He disliked the idea of people celebrating it
Speaker 2: with sacrifices or feast, consistent with his avoidance of personal glorification.
Speaker 2: Yet Interestingly, he himself honored the birthdays of his heroes
Speaker 2: Plato and Socrates each year, offering the traditional sacrifices and
Speaker 2: hosting a banquet where every member of the circle would
Speaker 2: give an address in honor of the occasion. This tradition
Speaker 2: shows Platinus's deep reverence for his philosophical predecessors, and continuing
Speaker 2: that of his school with the Platonic heritage. After Platinus's death,
Speaker 2: his literary legacy was left in disarray. He had written
Speaker 2: a large number of treaties approximately fifty four essays over
Speaker 2: the last fifteen to sixteen years of his life, but
Speaker 2: they were unfinished in terms of editing an organization. The
Speaker 2: task of preserving and organizing this Corpus fell to Porphyry,
Speaker 2: who devoted himself to publishing his master's works.
Speaker 1: As we shall see.
Speaker 2: Porphyry arranged them into the famous collection called the Indeads,
Speaker 2: which has spread Platinus's thought to later ages. Before getting
Speaker 2: into Platinus's philosophy, one final note on his character and
Speaker 2: personal impact. By all accounts, Platinus was not only a
Speaker 2: profound thinker, but was also said to have the highest
Speaker 2: moral state, and his personal and social life. He even
Speaker 2: took in the children of friends who died, caring for
Speaker 2: their upbringing and education as a guardian. Many in his
Speaker 2: circle were deeply attached to him, not just for his intellect,
Speaker 2: but for his benevolence. He lived out the principles he taught,
Speaker 2: striving for virtue and self transcendence. This unity of life
Speaker 2: and philosophy made him a compelling figure, one who inspired
Speaker 2: hero worship in Porphyries's words. As we turn to his ideas,
Speaker 2: it's helpful to remember that Platinus's doctrine was not just
Speaker 2: abstract metaphysics was a guide to the ultimate liberation of
Speaker 2: the spirit. As Armstrong puts it, which Platinus himself earnestly sought.
Speaker 2: The One is all things, and no one of them.
Speaker 2: The source of all things is not all things. Now
Speaker 2: we will get into the writings Porphyries Iniads. The body
Speaker 2: of Platinus's work is preserved in the collection known as
Speaker 2: the Ineads, compiled by Porphyry. The word ineads means group
Speaker 2: of nine. Porphyriy divided the treaties into six books of
Speaker 2: nine treaties each six by nine equals fifty four treaties.
Speaker 2: This arrangement was somewhat artificial. Porphyri ordered the works thematically
Speaker 2: rather than chronologically. Indiad one contains ethical topics, and he
Speaker 2: adds two to three cover cosmology and sensible world. And
Speaker 2: he had four focuses on the soul, the fifth one
Speaker 2: on intellect, and the sixth on the most abstract metaphysics,
Speaker 2: including the one. Porphyry's aim was to lead the reader
Speaker 2: from accessible topics to the most profound. However, he admits
Speaker 2: the sequence is imperfect, and the later editors have sometimes
Speaker 2: preferred to read the treaties and the chronocological order of composition.
Speaker 2: Portfyrriy fortunately preserved a chronicological list of the order in
Speaker 2: which Platinus actually wrote the treaties in and that is
Speaker 2: included in his Life of Plotinus. Ploutinus's style in these
Speaker 2: essays is concise, dense, and not always polished.
Speaker 1: He often revisits the.
Speaker 2: Same problems and multiple treaties each time from a new angle,
Speaker 2: rather than presenting a single systematic treaties. This makes his
Speaker 2: writings challenging but rich, more lavish of ideas than of words,
Speaker 2: As Porphyry says, modern readers sometimes find the ineads difficult,
Speaker 2: but they reward careful study with deep insights into reality
Speaker 2: and the soul. Some notable treaties among the indeads include
Speaker 2: on Beauty, which discusses the nature of beauty and the
Speaker 2: ascent from physical beauty to beauty itself. This was Platinus's
Speaker 2: first work. We have on Virtue and on Happiness, which
Speaker 2: examine the nature of virtue and true happiness. We have
Speaker 2: on Providence and on Fate, tackling whether the universe is
Speaker 2: or order and what role stars and fate play. We
Speaker 2: have against the Agnostics, attract refuting certain Gnostic religious doctrines.
Speaker 1: We will come back to this later.
Speaker 2: On the immortality of the soul and on the dissent
Speaker 2: of the Soul, dealing with the soul's relationship to the
Speaker 2: body and its journey. We have on Intelligible Beauty, concerning
Speaker 2: the beauty of the forums, and on the intellectual principle
Speaker 2: or Nose. And on the Good or the One, his
Speaker 2: final and capstone treaties exploring the nature of the ultimate reality,
Speaker 2: the One. These are just a few examples. The fifty
Speaker 2: four treaties cover a vast range of topics metaphysics, ethics, psychology, cosmology,
Speaker 2: and even specific scientific questions of the day, such as vision, time,
Speaker 2: and the Nature of matter. Plotinus wrote in Greek, but
Speaker 2: his works reached later ages through various translations. Porphyry's editorial
Speaker 2: effort ensued the Indiads survived and circulated in late Roman world.
Speaker 2: Centuries later, in the Renaissance of Marsilia, Ficino famously translated
Speaker 2: Plotinus into Latin, making the Indiads available to Western scholars
Speaker 2: for the first time in full. Ficino considered this labour
Speaker 2: second only to his translation of Plato, and saw Plutinus
Speaker 2: as a key to reviving Platonism. In modern times, there
Speaker 2: have been several English translations. The most poetic and influential
Speaker 2: older translation is by Stephen McKenna, which, through somewhat data
Speaker 2: in language, conveys the rhythm and fervor of Platinus prose.
Speaker 2: A more literal and scholarly translation was produced by A. H.
Speaker 2: Armstrong in the nineteen sixties to nineteen eighties, which became
Speaker 2: the standard academic version for decades. Most recently, scholars like
Speaker 2: Lloyd P. Gerson have offered new translationations and interpretations, sometimes
Speaker 2: challenging earlier views on Platinus. For instance, Gerson offers a
Speaker 2: slightly different take on Platinus's attitude towards gnosticism. As we'll
Speaker 2: note later, it can be illuminating to compare different translations.
Speaker 2: For example, McKenna renders Platinus's final speech as give back
Speaker 2: the divine in yourselves to the Divine and all, whereas
Speaker 2: a more modern phrasing is bring back the God and
Speaker 2: yourselves to the God and all. Both capture the essence
Speaker 2: of Platinus's mystical philosophy, each in their own tone. Now,
Speaker 2: with an understanding of his life and writings, let us
Speaker 2: explore Platinus's philosophical system, often regarded as the culmination of
Speaker 2: Greek Platonic thought and the foundation of what later is
Speaker 2: called Neoplatonism. We will examine his key ideas in the one,
Speaker 2: the emanation of reality from the one, nature of the
Speaker 2: true human and happiness, Platinus's critiques of narcissism and astrology,
Speaker 2: the practice of hinnosis, and his relationship to Plato's philosophy. Throughout,
Speaker 2: we will highlight scholarly interpretations, debates, and even uncertainties to
Speaker 2: give a full picture of Platinus's thought and what is
Speaker 2: available to us and how it is perceived. One principle
Speaker 2: must make the universe, a single living creature, one from all,
Speaker 2: the one, supreme principle of reality. At the core of
Speaker 2: Platinus's philosophy stands the One, the ultimate principle, that is,
Speaker 2: the first principle of everything. The One, also referred to
Speaker 2: as the Good in Platonic terms, is absolutely transcendent and indescribable.
Speaker 2: Plutinus insists that the One is beyond all categories of
Speaker 2: being and non being. It cannot be any existing thing,
Speaker 2: nor even the total of all things, but is prior
Speaker 2: to all existence. In other words, transcends all particular beings
Speaker 2: and even the concept of being itself. This echoes Plato's
Speaker 2: idea of the form of the good, which is beyond
Speaker 2: being in dignity and power. Plutinus firmly identifies the One
Speaker 2: with the good and also with the source of all
Speaker 2: beauty in any had six. He argues that the Good
Speaker 2: is the ultimate simplicity and perfection which every soul seeks.
Speaker 2: Why must there be such a one? Platinus arrives at
Speaker 2: the One by pushing the question of cause and explanation to.
Speaker 1: The highest level.
Speaker 2: If we look at the world, everything has a source
Speaker 2: of principle. The chain of causation or dependency cannot go
Speaker 2: on to infinity without grounding. There must be a first
Speaker 2: cause that itself depends on nothing prior. For Platinus, this
Speaker 2: first cause must be absolute, simple, and unified. If it
Speaker 2: were complex or one of many, we could seek a
Speaker 2: more fundamental explanation. Thus it must be the one, this
Speaker 2: single ultimate reality. He also reasons that the highest principle
Speaker 2: must contain no division or multiplicity, since any multiplicity implies limitation.
Speaker 2: The One is so unitary that our normal thinking cannot
Speaker 2: grasp it, because all thought involves distinguishing subject.
Speaker 1: And object, a duality.
Speaker 2: Even the divine intellect is dual in the sense that
Speaker 2: it contemplates itself, and thus has a kind of eternal distinction.
Speaker 2: The One, however, is beyond even self awareness or any action.
Speaker 2: Platinus denies sel and its self awareness or any other
Speaker 2: action to the One. It simply is in a manner
Speaker 2: beyond being. Plutinus often resorts to negations to describe the One,
Speaker 2: a method akin to what later theology calls apathetic or
Speaker 2: negative theology. We cannot say what the One is in
Speaker 2: positive terms, because every predicate would limit or define it.
Speaker 2: Whereas one is different from everything that derives from it.
Speaker 2: So we approach it by saying what it is not?
Speaker 2: Not a thing, not qualified, not limited, not many, not
Speaker 2: even truly a being. It is utterly uncompounded, the absolute one.
Speaker 2: It transcends even the duality of knower and known, So
Speaker 2: it is not a mind thinking that would be a
Speaker 2: nose or lower level. This extreme transcendence leads to a paradox,
Speaker 2: How can such a one produce or relate to the
Speaker 2: world at all? Plotonus wrestles with this, since he also
Speaker 2: holds that the One is the cause of everything that exists.
Speaker 2: He resolves this by introducing the idea of emanation or outflow.
