1787. Thomas Taylor was one of the outstanding translators of the philosophical writings of the Greeks and Romans, and also published several original works on philosophy and mathematics. Many of his important contributions in these fields have been long out-of-print and are extremely difficult to obtain, having been issued in very small editions. Most of Taylor's translations have an archaic elegance which preserves the spirit of the older authors in a manner not evident in more recent translations. Taylor also added notes and commentaries which give valuable insight into the essential meaning often obscure in the actual text. Contains all the known translations of the Enneads by Thomas Taylor. Plotinus stands as the great reviver of Platonism as a living philosophy, and a true basis for real mystical development. From his inspiration and work arose a line of profound thinkers, whose works remain a high-water mark in the religious and philosophical achievements of humanity. This volume includes 27 treatises on such subjects The Good or The One; The Immortality of the Soul; Providence; Dialectic; Virtues; Felicity; Eternity and Time; The Nature and Origin of Evil; and Intellect, Ideas and Being. See the many other works by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.
Egyptian-born Roman philosopher Plotinus and his successors in the 3rd century at Alexandria founded and developed Neoplatonism, a philosophical system, which, based on Platonism with elements of mysticism and some Judaic and Christian concepts, posits a single source from which all existence emanates and with which one mystically can unite an individual soul; The Enneads collects his writings.
Saint Thomas Aquinas combined elements of this system and other philosophy within a context of Christian thought.
People widely consider this major of the ancient world alongside Ammonius Saccas, his teacher. He influenced in late antiquity. Much of our biographical information about Plotinus comes from preface of Porphyry to his edition. His metaphysical writings inspired centuries of pagan, Islamic, and Gnostic metaphysicians and mystics.