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Plotinus, or the Simplicity of Vision
Since its original publication in France in 1963, Pierre Hadot's lively philosophical portrait of Plotinus remains the preeminent introduction to the man and his thought. Michael Chase's lucid translation—complete with a useful chronology and analytical bibliography—at last makes this book available to the English-speaking world.
Hadot carefully examines Plotinus's views on the self, existence, love, virtue, gentleness, and solitude. He shows that Plotinus, like other philosophers of his day, believed that Plato and Aristotle had already articulated the essential truths; for him, the purpose of practicing philosophy was not to profess new truths but to engage in spiritual exercises so as to live philosophically. Seen in this light, Plotinus's counsel against fixation on the body and all earthly matters stemmed not from disgust or fear, but rather from his awareness of the negative effect that bodily preoccupation and material concern could have on spiritual exercises.
Hadot carefully examines Plotinus's views on the self, existence, love, virtue, gentleness, and solitude. He shows that Plotinus, like other philosophers of his day, believed that Plato and Aristotle had already articulated the essential truths; for him, the purpose of practicing philosophy was not to profess new truths but to engage in spiritual exercises so as to live philosophically. Seen in this light, Plotinus's counsel against fixation on the body and all earthly matters stemmed not from disgust or fear, but rather from his awareness of the negative effect that bodily preoccupation and material concern could have on spiritual exercises.
145 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1963
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1081 people want to read
About the author
Pierre Hadot
49 books324 followersPierre Hadot (né à Paris, le 21 février 1922 - mort à Orsay, le 25 avril 2010) est un philosophe, historien et philologue français, spécialiste de l'antiquité, profond connaisseur de la période hellénistique et en particulier du néoplatonisme et de Plotin. Pierre Hadot est l'auteur d'une œuvre développée notamment autour de la notion d'exercice spirituel et de philosophie comme manière de vivre.
Spécialiste de Plotin et du stoïcisme, en particulier de Marc-Aurèle, il est un de ceux qui ont accompagné le retour à la philosophie antique, considérée comme pratique, manière de vivre et exercice spirituel. Ses livres, très agréables à lire et d'une très grande érudition, manifestent constamment un rapport avec l'existence, l'expérience, voire la poésie, la littérature et le mysticisme.
Spécialiste de Plotin et du stoïcisme, en particulier de Marc-Aurèle, il est un de ceux qui ont accompagné le retour à la philosophie antique, considérée comme pratique, manière de vivre et exercice spirituel. Ses livres, très agréables à lire et d'une très grande érudition, manifestent constamment un rapport avec l'existence, l'expérience, voire la poésie, la littérature et le mysticisme.
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September 3, 2025
Philosophy As Transformative
The French philosopher Pierre Hadot (b. 1922) is known for his studies of ancient philosophy and for his teaching that philosophy is not a mere academic study. Instead, for Hadot, philosophy is a spiritual training and a way to understand one's life in the company of a teacher and like-minded individuals. Hadot's mastery of ancient philosophy and his understanding of the philosophic endeavor pervade this short outstanding introduction, written in 1963, to the life and thought of Plotinus (205 -- 270 A.D.), the most significant exponent of the philosophy known as Neoplatonism.
Hadot's book on Plotinus is subtitled "The Simplicity of Vision." A good way of approaching it is to understand what Hadot means by "simplicity." Neither Plotinus nor Hadot make easy or "simple" reading. "Simplicity" here is contrasted with "multiplicity" or with what Plotinus calls "the composite." The composite is the world of everydayness, with its collage of change, a multitude of different things, and human emotions which pull in different directions and tend at each moment to tear the individual and groups of people apart. Most of the time, Plotinus thinks, we live in this composite world. We fall into the mistake of believing that it is all there is. But there is more to reality, and it lies within. By changing the way we look at things and ingrained habits and passions, we can try to redirect our attention to the purely simple -- without parts or multiplicity -- which brings goodness, beauty and stability to life.
It is Hadot's merit to show the depths of Plotinus, to explain the appeal of his vision, and to save it from misunderstanding and instant rejection in a scientific, materialistic culture. Hadot stresses the immanent character of Plotinus's vision of simplicity. For the most part, he finds that Plotinus's vision is internalized and rests upon understanding oneself in a new way, rather than in finding an "All" or and "Absolute" somehow separate from the self. Although Plotinus begins with the dualistic contrast between matter and spirit, Plotinus does not end there but moves to a philosophy of all-inclusiveness or nonduality in which terms such as "inside" or "outside" or "self" and "other" tend to lose their meaning. Plotinus does not teach creationism in the manner of the Gnostics, a Platonic demigurge, or some understandings of western theism. He sees the nature of the good and of reality as inherent to the world we see everyday and available to those who seek it through a redirection of effort. Hadot would suggest to a modern audience, I think, that because of the nature of philosophical/religious understanding and its object, as developed in Plotinus, such understanding could not "conflict" with scientific understanding which abstracts from the whole and deals with particulars. Plotinus believed that Plato and Aristotle had basically taught all the substantive teachings necessary for philosophy. Thus his teachings were devoted to exegesis, to meditation, and to spiritual growth.
Plotinus' teachings are sometimes thought to be otherworldly, aloof, and remote from the world of sense and from human contact. Hadot shows that Plotinus can be understood in a different way. The difficult teaching culminates in a manner in which the rare experience of contemplative ecstasy can be combined with living with one's fellows in daily life in teachings of compassion, gentleness, and sociability. Ultimately, Hadot teaches, Plotinus's teachings inform daily life instead of constituting a flight from it. I was reminded of the title of a recent book by the American teacher of Buddhist meditation, Jack Kornfield", "After the ecstasy, the laundry" which seems to capture something of how Hadot understands Plotinus. Hadot explains Plotinus's underlying vision in short chapters devoted to love, the virtues, companionship, and solitude, with references to Plotinian texts, the biography of Plotinus by his student Porphyry, and by parallels to modern thinkers including Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, and Wittgenstein.
Hadot sees Plotinus's importance as part of a tradition of spiritual, mystical thought that, among other things, allows one to live in the everyday and pursue the teachings of science without falling into scientism or the senseless never-ending pull back and forth of one's own emotions and desires. A great deal of contemporary spiritual, meditative thought, whether Buddhist, Western, or untied to any religious tradition has commonalities with and much to learn from Plotinus. As Hadot concludes:
"Today we are even more inwardly divided that was Plotinian man. We are still, however, capable of hearing Plotinus's call. There can be no question of slavishly imitating the spiritual itinerary of Plotinus here in the late twentieth century; that would be impossible or illusory. Rather, we must consent, with as much courage as Plotinus did, to every dimension of human experience, and to everything within it that is mysterious, inexpressible, and transcendent." (p. 113)
Readers with an interest in spirituality and religion will benefit from knowing Hadot and Plotinus.
Robin Friedman
The French philosopher Pierre Hadot (b. 1922) is known for his studies of ancient philosophy and for his teaching that philosophy is not a mere academic study. Instead, for Hadot, philosophy is a spiritual training and a way to understand one's life in the company of a teacher and like-minded individuals. Hadot's mastery of ancient philosophy and his understanding of the philosophic endeavor pervade this short outstanding introduction, written in 1963, to the life and thought of Plotinus (205 -- 270 A.D.), the most significant exponent of the philosophy known as Neoplatonism.
Hadot's book on Plotinus is subtitled "The Simplicity of Vision." A good way of approaching it is to understand what Hadot means by "simplicity." Neither Plotinus nor Hadot make easy or "simple" reading. "Simplicity" here is contrasted with "multiplicity" or with what Plotinus calls "the composite." The composite is the world of everydayness, with its collage of change, a multitude of different things, and human emotions which pull in different directions and tend at each moment to tear the individual and groups of people apart. Most of the time, Plotinus thinks, we live in this composite world. We fall into the mistake of believing that it is all there is. But there is more to reality, and it lies within. By changing the way we look at things and ingrained habits and passions, we can try to redirect our attention to the purely simple -- without parts or multiplicity -- which brings goodness, beauty and stability to life.