Speaker 2: The One is the productive power of all things, an
Speaker 2: infinite creative force. Although the One itself is perfectly full
Speaker 2: and lacking nothing, its superabundant perfection overflows. Plutonus uses analogies
Speaker 2: like the sun radiating light. The sun does not lose
Speaker 2: anything by shining, yet light streams forth from it continuously. Similarly,
Speaker 2: the One, by its very nature as the limitless good,
Speaker 2: expresses or pours out a universe without diminishing itself. This
Speaker 2: process is not a deliberate act or a change in
Speaker 2: the one. It happens eternally and by necessity of the
Speaker 2: one's creativity. In Platinus's descriptive language, the one overflowed and
Speaker 2: its superabundance produce an other. This other that the first
Speaker 2: emanates is nose or divine intellect. The second principle, emanation
Speaker 2: is thus the metaphysical scheme by which multiple levels of
Speaker 2: reality produce from the transcendent source, while the source remains unchained.
Speaker 2: Platinus emphasizes that the One is not diminished or changed
Speaker 2: by producing the universe, just as a mirror's reflection doesn't
Speaker 2: alter the object reflected. Platinus's world emerges from the One,
Speaker 2: yet the One remains above it untouched. He even explicitly
Speaker 2: contrasts emanation to creation, which he knew as a notion.
Speaker 1: Held by Christians.
Speaker 2: The one's relationship to the universe is like the sun's
Speaker 2: light or a fountain's flowing water, not a craftsman's making
Speaker 2: something from external materials. Now, let's talk about the emanation
Speaker 2: hierarchy that Platinus describes, often called the three hypostases. The
Speaker 2: one the good as the absolute transcendent origin of all
Speaker 2: beyond being in thought.
Speaker 1: The ultimate cause. And then we have the nose.
Speaker 2: The divine intellectal mind the first emanation from the one.
Speaker 2: It is the realm of true being in thought. It
Speaker 2: contains all the forms or ideas, like Plato's forms as
Speaker 2: the thoughts of the divine mind. Platinus identifies this metaphorically
Speaker 2: with the demiurge from Plato's to mais and with the
Speaker 2: divine logos. It is the first will towards the good.
Speaker 2: It is a union, but multiple, unlike the one it
Speaker 2: can be described. It is an intellect that knows itself
Speaker 2: in the plurality of forms, so it has structure. Plutinus
Speaker 2: calls it a one many or a multiple unity. Being
Speaker 2: the second principle. It is absolutely dependent on the one,
Speaker 2: yet is its self divine and eternal. The soul world
Speaker 2: soul and souls from nose emanates soul first is the
Speaker 2: world soul, which Platinus often subdivides into an upper and
Speaker 2: lower aspect. The upper part of the soul remains closely
Speaker 2: connected to nose in the intelligible realm, while the lower
Speaker 2: part immerses itself in shaping the material world. This lower
Speaker 2: soul is akin to nature. The world soul produces individual souls,
Speaker 2: including human souls. Soul, in Platinus, is the level that
Speaker 2: interfaces with time and matter. It animates the cosmos and
Speaker 2: all living things. Yet soul is still double, one foot
Speaker 2: in eternity through its higher aspect and one in time
Speaker 2: through its governance of the material world.
Speaker 1: And then we have matter.
Speaker 2: At the lowest end of emanation is the material realm,
Speaker 2: which in Platinus's view is the furthest removed from the
Speaker 2: One's perfection. Matter itself, when considered apart from form, is
Speaker 2: almost non being. It is indefinite and lacks quality. Platinus
Speaker 2: even calls matter almost evil insofar as its deprivation of
Speaker 2: form and good. However, since everything ultimately originates from the One,
Speaker 2: even matter indirectly derives from the divine source. Thus the
Speaker 2: entire cosmos is a radiation of the One power through
Speaker 2: nose and soul. Platinus stresses that the material world, despite
Speaker 2: its imperfection, is ultimately of divine nature because it comes
Speaker 2: from the One via nose and soul, it is the
Speaker 2: best possible image of the higher reality, not a demonic mistake.
Speaker 2: This reality can be visualized as a hierarchy or great
Speaker 2: chain of being, the one at the top emanating nose
Speaker 2: which begets soul, which produces the sensible world. Importantly, the
Speaker 2: emanation is continuous and timeless. It's not that at a moment,
Speaker 2: the one decided to emit nos. Rather, the one always
Speaker 2: emanates nose. Nose always emanates soul like an eternal fountain
Speaker 2: of reality, and the lower always looks back to the higher.
Speaker 2: Soul contemplates nose and yearns for Nos, in turn looks
Speaker 2: to the one as its source of unity. The concept
Speaker 2: of emanation distinguishes neoplatonism, a term modern scholar used for
Speaker 2: Platinus's school from earlier platonism. It was Platinus's way of
Speaker 2: explaining how a transcendent, unitary principle could give rise to
Speaker 2: a diverse temporal world without compromising its transcendence. It uses
Speaker 2: many analogies the sun in its rays. The sun doesn't
Speaker 2: lose light by shining, or an overflowing cup or a
Speaker 2: mirror's reflection. Another metaphor is life pouring out. Just as
Speaker 2: a plant overflowing with life may put out new shoots,
Speaker 2: the one's perfection overflows into nose. One crucial point, emanation
Speaker 2: is not a wilful creation, but a necessary overflowing. The
Speaker 2: one doesn't think or decide those would be actions, and
Speaker 2: actions implies lack or change, which cannot apply to the One. Instead,
Speaker 2: given that the One is what it is, reality flows
Speaker 2: from it. Platinus says that the One is so powerful
Speaker 2: that it cannot help but generate an outflow. It would
Speaker 2: be impossible for it not to express itself as some
Speaker 2: kind of outflow, since not emanating would imply a limitation
Speaker 2: of power. Yet this outflow is eternal and simultaneous with
Speaker 2: the One. Platinus compares it to the way a bright
Speaker 2: object cannot avoid emitting light. The One remains unchained and
Speaker 2: unaffected by emanating. It is like the source of a
Speaker 2: spring that is not depleted by the stream that flows
Speaker 2: from it. As the Eneads put it, the One is
Speaker 2: in no way affected or diminished by these emanations, just
Speaker 2: as the Christian God, Platinus adds, is in no way
Speaker 2: augmented or diminished by the act of creation. Platinus was
Speaker 2: aware of Christian claims and subtly positioned his view as
Speaker 2: an alternative understanding of how the divine relates to the world. Finally,
Speaker 2: Platinus's One is not an impersonal abstraction. It is also
Speaker 2: associated with the idea of the good and is the
Speaker 2: ultimate object of love and desire. Platinus frequently uses religious
Speaker 2: and superlative language when referring to the One. It is
Speaker 2: the Father of all, the transcending God above all gods.
Speaker 2: He even calls it God, though not a personal mantotheistic sense,
Speaker 2: but as the being beyond God. Heead it is the
Speaker 2: unity and the Good, merging Plato's form of the good
Speaker 2: with the concept of the One. In ethical terms, all
Speaker 2: beings desire the good, so all desire to return to
Speaker 2: the One. This gives Platinus's metaphysics profoundly spiritual and moral dimension.
Speaker 2: Actual reality is such that everything emanates from the One
Speaker 2: and seeks to return to the One. We shall see
Speaker 2: this clearly in Platinus's conception of the human soul and
Speaker 2: its quest for happiness. All things are striving after contemplation,
Speaker 2: looking to vision as their one end, each attaining it
Speaker 2: in the measure possible.
Speaker 1: To their kind.
Speaker 2: Now let's get into the second and third hypostasis, intellect
Speaker 2: and soul, since understanding these is key to Platinus's view
Speaker 2: on the world, the self, and even topics like astrology
Speaker 2: and fate divine intellect. This is the immediate emanation of
Speaker 2: the one. At the moment of emanation, the second principle
Speaker 2: turns back towards its source and contemplation. In Platinus's narrative,
Speaker 2: the first hyposthesis, beyond the one arises as an intermediate
Speaker 2: reality that, then, in seeing the one, becomes ordered as
Speaker 2: intellect and thought. Nos is the realm of real being.
Speaker 2: It is Plato's world of forms, but instead of forms
Speaker 2: existing independently, Platinus unifies them in one all encompassing mind.
Speaker 2: Nos contains all the archetypal ideas, and at the same
Speaker 2: time is those ideas, and it is the mind thinking them.
Speaker 2: It is a living, dynamic intellect, often described as a
Speaker 2: living organism of truth. Platinus says Nos has a dual aspect,
Speaker 2: the thinker and the thought subject an object, but in
Speaker 2: Nos these are one. Nos is self thinking thought an idea,
Speaker 2: foreshadowing Aristotle's description of the divine mind. Because it has
Speaker 2: multiplicity the many ideas, Nos is less unitary than the one,
Speaker 2: but still a timeless, changeless reality where every idea is
Speaker 2: eternally present. Nos is absolutely good and perfect. In a
Speaker 2: derivative sense, it's the image of the one's perfection. It's
Speaker 2: often referred to as the demiurge by Platinus because intellect
Speaker 2: is what directly structures the cosmos via the forms. Platinus
Speaker 2: even calls Nos the second God, subordinate to the One,
Speaker 2: the prime God, but itself divine. Importantly, the One is
Speaker 2: present to Nos as its object of desire and unity.
Speaker 2: Nos is always gazing at the One in love and wonder,
Speaker 2: drawing its sustenance from the One's light. This contemplated vision
Speaker 2: of the One becomes the content of Nos. In this way,
Speaker 2: Platinus sees the One as beyond even self intellection, and
Speaker 2: Nos is the level where self awareness and definition begin.
Speaker 2: Then we have the soul of the psyche, proceeding from
Speaker 2: Nose is the principle of the soul. The world's soul
Speaker 2: is the aspect of reality that bridges the intelligible in
Speaker 2: the material. It contemplates nose, but it also projects an
Speaker 2: image of itself onto matter, thus crafting the physical cosmos.
Speaker 2: Platinus describes soul as having a higher part, often called
Speaker 2: the upper soul or heavenly aphrodite in some allegories, that
Speaker 2: remains an eternal contemplation of intellect in a lower part
Speaker 2: the nature that gives life to the world. The world's
Speaker 2: soul creates time. Since intellect is eternal, soul introduces temporal
Speaker 2: succession when it moves. All individual souls, such as human souls,
Speaker 2: are outpourings or droplets of the world's soul. Each human
Speaker 2: soul retains means a connection to the world's soul and
Speaker 2: ultimately to Nos. Platinus famlessly asserted that even while a
Speaker 2: soul is embody, its highest part remains unfallen in the
Speaker 2: intelligible realm, a sort of apex of the soul that
Speaker 2: never leaves Nos. This is why we can, through introspection
Speaker 2: and spiritual effort, reascend to the intelligible world. Part of
Speaker 2: us is always there. The soul level is also where
Speaker 2: multiplicity increases and individuality emerges. Souls descend into bodies, which
Speaker 2: introduces diversity and separation. However, all souls collectively are one
Speaker 2: soul in a higher sense. The material world, with all
Speaker 2: its changing phenomena, is the shadow or the last echo.
