Neo-Platonism based on the works of Plotinus

by
Cecil Agutu

February 20, 2013

Introduction
This essay seeks to define Neo-Platonism as propounded by Plotinus. It looks at the two
key ideas of Plotinus namely “The process of emanation from the Supreme Principle”
and “The metaphysical return of the soul to God”. It then concludes that the most striking
feature of Neo-Platonism is “religious mysticism”.

Neo-Platonism
Neo-Platonism is a mixture of different systems of Greek philosophy given a mystical or
religious sense. It is Platonic in content and indebted to Aristotle for its method. Plotinus
belongs to the first of the three periods in the development of this philosophy known as
the philosophic and scientific period which took place in the 3rd Century AD (De Wulf,
1909: 75). Plotinus sums up this philosophy in two key ideas namely “The process of
emanation from the Supreme Principle” and “The metaphysical return of the soul to
God”.

The first key idea of Plotinus is the process of emanation from a Supreme Principle
which is the source of all existing things and is used to explain the physical and
metaphysical worlds. This principle emits energy as it exhausts itself following a
“descending scale” (De Wulf, 1909: 76). The successive steps in the process are the One,
Intelligence, World-Soul and Matter.

The One is the supreme essence and is at the head of the intelligible world. It is
indeterminate and immutable. It does not diffuse its substance into other beings but
permeates them by its activity. This it does through intermediary forces and not directly.
The “divine energy” flows into three intermediaries namely intelligence, and the World-
Soul in the suprasensible order and Matter in the sensible order (De Wulf, 1909: 76).

The intelligence is inferior to the One and cannot absorb all the energy communicated to
it by the First Being in one single act of knowledge. This energy is therefore dispersed
and radiated in many ideas. The ideas are not substances like in Plato but are forces
clustered together which will in turn generate further activities. The World-Soul in turn
produced by the voûs has a hybrid nature which on one hand contemplates ideas like the
intelligence and on the other hand realizes the image of the same eternal ideas in the
sensible world. The World-Soul generates particular souls which are the forms of all
things. The World-Soul in turn generates Matter with its own forces and unites itself to
the Matter thus generating corporeal and sensible beings. For Plotinus Matter is “pure
possibility of being, mere nothingness” (De Wulf, 1909: 77). Matter is the limit beyond
which the process of generation cannot take place (De Wulf, 1909: 78).

The world of senses is imprisoned in matter and is only a faint reflection of the
suprasensible principles whose unity is unchangeable. The parts of the universe are held
together by a “cosmic sympathy” (De Wulf, 1909: 78). Souls exist before and dwell in
the World-Soul until the needs of cosmic evolution demand their union with Matter.
Based on this Plotinus easily incorporates into his system Platonic theories of the survival
and migration of souls, and of the “extrinsic union of soul with body” (De Wulf, 1909:

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78). He concludes that the end of life and philosophy is to achieve a mystical return of the
soul to God (De Wulf, 1909: 79).

The second idea of Plotinus is “The Mystic Return of the Soul to God”. For him virtue is
for one to be detached from the world of senses, to purify oneself and to elevate the soul
to the invisible world. The soul unites to God by scaling three degrees in the
metaphysical order. In the first, through reason it knows ideas and the supreme genera.
Secondly, it looks inside unaided by reason thus reaching the intelligible world and
uniting itself to the voûs. It is through the voûs and in it that the soul attains this higher
knowledge. In the last stage, the soul contemplates the Primal Being and attains a state of
ecstasy in which the soul is “ravished and lost in God” (De Wulf, 1909: 79).

Conclusion
The most striking feature of Neo-Platonism is religious mysticism. Man must conquer his
sense feelings by struggling against them and draw nearer to God by a series of steps and
unite himself to the infinite by employing religious aids (De Wulf, 1909: 74 - 5).

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REFERENCES

De Wulf (1909). Historie de la philosophie medievale. 3rd ed. Louvain, Belgium.

Saranyana, J. (1996). History of medieval philosophy. Manila: Sinag – Tala Publishers

Inc.