It is Hadot's merit to show the depths of Plotinus, to explain the appeal of his vision, and to save it from misunderstanding and instant rejection in a scientific, materialistic culture. Hadot stresses the immanent character of Plotinus's vision of simplicity. For the most part, he finds that Plotinus's vision is internalized and rests upon understanding oneself in a new way, rather than in finding an "All" or and "Absolute" somehow separate from the self. Although Plotinus begins with the dualistic contrast between matter and spirit, Plotinus does not end there but moves to a philosophy of all-inclusiveness or nonduality in which terms such as "inside" or "outside" or "self" and "other" tend to lose their meaning. Plotinus does not teach creationism in the manner of the Gnostics, a Platonic demigurge, or some understandings of western theism. He sees the nature of the good and of reality as inherent to the world we see everyday and available to those who seek it through a redirection of effort. Hadot would suggest to a modern audience, I think, that because of the nature of philosophical/religious understanding and its object, as developed in Plotinus, such understanding could not "conflict" with scientific understanding which abstracts from the whole and deals with particulars. Plotinus believed that Plato and Aristotle had basically taught all the substantive teachings necessary for philosophy. Thus his teachings were devoted to exegesis, to meditation, and to spiritual growth.
Plotinus' teachings are sometimes thought to be otherworldly, aloof, and remote from the world of sense and from human contact. Hadot shows that Plotinus can be understood in a different way. The difficult teaching culminates in a manner in which the rare experience of contemplative ecstasy can be combined with living with one's fellows in daily life in teachings of compassion, gentleness, and sociability. Ultimately, Hadot teaches, Plotinus's teachings inform daily life instead of constituting a flight from it. I was reminded of the title of a recent book by the American teacher of Buddhist meditation, Jack Kornfield", "After the ecstasy, the laundry" which seems to capture something of how Hadot understands Plotinus. Hadot explains Plotinus's underlying vision in short chapters devoted to love, the virtues, companionship, and solitude, with references to Plotinian texts, the biography of Plotinus by his student Porphyry, and by parallels to modern thinkers including Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, and Wittgenstein.
Hadot sees Plotinus's importance as part of a tradition of spiritual, mystical thought that, among other things, allows one to live in the everyday and pursue the teachings of science without falling into scientism or the senseless never-ending pull back and forth of one's own emotions and desires. A great deal of contemporary spiritual, meditative thought, whether Buddhist, Western, or untied to any religious tradition has commonalities with and much to learn from Plotinus. As Hadot concludes:
"Today we are even more inwardly divided that was Plotinian man. We are still, however, capable of hearing Plotinus's call. There can be no question of slavishly imitating the spiritual itinerary of Plotinus here in the late twentieth century; that would be impossible or illusory. Rather, we must consent, with as much courage as Plotinus did, to every dimension of human experience, and to everything within it that is mysterious, inexpressible, and transcendent." (p. 113)
Readers with an interest in spirituality and religion will benefit from knowing Hadot and Plotinus.
Robin Friedman
May 31, 2018
“What we must see is that which allows us to see: light, to be sure, but just as much the original act of vision: in other words, that which sees in the depth of our vision. If life, in all its stages, is vision, it is because pure presence, which is its center and its source, is, in a sense, absolute vision, the immediate transparency of the Good to itself: 'In a sense, for it, its being is its act of looking at itself.’” (63)
Hadot’s work on Plotinus is as much an interpretation as it is a recreation and renewal of the essential insights of the Plotinian system. Hadot shows that Plotinus is a sort of proto-phenomenologist, in the sense that his is above all a philosophy of vision. In Hadot’s view, Plotinus shows us that we never really see the world, nor attain realization in an act of vision, until we grasp it as a unity in difference. Hadot argues that the core Plotinian notions still have perennial relevance for modern philosophy by transposing them from their traditional metaphysical foundation to an existential, one might say phenomenological, one.
Hadot argues that Plotinus’ picture of “levels of reality,” which locates material being at the lowest level and spiritual being at the highest can be restated as a doctrine of “levels of self,” which ranges from sense experience as the lowest development of the self’s capacity to engage with its reality (since sensation is more memory than presence), up to the knowledge of the real as a unity in difference as the highest fulfillment of self, since it is this latter state alone that captures the self in its full actuality. This way of reformulating the system brackets the now contentious Plotinian idealist metaphysics by converting its valid (anthropological, epistemic) core into a (less contentious) phenomenology.
If one could boil down Hadot’s Plotinus to a pithy, take-home point, it would perhaps be this: self-realization is self-transcendence. The goal of selves, in their unique modes of being as selves, is to shed their ego-centric perspective in order to “raise themselves to the thought of the All.” On this view, we can measure our degree of progress in life by looking to see to what extent we are moving from an anguished, partial, fragmented, ego-centric perspective focused on things in their instrumental externality to one that is total, internal, and peaceful. In the Plotinian view, our highest experience doesn’t have the individual self as its object; rather, it sees the center of the self as residing in a presence that is the source and ground not just of the self, but of all things. It is worth quoting the book at length here because I can at best do a botched job of summarizing this point:
“With this experience of total presence, we touch upon the most profound point of the Plotinian experience of Life. Life is total presence, since it is a simple, infinite force which diffuses itself in dynamic continuity. Plotinus seizes Life from within, as pure movement which is everywhere and unceasing. It is ‘already there,’ prior to all the particular forms it engenders, and it does not cease in them:
‘The First Nature is present to all things. Present? But how? Like one single Life which is within all things. In a living being, Life does not penetrate as far as a certain point and then stop, as if it could not spread to the entire being; rather, it is present in every part of it…. If you can grasp the inexhaustible infinity of Life - its tireless, unwearied, unfailing nature, as if boiling over with life - it will do you no good to fix your gaze on one spot, or concentrate your attention on any given object: you will not find it there. Rather, the exact opposite would happen to you.’
This is because the movement of Life, in its total presence, cannot be fixed in any particular point. However far we go in the direction of the infinitely small or the infinitely large, the movement of life will always be beyond us, because we are within it. The more we seek it, the less we find. If, however, we give up seeking it, then it is there, because it is pure presence. Everything distinct which we had previously conceived or perceived only led us farther away from it.” (46)
Hadot persuasively argues that Plotinus provides a really accurate of what Goethe called the “Urphenomen,” or the original phenomenon we are confronted with at the highest level of understanding. As Hadot points out, the Plotinian formulation bears a striking resemblance to Wittgenstein’s comment that “The mystical is not how the world is, but that it is.” The Plotinian system, then, can be seen as a protracted effort to describe the content of this “that it is,” of the original phenomenon we can best define as total presence. However, this focus on knowing as internalization and realization is where most modern readers will lose Hadot/Plotinus. Even more radical is the latter’s view of experience as a -locus-, a genuine place in its own right in which being discloses itself to us. Modern philosophy does a poor job of giving content to these ideas for us.
At the highest level of experience, the self’s most intimate interiority is paradoxically experienced as a self-transcendence, a shedding of a perspective built on partial identification with one’s limited corner of being. In its highest experience, the self becomes other, and recognizes its center as lying beyond itself. Nobody who’s read the Upanishads can fail to recognize the striking parallels here.
One of the fundamental questions of philosophy has arguably concerned the best way to conceive the principle of all things. Total presence, as the principle, is simultaneously the source, ground, center and goal of all things. Our best concept of the real (as seen from the first-person) is Unity/Good/Pure Interiority/Pure Actuality/Simplicity. It is this perfectly simple, total presence that may be described through indirect images and analogies but that escapes every effort at analysis. Self-realization, on this view, is establishing an experientially-transformative relation with the source, ground and goal of our being.