Speaker 1: Of this procession.
Speaker 2: Platinus describes matter, the physical element, as neither good nor
Speaker 2: evil in itself, but a is far removed from the
Speaker 2: one's light as possible. It's like the darkest periphery of reality,
Speaker 2: where form and being are faint. Yet, since the One's
Speaker 2: light filters even down here, the cosmos as a whole
Speaker 2: is good and beautiful, and Platinus's view the most perfect
Speaker 2: possible image of the intelligible world. This is a critical
Speaker 2: stance that differentiates Platinus from certain gnostics, who saw the
Speaker 2: material world as evil or a.
Speaker 1: Mistake, and we will discuss this later.
Speaker 2: Platinus instead insists on the goodness of the world because
Speaker 2: it originates ultimately from the good or the One. The
Speaker 2: one radiates intellect. Intellect contains all the ideal realities and
Speaker 2: thinks them. Soul arises from intellect, and through soul, the
Speaker 2: structure and life of the cosmos come into being. At
Speaker 2: each stage, the lower level images and reflects the level
Speaker 2: above it in a diminished way. Think of a bright
Speaker 2: light the one casting a series of reflections. The first
Speaker 2: mirror image knows is a brilliant but slightly less intense,
Speaker 2: The next reflection, soul, is dimmer, and finally the last
Speaker 2: matter is a very faint glimmer. Despite the diminishing, each
Speaker 2: lower level depends on the continuous presence.
Speaker 1: Of the higher.
Speaker 2: If the one withdrew, everything would vanish, just as turning
Speaker 2: off the sun would end all reflections. Thus, the cosmos
Speaker 2: is like a great emanational chain or an outflowing hierarchy,
Speaker 2: often termed by later thinkers as the great chain of being.
Speaker 2: Now onto the true human and the pursuit of happiness.
Speaker 2: Platinus's ethics and psychology are rooted in the idea that
Speaker 2: the true self of a human is not their body
Speaker 2: or even their empirical personality, but the higher soul that
Speaker 2: is akin to nose. According to Platinus, the true human
Speaker 2: is an incorporal, contemplative capacity of the soul, superior to
Speaker 2: all things corporal. What makes you truly you is not
Speaker 2: your flesh and blood organism, but your soul's rational and
Speaker 2: spiritual part. The body is a temporary instrument or vessel.
Speaker 2: He even argues that man is not the coupling of
Speaker 2: soul and body. A person is essentially the soul, and
Speaker 2: in particular the intellectual aspect of the soul, which can
Speaker 2: exist apart from the body. This leads to conception of
Speaker 2: happiness quite different from common views. For Platinus, authentic happiness
Speaker 2: does not depend on external, worldly conditions, because the real
Speaker 2: person is the soul, especially the intellective soul, and not
Speaker 2: the parishal body. Worldly fortune does not control true human happiness. Wealth, health,
Speaker 2: social status, even physical pain or pleasure. None of these
Speaker 2: truly determined happiness or misery for the true self. As
Speaker 2: he boldly states, there exists no single human being that
Speaker 2: does not either potentially or effectively possess this thing we
Speaker 2: hold to constitute happiness. So what actually constitutes happiness For Platinus,
Speaker 2: happiness is the soul's alignment with its highest divine aspect,
Speaker 2: the state of identification with the best in the universe.
Speaker 2: In practice, this means a life of virtue and above all,
Speaker 2: contemplation of truth. Platinus is here in line with the
Speaker 2: Platonic and Aristolian notion that the contemplative life is the
Speaker 2: supremely happy life, but here he radicalizes it. Even if
Speaker 2: a sage is tortured or in an extreme physical duress,
Speaker 2: the sages in his self can remain happy by clinging
Speaker 2: to the intelligible world, he imagines, even scenarios like a
Speaker 2: wise person under torture. Although the body suffers, the sage
Speaker 2: can mentally detach, knowing that which is being tortured is
Speaker 2: merely a body, not the true self. This sounds extreme,
Speaker 2: but it gets to the point. Real happiness is metaphysical,
Speaker 2: not subject to bodily harm. Platinus articulated these ideas and
Speaker 2: treaties like on True Happiness. There he argues that happiness
Speaker 2: is attainable by every person, not in the sense that
Speaker 2: everyone is happy, but that nothing external can prevent one
Speaker 2: from achieving it, since it depends only on one's self.
Speaker 2: The essence of happiness is living in accordance with one's
Speaker 2: highest nature, which means living in the activity of reason
Speaker 2: and virtue. The perfect life, he writes, is one where
Speaker 2: a man commands reason and contemplation. The happy person will
Speaker 2: be self sufficient in a profound way, not that they
Speaker 2: don't need food to shelter, but that their well being
Speaker 2: isn't hostage to those things. Unlike the Stoics who emphasize
Speaker 2: in during hardship with fortitude, Plutonus goes further to say,
Speaker 2: the inner bliss of union with the good is such
Speaker 2: that even sleep or unconsciousness cannot truly interrupt it, because
Speaker 2: the soul at its apex is outside time. He answers
Speaker 2: stoic critics who ask how one can be happy if
Speaker 2: one falls asleep or is not senseless. Platinus replies that
Speaker 2: the soul does not sleep. Its highest part is ever
Speaker 2: active beyond the temporal realm. Plutonian happiness is the state
Speaker 2: of the soul's unity with intellect and ultimately with the One.
Speaker 2: It is a flight from this world's weighs and things.
Speaker 2: As Platinus quotes Plato in a focus on the highest,
Speaker 2: it is achieved by an interior life, turning away from
Speaker 2: external attachments. In a memorable phrase, Platinus says, true happiness
Speaker 2: is living inwardly, free from slavery to bodily desires. One
Speaker 2: who attains this perfect life is characterized by calm, unshakable
Speaker 2: contentment because they identify with the divine intellect rather than
Speaker 2: the mortal part. This viewpoint was one of Platinus's great
Speaker 2: contributions to Western thought. It's been claimed Platinus is among
Speaker 2: the first to articulate clearly that happiness is an interstate
Speaker 2: independent of fortune, found only in consciousness of the soul's activity.
Speaker 2: This idea would echo down through Augustine, whose influenced Platinus
Speaker 2: into later Christian conceptions of the soul's rest in God,
Speaker 2: and even into modern ideas of psychological well being not
Speaker 2: tied to externals. Now, how does one achieve this happy state?
Speaker 2: Virtue is important. Platinus inherited from Plato the idea that virtues, temperance, courage, justice,
Speaker 2: and wisdom purify the soul and oriented towards the good.
Speaker 2: But he goes beyond ordinary virtue to speak of purification
Speaker 2: and contemplative assent. The well known analogy is that the
Speaker 2: soul must remember its true nature and shed what is
Speaker 2: alien in anyad.
Speaker 1: One on beauty.
Speaker 2: He describes the process, You must set free your soul
Speaker 2: from all outward things and turn wholly within yourself, lay
Speaker 2: your mind bare of the images of sense and even
Speaker 2: your own self, so as to see the one. In
Speaker 2: other words, through practices of intellectual and spiritual focus, one
Speaker 2: strips away the lower attachments. Platinus was not informedial mystic
Speaker 2: with a step by step technique, but he advocates philosophical contemplation,
Speaker 2: ethical living, and dialectical reasoning as to means to ascend.
Speaker 2: When the soul succeeds in rising to the level of nose,
Speaker 2: it experiences profound satisfaction. But Platinus hints at an even
Speaker 2: greater fulfillment when the soul transcends nos and unites with
Speaker 2: the One itself. That is the peak of happiness, which
Speaker 2: is really beyond description. This brings us to henosis, the
Speaker 2: mystical union, which is intimately tied to Platinus's idea of
Speaker 2: the ultimate human goal. Henosis union with the One. Henosis
Speaker 2: Greek for oneness or unity, is the term for mystical
Speaker 2: union in Platinus's philosophy. Platinus's philosophy is also regarded not
Speaker 2: just as abstract metaphysics, but as a mystical path aiming
Speaker 2: for the soul's union with God or One. Henosis is
Speaker 2: the culmination of that path, the moment when the individual's soul,
Speaker 2: after sending through virtue and intellect, becomes one with the One,
Speaker 2: achieving an ecstasy beyond being. Platinus doesn't provide a systematic
Speaker 2: how to phrenosis, but he describes it in several places,
Speaker 2: particularly in Inenead six on the Good or the One,
Speaker 2: and in Porphary's biography. Porphyry famously reports that Platinus himself
Speaker 2: attained henosis a handful of times. Platinus attained such a
Speaker 2: union four times during the years I knew him, Porphyry writes,
Speaker 2: this suggests that for Patinus, union with the One wasn't
Speaker 2: merely theoretical. He claimed to have experienced it. These mystical
Speaker 2: experiences likely inspired and confirmed his teachings. What is union like?
Speaker 2: By definition? It defies ordinary language. In union, the soul
Speaker 2: loses all differentiation, sear and scene become one. In a sense,
Speaker 2: it's a passing away of consciousness as we know it.
Speaker 2: Platinus describes it in negative terms. There is no perception,
Speaker 2: no thought, no duality. Yet a supreme awareness, or rather
Speaker 2: being remains, which is blissful and filled with the one's presence.
Speaker 2: One becomes and Platinus's phrase alone with the alone, a
Speaker 2: phrase later echoed by Sufi's and others in In He
Speaker 2: Had Six, he tries to convey it. One approaches the one.
Speaker 2: If he remembers who he became when he emerged with
Speaker 2: the One, he will bear its image in himself. He
Speaker 2: was one, with no diversity in self, no passion, no
Speaker 2: desire for another. Once the assent was accomplished before the one,
Speaker 2: the soul must drop even the intellectual forms. One must
Speaker 2: forget even oneself. In that moment there is profound unity.
