The Enneads are the greatest work of western philosophy and theology, strongly influencing Christian, Jewish and Islamic theology and a foundation for all western civilization, inarguably a more influential and sublime philosophy than either Plato or Aristotle, both brought to their conclusions by Plotinus. Why are they not more widely read?
>>24102253what should i read before tackling it? Also thoughts on Eriugena because one of the reasons i want to read Plotinus is because of him
>>24102253Is that Penguin abridged edition any good? What would I miss by reading it and not the complete edition like the one OP posted?
>>24102253Can I get a quick rundown? Preferably a youtube video with dramatic music and royalty-free art.
>>24103643I've read both, and the one in the OP is superior in each and every aspect. It is definitely worth your money, I talk from experience.
>>24103701Thanks Anon!
>>24103622At least Plato and Aristotle. Knowing a bit about the Stoics may be also pertinent. But from what I've seen, Plotinus references Timaeus, Phaedo, Phaedrus the most.
Eh he’s probably more popular now than he has been in 500 years or so. But it’s the same reason most philosophers aren’t popular, his works are fairly hard to read and technical.I agree that he is based. To me what’s most significant is that he manages to vindicate unity as a principle of substance against Aristotle. Plotinus says “living things are not forms in the way that the form of an axe is a form bro,” that’s the nut of his metaphysics for my money. Obv Arist knew that too but he didn’t take it so far as Plotinus did. >>24103622Aristotle is essential at least the major works. He is alluding to Aristotle in almost every sentence lol. He saw himself as the anti-Aristotle. But it’s not like you couldn’t read him without him, it’d just be much harder.
>>24102253>Boys-Stones
It’d hard to pick just one but “on nature and contemplation” is special for me, that’s where he argues the whole cosmos and everything in it is engaged in contemplation. “On the Voluntary” is also excellent, it’s his most cataphatic /henological work. Anyone who says “The One is this totally abstract principle nothing like the God of religion!” (and you hear that shit all the time) has not read it. Maybe I’ll have time later today to do some proper Plotinus effortposts. Perhaps about the limits of discursive thinking and the nature of mental representations (no, they’re not essences; not many premoderns besides maybe Augustine had such a crude understanding of thought as to think your soul “became” a universal essence when it thought of something)
>>24103855>he manages to vindicate unity as a principle of substance against AristotleI don't understand. Didn't Aristotle also assert unity as a principle of being? >Plotinus says “living things are not forms in the way that the form of an axe is a form bro,” that’s the nut of his metaphysics for my moneyI don't think Aristotle would consider an axe to be a substance. It would be an artifact.
Theology is the best example of a pseudo-science there is. The truly dismal science.
>>24103934Yes, and if you would kindly notice I said he did. Have you read the Metaphysics? The question of unity as a principle is one of the main issues. As I said, Plotinus greatly expands the role of unity where Aristotle sidelines it. As for artificial substances - the axe form example is Aristotle’s own in de anima lol. Artifacts are substances, equivocally ofc. I refuse to get into one of these tiresome exchanges where I’m explaining Aristotle to someone who hasn’t read him and will just ask dumb questions/raise dumb objections, sorry anon.
>>24103909>Anyone who says “The One is this totally abstract principle nothing like the God of religion!” (and you hear that shit all the time) has not read it.Do you think it's essentially the same as neoplatonic Christian theology, e.g. Ps. Dy., Eriugena, St. Maximus, etc.?
>>24103945You said>against Aristotlewhich is what confused me. >As I said, Plotinus greatly expands the role of unity where Aristotle sidelines it.How does Aristotle sideline it whereas Plotinus expands it? >As for artificial substances - the axe form example is Aristotle’s own in de anima lol. Artifacts are substances, equivocally ofc. I refuse to get into one of these tiresome exchanges where I’m explaining Aristotle to someone who hasn’t read him and will just ask dumb questions/raise dumb objections, sorry anon.There's no point in being abrasive on /lit/ and driving away the few people who are interested in the nuances and contradictions present in the ancient Greek philosophers. Those who read enough know that they're all over the place so for every example you pick I can pick three that buck the pattern. Hence the term:>equivocallyYou even know this which is why you qualified your own defense so you could have your cake and eat it too. If you approached these questions as a mutual investigation and a conversation and not as a duel or a personal affront on your intelligence, I think you would have a much more pleasant experience. Otherwise, what's the point? You're just going to be bragging anonymously to /lit/erati who are too ignorant to care or recognize your greatness. It's even worse than doing it in public with your name attached because there's no reward or recognition.
