andrewcriddle

FWIW the question as to whether or not One Mind and Soul are fundamentally one reality considered under three aspects or three separate realities divided the later Neo-Platonists.

Porphyry, the disciple of Plotinus and editor of Plotinus' works, held that the three terms are ultimately describing the same reality.

However the main Neo-Platonist tradition, following Iamblichus, emphasised the distinction between these different levels of being in a more rigid way than Plotinus did.


Andrew Criddle

Horatio Parker

That's interesting, thanks.

For my own part, I have a harder time understanding the participation of Soul. Plotinus isn't consistent on the subject. Often he uses live/dead analogies, but strictly speaking unalive objects would also participate in Soul, since it's contained in the One. It's difficult to envision, since it implies a vitality or emotion that we in the modern era anyway don't ascribe to inanimate things. If the Intellect contemplates the One, and the Soul contemplates Intellect, how would that work say in my previous example of an integer. Between One and Mind is harder to make a case for a separation, seems to me.

These systems are dual, that is they project an inner thought process onto external reality and in that respect the participation of Soul makes sense. But if it in anyway is thought to be empirical, that's problematic. There's also the difficulty of people being different yet supposedly all participating in the same Soul.

All this to say I don't know how the later Neo-Platonists diverged from Plotinus, but the problem of Soul stands out to me.

Plotinus BTW considered himself a Platonist. "Neo" is a later distinction.