Speaker 2: That is the ultimate goal of life. Henosis is a
Speaker 2: transient experience in this life, as indicated, Platinus only occasionally
Speaker 2: could reach it, and Porphyry implies he himself perhaps did not,
Speaker 2: but it is the tellos for the end for which
Speaker 2: our souls exist. To rejoin the source in death, Platinus
Speaker 2: believe the purified soul would permanently dwell in the intelligible realm,
Speaker 2: and perhaps even be in the presence of the one,
Speaker 2: though strictly permanent union is tricky to speak of. Union
Speaker 2: is beyond time, so it's not a duration. Platinus's language
Speaker 2: about henosis often has a religious sentiment. He uses metaphors
Speaker 2: of seeing the two are one with no into mediary,
Speaker 2: no otherness. The soul touches or sees the light by
Speaker 2: becoming identical with it. He also employs the language of
Speaker 2: erotic love from Plato's symposion, the soul as lover yearning
Speaker 2: to merge with the beloved one. This mystical aspect of
Speaker 2: Platinus greatly influenced later mystical traditions. For example, Pseudodionysus, the
Speaker 2: fifth century Christian mystic, took much from Platinus about negative
Speaker 2: theology and union in Sufism and medieval Christian mysticism. We
Speaker 2: similarly see talk of the soul's union with the Godhead,
Speaker 2: often echoing Plutonian concepts. It's noteworthy that Platinus insisted henosis
Speaker 2: cannot be achieved by mere intellect effort alone. One must
Speaker 2: undergo a moral purification and a turning of the entire being.
Speaker 2: There's almost an element of grace implied that one comes
Speaker 2: when it wills, and in the AD five he says
Speaker 2: one should close the eyes and awaken the vision of
Speaker 2: the soul. Then suddenly you see the solitary one. Such
Speaker 2: descriptions resonate with many later mystics to give a sense
Speaker 2: of both the ancient and modern interpretations. Armstrong once described
Speaker 2: Platinus's henosis as a most powerful protest on behalf of
Speaker 2: Hellenic philosophy against an Unhellenic heresy. Armstrong was emphasizing Platinus's
Speaker 2: context of arguing against gnostics, meaning that Platinus's mysticism was
Speaker 2: still rational in a way, a fulfillment of Greek philosophy,
Speaker 2: but others seeing a henosis a kinship with Eastern mysticism.
Speaker 2: Modern scholar Lloyd Gerson cautions that Platinus isn't endorsing irrational mysticism,
Speaker 2: but rather showing the limit of rational discourse. Reason leads
Speaker 2: one to precipice of the one, but to actually unite
Speaker 2: requires transcending discursive foot This interplay of philosophy and mysticism,
Speaker 2: and Platinus is often debated. Widely accepted is that he
Speaker 2: saw no hardline between them. The philosophic pursuit of truth,
Speaker 2: if done rigorously and with moral purification, naturally culminates in
Speaker 2: a mystical union. There is no contradiction. For Plotinus, the
Speaker 2: highest philosophy is a mystical act. Hinosis is the fulfillment
Speaker 2: of the emanation cycle. In reverse, all reality flowed out
Speaker 2: from the one, and in the soul's ascent and union,
Speaker 2: reality flows back into the One. Platinus's final words at
Speaker 2: death to give back the divine in myself to the
Speaker 2: divine in all, beautifully encapsulates that goal. It implies that
Speaker 2: within each of us is a spark of the divine,
Speaker 2: and the life's purpose is to return that spark to
Speaker 2: its cosmic source. And next Plautinus and the Gnostics. During
Speaker 2: Platinus's time in Rome, Gnostic sects were active and attracted
Speaker 2: followers with their elaborate cosmologies and promise of spiritual salvation.
Speaker 2: Platinus took issue with these Gnostic teachings, seeing them as
Speaker 2: distortions of Platonism and dangerous deviations. In fact, Platinus is
Speaker 2: our earliest philosophical critic of the movement that now modern
Speaker 2: scholars call gnosticism. He devoted an entire treaties to refuting
Speaker 2: their ideas. Porphyry titled this treatise against the Gnostics, and
Speaker 2: it provides an interesting view into the intellectual debate of
Speaker 2: the third century.
Speaker 1: First.
Speaker 2: Who were these gnostics, Platinus argued against. There were likely
Speaker 2: members of sex that combined some elements of Christianity or
Speaker 2: Jewish mysticism with a radically dualistic cosmology. They taught that
Speaker 2: the material world was flawed creation of a lower deity
Speaker 2: or called the demiurge, and that above this was a
Speaker 2: remote supreme God. Human souls, according to gnostics, were sparks
Speaker 2: of divinity trapped in the evil material world, and only
Speaker 2: secret knowledge gnosis could free them. Texts with names like
Speaker 2: Xastrianis and Alogenes contained the mystical revelations and were circulating
Speaker 2: among these groups Porphyry even names individuals like the school
Speaker 2: of Adelphius and Equilinus, which had many followers in the
Speaker 2: revered apocryphal writings attributed to the Zoraestazostrianis and Nicotheus. These
Speaker 2: are clearly references to Gnostic scriptures that we now know
Speaker 2: from discoveries like the Nagamadi Library, so Platinus was directly
Speaker 2: engaging with real Gnostic teachers in his circle. Porphyry said
Speaker 2: many Christians of this period, among them sectarians who had
Speaker 2: abandoned the old philosophy, fell into these doctrines that some
Speaker 2: of Platinus's own acquaintances were swayed. Platinus responded by frequently
Speaker 2: criticizing the Gnostics and his lectures, and eventually writing his
Speaker 2: treaties to systematically dismantle their ideas. His key points against
Speaker 2: snosticism include rejection of contempt for the material world. The
Speaker 2: Gnostics taught that the material cosmos is utterly evil, a
Speaker 2: prison for the soul. Platinus found this blasphemous and irrational.
Speaker 2: As a Platonist, he also viewed the sensible world as
Speaker 2: inferior to the intelligible, but he maintained it as an
Speaker 2: image of the higher reality and fundamentally good. He argues
Speaker 2: that if one properly understands emanation, one must respect this
Speaker 2: sensible world as the best possible imitation of the intelligible world. Gnostics,
Speaker 2: by contrast, despise and revile the material universe and its maker,
Speaker 2: which Platinus saw as intolerable blasphemy. He calls the Gnostic
Speaker 2: view of the world blasphemous to Plato, because Plato taught
Speaker 2: the world's creator was good. For Platinus, the cosmos is
Speaker 2: a living in sold organism, governed by the world's soul
Speaker 2: and illuminated by noos. It is not the botched work
Speaker 2: of a feign deity. He also critiqued the Gnostic cosmogony.
Speaker 2: Gnostic myths often involve a complex cosmogeny where a divine
Speaker 2: realm of AONs degenerates, sometimes through a mistake by an
Speaker 2: Aon like Sophia, a wisdom, resulting in the creation of
Speaker 2: the material world. Platinus attacked these myths as senseless jargon
Speaker 2: and arbitrary storytelling. He was a philosopher used to rigorous reasoning,
Speaker 2: so the Gnostic pension for baroque myth offended him. He
Speaker 2: accuses them of plagiarizing Plato's ideas and corrupting them without
Speaker 2: landish inventions. For example, he refutes the Gnostic notion of
Speaker 2: a new Earth or a distinct principle caused wisdom outside
Speaker 2: the intelligible realm. He also targets the Gnostic idea of
Speaker 2: the soul's full Gnostics often said the soul fell from
Speaker 2: the pleroma of fullness and got entangled in matter. Plotinus,
Speaker 2: while using the metaphor of dissent, insists the universe was
Speaker 2: not created in time by a foll It's an eternal procession,
Speaker 2: and thus the world has always existed and always will.
Speaker 2: There was moral and spiritual critique. Platinus also observed the
Speaker 2: behavior and attitude of these gnostics and found it objectionable.
Speaker 2: He says they are arrogant and elitists, claiming to be
Speaker 2: the only ones with divine spark and looking down on
Speaker 2: even the heavenly bodies and gods. One of his arguments,
Speaker 2: if they despised the world so much, why do they
Speaker 2: indulge in its pleasures when it suits them. In Porphyry's life,
Speaker 2: he notes that Platinus and and his pupils spent much
Speaker 2: time in anti gnostic controversy, clearly viewing nascissism as an
Speaker 2: extremely dangerous heresy. Armstrong summarizes that to Platinus, the teaching
Speaker 2: of the Gnostics seems untraditional, irrational, and immoral. They despise
Speaker 2: the ancient Platonic teaching and claim a new revelation. This
Speaker 2: conservative stance of Platinus defending Hellenic tradition against novel sex
Speaker 2: is notable. He was also against Gnostic misotheism. Some Gnostics
Speaker 2: portrayed the Creator as ignorant, a malevolent. Platinus found it
Speaker 2: absurd and impious that one would refuse to acknowledge the
Speaker 2: hierarchy of created gods and spirits like the star's world, soul,
Speaker 2: and et cetera, and instead say only they, the Gnostics,
Speaker 2: are the children of the true God. He ridiculed their
Speaker 2: ridiculous arrogance in claiming to be above the cosmic order.
Speaker 2: He also calls out the absurdities of the Gnostic myth
Speaker 2: of the Fall of Sophia and their magical beliefs. To
Speaker 2: systematically counter these points, Plultonuses against the Gnostics go through
Speaker 2: a structured rebuttal. Porphary's notes in Armstrong's introduction outline it roughly. First,
Speaker 2: an exposition of true Platonic doctrine to show its completeness,
Speaker 2: then arguments for the eternity of the universe against Gnostic
Speaker 2: creation and time. Then specific refutations. The Gnostic idea of
Speaker 2: a flawed world made by a fallen soul is wrong.
Speaker 2: The world soul is good. The Gnostics misuse Platonic terms
Speaker 2: and have incoherent cosmologies. The universe is good and governed
Speaker 2: by a providence, not by evil. The gnostics contempt for
Speaker 2: stars and planets is wrong. These are in sole beings
Speaker 2: and part of the divine order, and their claim to
Speaker 2: secret magic or being above other souls leads to in war.
Speaker 2: Platinus vehement opposition reveals a lot about his own philosophy too.
Speaker 2: It emphasizes his cosmic optimism, the idea that the universe
Speaker 2: is as good as it can be given its place
Speaker 2: in the hierarchy. It also underscores his commitment to Greek
Speaker 2: rationality and continuity. He saw the Gnostics as interlopers twisting Plato,
Speaker 2: whereas he considered himself the faithful transmitter of Plato's insights.
Speaker 2: Platinus even says he is not coining a new doctrine,
Speaker 2: but clarifying tradition. This stance likely helped shape Neoplatinum's identity
Speaker 2: in contrast to Gnostic or Christian thought. Interestingly, modern scholarship
Speaker 2: has nuanced this picture for a long time. Armstrong's view
Speaker 2: from the nineteen fifties to sixties that Platinus was extremely
Speaker 2: hostile to Gnostics was standard. Armstrong portrayed the Treaties as
Speaker 2: a most powerful protest on behalf of Hellenic philosophy against
Speaker 2: the Unhellenic heresy. However, more recently, scholars like Lloyd P.
Speaker 2: Gerson have suggested that Platinus might not be as vitriolic
Speaker 2: as one's thought. Gerson notes that Platinus had friends in
Speaker 2: his circle who were inclined to Gnostic ideas, and that
Speaker 2: Platinus aimed to correct them philosophically without entirely condemning them personally.