However, Plotinus, by answering that the principle is “total presence” initiates a critique of the limits of reason that is quite different in kind from what we’re used to in the post-Kantian tradition. Any theory will express an abstraction from total presence, an abstraction that strives to mirror the unity of the real in a system of generalizations and relations, but that cannot help but fail - by virtue of the abstract nature of symbols - to capture its actuality and concreteness. To reflect and theorize is just that: to stand apart, to abstract from, to leave out. Oddly, Wittgenstein’s bizarre mystical conclusion in the Tractatus seems to concende Plotinus’ basic point about the limits of our best epistemic instrument. Ultimately, because the simplicity of things escapes the grasp of reflection, because determinable forms conceal presence by expressing it, and because consciousness acts only by introducing a symbolic intermediary, theory can never grasp presence. Yet even though reason cannot grasp the real in its interiority, it expresses it, without knowing so. To see, then, is also to “see ... that which allows us to see.”
Ultimately, according to Hadot, at the heart of the Plotinian system is the notion that no act of knowing can be complete without a first-personal, immediate encounter with being. In this view, theoretical, objective knowledge is insufficient for philosophical understanding: a direct grasp of being as the source and ground of one’s self (as well as of any other self or individual form) is needed. A knowledge that does not transform the dimensions of experience is a merely external acquisition that is easily lost. Exploring the difficulty of grasping this existential remainder of knowing is a core part of Hadot’s book, and for that alone it is worth the read for anyone who doesn’t believe that to know oneself is just to project oneself into a reified abstraction. I am no metaphysician, nor do I really care to be, but I appreciate this book for reminding us of the distinction between knowledge and understanding, the latter of which involves an existentially transformative act.
I will conclude with what has been to me an illuminating reflection of Plotinus’ meaning that comes from an unusual source, Gregory Bateson’s Mind and Nature. It centers around the Plotinian notion that beauty is the state of complete simplicity, of fully realized presence:
“It is as if the stuff of which we are made were totally transparent and therefore imperceptible and as if the only appearances of which we can be aware are cracks and planes of fracture in that transparent matrix. Dreams and percepts and stories are perhaps cracks and irregularities in the uniform and timeless matrix. Was this what Plotinus meant by an 'invisible and unchanging beauty which pervades all things'?”
Hadot’s work on Plotinus is as much an interpretation as it is a recreation and renewal of the essential insights of the Plotinian system. Hadot shows that Plotinus is a sort of proto-phenomenologist, in the sense that his is above all a philosophy of vision. In Hadot’s view, Plotinus shows us that we never really see the world, nor attain realization in an act of vision, until we grasp it as a unity in difference. Hadot argues that the core Plotinian notions still have perennial relevance for modern philosophy by transposing them from their traditional metaphysical foundation to an existential, one might say phenomenological, one.
Hadot argues that Plotinus’ picture of “levels of reality,” which locates material being at the lowest level and spiritual being at the highest can be restated as a doctrine of “levels of self,” which ranges from sense experience as the lowest development of the self’s capacity to engage with its reality (since sensation is more memory than presence), up to the knowledge of the real as a unity in difference as the highest fulfillment of self, since it is this latter state alone that captures the self in its full actuality. This way of reformulating the system brackets the now contentious Plotinian idealist metaphysics by converting its valid (anthropological, epistemic) core into a (less contentious) phenomenology.
If one could boil down Hadot’s Plotinus to a pithy, take-home point, it would perhaps be this: self-realization is self-transcendence. The goal of selves, in their unique modes of being as selves, is to shed their ego-centric perspective in order to “raise themselves to the thought of the All.” On this view, we can measure our degree of progress in life by looking to see to what extent we are moving from an anguished, partial, fragmented, ego-centric perspective focused on things in their instrumental externality to one that is total, internal, and peaceful. In the Plotinian view, our highest experience doesn’t have the individual self as its object; rather, it sees the center of the self as residing in a presence that is the source and ground not just of the self, but of all things. It is worth quoting the book at length here because I can at best do a botched job of summarizing this point:
“With this experience of total presence, we touch upon the most profound point of the Plotinian experience of Life. Life is total presence, since it is a simple, infinite force which diffuses itself in dynamic continuity. Plotinus seizes Life from within, as pure movement which is everywhere and unceasing. It is ‘already there,’ prior to all the particular forms it engenders, and it does not cease in them:
‘The First Nature is present to all things. Present? But how? Like one single Life which is within all things. In a living being, Life does not penetrate as far as a certain point and then stop, as if it could not spread to the entire being; rather, it is present in every part of it…. If you can grasp the inexhaustible infinity of Life - its tireless, unwearied, unfailing nature, as if boiling over with life - it will do you no good to fix your gaze on one spot, or concentrate your attention on any given object: you will not find it there. Rather, the exact opposite would happen to you.’
This is because the movement of Life, in its total presence, cannot be fixed in any particular point. However far we go in the direction of the infinitely small or the infinitely large, the movement of life will always be beyond us, because we are within it. The more we seek it, the less we find. If, however, we give up seeking it, then it is there, because it is pure presence. Everything distinct which we had previously conceived or perceived only led us farther away from it.” (46)
Hadot persuasively argues that Plotinus provides a really accurate of what Goethe called the “Urphenomen,” or the original phenomenon we are confronted with at the highest level of understanding. As Hadot points out, the Plotinian formulation bears a striking resemblance to Wittgenstein’s comment that “The mystical is not how the world is, but that it is.” The Plotinian system, then, can be seen as a protracted effort to describe the content of this “that it is,” of the original phenomenon we can best define as total presence. However, this focus on knowing as internalization and realization is where most modern readers will lose Hadot/Plotinus. Even more radical is the latter’s view of experience as a -locus-, a genuine place in its own right in which being discloses itself to us. Modern philosophy does a poor job of giving content to these ideas for us.
At the highest level of experience, the self’s most intimate interiority is paradoxically experienced as a self-transcendence, a shedding of a perspective built on partial identification with one’s limited corner of being. In its highest experience, the self becomes other, and recognizes its center as lying beyond itself. Nobody who’s read the Upanishads can fail to recognize the striking parallels here.
One of the fundamental questions of philosophy has arguably concerned the best way to conceive the principle of all things. Total presence, as the principle, is simultaneously the source, ground, center and goal of all things. Our best concept of the real (as seen from the first-person) is Unity/Good/Pure Interiority/Pure Actuality/Simplicity. It is this perfectly simple, total presence that may be described through indirect images and analogies but that escapes every effort at analysis. Self-realization, on this view, is establishing an experientially-transformative relation with the source, ground and goal of our being.
However, Plotinus, by answering that the principle is “total presence” initiates a critique of the limits of reason that is quite different in kind from what we’re used to in the post-Kantian tradition. Any theory will express an abstraction from total presence, an abstraction that strives to mirror the unity of the real in a system of generalizations and relations, but that cannot help but fail - by virtue of the abstract nature of symbols - to capture its actuality and concreteness. To reflect and theorize is just that: to stand apart, to abstract from, to leave out. Oddly, Wittgenstein’s bizarre mystical conclusion in the Tractatus seems to concende Plotinus’ basic point about the limits of our best epistemic instrument. Ultimately, because the simplicity of things escapes the grasp of reflection, because determinable forms conceal presence by expressing it, and because consciousness acts only by introducing a symbolic intermediary, theory can never grasp presence. Yet even though reason cannot grasp the real in its interiority, it expresses it, without knowing so. To see, then, is also to “see ... that which allows us to see.”