>>24102253>Plotinus>more influential and sublime philosophy than Plato
>>24104121Dude it’s just exhausting to be in the position of explaining Aristotle to someone at near 0 knowledge, especially since they’re always at least somewhat hostile and inclined to doubt that I know what I’m talking about. The other person gets annoyed because he can’t follow what I’m saying, as if I owe it to him to give a six paragraph response to every point. Not a cop out at all, it’s just not feasible. The corpus is 2000 pages long and every important term has at least four meanings.
>>24104084I still don’t properly understand the relationship between the two. The big difference that leaps out to me is the abandonment of the principle of continuity, so it’s like nous and to hen are telescoped into one. That’s a movement “backward” toward Aristotle. There’s a fascinating passage somewhere in 6 about how some Peripatetics (who? Dunno sorry) tried to make the telescoping an explicit part of their theology, I.e. they tried to explain how their Goddcould be both by making the forms emerge from the absolutely first as an effect, while still denying that there was a secondary that was separate. As far as I can see that’s exactly what Aquinas did too, broadly speaking.Oh yeah and the incarnation, that’s even bigger. And here again Christians respond by moving toward Aristotle.
>>24103814I expand a bit: the one in the OP is made by a team of scholars, some of which I knew personally, that worked together for years to produce a uniform, coherent and up-to-date translation. What is lacking to the previous Plotinus translation is that only a few people knew Aristotle well enough to understand when Plotinus employes tecnical terms by him, and even fewer knew anything about Stoic philosophy in the same detail. From this one you gat a much clearer understanding on what terms are technical terms in Plotinus, where does he get them from, who is he criticizing or attacking, who is he taking as a reference when developing a new theory and so on. When he references Platonic dialogues you have notes that tell you which precise passage is being quoted, so you can go check it if you are curious. It's a great academic achievement, and it was very much needed. It makes Plotinus appear not only as the great mystic that he was, but also as a full fledged philosopher with a very coherent system, which sometimes got lost in previous translations.It's also very useful because they specified the order of composition of each treatise, which is not the same as the (still very good) thematic order devised by Porphyry when editing the text. So if you want to read it in a different order, you can do it. Each treatise also has a short summary before it written by the editors, so you can familiarize yourself with the material before plunging in.I love this book, when I studied Plotinus it helped me so much! And it's truly a work of love.