Speaker 2: Platinus's tone in the Treaties, while firm, is still a
Speaker 2: philosophical argument, not mere polemic. He invites the Gnostics to
Speaker 2: tell Us in what respects they intend to disagree with Plato.
Speaker 2: These views should be set out in a considerate and
Speaker 2: philosophical manner. This shows he was willing to debate specifics
Speaker 2: and not just denounce Gerson emphasizes that Platinus shared a
Speaker 2: critical attitude towards the material world, as inn Platonists would,
Speaker 2: but he diverged from the Gnostics in that he loved
Speaker 2: the world as an image of the divine. Basically, Plutinus
Speaker 2: wanted to reform what he saw as the gnostics misunderstandings
Speaker 2: of Platonism. Plutinus's confrontation with narcissism was a defining intellectual
Speaker 2: battle of his career and reinforced his own doctrines the
Speaker 2: eternity of the universe, the goodness of the world's soul
Speaker 2: and the stars, the insistence on clear philosophical reasoning over
Speaker 2: wild myth, and the view of salvation through philosophical purification
Speaker 2: and contemplation rather than through belonging to an elect with
Speaker 2: secret knowledge. His efforts left a legacy. Later Neoplatonists also
Speaker 2: took anti Gnostic stances, and Church fathers like Augustine found
Speaker 2: in Platinus a more rational spirituality that influenced them away
Speaker 2: from Gnostic dualism. Thus, Plutinus can be seen as having
Speaker 2: saved Platonism from being eclipsed by Gnostic theosophy, reasserting a
Speaker 2: worldview where even the far flung corners of the cosmos
Speaker 2: are under the care of the good. And now we
Speaker 2: will talk a little bit about Platinus's thoughts on astrology
Speaker 2: and fate. In the third century astrology, the belief that
Speaker 2: the stars and planets influence human destinies was highly popular. Platinus, however,
Speaker 2: was rary of any doctrine that undermined the rational order
Speaker 2: or human moral responsibility. In a late essay titled Are
Speaker 2: the Stars Causes? Platinus addresses the notion of casual astrology
Speaker 2: head on. Platinus's stance can be summarized as the stars
Speaker 2: may be signs and indicators, but not causes of our fate.
Speaker 2: He reasons that attributing direct causal power over human affairs
Speaker 2: to the position of the stars and planets would introduce
Speaker 2: an irrational, mechanistic fate into the cosmos that conflicts with
Speaker 2: the providence of the divine and with our free will.
Speaker 2: He asks, if a specific stars configuration dooms someone's to
Speaker 2: vice or misery, where is the justice or reason in
Speaker 2: that it would make the universe irrational and morally incoherent?
Speaker 2: In Are the Stars Causes? Platinus argues several points the
Speaker 2: cosmos is a living being with the soul that orders
Speaker 2: everything providentially. The heavenly bodies, stars and planets themselves are
Speaker 2: in sould beings, splendid, eternal, and part of the divine order.
Speaker 2: They move in their courses not to micromanage our lives,
Speaker 2: but as a part of the harmony of the oil.
Speaker 2: If astrologists say the stars cause events or personal traits,
Speaker 2: this implies a weird scenario. Either the stars are deliberately
Speaker 2: manipulating us, which would make them malicious or petty, unthinkable
Speaker 2: for divine beings, or the matter of the stars somehow
Speaker 2: emanates forces that override our reason, which would mean matter
Speaker 2: is controlling spirit, also absurd. In platinus hierarchy, Platinus concedes
Speaker 2: that the correlation between celestial cycles and earthly events is
Speaker 2: not imaginary patterns exist, but he interprets this as synchronicity
Speaker 2: within a unified organism, not as one causing the other.
Speaker 1: In other words, the stars.
Speaker 2: May indicate future trends because all parts of the cosmos
Speaker 2: are interwoven and meaning, just as a person's flushed face
Speaker 2: may indicate a fever without causing it. He is willing
Speaker 2: to allow that astrologists can sometimes predict things by reading
Speaker 2: the letters in the sky, but he insists this does
Speaker 2: not mean the stars cause those things in a mechanistic sense.
Speaker 2: Platinus thus navigates a middle ground. He is not completely
Speaker 2: dismissing astrology, since he accepts a kind of cosmic symbolism
Speaker 2: or science concept the stars being divine lights could be
Speaker 2: viewed as part of communication of the universe's order, but
Speaker 2: he strongly rejects astrological determinism. The notion that our character
Speaker 2: of fate is locked in by stellar positions at our
Speaker 2: birth is incompatible with his view of the dignity of
Speaker 2: the soul and the goodness of providence. Platinus believes each
Speaker 2: soul has the freedom to turn inward and upward, regardless
Speaker 2: of material conditions. If one were to blame the stars
Speaker 2: for one's moral feelings of misfortunes, that would encourage passivity
Speaker 2: and fatalism, which Platinus cannot accept. In on fate, he
Speaker 2: also integrates this with the concept of universal reason of logos.
Speaker 2: Fate in the sense of an ordered sequence of causes
Speaker 2: exists but is subsumed under providence. There is a rational
Speaker 2: plan of providence that orders everything, and what people call
Speaker 2: fate is just the lower manifestation of that plan in
Speaker 2: the connected chain of natural causes. But this chain of
Speaker 2: natural causes, including stars influencing weather, and et cetera, does
Speaker 2: not absolutely determine the choice of rational souls. Souls, especially
Speaker 2: in the intellectual level, participate in the higher freedom of
Speaker 2: the divine. Thus, human freedom coexists with a meaningful cosmic
Speaker 2: order in Platinus's thought. Interestingly, this view of Platinus on
Speaker 2: astrology influenced later thinkers. Renaissance Platonists like Ficino, who was
Speaker 2: himself an astrologer of sorts, often echoed that the stars
Speaker 2: incline but do not compel the idea that astrology is
Speaker 2: about reading signs rather than submitting to causes. Ultimately, all
Speaker 2: astrology to be philosophically defended through the Renaissance and a
Speaker 2: Plutonian spirit. From the evidence, Plutinus was one of the
Speaker 2: first philosophers to articulate arguments against strict astrological determinism. This
Speaker 2: was significant because it helped preserve the notion of moral
Speaker 2: responsibility and the integrity of divine providence against the fatalistic
Speaker 2: view that was tempting in a tumultuous error. Given that
Speaker 2: many people in this crisis of the third century, sought
Speaker 2: solace in astrology. Platinus's message was, the stars are part
Speaker 2: of the chorus of the cosmos, not puppet masters of
Speaker 2: your soul. The proper attitude towards the stars for Platinus
Speaker 2: is reverence. They are divine and understanding of the universal
Speaker 2: sympathy that connects all things, but not seveale, fear or
Speaker 2: blind reliance. One antidote we saw earlier indirectly relates Platinus's enemy, Olympius,
Speaker 2: tried to use star spells in astrological magic against him,
Speaker 2: and reportedly the attempt backfired because of Platinus's powerful soul.
Speaker 2: Platinus feeling the attack and describing Olympius's limbed convulsions shows
Speaker 2: that he acknowledged some kind of occult effect, but ultimately
Speaker 2: virtue in.
Speaker 1: The power of the higher soul prevailed.
Speaker 2: This dramatizes his belief that no astrological curse can harm
Speaker 2: the philosopher. Rooted in intellect, Platinus viewed astrology through a
Speaker 2: philosophical lens. It's not outright nonsense, but its popular form
Speaker 2: is based on misunderstanding. Stars signify, but they do not
Speaker 2: compel the rational soul. Is meant to guide itself by
Speaker 2: the higher stars or the forms, not by the physical stars.
Speaker 2: And now we will talk about how Platinus saw himself
Speaker 2: as Plato's successor. Platinus considered himself not an innovator, but
Speaker 2: a faithful interpreter of Plato. In his seminars, he would
Speaker 2: frequently have Plato's dialogues read aloud, and he built on
Speaker 2: Platonic doctrine at every turn. However, later historians label him
Speaker 2: the founder of Neoplatonism because he did go beyond Plato
Speaker 2: in constructing a more systematic metaphysics of three hypostasies. Let's
Speaker 2: see how Platinus relates to Plato and other predecessors.
Speaker 1: Plato.
Speaker 2: Platinus virtually idolized Plato, referring him to often simply as
Speaker 2: the philosopher. On the birthdays of Plato and Socrates, Platinus
Speaker 2: celebrated with special honor. He believed that Plato's writings contain
Speaker 2: the truth in need of proper interpretation. Platinus's metaphysics of
Speaker 2: the one, intellect and soul can be seen as a
Speaker 2: grand elaboration of hints in Plato. For instance, Plato's Republic
Speaker 2: posits the form of the good beyond being, Platinus identifies
Speaker 2: that with the One and makes it the center. Plato's
Speaker 2: Timaeus describes a transcendent craftsman, the demiurge any world soul.
Speaker 2: Platinus's nose corresponds to the craftsmen of forms and his
Speaker 2: world souls directly from that tradition. Middle Platonists philosophers like
Speaker 2: Numinius had already spoken of a second deity or nose
Speaker 2: emanating from a supreme one or good, and Platinus built
Speaker 2: on those ideas. When some accuse him of borrowing from Numinius,
Speaker 2: Amilaus and Porphyry defended Platinus by showing differences, likely emphasizing
Speaker 2: how Platinus's One is absolutely transcendent. Numinius had two gods,
Speaker 2: with the second doing creation. Platinus says the highest itself
Speaker 2: involuntarily generates the second. Platinus saw himself as clarifying Plato,
Speaker 2: especially against misreadings by other sects like the Gnostics or
Speaker 2: perhaps Stoics. Notably, he avoided writing commentaries on Plato. Instead,
Speaker 2: he integrates Platonic doctrines into his own systematic treaties. When
Speaker 2: it comes to Aristotle, Platinus respected Aristotle's philosophy greatly and
Speaker 2: absorbed much of it Porphyry's Notes. Aristotle's metaphysics especially, is
Speaker 2: condensed in Platinus's writings almost entire, which is quite a statement.
Speaker 2: Plutinus indeed uses Aristolian terminology of act, potency, the categories,
Speaker 2: et cetera, but often subtly modifies them. For example, Aristotle's
Speaker 2: concept of the unmoved mover as purely actual intellect influenced
Speaker 2: Platinus's concept of notes, though Platinus places a one above that.
Speaker 2: Plutinus also adopts Aristotle's idea of the intellect knowing itself
Speaker 2: nose thinking itself directly into his system. However, he diverges
Speaker 2: by insisting that even the self thinking intellect must be transcended.