Ultimately, according to Hadot, at the heart of the Plotinian system is the notion that no act of knowing can be complete without a first-personal, immediate encounter with being. In this view, theoretical, objective knowledge is insufficient for philosophical understanding: a direct grasp of being as the source and ground of one’s self (as well as of any other self or individual form) is needed. A knowledge that does not transform the dimensions of experience is a merely external acquisition that is easily lost. Exploring the difficulty of grasping this existential remainder of knowing is a core part of Hadot’s book, and for that alone it is worth the read for anyone who doesn’t believe that to know oneself is just to project oneself into a reified abstraction. I am no metaphysician, nor do I really care to be, but I appreciate this book for reminding us of the distinction between knowledge and understanding, the latter of which involves an existentially transformative act.
I will conclude with what has been to me an illuminating reflection of Plotinus’ meaning that comes from an unusual source, Gregory Bateson’s Mind and Nature. It centers around the Plotinian notion that beauty is the state of complete simplicity, of fully realized presence:
“It is as if the stuff of which we are made were totally transparent and therefore imperceptible and as if the only appearances of which we can be aware are cracks and planes of fracture in that transparent matrix. Dreams and percepts and stories are perhaps cracks and irregularities in the uniform and timeless matrix. Was this what Plotinus meant by an 'invisible and unchanging beauty which pervades all things'?”
December 10, 2023
“Our head strikes the heavens” – Homer, Iliad 4,443
“Often I reawaken from my body to myself: I come to be outside other things, and inside myself. What an extraordinarily wonderful beauty I then see! It is then, above all, that I believe I belong to the greater portion. I then realize the best form of life; I become at one with the Divine, and I establish myself in it. Once I reach this supreme activity, I establish myself above every other spiritual entity. After this repose in the Divine, however, when I come back down from intuition into rational thought, then I wonder: How is it possible that I should come down now, and how was it ever possible that my soul has come to be within my body…?” (IV 8, 1, 1-11)
“According to [Plotinus], the human soul occupies an intermediate position between realities inferior to it—matter and the life of the body—and realities superior to it: purely intellectual life, characteristic of divine intelligence, and higher still, the pure existence of the Principle of all things. Within this framework, the experience Plotinus describes for us consists in a movement by which the soul lifts itself up to the level of divine intelligence, which creates all things and contains within itself, in the form of a spiritual world, all the eternal Ideas or immutable models of which the things of this world are nothing but images. Our text even seems to give us to understand that the soul, passing beyond all this, can fix itself in the Principle of all things. . . .
“Each degree of reality, he argues, can only be explained with reference to its superior level; the unity of the body is explained by the unity of the soul which animates it; the life of the soul requires illumination by the life of higher Spirit; and finally, we cannot understand the life of the Spirit itself without the fecund simplicity of the absolute, divine Principle, which is, in a sense, its deepest intimacy.
“The point that interests us here, however, is that all this traditional terminology is used to express an inner experience. All these levels of reality become levels of inner life, levels of the self. Here we come upon Plotinus’ central intuition: the human self is not irrevocably separated from its eternal model, as the latter exists within divine Thought. The true self—the self in God—is within ourselves. During certain privileged experiences, which raise the level of our inner tension, we can identify ourselves with it. We then become this eternal self; we are moved by its unutterable beauty, and when we identify ourselves with this self, we identify ourselves with divine Thought itself, within which it is contained.
“Such privileged experiences make us realize that we never cease, and have never ceased, to be in contact with our true selves.”
“Not everything in the soul is immediately perceptible; rather, it comes through to ‘us’ when it reaches perception. Yet as long as a part of our soul is active but does not communicate [this fact] to the perceptual apparatus, then the activity does not reach the entire soul…” (V I, 12, 5-8)
“When the influences from above do not act upon us, they are active in the direction of the upper world. They act upon us when they reach as far as the middle. What? Does not what we call ‘us’ also include what comes before the middle? To be sure, but we must become conscious of this fact. It is not the case that we always use all that we possess, but only when we direct the middle part either upwards or in the opposite direction, or when we bring that which was in a state of potentiality or habitude into actuality.” (I, 1, 11, 2-8)
“Consciousness, then—and along with it our ‘self’—is situated, like a median or an intermediate center, between two zones of darkness, stretching above and below it: on the one hand, the silent unconscious life of our ‘self’ in God; on the other, the silent and unconscious life of the body. . . . But we will not be what we really are, until we become aware of these levels.”
“If we come to be at one with our self, and no longer split ourselves into two, we are simultaneously One and All, together with that God who is noiselessly present, and we stay with him as long as we are willing and able. If we should return to a state of duality, we remain next to him as long as we are pure; thus we can be in his presence again as before, if we turn to him again. Out of this temporary return to division, we have, moreover, gained the following benefit: in the beginning, we regain consciousness of ourselves, as long as we are other than God. When we then run back inside, we have everything [sc. Consciousness and unity with God]. Then, abandoning perception out of fear of being different from God, we are at one in the other world.” (V 8, 11, 4-12)
“The world of the Forms is the ‘visible world freed from its materiality; that is to say, reduced to its Beauty’ . . . If the forms require no explanation, and contain within themselves their own justification, the reason is that they are living beings . . . Life, for [Plotinus], is a formative, simple, and immediate activity, irreducible to all our analyses. It is a totality present all at once, within itself; a Form which forms itself; an immediate knowledge which effortlessly attains perfection.”
“[In the world of the Forms,] All things are transparent, and there is nothing dark or resistant, but each Form is clear for all others right down to its innermost parts, for light is clear to light. Indeed, each has everything within it, and again sees all things in any other, so that all things are everywhere, everything is everything, each individual is all things, and the splendor is without end. . . . [Beauty] shines brightly upon all things, and fills whomever arrives there, so that they too become beautiful. Likewise, people often climb to lofty places, where the earth is colored golden-brown, and are filled with that color, and made similar to that upon which they are walking. In that other world, however, the color which blooms on the surface is beauty itself; or rather, each thing is color and beauty, right from its very depths.” (V , 10, 26-30)
“[T]he simplicity of life escapes the grasp of reflection. Human consciousness, living, as it does, split into two, and occupied by calculations and projects, believes that nothing can be found until it has been searched for; that the only way to build is to put various pieces together; and that it is only by using means that one can obtain an end. Everywhere it acts, consciousness introduces something intermediate. Life, by contrast, which is able to find without searching, invents the whole before the parts, and is end and means at the same time—which, in a word, is immediate and simple—is incapable of being grasped by reflection. In order to reach it, just as in order to reach our pure self, we shall have to abandon reflection for contemplation.”
“Life is immediate self-contemplation…”
“Life is a presence which always precedes us.”
“God, then, is total presence: the presence just as much of our self to itself as of individual beings to one another…”
“Since we look towards the outside, away from the point at which we are all joined together, we are unaware of the fact that we are one. We are like faces turned towards the outside, but attached on the inside to one single head. If we could turn around—either spontaneously or if we were lucky enough to ‘have Athena pull us by the hair’—then, all at once, we would see God, ourselves, and the All.” (VI 5, 7, 9-13)
“To be sure, you were already previously the All, but since something other came to be added on to you besides the ‘All,’ you were lessened by this addition. For this addition did not come from the All—what could you add to the All?—but from Not-Being. When one comes to be out of Not-Being, he is not the All, not until he rids himself of this Not-Being. Thus, you increase yourself when you get rid of everything else, and once you have gotten rid of it, the All is present to you.” (VI 5, 12, 13-29)
“The world of Forms could not, by itself, kindle our love, if it did not receive from elsewhere the Life which animates it. . . . For Plotinus, if things were nothing other than what they are, in their nature, essence and structure, they would not be lovable. In other words, love is always superior to its object, however lofty the latter may be. Its object can never explain or justify it. There is in love a ‘something more,’ something unjustified; and that which, in objects, corresponds to this ‘something more’ is grace, or Life in its deepest mystery. . . . What Plotinus calls the Good is thus, at the same time, that which, by bestowing grace, gives rise to love, and that which, by awakening love, causes grace to appear.”