>>24104297Second this. The material on the Stoics is enormously helpful because most of this is only available in fragments that most of us will never have seen or read. Same goes for Epicurean fragments, and Alexander of Aphrodisias. They also summarize every treatise in its main arguments - a huge feature in an unwieldy text like the Enneads."Expressed principle" is kind of cumbersome for logos but I see why they did it that way. I think words like logos should just be left in Greek honestly. There are a couple of places where they assign a materialistic type counterargument to the Stoics where to me it fits just as well or better with Aristotle - Plotinus likes to try to associate Aristotle with materialism generally after all. The binding is not great. Those are the only criticisms I can think of and they're minor.Plotinus is disorienting at first. This is because he does not write systematically so he will constantly be referencing arguments or ideas that he doesn't even explain in the given treatise (just like Aristotle). But the pieces fall into place like anything else, then you can read him at sight and it's a treat. I haven't been able to get into the other major neoplatonists though, they ratchet up the schizo and autism to an unbearable degree. Plotinus is just right ~:)
>>24104146Is it exhausting? Idk, I enjoy explaining things that I know, and I love getting into the details. I like working things out and figuring out what the apex of my knowledge is. And I feel vindicated when I'm able to exhaust somebody's questions and inspire them to learn more. But that's just my mindset. Besides, I think it's rude to say that I have near 0 knowledge of Aristotle, when my comment was prompted by the fact that you said something wholly different from what you meant (i.e. you implied that Aristotle was not concerned with unity by saying *against*). That implies at least passing understanding of Aristotle at the minimum. Furthermore, you bring up the example of the axe from De Anima. I raise you Metaphysics 1043b where Aristotle argues that only things that exist by nature can be substances, which rules out artifacts. (Then you can say that they are equivocally substances, or that other examples were brought up as analogical examples, or were mere heaps, or whatever be the case, but that only misses the forest for the trees since virtually anything can be equivocal if you want it to be... that's the meaning of the term equivocal lol). If you want respect (and desu, confusion or bringing up a counterpoint is not disrespect), then you shouldn't pretend that these questions have definitive answers, nor insult people who ask for clarification. Because these topics often don't have answers, and when they do, they are incredibly subtle and not easy to uncover even with careful study. You don't owe anybody an explanation. But what's the point of talking about philosophy if you get angry having to explain yourself? Can you say you even enjoy the topic? It's completely unnecessary to be combative. And like I said, you're on a shitposting imageboard. What do you expect in terms of average literacy? That everybody else here has read the full Aristotelian corpus? You'd be lucky if you got a handful of people who read NE, and maybe some more who dabbled into DA, Categories, and Metaphysics. Your interactions here, however, could do a lot to either raise or lower the quality of Aristotle discussion on this board.
>>24102253its a bit silly to say that it strongly influenced Christian and Jewish theology without acknowledging the inverse being true as wellthese things do not exist in a vacuumafter all plotinus was classmates with origin
>>24104406>they ratchet up the schizo and autism to an unbearable degreewhy has this happened though? what are the main theories on this?
>>24104539It's a different Origen almost certainly. I want to believe just as much as you do but the evidence is strongly against it being the same guy. The question of Christian influences on Plotinus is an interesting one. Of course he wouldn't acknowledge an influence. He engages exclusively with gnostics, not orthodox Christians. I don't know enough about gnosticism to speculate how much he may have actually taken from them without acknowledging, he's pretty disdainful for them. Overall I don't think there's as much Christianity there as you might hope, in Plotinus, there's nothing about 'salvation', nothing about mediation, Platonism was already well developed before Christianity started. The early Christian theologians (Tertullian, Irenaeus, etc) are mostly philosophically naive and influenced by the Stoics more than anything. I have read that in Iamblichus you do have a theory of mediation (but mediation by daemons, not Christ). There is also the prospect of a Hindu influence on Plotinus via Ammonius Saccas, whose surname might be Indian. All interesting ideas but you would need to be an expert to resolve them.
>>24104704It's strange because Plotinus even argues against the multiplication of entities in "Against the Gnostics". He did not see any need for what are afaik essentially extra "middle terms" between the different hypostases, middles within middles. The idea seems to be that there is too great of a metaphysical leap between, say, the One and Being. I don't really buy it, but I also don't know enough about them to give you anything but a pseud opinion. To me (and presumably to Plotinus) it would seem that there is no middle between absolute unity and the one-many, the second principle is only one step removed from the first. I'm sure they had their reasons, I don't know when I'll get around to studying them though. Plotinus also makes a distinction between real distinctions (like the One and Being), and distinctions that only appear in analysis (like the five genera in Being). This stuff Proclus is talking about seems like a logical distinction and a dubious one at that. How could you have a "lesser unity", the Henad, that is not a one-many and also not a/the One? How do you justify a middle between immediate opposites, viz. one and many? But he was no fool and I'm probably being unfair.
Bump
I struggle to understand how the Platonic definition of the good can be established, given that people desire different and opposing things.>>24075210
>>24105345The Good is an ontological idea equivalent to “the One” but with a different valence. Platonic arguments about the Good have nothing to do with the fact that different people desire different things. The argument is not “everyone desires the good by definition, so Plato’s God exists QED”. Try reading 6.9
>>24105494>Try reading 6.9Thanks for the recommendation.>Platonic arguments about the Good have nothing to do with the fact that different people desire different things.What about Plotinus' definition of the good in 1.8 that the good is that which all beings desire?