Speaker 2: He also critiques some Aristolian ideas, like the eternity of
Speaker 2: the world, in a different sense. Actually, Platinus agrees the
Speaker 2: world as eternal, but he has no use for Aristotle's
Speaker 2: denial of a transcending good beyond being. Aristotle's God is
Speaker 2: thought thinking itself, not a one beyond thought. When it
Speaker 2: comes to Middle Platonists and others, Platinus definitely drew on
Speaker 2: the work of previous Platonists like Numinius of Epima. Numinius
Speaker 2: had taught a supreme first God and a second demiurge,
Speaker 2: and that matter was pre existent and evil. Platinus's hierarchy
Speaker 2: one knows Soul can be seen as a refinement one
Speaker 2: equals Numinius's first God knows is the second god of
Speaker 2: the demiurge, and soul is the third principle. But Platinus
Speaker 2: refuted the idea of matter as a coeternal evil principle,
Speaker 2: instead seeing matter as a privation, which is more in
Speaker 2: line with Plato's to Meaeus with a demiurge imposes form
Speaker 2: on a pre existing chaos, but Platinus denies that chaos
Speaker 2: has real being. Wolfhary's letter addressing differences with Numinius suggested
Speaker 2: Platinus's originality. Presumably, Platinus emphasized the continuity of all things,
Speaker 2: no absolute dualism, and the indwelling presence of the higher
Speaker 2: in the lower. Even in matter, the one's presence is
Speaker 2: faintly there, whereas some earlier thinkers might have had a
Speaker 2: harsher dualism. Overall, Platinus synthesized six hundred plus years of
Speaker 2: Greek philosophy. He took parmenides concept of the one, Heraclitus's dynamics,
Speaker 2: Plato's dualism of intelligible verse sensible, and Aristotle's logic and
Speaker 2: psychology stoic ethics to some degree in Pythagorean and neo
Speaker 2: Pythagorean numerological themes. The result was something both traditional and new.
Speaker 2: Plutinus himself insisted it was the true interpretation of Plato.
Speaker 2: Later thinkers realized it was a new school, hence Neoplatonism.
Speaker 2: One debate and scholarship is whether Colum Platinus or Neoplatonist
Speaker 2: is fair or whether he's just a Platonist in the
Speaker 2: Platonic secession. The consensus is that Platinus's system is a
Speaker 2: distinct development. For example, Plato didn't clearly articulate the one
Speaker 2: as separate from the good or a triadic emanation structure.
Speaker 2: Those are Platinus's developments, influenced by centuries of intervening thought
Speaker 2: and perhaps non Greek ideas. Another debate how much did
Speaker 2: Platinus incorporate mystery religion or Eastern concepts some like Breaer earlier,
Speaker 2: though quite a bit leaning on maybe Indian input As
Speaker 2: mentioned are those like Armstrong showed good Greek pedigree for
Speaker 2: his ideas. What is widely accepted is that Platinus's store
Speaker 2: was original in form, even if claimed to be old
Speaker 2: in content. He did not invent theorems, but he did
Speaker 2: invent a new synthesis. In philosophy. He systematatized a form
Speaker 2: of heneological metaphysics that became the standard for later Platonism.
Speaker 2: Porphyry and the later Neoplatonists regarded Platinus as a second Plato,
Speaker 2: or at least as the authoritative guide to Plato's deepest meaning.
Speaker 2: To any extent, he invented something tangible, not the way
Speaker 2: an engineer would, but he did originate in philosophical writing
Speaker 2: that combined rigorous metaphysics with mystical insights so seamlessly this
Speaker 2: would heavily influence philosophical and religious thought for centuries. Platinus's
Speaker 2: impact rippled through late Antiquity and beyond, shaping the course
Speaker 2: of philosophy and theology and multiple cultures. Medially after Platinus's death,
Speaker 2: his school continued through Porphyry and other students. Porphary not
Speaker 2: only edited the Eneads, but also wrote introductions and commentaries.
Speaker 2: Another student Emilius to Platinus's teachings to Syria. A generation later,
Speaker 2: Amblicus built on Platinus, but introduced new elements like theogy
Speaker 2: ritual magic to Neoplatonism. While he differed on some points,
Speaker 2: he placed more intermediaries between the One and the world,
Speaker 2: but emphasized polytheistic cult practice. He still considered Platinus a master.
Speaker 2: By the fourth century, Neoplatonism became the dominant philosophy and
Speaker 2: the Greek speaking world. The Emperor Julian the Apostate, who
Speaker 2: attempted to revive pagan religion, was deeply influenced by Neoplatonism.
Speaker 2: Julian's own writings praised the Sun god in Platonian terms,
Speaker 2: and he studied under Iamblicus's student, Hypatia of Alexandria, the
Speaker 2: famous woman philosopher, also taught a form of Neoplatonism and
Speaker 2: was likely acquainted with Platinus's work. Platinus's idea about the One,
Speaker 2: the intellect, and soul provided a philosophical framework that pagan
Speaker 2: thinkers used to interpret their traditional gods. Allegorically, they might say,
Speaker 2: Zeus represents the One's power, Athena represents Noos, the last
Speaker 2: great Pagan philosophical school in Athens, where Proclus taught, was
Speaker 2: thoroughly Neoplatonic. Proclus wrote extensive commentaries and even systematic work
Speaker 2: elements of theology that owes much to Platinus's triatic structure. However,
Speaker 2: it wasn't only Pagan's. Christian thinkers in late Antiquity also
Speaker 2: fell Platinus's influence. Church fathers like Saint Augustine would count
Speaker 2: how reading the books of the Platonists Latin translations of
Speaker 2: Platinus and Porphyry by Marius Victorianus helped him conceive of
Speaker 2: God as a non material highest being. Augustine wrote, Platinus
Speaker 2: is the Plato of our times. He integrated many Platonian ideas,
Speaker 2: for example, the notion of God as the source of being,
Speaker 2: the hierarchy of being, and the idea of evil as
Speaker 2: privation into Christian doctrine, although he ultimately had to diverge
Speaker 2: on issues like the eternity of the world and the
Speaker 2: personal nature of God. A direct quote by Bertrand Russell
Speaker 2: encapsulates this blending. Christian theologians combined these points of view
Speaker 2: and embodied much of the philosophy of Platinus. Platinus is
Speaker 2: historically important as an influence in molding the Christianity of
Speaker 2: the Middle Ages. Perhaps the most striking case is Pseudodionysus,
Speaker 2: that Arabic game, an Eastern Christian mystical theologian. Dionysus borrowed
Speaker 2: heavily from Plutinus through Proclus, perhaps the concept of the
Speaker 2: soul's assent to God, the negative theology of saying God
Speaker 2: is beyond being, and a hierarchy of angels analogists to
Speaker 2: Platinus's hypostasis. He even uses the term one for God
Speaker 2: and describes divine emanations. He calls them processions and returns
Speaker 2: the Eastern Orthodox theological idea of divine energies. Verse essence
Speaker 2: arguably parallels Platinus's layers of the divine. Thus, Plutinus, via
Speaker 2: such Christian Neoplatonists influenced Medieval Christian mysticism and theology. Gnostic
Speaker 2: and Hermetic traditions also indirectly drew on Neoplatonism, although Platinus's
Speaker 2: Fourth the Gnostics ironically, later esoteric thought often merged Gnostic
Speaker 2: cosmologies with Neoplatonic structures. The Hermetic writings like Pio Mandres
Speaker 2: roughly contemporary with Platinus, share some concepts of supreme one
Speaker 2: or mine. Scholars debate cross influences, but certainly, by late Antiquity,
Speaker 2: a general neoplatonic flavor pervaded many spiritual writings in the
Speaker 2: Islamic world. Platinus's thought was transmitted somewhat covertly. In the
Speaker 2: ninth century. Arabic scholars in the Obbosid Caliphate compiled the
Speaker 2: work called the Theology of Aristotle, which was actually a
Speaker 2: paraphiies of Platinus's Indiads four through six misattributed to Aristotle.
Speaker 2: Through this and other translations, Plutonian ideas entered Islamic philosophy.
Speaker 2: Early Islamic neoplatonists like al Kindi and the Brethren of
Speaker 2: Purity took on such ideas. More significantly, Ismalli, She's theologians
Speaker 2: and Persian philosophers employed neoplatonic concepts. Figures like al Farabi
Speaker 2: and Avicenna were influenced indirectly by Platinus, often via the
Speaker 2: Theology of Aristotle. Avicena's scheme of emanation and intellect owes
Speaker 2: much to Neoplatonism. An esoteric is mainly tradition. As noted
Speaker 2: by historians, Neoplatonism was adopted by thinkers like Nasafi and
Speaker 2: Abu Yaquib al Sigistani, and later by Fatimid court philosopher
Speaker 2: Al Kremani. They recast Platinus's hyposthesis in an Islamic cosmology,
Speaker 2: equating the one with Alla's presence, Denose with the first intellect,
Speaker 2: maybe the first angel or the universal intellect, and Ferrabi's
Speaker 2: scheme and the world's soul with his second intellect or
Speaker 2: active intellect. This neoplatonic strain significantly influenced islam mysticism Sufism
Speaker 2: as well. For example, so who are Rudri and Mullasadra
Speaker 2: and Persian thought show strong neoplatonic colors. The influence on
Speaker 2: Islam is thus a story of assimilation and adaptation. By
Speaker 2: the eleventh century, Neoplatonism was adopted officially in places like
Speaker 2: Fatimid Egypt, and authors like Nassar Kushrour wrote works blending
Speaker 2: neoplatonic cosmology with Islamic theology. In Jewish thought, Platinus's influence
Speaker 2: came slightly later, but was profound. Early Medieval Jewish philosophers
Speaker 2: like Isaac Israeli or Solomon even Gabriel were essentially neoplatonists.
Speaker 2: Gabriel's Fons Vittai posits a hierarchy from God's will to
Speaker 2: universal matter, reminiscent of Platinis.
Speaker 1: Moses.