“Platonic love…has a masculine tonality: it is uneasy, possessive, eager to act, and hungry for posterity. It is also intimately liked to education, pedagogy, and the organization of the state. Conversely, Plotinian love has a feminine tonality, because it is first and foremost mystical . . . Platonic love rises, through a series of intellectual operations, up to the contemplation of Beauty; Plotinian love, by contrast, waits for ecstasy, ceasing all activity, establishing the soul’s faculties in complete repose, and forgetting everything, so as to be completely ready for the divine invasion.”
“Like a dancer taking up different poses, the Forms—and their Beauty—are only the figures in which the fecund simplicity of a pure movement expresses itself: a movement which engenders these forms at the same time as it goes beyond them, all the while remaining within itself.”
“Beauty is nothing but fixated grace.” – Leonardo da Vinci
“Often I reawaken from my body to myself: I come to be outside other things, and inside myself. What an extraordinarily wonderful beauty I then see! It is then, above all, that I believe I belong to the greater portion. I then realize the best form of life; I become at one with the Divine, and I establish myself in it. Once I reach this supreme activity, I establish myself above every other spiritual entity. After this repose in the Divine, however, when I come back down from intuition into rational thought, then I wonder: How is it possible that I should come down now, and how was it ever possible that my soul has come to be within my body…?” (IV 8, 1, 1-11)
“According to [Plotinus], the human soul occupies an intermediate position between realities inferior to it—matter and the life of the body—and realities superior to it: purely intellectual life, characteristic of divine intelligence, and higher still, the pure existence of the Principle of all things. Within this framework, the experience Plotinus describes for us consists in a movement by which the soul lifts itself up to the level of divine intelligence, which creates all things and contains within itself, in the form of a spiritual world, all the eternal Ideas or immutable models of which the things of this world are nothing but images. Our text even seems to give us to understand that the soul, passing beyond all this, can fix itself in the Principle of all things. . . .
“Each degree of reality, he argues, can only be explained with reference to its superior level; the unity of the body is explained by the unity of the soul which animates it; the life of the soul requires illumination by the life of higher Spirit; and finally, we cannot understand the life of the Spirit itself without the fecund simplicity of the absolute, divine Principle, which is, in a sense, its deepest intimacy.
“The point that interests us here, however, is that all this traditional terminology is used to express an inner experience. All these levels of reality become levels of inner life, levels of the self. Here we come upon Plotinus’ central intuition: the human self is not irrevocably separated from its eternal model, as the latter exists within divine Thought. The true self—the self in God—is within ourselves. During certain privileged experiences, which raise the level of our inner tension, we can identify ourselves with it. We then become this eternal self; we are moved by its unutterable beauty, and when we identify ourselves with this self, we identify ourselves with divine Thought itself, within which it is contained.
“Such privileged experiences make us realize that we never cease, and have never ceased, to be in contact with our true selves.”
“Not everything in the soul is immediately perceptible; rather, it comes through to ‘us’ when it reaches perception. Yet as long as a part of our soul is active but does not communicate [this fact] to the perceptual apparatus, then the activity does not reach the entire soul…” (V I, 12, 5-8)
“When the influences from above do not act upon us, they are active in the direction of the upper world. They act upon us when they reach as far as the middle. What? Does not what we call ‘us’ also include what comes before the middle? To be sure, but we must become conscious of this fact. It is not the case that we always use all that we possess, but only when we direct the middle part either upwards or in the opposite direction, or when we bring that which was in a state of potentiality or habitude into actuality.” (I, 1, 11, 2-8)
“Consciousness, then—and along with it our ‘self’—is situated, like a median or an intermediate center, between two zones of darkness, stretching above and below it: on the one hand, the silent unconscious life of our ‘self’ in God; on the other, the silent and unconscious life of the body. . . . But we will not be what we really are, until we become aware of these levels.”
“If we come to be at one with our self, and no longer split ourselves into two, we are simultaneously One and All, together with that God who is noiselessly present, and we stay with him as long as we are willing and able. If we should return to a state of duality, we remain next to him as long as we are pure; thus we can be in his presence again as before, if we turn to him again. Out of this temporary return to division, we have, moreover, gained the following benefit: in the beginning, we regain consciousness of ourselves, as long as we are other than God. When we then run back inside, we have everything [sc. Consciousness and unity with God]. Then, abandoning perception out of fear of being different from God, we are at one in the other world.” (V 8, 11, 4-12)
“The world of the Forms is the ‘visible world freed from its materiality; that is to say, reduced to its Beauty’ . . . If the forms require no explanation, and contain within themselves their own justification, the reason is that they are living beings . . . Life, for [Plotinus], is a formative, simple, and immediate activity, irreducible to all our analyses. It is a totality present all at once, within itself; a Form which forms itself; an immediate knowledge which effortlessly attains perfection.”
“[In the world of the Forms,] All things are transparent, and there is nothing dark or resistant, but each Form is clear for all others right down to its innermost parts, for light is clear to light. Indeed, each has everything within it, and again sees all things in any other, so that all things are everywhere, everything is everything, each individual is all things, and the splendor is without end. . . . [Beauty] shines brightly upon all things, and fills whomever arrives there, so that they too become beautiful. Likewise, people often climb to lofty places, where the earth is colored golden-brown, and are filled with that color, and made similar to that upon which they are walking. In that other world, however, the color which blooms on the surface is beauty itself; or rather, each thing is color and beauty, right from its very depths.” (V , 10, 26-30)
“[T]he simplicity of life escapes the grasp of reflection. Human consciousness, living, as it does, split into two, and occupied by calculations and projects, believes that nothing can be found until it has been searched for; that the only way to build is to put various pieces together; and that it is only by using means that one can obtain an end. Everywhere it acts, consciousness introduces something intermediate. Life, by contrast, which is able to find without searching, invents the whole before the parts, and is end and means at the same time—which, in a word, is immediate and simple—is incapable of being grasped by reflection. In order to reach it, just as in order to reach our pure self, we shall have to abandon reflection for contemplation.”
“Life is immediate self-contemplation…”
“Life is a presence which always precedes us.”
“God, then, is total presence: the presence just as much of our self to itself as of individual beings to one another…”
“Since we look towards the outside, away from the point at which we are all joined together, we are unaware of the fact that we are one. We are like faces turned towards the outside, but attached on the inside to one single head. If we could turn around—either spontaneously or if we were lucky enough to ‘have Athena pull us by the hair’—then, all at once, we would see God, ourselves, and the All.” (VI 5, 7, 9-13)
“To be sure, you were already previously the All, but since something other came to be added on to you besides the ‘All,’ you were lessened by this addition. For this addition did not come from the All—what could you add to the All?—but from Not-Being. When one comes to be out of Not-Being, he is not the All, not until he rids himself of this Not-Being. Thus, you increase yourself when you get rid of everything else, and once you have gotten rid of it, the All is present to you.” (VI 5, 12, 13-29)
“The world of Forms could not, by itself, kindle our love, if it did not receive from elsewhere the Life which animates it. . . . For Plotinus, if things were nothing other than what they are, in their nature, essence and structure, they would not be lovable. In other words, love is always superior to its object, however lofty the latter may be. Its object can never explain or justify it. There is in love a ‘something more,’ something unjustified; and that which, in objects, corresponds to this ‘something more’ is grace, or Life in its deepest mystery. . . . What Plotinus calls the Good is thus, at the same time, that which, by bestowing grace, gives rise to love, and that which, by awakening love, causes grace to appear.”
“Platonic love…has a masculine tonality: it is uneasy, possessive, eager to act, and hungry for posterity. It is also intimately liked to education, pedagogy, and the organization of the state. Conversely, Plotinian love has a feminine tonality, because it is first and foremost mystical . . . Platonic love rises, through a series of intellectual operations, up to the contemplation of Beauty; Plotinian love, by contrast, waits for ecstasy, ceasing all activity, establishing the soul’s faculties in complete repose, and forgetting everything, so as to be completely ready for the divine invasion.”