>>24105681Exactly, what all beings desire, including rocks. The different principles in his metaphysics are arranged teleologically so the first principle is the Good. There is an actual human desire aspect in our intellectual yearning for vision but most people never experience this. Also all desires, including bad ones, are implicitly desire for the Good, because the Good is in everything, including bad things. But you’re barking up the wrong tree imo to think the crux of the argument is this Socratic silliness “well technically whatever you do you think it’s good.”
>>24104146Then don't say stupid shit like "Plotinus was the anti-Aristotle" or "Plotinus manages to vindicate unity as a principle of substance against Aristotle. "You're the one who sounds like they have no clue what they're talking about.
>>24106033But both of those things are true. I mean of course Plotinus borrows and subverts A’s concepts. Aristotle does deny that unity itself is a principle, against Plato. Plotinus tries to bring it back. I can’t believe you don’t know about Aristotle rejecting Plato’s One and how Plotinus responds. You just think “wait Aristotlemade unity and being reciprocal, this anon’s dumb.” You are EXACTLY the type of person I’m talking about, an argumentative pseud.
>>24103643Have the Thomas Taylor incomplete one (pdfs abound). The Loeb (Armstrong) is complete, but shaky in parts dealing with Emanation:https://archive.org/details/plotinus-in-seven-volumes.-vol.-1-loeb-440https://archive.org/details/plotinus-in-seven-volumes.-vol.-2-loeb-441https://archive.org/details/plotinus-in-seven-volumes.-vol.-3-loeb-442https://archive.org/details/plotinus-in-seven-volumes.-vol.-4-loeb-443https://archive.org/details/plotinus-in-seven-volumes.-vol.-5-loeb-444https://archive.org/details/plotinus-in-seven-volumes.-vol.-6-loeb-445https://archive.org/details/plotinus-in-seven-volumes.-vol.-7-loeb-468
You have this half knowledge (A makes substances one; substantial forms cause unity; unity is a transcendental - all true) but don’t know what he says about Unity/the One as a principle in metaphysics. You don’t even know what a “principle” is in A’s system. But you assume you know better even though you haven’t even read everything A wrote. I’m not wasting anymore time arguing with you fools.
Meta 7.16 - he denies that unity (or being) are principles. But you hadn’t read that part.There is nothing here but arrogant zoomers. You can’t have a conversation because it’s just whack-a-pseud, every time.
>>24105715>Also all desires, including bad ones, are implicitly desire for the Good, because the Good is in everything, including bad things.So "the good" is a synonym for "everything"?
>>24103938How's that replicability crisis coming along?
“Principle” is an equivocal word, for Aristotle, closely tied up (of course) with priority/posteriority. See meta 5, the postpredicaments in the Categories, and discussions of the puzzle of science treating universals as prior even though they don’t exist in their own right in Post An 1. So there is a sense in which unity is a principle, but that’s obv not the sense someone contrasting A and Plotinus re: the One intends. The primary contrarieties in any genus are unity/plurality. But this is emphatically not the way Plato and Plotinus talk about the One as a principle, it’s actually the opposite. Aristotle thinks “unity” is a broad, equivocal concept, not an entity by which substances exist. It’s substance/form that cause unity and ground the concept of unity, are principles of both being and unity. Most of Meta 13 is about how, on Aristotle’s view, if Unity was the first principle, it couldn’t even create anything. So Aristotle’s God is indeed one, but he ain’t a The One. Obviously there are tensions in Aristotle’s approach, which Plotinus exploited so effectively that “pure Aristotelianism” disappeared for about a thousand years. But as with any other post I make you can rip quotes from Aristotle to make it look like I’m wrong. I’m not kidding when I say you have to read everything before you start to understand anything. And until you do that, you won’t have any smart answers *or* smart questions. It’s a waste of time to talk about Aristotle with an ignorant and mostly hostile audience.