Speaker 2: Maimonides, though more Aristolian, was aware of neoplatonism and in
Speaker 2: negative theology, saying we can only say what God is
Speaker 2: not he echoes Pseudonionysus, who echoes Platinus. Also that Kabbalah
Speaker 2: has interesting parallels. The Kabbalistic sepherote emanations of God concept
Speaker 2: is sometimes thought to be influenced by, or at least
Speaker 2: analogous to, neoplatonic emanation. By the time we reached the
Speaker 2: Middle Ages in Christian Europe, much of Platinus's impact was
Speaker 2: indirect via Augustine and Pseudodionysus. The High Medieval scholastics like
Speaker 2: Aquinas engaged more with Aristotle, who had become more accessible,
Speaker 2: but even a Quinus, when discussing the hierarchy of being
Speaker 2: and the transcendence of God, occasionally uses neoplatonic language. For instance,
Speaker 2: Aquinas's doctrine that we know God better by what he
Speaker 2: is not owes something to negative theology tradition, the privative
Speaker 2: theory of evil that evil is not an independent substance
Speaker 2: but a lack of good is straight from Platinus in
Speaker 2: Augustine that became the standard Christian explanation of evil. The
Speaker 2: Renaissance saw a massive revival of Platonism and Neoplatonism, the
Speaker 2: Platinus at the center. In Florence fifteenth century, the Beidc
Speaker 2: Patriots led to the founding of the new Platonic Academy,
Speaker 2: led by Marsilio Ficino. Facino was commissioned by Cosimo di
Speaker 2: Medici to translate Greek philosophical works into Latin. By fourteen sixty,
Speaker 2: Ficino had Plato's complete works done. Then around fourteen eighty four,
Speaker 2: Ficcino completed the first ever Latin translation of Platinus's Eneads,
Speaker 2: published in fourteen ninety two. This was groundbreaking. The West
Speaker 2: previously had no direct access to Platinus's text. Medieval knowledge
Speaker 2: of Platinus was piecemeal through Augustine and others. With Fictino's translation,
Speaker 2: Renaissance scholars could read Platinus. Faccino himself was deeply influenced.
Speaker 2: He wrote commentaries on Platonis and incorporated Neoplatonic ideas into
Speaker 2: his own philosophy, which sought to reconcile Platonism with Christianity.
Speaker 2: Ficcino's major work, Platonic Theology, is filled with Platonian thought,
Speaker 2: the hierarchy of being, the immortality of the soul via
Speaker 2: its participation in divine unity, and in etctera. Ficcinian academy
Speaker 2: activities reconcile the philosophy of Plato directly with Christianity. Key
Speaker 2: Renaissance figures like Pico della Mirandolo or Neoplatonic and Outlook.
Speaker 2: Pico's famous oration on the dignity of man has echoes
Speaker 2: of Platinus's exultation of the soul's potential ascent to divine status.
Speaker 2: The concept of Platonic love in the Renaissance is quite Platonium.
Speaker 2: Even art and literature felt the influence. Themes of ascent
Speaker 2: to the one with the vision of divine beauty show
Speaker 2: up in poets like Edward Spencer or artists influenced by
Speaker 2: Neoplatonic ideas of beauty reflecting the divine. I would also
Speaker 2: like to mention that Renaissance thinkers often amalgamated Platinus with
Speaker 2: later Neoplatonists, Hermetic and cabalistic sources. It was an esoteric blend. Nevertheless,
Speaker 2: Platinus was highly esteemed as a sage. Some Renaissance scholars,
Speaker 2: breaking from scholastic Aristolianism, saw in Platinus a more spiritually
Speaker 2: satisfying philosophy. The Cambridge Platonists in seventeenth century England are
Speaker 2: an example of that legacy. In seventeenth century England, a
Speaker 2: group known as the Cambridge Platonists, including figures like Henry Moore,
Speaker 2: Ralph Cudworth and John Smith, drew explicitly on Neoplatonism, citing
Speaker 2: Platinus as inspiration. Platinus's ideas of the indwelling divine in
Speaker 2: the soul and the continuum of spirit and matter suited
Speaker 2: their attempt to reconcile religion with emerging science. For instance,
Speaker 2: Henry Moore wrote a commentary on aspects of Platinus. They
Speaker 2: championed Platonic love, the pre existence of the soul, and
Speaker 2: such concepts that have Plutonian flavor. They considered Platinus almost
Speaker 2: an honorary Christian in spirit. Besides academic philosophers, Platinus influenced
Speaker 2: English literature and thought more broadly. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the poet,
Speaker 2: had strong Neoplatonic streaks. He read the Cambridge Platonists and
Speaker 2: German idealists, themselves influenced by Neoplatonism. Coleridge's idea of the
Speaker 2: one life in nature in the symbol of a return
Speaker 2: to unity resonates with Platinus. The famous lines in Wordsworth
Speaker 2: about the soul's trailing clouds of glory from God arguably
Speaker 2: an echo from Neoplatonic ideas of emanation and return. In
Speaker 2: the nineteenth century, Romantic and transcendental writers were drawn to neoplats.
Speaker 2: For example, the American transcendentalists read Platinus. Ralph Woldo Emerson
Speaker 2: explicitly mentions the influence of Neoplatonic ideas on him. Emerson's
Speaker 2: concept of the over soul is a fusion of Platinus's
Speaker 2: one and nose and Vedanta's brahmin Atman idea. Indeed, a
Speaker 2: study in nineteen sixty seven by Dale Ripe examined how Avata,
Speaker 2: Vendata and Neoplatonism jointly influenced Emerson, illustrating that by the
Speaker 2: nineteenth century, Platinus was part of the global conversation on
Speaker 2: mysticism and unity. William Blake, earlier, though idiosyncratic, had the
Speaker 2: idea if the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would
Speaker 2: appear to man as it is infinite, reminiscent of Platinus's
Speaker 2: notion that in mystical union we see the all as
Speaker 2: one infinite reality. The poet W. B. Yeats was notably
Speaker 2: influenced by Neoplatonism. Each cites Plautinus in his essays, and
Speaker 2: his system of thought uses a lot of neoplatonic imagery.
Speaker 2: Kathleen Rayne, a scholar and poet, was a known Platonist
Speaker 2: who wrote on Blake and others with the neoplatonic lens.
Speaker 2: She helped revive interest in the mystical aspect of Platonism
Speaker 2: in the twentieth century. I also want to mention the
Speaker 2: Victorian neoplatonist Thomas Taylor. Although earlier than these, Taylor was
Speaker 2: an English translator who in the eighteenth century rendered many
Speaker 2: Greek philosophical works into English, including Platinus. Taylor was a
Speaker 2: defote of pagan neoplatonism and influenced the Romantic generation. He
Speaker 2: kept Neoplatonism alive in English at a time it was
Speaker 2: little known. Through Taylor the theosophical movement. Modern Blavotsky in
Speaker 2: the late nineteenth century also came to appreciate Neoplatonism, connecting
Speaker 2: it with Eastern philosophies. As we noted, Platinus showed interest
Speaker 2: in Indiana in philosophy, but never got to meet Indian sages. However,
Speaker 2: modern scholars and spiritual thinkers have often commented on how
Speaker 2: Platinus's thought resembles Danta or other Indian traditions. To Upanishads,
Speaker 2: which teach that the individual's soul is one with the
Speaker 2: supreme reality when ignorance is dispelled, is conceptually akin to
Speaker 2: Platonian journey of the soul to union with the one.
Speaker 2: Both speak of the highest reality in terms of pure
Speaker 2: unity and consciousness. Both treat the material world as a
Speaker 2: lower derivative reality. In the twentieth century, scholars like JF.
Speaker 2: Stahal wrote about analogies between Adrita Vedanta and Neoplatonism. He
Speaker 2: and others have pointed out parallels. For example, so Rapali
Speaker 2: rad Hakrosnan, a prominent Indian philosopher, often cited Platinus alongside
Speaker 2: Shankara to illustrate monistic metaphysics, and Nanda Coomara Raswami, an
Speaker 2: early twentieth century scholar, explicitly compared Platinus's teachings to Eveda Vedanta,
Speaker 2: calling Platinus's work a superb elaboration of monism parallel to
Speaker 2: the Upanashads. They found common ground in ideas like the
Speaker 2: one without a second, the method of negation, and the
Speaker 2: practice of interiority and contemplation. One quote from an Indian
Speaker 2: perspective is scholar M. Vashu de Vichara said, though Platinus
Speaker 2: never managed to reach India, his method shows an affinity
Speaker 2: to the method of negation as taught in some Upanishads,
Speaker 2: and also to the practice of yoga. Indeed, the way
Speaker 2: Platinus recommends withdrawing the senses and focusing inward could be
Speaker 2: compared to raja yoga or meditation techniques in Hinduism. Some
Speaker 2: have even called Platinus this Sage of the West, in
Speaker 2: parallel to the Eastern sages. However, we must emphasize there's
Speaker 2: no evidence of the direct historical influence either way. Platinus
Speaker 2: likely didn't know Indian doctrines in detail, and India only
Speaker 2: learned of Platinis through colonial error scholarship, so the connection
Speaker 2: is more comparative and perhaps pointing to universal metaphysical tendencies.
Speaker 2: In modern times, certain new age or esoteric movements sometimes
Speaker 2: merge Platinus with Eastern thought. For example, the idea of
Speaker 2: the One surfaces in theosophy as a blend of Western
Speaker 2: and Eastern. Additionally, Sri a Robindo, a modern Indian sage,
Speaker 2: though more influenced by Vedanta, occasionally referenced Western mystics. He
Speaker 2: was aware of Neoplatonism through his education. In terms of
Speaker 2: influential one can say Platinus influenced Christian theology, Islamic philosophy, mysticism,
Speaker 2: and esoteric traditions. He cemented the philosophical underpinnings that bridged
Speaker 2: classical thought with emerging monotheism. Neoplatonism became the last great
Speaker 2: pagan philosophy and also a vehicle that translated Pagan thought
Speaker 2: into terms compatible with Christianity. He also offered a point
Speaker 2: of interfaith or East West dialogue, showing that deep philosophies
Speaker 2: of unity emerge independently in both cultures. It also influenced
Speaker 2: some comparative philosophy works and the self perception of modern
Speaker 2: Indian philosophers, who often claim ancient Indian philosophy had analogous
Speaker 2: heights as Greek, with Platinus frequently used as the Western
Speaker 2: counterpoint to Shinkara, Platinus stands as a pivotal figure who
Speaker 2: bridged classical Greek philosophy and later religious thought. His biography,
Speaker 2: though scant and personal details, shows a life devoted to
Speaker 2: bringing back to divine in himself, to the divine in
Speaker 2: the oul. His philosophy centered on the one emanation, the
Speaker 2: true self, happiness in union with the divine. Critique of
Speaker 2: dualistic heresies, skepticism of astrological determinism and the possibility of
Speaker 2: mystical henosis has proven to be one of the most
Speaker 2: enduring systems of thought. It provided tools for the theological reflection,
Speaker 2: mystical practice, and philosophical speculation that is still in use.