“Like a dancer taking up different poses, the Forms—and their Beauty—are only the figures in which the fecund simplicity of a pure movement expresses itself: a movement which engenders these forms at the same time as it goes beyond them, all the while remaining within itself.”
“Beauty is nothing but fixated grace.” – Leonardo da Vinci
March 20, 2021
Go back inside yourself and look: if you do not yet see yourself as beautiful, then do as the sculptor does with a statue he wants to make beautiful; he chisels away one part, and levels off another, makes one spot smooth and another clear, until he shows forth a beautiful face on the statue. Like him, remove what is superfluous, straighten what is crooked, clean up what is dark and make it bright, and never stop sculpting your own statue, until the godlike splendor of virtue shines forth to you. If you have become this, and seen it, and become pure and alone with yourself, with nothing now preventing you from becoming one in this way, and have nothing extraneous fixed within yourself… if you see that this is what you have become, then you have become vision. Be confident in yourself: you have already ascended here and now, and no longer need someone to show you the way. Open your eyes and see. (I. 6, 9, 7-24)
March 4, 2025
I did not enjoy this, nor learn from it as much as I hoped. I have a vague sense of Plotinus, but I expected a little more. I suspect that if I had done more background reading first I may have benefited more, but I assumed I would not need to for what is presented as an introductory text. This may be a very good book for other readers, but not for me.
Plotinus interests me as a key figure linking platonic thinkers with the early Christian’s and therefore Western thought more generally.
Philosophy books come in different sorts. Classic analytical philosophy books examine the arguments of philosophers and discuss there strengths and weaknesses - this is not that sort of book. Other texts try to give more a broad flavour of a philosopher and explain their system. Another variety is more autobiographical and examines the life and how their philosophy shaped it. This book does, to some extent, both of the latter.
Hadot describes Plotinus’s system and some historical context. The context was interesting- the system, if that is the correct word, remains opaque to me. Hadot switches focus for the last two chapters of the book and delves into more autobiographical material - as if trying to show Plotinus as someone living their philosophy. This structure did not quite work for me.
It would be wrong to think of this as a bad book - it’s not and I learned from it and may come back to it. But I feel I will need to find something else if I am to have a better grasp of Plotinus’s thought.
Plotinus interests me as a key figure linking platonic thinkers with the early Christian’s and therefore Western thought more generally.
Philosophy books come in different sorts. Classic analytical philosophy books examine the arguments of philosophers and discuss there strengths and weaknesses - this is not that sort of book. Other texts try to give more a broad flavour of a philosopher and explain their system. Another variety is more autobiographical and examines the life and how their philosophy shaped it. This book does, to some extent, both of the latter.
Hadot describes Plotinus’s system and some historical context. The context was interesting- the system, if that is the correct word, remains opaque to me. Hadot switches focus for the last two chapters of the book and delves into more autobiographical material - as if trying to show Plotinus as someone living their philosophy. This structure did not quite work for me.
It would be wrong to think of this as a bad book - it’s not and I learned from it and may come back to it. But I feel I will need to find something else if I am to have a better grasp of Plotinus’s thought.
May 15, 2013
Plotinus is one of the most intriguing voices of the classical world. A thinker in the vein of St. John of the Cross, Rumi, and Simone Weil, he's an example of what Aldous Huxley called the "perennial philosophy," the universal thread that winds through all mystical thinking. Plotinus emphasizes the qualities of gentleness, contemplation, and solitude as paths to higher levels of consciousness. These traits, which seem so different from the ideals of Stoicism, Epicureanism, and other better known branches of Greek philosophy, formed the basis of Neoplatonism, which influenced philosophers in both the Christian and Islamic tradition.
Pierre Hadot's brief book provides a useful summary of Plotinus' ideas and serves as an introduction to his Enneads, which can be a formidable text.
Pierre Hadot's brief book provides a useful summary of Plotinus' ideas and serves as an introduction to his Enneads, which can be a formidable text.
April 23, 2012
Brilliant. Hadot bring's the enormous spirit of Plotinus to life. A sensitive and enthusiastic spiritual biography.
March 15, 2016
Это лучше чем бриллиант.
September 27, 2022
Precioso libro. Espero que al menos en parte sea cierto.
March 31, 2023
I could start off by one of the poetic maxims by Plotinus, that has been quoted here again and again:
“Never stop sculpting your own statue.” (in the spiritual sense of it)
What a splendid piece of writing by Pierre Hadot translated into English by Michal Chase. I am truly grateful that this work is available and made accessible to English speaking audience.
Seems to be a great introduction piece to Plotinus that can also be taken perhaps as a comprehensive summary on it’s own right. (Though Hadot provides a detailed approach in what order to approach Plotinus at the end of the book, if you want to read some more.)
Hadot brings “sense” and “life” into Plotinus. We can see the main themes through out the book that Plotinus is dealing with. Plotinian metaphysics is fun. He is simpe and right to the point. He does not want to appear smart through complex use of language. He is gentle and modest.
We also get a solid image of him in his day-to-day life: not as just a distant sage but an active member of his community and as a teacher for his disciples who does fall short in actually being a sage in this day-to-day mode of being.
I also found it immensely interesing how Plotinus deals with “the problem of evil” (also known as “theodicy”):
“Some things, such as poverty illness, benefit those who suffer them. Evil, however, contributes something useful to the All: a paradigm of justice. Morover, it provides, in and of itself, many useful side effects: it wakes us up, and awakens the spirit and intelligence, as we are forced to stand againts the inroads of wrongdoing, and it makes us learn how great a good is virtue … This is a sign of greatest power: to be able to make good use even of evils.”
///
“It is NOT those who pray who reap the harvest, but those who till the soil, nor can one be healthy except by looking after one’s health. We ought not to whine if bad men get a better harvest, or if things generally go better for them as farmers… If the evil are in power, it is because of the cowardice of the subjets; that is what s JUST, and it is the contray state of affairs which would be unjust.”
“Never stop sculpting your own statue.” (in the spiritual sense of it)
What a splendid piece of writing by Pierre Hadot translated into English by Michal Chase. I am truly grateful that this work is available and made accessible to English speaking audience.
Seems to be a great introduction piece to Plotinus that can also be taken perhaps as a comprehensive summary on it’s own right. (Though Hadot provides a detailed approach in what order to approach Plotinus at the end of the book, if you want to read some more.)
Hadot brings “sense” and “life” into Plotinus. We can see the main themes through out the book that Plotinus is dealing with. Plotinian metaphysics is fun. He is simpe and right to the point. He does not want to appear smart through complex use of language. He is gentle and modest.
We also get a solid image of him in his day-to-day life: not as just a distant sage but an active member of his community and as a teacher for his disciples who does fall short in actually being a sage in this day-to-day mode of being.
I also found it immensely interesing how Plotinus deals with “the problem of evil” (also known as “theodicy”):
“Some things, such as poverty illness, benefit those who suffer them. Evil, however, contributes something useful to the All: a paradigm of justice. Morover, it provides, in and of itself, many useful side effects: it wakes us up, and awakens the spirit and intelligence, as we are forced to stand againts the inroads of wrongdoing, and it makes us learn how great a good is virtue … This is a sign of greatest power: to be able to make good use even of evils.”
///
“It is NOT those who pray who reap the harvest, but those who till the soil, nor can one be healthy except by looking after one’s health. We ought not to whine if bad men get a better harvest, or if things generally go better for them as farmers… If the evil are in power, it is because of the cowardice of the subjets; that is what s JUST, and it is the contray state of affairs which would be unjust.”