>>24107908Not quite a synonym but, “yes”, everything that is is good, though some things are better than others. Except for matter that stuff is pure evil, but it never exists independently so it’s always connected with good. But ofc you hear “good” you think “good song” “good grade” so you’ll have no idea what Plotinus meant.
>>24107980There's no replicability crisis in either mathematics or geometry. Which science are you alluding to?
>>24108099He gave you a cryptic comment saying nothing. I’m on his side, in theory, but this is the kind of dumb one upmanship you can expect from 2025 /lit/. The average age here is 19. God speed your atheism.
>>24108153>He gave you a cryptic comment saying nothing.Did you do the same thing?>I’m on his side, in theoryCan I also be on your side, in theory?
>>24108179I don’t know what argument the first anon was making so I don’t have a coherent answer. I assume it’s reliability crisis -> scientism is le bad -> God but I think it’s a shit argument. Maybe it’s a brilliant argument and he just didn’t share the full proof. Then maybe he’ll come along enlighten us and we’ll both be on his side. You can join my side if you read the complete works of Aristotle at least two or three times, and the most important ones more like a dozen times (post an, physics, de anima, metaphysics). It’s fun and rewarding, new horizons will open for you and that’s a sincere opinion. Then you can disagree with me and I’ll call you a pseud, and the wheel turns.
As far as “the good” vs “I want x” if you don’t understand the distinction Plotinus would call you a lost cause. Endedness is a universal feature of living things and ultimately of the whole cosmos. I will not summarize the arguments posting on my phone, you’ll just have to read Plato/Aristotle/Plotinus and think about it.
>>24106493>Aristotle does deny that unity itself is a principleWhat do you mean by that? What is the Greek word that Aristotle uses for "principle" here?
>>24108077then why are you here you pontificating nignogi'll keep asking stupid questions until you punch a hole through your monitor
>>24108507By the way, I know you already talked about principle in >>24108077, but this doesn't answer my question, because multiple Greek words are translated as principle. Aristotle isn't being equivocal with principle. His translators are. Just a friendly reminder to guide your next reply.
>>24108507I mean what I said, that’s why I chose the words. That’s why I pointed you to a few important passages that elucidate the distinction of the senses of “principle”, which I hope you read. The Greek is “arche”. I can’t remember the Greek for “unity itself” but it’s the standard Platonic formula.
>>24108533The very first lectio of Meta 5 is about the equivocity of arche/principle, buddy. I know it’s translated variously (“origin”, “authority”, “beginning” etc) but it’s also equivocal in Greek and in a philosophically relevant sense to the problem at hand (I.e. how is unity a principle in Aristotle, and how it’s different from how Plotinus takes unity as a principle).
>>24108095>But ofc you hear “good” you think “good song” “good grade” so you’ll have no idea what Plotinus meantNo, I reckon that he is talking about a single universal entity.>everything that is is good (...) Except for matter that stuff is pure evil (...)That doesn't really seem to solve the problem. Plotinus references the Philebus in which Socrates mentions that every (percipient) being desires the good. So notice this syllogism:Multiple beings desire the good.Multiple beings desire different things.The good is different things.
>>24102253It's false. Whitehead is the best Western philosopher because he was the closest to the truth. There is no transcendent static and eternal One, outside time and space, where everything emanates in a hierarchical, non-temporal manner.The universe is creative and in a continuous state of becoming. Everything is immanent, processual, and best described via relationality and novelty.
>>24109044What's the difference between nomimalism and materialism? Legit question, I never understood it.
>>24102253This. Absolutely beautiful, Plotinus is severely under appreciated.>>24103622Eriugena is also based, his work can be a bit dense due to the wording but it's phenomenal, I'm halfway through.
