“Strive to bring the god in ourselves back to the God in the All.” These were the parting instructions of Plotinus, the charismatic Egyptian philosopher who, in the third century CE, brought a novel and potent form of Platonism from Alexandria to Rome, where it would achieve prominence among the intellectual elite of the imperial capital. Plotinus developed a metaphysics of radical unity and mystical aspiration, a vision of philosophy as theoretical inquiry and practical discipline, whereby the soul can ascend and recover its divine origin. Plotinus bequeathed this aspiration not only to his pagan successors, but also to the mystical traditions of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism – from Sufi mystics and Meister Eckhart, to Moses de León. The tradition we now call “Neoplatonism”—a label coined by 19th century scholars, not by its practitioners—was, in many respects, the culmination of pagan Greek philosophy. Its adherents undertook a grand syncretic effort to weave together the insights of Plato, Aristotle, the Pythagoreans, and even elements of Stoicism into a single, comprehensive account of reality and the human being’s place within it.
In this course, we will explore Neoplatonism as theory and practice, centering our investigation on the Enneads of Plotinus. We will read with particular attention to Plotinus’ metaphysics of emanation and its governing principle, the One; his theory of the soul, its descent into matter, and the nature of embodied human life; and his account of the mystical ascent that is the aim of philosophical life. Finally, we will consider how the Neoplatonic inheritance shaped thinkers as various as Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, al-Farabi, and Ibn Gabirol. Additional readings may be drawn from modern theorists of philosophy as a way of life such as Pierre Hadot.