December 12, 2021
Nagyon jó stílusú írás. Bevallom Plotinuszról semmit sem tudtam korábban, most meg a Platonopolisz -tervén elmélkedem :D
September 4, 2024
Captivating analysis of Plotinus. Hadot introduces the reader to Plotinus as if he knew the man. Extremely well-written. The introduction was also great.
July 3, 2020
Sempre belli i libri di Hadot, che qui supera l’oggetto del suo scrivere, nel senso che mi risultano più chiare e precise le sue spiegazioni che non i testi di Plotino stesso, che ho trovato spesso involuto e non troppo affascinante. Limite mio senz’altro, perché Hadot fa discendere da quei brani le sue puntuali e piacevoli dissertazioni.
Credevo che questo saggio potesse essere un buon viatico per le Enneadi, ma temo invece che ne andrà a sostituire la prevista lettura.
Credevo che questo saggio potesse essere un buon viatico per le Enneadi, ma temo invece che ne andrà a sostituire la prevista lettura.
October 7, 2019
As in his more famous work What Is Ancient Philosophy?, Hadot posits here that for the ancients, philosophy was a way of life instead of the dry academic practice it has become today. Here Hadot discusses this through the work of Plotinus. Even though Porphyry described Plotinus as someone who was "ashamed of having a body", this same Plotinus said that "without true virtue, God is only a word".
For Plotinus, knowledge is mystical. The soul does not "speak discursively"; these matters are beyond ratiocination. They must be experienced, felt rather than just known. For example: everyone knows they will die, but only through a near-death experience can we come to truly understand our mortality. While ascending to those levels of pure spirit, on our way to understanding, we don't so much become aware of our higher selves as we lose consciousness of our lower selves. The All is never absent but always present; it is us who are absent(minded), fooled and confused by the material world, which Plotinus likens to a play where everyone has their part to play and to play well, but to confuse oneself for one's role is folly. This knowledge of our true selves is "pure vision", becoming vision, beyond words and beyond subject and object, unity, the identity of the vision and the seer, unio mystica. We are that which we are aware of, and yet we are most ourselves when we lose our self-awareness.
Plotinus is not a gnostic. Against them he says that if God were not present to us, we could not know anything of him. Therefore we ought to either respect the sensible realm (admit God's presence) or to cease speaking of God at all (since he is not present to us). This leads Plotinus to conclusions which are similar to - Nietzsche's! Both men advocate radical yes-saying, acceptance of everything, because without a single part it could not be the whole it is. To call one thing good and another bad is intellectual arrogance of the highest order, something said from a worm's eye view. Both men also praise the value of illness and evil. It's fascinating how these two thinkers so different from each other could have reached the same conclusions.
But so far I've said next to nothing of Hadot. I'm not yet familiar enough with Plotinus' writings to estimate how accurate the portrait Hadot paints here is, but it is one expressed with charm, brevity and warmth. Very accessible, jargon is minimal. Hadot truly tries to understand Plotinus as a person, which Hadot readily admits is difficult since Plotinus cared so little for personal details. Still, an image is formed. It is complex. But it is an image, Plotinus would say: an image of an image.
For Plotinus, knowledge is mystical. The soul does not "speak discursively"; these matters are beyond ratiocination. They must be experienced, felt rather than just known. For example: everyone knows they will die, but only through a near-death experience can we come to truly understand our mortality. While ascending to those levels of pure spirit, on our way to understanding, we don't so much become aware of our higher selves as we lose consciousness of our lower selves. The All is never absent but always present; it is us who are absent(minded), fooled and confused by the material world, which Plotinus likens to a play where everyone has their part to play and to play well, but to confuse oneself for one's role is folly. This knowledge of our true selves is "pure vision", becoming vision, beyond words and beyond subject and object, unity, the identity of the vision and the seer, unio mystica. We are that which we are aware of, and yet we are most ourselves when we lose our self-awareness.
Plotinus is not a gnostic. Against them he says that if God were not present to us, we could not know anything of him. Therefore we ought to either respect the sensible realm (admit God's presence) or to cease speaking of God at all (since he is not present to us). This leads Plotinus to conclusions which are similar to - Nietzsche's! Both men advocate radical yes-saying, acceptance of everything, because without a single part it could not be the whole it is. To call one thing good and another bad is intellectual arrogance of the highest order, something said from a worm's eye view. Both men also praise the value of illness and evil. It's fascinating how these two thinkers so different from each other could have reached the same conclusions.
But so far I've said next to nothing of Hadot. I'm not yet familiar enough with Plotinus' writings to estimate how accurate the portrait Hadot paints here is, but it is one expressed with charm, brevity and warmth. Very accessible, jargon is minimal. Hadot truly tries to understand Plotinus as a person, which Hadot readily admits is difficult since Plotinus cared so little for personal details. Still, an image is formed. It is complex. But it is an image, Plotinus would say: an image of an image.
July 13, 2021
“Kendi heykelini yontmaya devam et.” sözü ile felsefesini özetleyen Plotinos, felsefe tarihinde Antik dönem ile Ortaçağ felsefesi arasında bir geçiş noktasını oluşturur. Özellikle Neo-platonculuğunun öncülerinden sayılan Plotinos, kendisinden sonra gelecek kilise babalarına ve mistik düşünürlere ilham kaynağı oluşturacaktır. Bu bakımdan Avrupa Ortaçağ felsefe geleneğini idrak etmek açısından Plotinos’un düşüncelerini bilmek önemlidir. Pierre Hadot, bir Antikçağ felsefesi uzmanı olduğundan ele aldığı konuyu sistematik ve açık bir şekilde aktarabilmiş, sonunda da birden fazla kaynak üzerinden bir senteze varabilmiştir.
Hayatına dair pek az şey bildiğimiz Plotinos, felsefesini tinselliğe doğru bir hareket olarak anlamdırır, insanın hiçbir zaman tinsel bir varlık olmadığını bilir fakat onun için değerli olan yaşamın içerisinde sürekli olarak tensellikten olabildiğince arınmış bir akıl ile tinselliğin peşinden gitmektir. Aynı zamanda bir kavramı, Plotinosun felsefesinde anahtar noktalardan biridir; tamamen aşkın olan “Bir”in kendisinde ne ayrım ne çokluk ne farklılaşma vardır. O, varlık ve varolmama şeklindeki tüm kategorilerin ötesindedir. Bir herhangi bir şey olamaz ve ayrıca tüm şeylerin toplamı da olamaz, çünkü O, tüm mevcudâttan öncedir. Bu sebeple Bir'e hiçbir sıfat yüklenemez. Bir sayısı, Plotinos’da bir mutlakiyet anlamını taşıyor.
Felsefe ile ilgilenenler için giriş mahiyeti özelliği taşıyan Hadot’un kitabını özellikle Ortaçağ felsefesini anlamak isteyenler mutlaka edinmeli.
Hayatına dair pek az şey bildiğimiz Plotinos, felsefesini tinselliğe doğru bir hareket olarak anlamdırır, insanın hiçbir zaman tinsel bir varlık olmadığını bilir fakat onun için değerli olan yaşamın içerisinde sürekli olarak tensellikten olabildiğince arınmış bir akıl ile tinselliğin peşinden gitmektir. Aynı zamanda bir kavramı, Plotinosun felsefesinde anahtar noktalardan biridir; tamamen aşkın olan “Bir”in kendisinde ne ayrım ne çokluk ne farklılaşma vardır. O, varlık ve varolmama şeklindeki tüm kategorilerin ötesindedir. Bir herhangi bir şey olamaz ve ayrıca tüm şeylerin toplamı da olamaz, çünkü O, tüm mevcudâttan öncedir. Bu sebeple Bir'e hiçbir sıfat yüklenemez. Bir sayısı, Plotinos’da bir mutlakiyet anlamını taşıyor.