>>24108533>>24108551I also know that sometimes "aitia" is translated as principle (although it ought to be seen as explanation or something like that) in Metaphysics and Physics. I don't know what word is translated as principle in Posterior Analytics. Maybe "axiom" or "hypothesis"? Also, it seems like Aristotle in Metaphysics Delta is disambiguating the word "arche" before narrowing down which sense of "arche" he wants to talk about. And that sense happens to be aitia: causes. He focuses on highlighting the different ways that one can say something is "caused", and that's why it is equivocal (i.e. the four causes). It's not necessarily the same conversation (and not even the same Greek word is being used) as whether unity is a principle.And even in that case, you'd have to ask, what kind of principle? As in, the first principle from which everything else is derived? The best entry point into an activity? The agent of an action? The foundation of an entity? The creation of an entity? And so on.In any case, Aristotle pares off "aitia" from "arche" and begins to treat the two as separate (e.g. there are phrases where he refers to the aitia or arche of something, such as in 1019b), along with using different terms that were originally associated with arche. Plus, Aristotle likes to begin with the common doxa and then distill them down into clearer components. So I'm not sure what you're getting at by stating that it's equivocal, because Aristotle usually tries to avoid equivocating in the matter at hand if he can avoid it.
>>24103938it's not a science
>>24108989Bump
>>24109770I know, just like psychology.
>>24109706Aitia and arche have a lot of overlap. Every aitia is an arche, not every arche is an aitia. As for your comment that Aristotle avoiding equivocation - yeah he’s a pedantic autist and often distinguishes senses, but he also often just doesn’t. Prior vs posterior is a hugely important kind of equivocity since the different ways a thing can be “prior” can be polar opposites. The Metaphysics in particular have heavy equivocity with, for example, to ti en einai and similar. As Aquinas (and Averroes etc) point out there are two important senses of the phrase in Metaphysics (the essence of the tode ti vs the universal essence). But Aristotle never comes out and says this.“Why *are* there so many equivocal terms in Aristotle, that he had to write an entire book (meta 5) distinguishing their senses?” Because the senses overlap and Aristotle had a healthy respect for natural language. Making a whole new term for each sense would be misleading. That’s my hypothesis anyway. “But prior by nature vs prior by substance? That’s just obnoxious, normally physis and ousia are near synonyms but here they’re opposites.” I suspect “prior by nature” was a term of the Academy. I’ll try to answer other pts. But respectfully you’re just misinformed if you think A’s works aren’t made difficult by all the equivocal language, they definitely are, especially in the Metaphysics.
>>24109044This anon is not too wrong about reality, but he is wrong about Aristotle. When Aristotle talks about God as unchanging, he’s not talking about a block of marble. God is alive - that’s one of the main theses of Meta 12. But he’s not sitting there thinking “hmm what am I going to do now?”, he’s a first principle and an end. In that sense he can’t change. But it’s not the changelessnes of a corpse, it’s his being just what he is and nothing else. God is the principle *of* this variegated, ever changing world, directly (technically via other divinities + the heavenly spheres, but he’s the sole ultimate cause). He can’t be changing like we change, but he’s definitely not static, like a cosmic bathtub that overflows into the phenomenal, or a cosmological autocrat, or a narcissist thinking about how wonderful he is (as many a pseud has interpreted “thought thinking itself”).As for the creativity and novelty of nature - I agree, it’s a weak point. He didn’t know about evolution, he hardly knew about history either because the Greeks are right on the cusp of prehistory (for *them*, I have heard of the Sumerians etc lol; and I know the Greeks had a history but it was only a few centuries, not enough for a real sense of history like we have). A more serious problem is his near total neglect of the particular, the here and now, because he wanted philosophy to be a Science like geometry or meteorology. The irony here is that his metaphysics is (imo, also many others including Hegel and Heidegger) intensely *particular*. God himself is a concrete (albeit immaterial) particular, and he criticizes Plato for (supposedly) making him a mere concept.