Speaker 2: As one modern scholar put it, Platinus's views may appear astonishing, innovative,
Speaker 2: or even modern, precisely because they address perennial human spiritual
Speaker 2: aspirations in a rigorous philosophical form. Almost eighteen centuries later,
Speaker 2: readers of Platinus, where the academic or spiritual, continue to
Speaker 2: find illuminations in his amalgam of reason and mysticism, making
Speaker 2: him truly as the old Neoplatonist believed and illuminator, a
Speaker 2: philosopher who guides souls upward to the light of the good. Now,
Speaker 2: before we wrap this up, this would be in a
Speaker 2: cult reject show if we didn't include Platinus's idea about
Speaker 2: the eyes and light. He that has the strength let
Speaker 2: him arise and withdraw into himself, foregoing all that is
Speaker 2: known by the eyes. Platinus touches and reflects on the
Speaker 2: eyes in sight, mainly in the fifth tractate Problems of
Speaker 2: the Soul and on Site, Platinus begins with a challenge
Speaker 2: that had tugged at Greek optic since Plato and Aristotle,
Speaker 2: can there be vision in the absence of any intervening
Speaker 2: medium such as air or some other form of what
Speaker 2: is known as transparent body. From that deliberately technical question,
Speaker 2: he spirals outward into a meditation on what it means
Speaker 2: for any living being to apprehend a world in any
Speaker 2: add four Problems of the Soul and on Site, Platinus
Speaker 2: thinks no seeing is possible in the absence of a
Speaker 2: bodily medium, because there's pure soul left to itself, is
Speaker 2: absorbed in the intelligible realm and cannot interact with matter.
Speaker 2: The bodily eye is grown by the insoled organism as
Speaker 2: an organ of sympathia, a continuation of the soul outward
Speaker 2: that lets it come into something like unity with the alien.
Speaker 2: We undertook to discuss the question where the site is
Speaker 2: possible in the absence of any intervening medium, such as
Speaker 2: air or some other form of what is known as
Speaker 2: transparent body. This is the time in place it has
Speaker 2: been explained that seeing and all sense perception can occur
Speaker 2: only through the medium of some bodily substance, since in
Speaker 2: the absence of body, the soul is utterly absorbed in
Speaker 2: the intellectual sphere, sense perception being the gripping not of
Speaker 2: the intellectual but of the sensible alone. The soul, if
Speaker 2: it is to form any relationship of knowledge or of
Speaker 2: an oppression with objects or sense, must be brought in
Speaker 2: some kind of contact with them by means of whatever
Speaker 2: may bridge the gap, and that is from indead. Four
Speaker 2: problems of the soul and on site. Platinus also reviews
Speaker 2: three optical models current in his day. Progressive affection. The
Speaker 2: air itself is stamped with the body's image and passes
Speaker 2: that imprint on tier by tier to the eye.
Speaker 1: Extra mission.
Speaker 2: The eye emits a fiery visual ray, carving a path
Speaker 2: that meets and merges with daylight and resistance theory vision
Speaker 2: is a physical tussle where the medium pushes back against.
Speaker 1: The visual ray.
Speaker 2: He rejects all of them with one decisive diagnosis. Any
Speaker 2: extra body between eye and object adds nothing to seeing power.
Speaker 2: The less material the intervening substance is, the more clearly
Speaker 2: we see. If contact were a little physical chain. He argues,
Speaker 2: the vast dark of night would break it. Yet we
Speaker 2: still see campfires and stars. That thought experiment yields his
Speaker 2: most lapidary verdict. In the blackest of night, we can
Speaker 2: see the fire of the beacon stations. Therefore, the impossibility
Speaker 2: of vision without an intervening substance does not depend upon
Speaker 2: that absence in itself. The sole reason is that with
Speaker 2: the absence, there would be an end to the sympathy
Speaker 2: raining in the living hole. Platinus suffuses three earlier theories,
Speaker 2: Plato's outward streaming visual fire, Aristotle's insistence on a medium,
Speaker 2: and the stoic idea of numa that links cosmos and observer.
Speaker 2: The eye does emit a living pneumatic ray, but vision
Speaker 2: is completed only when that ray meets the form laden
Speaker 2: light coming the other way through the medium. Modern historians
Speaker 2: call this a reciprocal or two ray model, and see
Speaker 2: it as Platinus's own synthesis. In the Aeniad, he also
Speaker 2: sees sight as sympathia in a living cosmos. This breakthrough
Speaker 2: comes when Platinus shifts from physics to biology. The universe
Speaker 2: is one living organism, every part sympathetically tuned to every other.
Speaker 2: Perception is nothing but the momentary unism of two members
Speaker 2: of that organism. Thus the knowledge is realized by means
Speaker 2: of bodily organs. Through these continuations of the soul, it
Speaker 2: comes into something like unity with the alien. The unity
Speaker 2: is not brute contact, but a double act. First act,
Speaker 2: the visual faculty of the soul extends outward in a
Speaker 2: delicate bodyless readiness. The second act, the object's own power
Speaker 2: travels inward oneong the same channel of light. When the
Speaker 2: two acts coincide, vision flashes. If in the act of
Speaker 2: vision that length light becomes insul if the soul permeates
Speaker 2: it and enters into union with it, the process of
Speaker 2: seeing will be like that of touch. The intervening light
Speaker 2: is not a necessity. Gary Gertler's twenty eighteen article in
Speaker 2: the International Journal of the Platonic Tradition calls this the
Speaker 2: most original move in the tractate. Platinus substitutes his own
Speaker 2: account in terms of both sympathy and the principle of
Speaker 2: two acts, explaining vision both during the day as well
Speaker 2: at night, and derives strikingly original corrollaries about the nature
Speaker 2: of light and the source of color. Kay Emilson and
Speaker 2: his monograph Platinus on Sense Perception identifies the same passage
Speaker 2: as the moment where vision becomes an instant of the
Speaker 2: soul's self recognition rather than a passive impress. When it
Speaker 2: comes to light in color, Platinus treats light not as
Speaker 2: a substance lodged in air, but as the ongoing act
Speaker 2: of any luminous body. If air happens to be there,
Speaker 2: it glows. If not, the act leaps the void, just
Speaker 2: as life leaps from soul to limb. He even anticipates
Speaker 2: the idea of a cone of vision. Any given portion
Speaker 2: of the air contains the object of vision. In face view,
Speaker 2: so to speak, we are confronted by no merely corporal phenomena.
Speaker 2: The facts depend upon the greater law of a living
Speaker 2: being and self sensitive. The physical eye is grown by
Speaker 2: the soul as an instrument of sympathia, its clarity mirroring
Speaker 2: the self reflective clarity of intellect. The famous moral outcome
Speaker 2: appears in the neighboring etherical Tractate, but echoes here, never
Speaker 2: did I e ye see the sun unless it had
Speaker 2: first become sunlight, a line that medieval and Renaissance writers
Speaker 2: quote whenever they invoke spiritual illumination. Platinus also speaks of
Speaker 2: the eye as a metaphysical symbol. Again, never did I
Speaker 2: see the sun unless it had first becomes sun like.
Speaker 2: Platinus's most quoted aphorism equates bodily sun eye with the
Speaker 2: intelligible good soul. To behold supreme beauty, the inner eye
Speaker 2: must be purified until it resembles what it seeks. Platinus infers,
Speaker 2: our highest soul is always looking at nose, but a
Speaker 2: lower part looks out through the eyeballs. Spiritual practice is
Speaker 2: the turning around of that gaze from the dark screen
Speaker 2: of matter back to the intelligible light. He also speaks
Speaker 2: of higher analogies and mystical sight. Intellect or nose is
Speaker 2: the cosmic eye. Just as the physical eye contains miniature
Speaker 2: images of everything it sees, the divine intellect contains the
Speaker 2: art type of forms. Site therefore models knowledge at every
Speaker 2: level pupil, image, and soul and idea intellect to one,
Speaker 2: and that we have the flash of ainosis. Porphary says
Speaker 2: Platinus became one with the one. Four times each experiences
Speaker 2: was reported as a sudden light flooding from the inner
Speaker 2: eye in the dad. He compares this to seeing the
Speaker 2: sun by the sun's own light the sear and this
Speaker 2: scene a one luminous act. Platinus also says after death,
Speaker 2: if purified, the soul will look on itself and all
Speaker 2: in a single glance, freed from the distortions that plague
Speaker 2: earth bound eyes, which would be distance, dimness, and refraction
Speaker 2: in attractate ostensibly about the eyes. Platinus ends by showing
Speaker 2: that vision is the whole soul, stretching towards its origin.
Speaker 2: The outer drama of life crossing space is but the
Speaker 2: shadow of an inner drama. The intellect recognizing itself, is
Speaker 2: what it beholds, and just ashinosis eRASS the gap between
Speaker 2: knower and known, so perfect sight would erase the gap
Speaker 2: between eye and star. Until then, Platinus leaves us with
Speaker 2: a metaphysical optic, in which every glance is an act
Speaker 2: of sympathy, every color a handshake across the living fabric
Speaker 2: of the universe, and every spark of light a reminder
Speaker 2: that seeing is always at bottom, soul touching soul. Platinus
Speaker 2: tought that happiness is immune to fortune because it's not
Speaker 2: a trophy one in the arena of circumstance. It is
Speaker 2: the soul's recognition of its own altitude. Even the stars,
Speaker 2: he said, are merely shimmering signatures and a letter already
Speaker 2: posted in the heart. If a third century philosopher could
Speaker 2: stand in the midst civil war and play can still
Speaker 2: praise the cosmo says good, the rest of us can
Speaker 2: try to practice that same devotion when headlines scream and
Speaker 2: algorithms beckon us. And perhaps that is Platinus's final gift,
Speaker 2: the permission to treat every moment of clear intention as
Speaker 2: a lit stairway. When we love something truly beautiful, we
Speaker 2: glimpse beauty itself. When we reason honestly, we graze the
Speaker 2: edge of intellect. When we forgive the world it spruises,
Speaker 2: we echo generosity of the one that overflows without laws.
Speaker 2: The path is not a conquest, but a remembering, a
Speaker 2: slow unclenching, until giver and gift seeker and sort meet
Speaker 2: in a silence deeper than can ever be imagined. So
Speaker 2: take this conversation with you into whatever night or morning
Speaker 2: surrounds you. Let the lamplight on your desk, the bulb
Speaker 2: hanging from your ceiling, with a passing headlights in the
Speaker 2: street remind you that every flicker is a faint relay
Speaker 2: of one inexhaustible, brilliant radiance. The philosopher Capania believed and
Speaker 2: lived as though believing that no soul is ever truly
Speaker 2: exiled from that source. May we too learn to travel homeward,
Speaker 2: not by running faster, but by standing still, listening, and
Speaker 2: letting the hidden fountain speak to us.
Speaker 1: Until next time.
Speaker 2: Stay curious, stay courageous, and with love in your heart,
Speaker 2: keep that inner compass pointed toward the light behind your eyes.