Felsefe ile ilgilenenler için giriş mahiyeti özelliği taşıyan Hadot’un kitabını özellikle Ortaçağ felsefesini anlamak isteyenler mutlaka edinmeli.
June 1, 2021
This slim little volume about the life and philosophy of Plotinus is superb. Hadot quotes copiously from the Enneads in laying out Plotinus' thought. And the final two chapters render a touching and poignant biography of the philosopher that highly motivates one to take down one's copy of the Enneads and begin reading. The appendix entitled "Analytical Bibliography" is itself worth the price of the entire book, in that it lays out the chronology of the Enneads, and then highlights key themes organized around the ancient philosophical paradigm (ethics, to purify the soul; physics, to enable to soul to begin to see the divine "behind" the natural world; and contemplation, to enable the soul to achieve union with the divine). Had I been unaware of the Orthodox Faith twenty-odd years ago, I might have become a present-day Stoic, such as Ryan Holliday models. Had I read this book by Hadot, with the same ignorance of the Orthodox Church, I might have become a Plotinian. Of course, that did not happen, nor am I anywhere close to becoming a Stoic or Plotinian, but, it seems to me, that either of these ancient ways of life--absent the Orthodox way of life--would be preferable above any other sort out there today.
July 25, 2024
Una joya, este libro:
"Para encontrar a Dios, no es necesario acudir a unos templos en los que supuestamente éste viviría. No tenemos que desplazarnos para sentir su presencia. Sin embargo, debemos convertirnos en templos vivos en los cuales la presencia divina pueda manifestarse.
Y Dios no sólo está en nosotros. También está en el mundo. La última palabra de Plotino todavía aludirá a estas dos formas de la presencia divina. A su discípulo Eustoquio, que asistió a sus últimos momentos, le dirá: «Me esfuerzo por elevar lo que en mí hay de divino a lo que hay de divino en el universo» (V.P. 2, 25.)
Lo que significa: me esfuerzo por morir, me esfuerzo por liberar mi alma. La Vida que está en mí va a encontrarse con la Vida universal. Entre ellas ya no habrá la pantalla del cuerpo y de la individualidad".
"Para encontrar a Dios, no es necesario acudir a unos templos en los que supuestamente éste viviría. No tenemos que desplazarnos para sentir su presencia. Sin embargo, debemos convertirnos en templos vivos en los cuales la presencia divina pueda manifestarse.
Y Dios no sólo está en nosotros. También está en el mundo. La última palabra de Plotino todavía aludirá a estas dos formas de la presencia divina. A su discípulo Eustoquio, que asistió a sus últimos momentos, le dirá: «Me esfuerzo por elevar lo que en mí hay de divino a lo que hay de divino en el universo» (V.P. 2, 25.)
Lo que significa: me esfuerzo por morir, me esfuerzo por liberar mi alma. La Vida que está en mí va a encontrarse con la Vida universal. Entre ellas ya no habrá la pantalla del cuerpo y de la individualidad".
October 20, 2021
«Pentru Plotin, cunoaşterea înseamnă întotdeauna experienţă, mai mult chiar, metamorfoză interioară. Important nu este să ştim pe cale raţională că există două niveluri în realitatea divină, ci să ne înălţăm lăuntric pînă la aceste niveluri şi să le simţim în noi, ca pe două tonuri diferite ale vieţii spirituale». Cele două niveluri ale realităţii divine sînt lumea Formelor (Ideilor), alcătuind nous-ul, şi Unul, nedeterminat în nici un fel şi nedeterminabil în nici un fel. Formele, Ideile participă, la rîndul lor, în două moduri diferite (deşi imperceptibil "diferite”) la Unu. Primul mod ar fi cel «intelectiv» sau reflexiv. Gîndirea/ Intelectul gîndindu-se pe sine se autocunoaşte, îşi autorevelează prezenţa, care este în acelaşi timp prezenţa Binelui/ Unului.
June 17, 2017
"He will not be great who thinks it important that wood and rocks should fall, and that mortal beings die."
An excellent (but terse) primer for Plotinus' philosophy, as well as an (exceedingly brief) biography. Somewhat disappointing: for someone as moderately obscure as Plotinus, you would expect hope for a more . However the prose does seem 'appropriate' and adherent, and the footnotes provide references and academic debates.
"Isn't it enough that I have to carry around the image that is my body, without making an image of that image?" Good stuff.
An excellent (but terse) primer for Plotinus' philosophy, as well as an (exceedingly brief) biography. Somewhat disappointing: for someone as moderately obscure as Plotinus, you would expect hope for a more . However the prose does seem 'appropriate' and adherent, and the footnotes provide references and academic debates.
"Isn't it enough that I have to carry around the image that is my body, without making an image of that image?" Good stuff.
December 22, 2021
The most pithy analysis of the simple vision of Plotinus. If you find yourself struggling to apply your spiritual learnings to real life this is the book for you. Most philosophy nowadays is just mental masturbation harping on existentialism, but real philosophy in ancient times was a way of life. A pure and simple vision of turning your attention inwards to the source which Plotinus call the good. It is also a good biography of Plotinus himself mostly by the way that he lived and interacted with others but also about some of the events in his life and death.
October 14, 2019
I find Plotinus very obscure, and I enjoyed what I have read of Pierre Hadot (e.g. The Inner Citadel, so I thought I would give this a try. But I'm sorry to say I did not find it especially enlightening - but I don't think it's Hadot's fault. It's a very basic introduction to a philosopher who was very opaque to most people, even in his own lifetime, I think. It was an OK book, but it didn't really help me understand Plotinus much more than I already did, which is what I had hoped.
September 4, 2022
Hadot on Plotinus is a short but very rich reflection and synthesis of Plotinus’ philosophy and life.
The book describes the time and ideas which Plotinus was engaging in, and clearly summarizes the mystical philosophy of life that Plotinus upheld and taught.
Was a fascinating read, very engaging and delightful. Hadot is an understanding writer and clearly bears a love, respect and appreciation for Plotinus and others in the ancient philosophy world.
The book describes the time and ideas which Plotinus was engaging in, and clearly summarizes the mystical philosophy of life that Plotinus upheld and taught.
Was a fascinating read, very engaging and delightful. Hadot is an understanding writer and clearly bears a love, respect and appreciation for Plotinus and others in the ancient philosophy world.
April 27, 2019
As with seemingly everything Hadot wrote, this is thoughtful, engaging, and an immense aid to my understanding of philosophy. Every time I read one of his books I'm both grateful that there are still some philosophers like Hadot and sad that Hadot himself never finished many of the translation projects he'd taken on (the Enneads and Meditations in particular).
April 6, 2021
An illuminating and rich (yet brief) introduction to Plotinus's life and thought. Many other authors reference Hadot, and his suggestions of where to begin reading the Enneads (in the Appendix) are helpful. I would recommend this and A.H. Armstrong's Plotinus as solid introductions to Plotinus.
May 29, 2023
Pierre Hadot is very knowledgeable, but Plotinus and Neoplatonism are unintelligible bullshit. There's very little wisdom to find in this book. My impression is that Greek Philosophy started a serious decadence after the 2nd century AD. Stoics are still the best.
January 25, 2025
This book made me cry (in a good way) at two separate points.
Really beautiful introduction to Plotinus. I am sad Pierre Hadot is dead, just because I wish I could write him to thank him for this book.
Really beautiful introduction to Plotinus. I am sad Pierre Hadot is dead, just because I wish I could write him to thank him for this book.
March 12, 2023
“Questo sguardo di Plotino, di fronte al quale non ci sono segreti, è uno sguardo che viene dall’aldilà e che raggiunge già, dietro le apparenze, la realtà spirituale.”
June 7, 2023
You can find introductions to Plotinus but Hadot gives you more - a feel and sense of his life, philosophy and why you should read the Enneads.
February 10, 2024
banger je conseille de le dire dans le métro pour avoir l’air intelligent!
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