But a bit more to the processanon - the same thing I said re: God also goes for nature and substance. I mean, people think A was had a crude Fisher Price cosmos - “Oh the essence of humanity was put on that matter, that’s Seamus now, he’s wot we call a man cuz ‘is essence was humanity”. Aristotle did understand the role of “accident” in reality, that little of daily life is subject to scientific thinking, this rose isn’t the same as that one, etc. He also thought our concepts were secondary to real beings (even though these concepts are, qua universal, true and not up to us), so you’re not human by humanity, rather I think humanity because there are humans. There is no such thing, really, as “man” or “dog”, only particulars which each differ from one another. That said the universe is constituted such that propositions about man or cat would be generally or necessarily true - this isn’t pure nominalism.But what is a substance, a being? Something static? No lol, to be a substance is to be active. We are indeed always changing. But we’re not constantly changing in every respect, because that’s retarded - nothing would exist. The substance is a dynamic unity of material parts, powers, activities, etc, in every changing circumstances. Again, though, Aristotle wanted to investigate the universal (broad truths, the broader the better). And his approach is highly fruitful (considering being itself etc) it just leaves something out and kind of implodes on itself by neglecting the here and now.
>>24109706Re: the equivocity of arche in the sense of principle - like I said you also have to combine meta 5.1 with passages about prior/posterior and especially by nature vs by substance, I mentioned some important ones above.Unity is a principle like “substance” is a principle, in that it’s “only” a universal - a concept applicable to many things, and an object of science, but nothing in its own right. Also unity is highly equivocal, moreso than substance is. This is ofc one of his args against the Platonists - “how can unity itself be a principle when unity has dozens of different meanings?” (Yessss I fucking know he distinguishes *3* senses in physics 1, I’m talking across categories, potential vs actual, measuring different genera, etc)
But me saying “oh Aristotle makes them equivocal, he makes one thing a principle here and another thing a principle in a different way there” - I’m not pulling your leg. Post An 1.24 is a place he directly addresses the conflict of the two senses. Another trickier one would be in meta 7 - substance is essence; essence is universal; universals aren’t substance. What? It’s the same basic equivocation between the priority of the concrete this and the priority of our concepts that comprehend the concrete this. In general, priority by nature is the opposite by substance. The first is prior by being a broader concept, the latter by being the real existent to which our concepts potentially refer. But the latter is really and truly metaphysically prior. (And again the universals are objective and true if they’re scientific, they just don’t actually exist outside the mind)
could you guys make an effort to quote the post you are replying to it is hard to follow the conversation otherwise thanks
This thread is too much Aristotle not enough Plotinus. I’ll combine them, here are three huge ways Plotinus was influenced by A, even though he always makes himself an enemy.1.) undescended intellect vs Aristotle’s agent intellect - he uses the same exact words in places, clearly a huge influence here even though Aristotle’s psychology is quite different overall, and Aristotle’s agent intellect is not an undescended intellect.2.) Plotinus denies that mere universal concepts are principles, he draws a line between discursive thoughts and noetic realities (so did Plato but Plotinus’ treatment is influenced by A and he takes it further, in response to A’s criticisms of Platonic hypostasization.)3) matter as potentiality. This aspect of Plotinus’ thinking is obscured in some of the more famous hylogic tractates but explicit in on the genera of being.And in general, Porphyry says A’s metaphysics are in Plotinus and it’s true, almost every major thesis of the metaphysics is adopted or attacked by Plotinus, but he rarely comes out and says it. Just like Aristotle dialogues with Plato but usually silently.
>>24111410If I don’t quote again I’m talking to the same person.
>>24111426If other people reply between the person you are replying to and you it becomes impossible to keep track of the conversation. It's not that hard to just click the post number.
>>24111426nig you don't get to defy norms like that. not having a quote makes it seem like you're having a spontaneous unhinged rant and that none of your posts follow each other. like you couldn't control yourself and now you're just blabbering on. might not be your intent, but that's how it looks.
You would have to be a retard not to be able to follow this slow thread on this molasses slow board. Go on and be butthurt about it. No you don’t get a (you).
>>24108095>>24108989Bump again
>>24111477>/lit/is slow to you All you're doing is exposing the trash boards you regular
>>24103655Elements of Theology is the run down. It’s only like 100 pages and can be read in one sitting.
>>24103655i've got just the channel for youhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcJvyy5BXhU
