Categoria: Neoplatonismo

That Intelligible Entities Are Not External to the Intelligence of the Good. (The subject of the quarrel between Amelius and Porphyry.) KNOWLEDGE OF THE INTELLIGIBLE ENTITIES IMPLIES THEIR PRESENCE. 1. Surely, nobody could believe that the veritable and real Intelligence could be deceived, and admit the existence of things that do not exist? Its very…

Tractate 32 Fifth Ennead. Fifth tractate. That the intellectual beings are not outside the intellectual-principle: and on the nature of the good. 1. The Intellectual-Principle, the veritably and essentially intellective, can this be conceived as ever falling into error, ever failing to think reality? Assuredly no: it would no longer be intelligent and therefore no…

The Superessential Principle Does Not Think; Which is the First Thinking Principle, and Which is the Second? BY THINKING, INTELLIGENCE PASSES FROM UNITY TO DUALITY. 1. One may think oneself, or some other object. What thinks itself falls least into the duality (inherent to thought). That which thinks some other object approaches identity less; for…

Tractate Fifth Ennead. Sixth tractate. That the principle transcending being has no intellectual act. What being has intellection primally and what being has it secondarily. 1. There is a principle having intellection of the external and another having self-intellection and thus further removed from duality. Even the first mentioned is not without an effort towards…

Do Ideas of Individuals Exist? TWO POSSIBLE HYPOTHESES OF IDEAS OF INDIVIDUALS. 1. Do ideas of individuals (as well as of classes of individuals), exist? This means that if I, in company with some other man, were to trace ourselves back to the intelligible world, we would there find separate individual principles corresponding to each…

Tractate 18 Fifth Ennead. Seventh tractate. Is there an ideal archetype of particular beings? 1. We have to examine the question whether there exists an ideal archetype of individuals, in other words whether I and every other human being go back to the Intellectual, every [living] thing having origin and principle There. If Socrates, Socrates’…

Concerning Intelligible Beauty. ART MAKES A STATUE OUT OF ROUGH MARBLE. 1. Since he who rises to the contemplation of the intelligible world, and who conceives the beauty of true intelligence, can also, as we have pointed out, by intuition grasp the superior Principle, the Father of Intelligence, let us, so far as our strength…

Tractate 31 Fifth Ennead. Eighth tractate. On the intellectual beauty. 1. It is a principle with us that one who has attained to the vision of the Intellectual Beauty and grasped the beauty of the Authentic Intellect will be able also to come to understand the Father and Transcendent of that Divine Being. It concerns…

Of Intelligence, Ideas and Essence. THE SENSUAL MAN, THE MORAL, AND THE SPIRITUAL. 1. From their birth, men exercise their senses, earlier than their intelligence, and they are by necessity forced to direct their attention to sense-objects. Some stop there, and spend their life without progressing further. They consider suffering as evil, and pleasure as…

Tractate 5 Fifth Ennead. Ninth tractate. The intellectual-principle, the ideas, and the authentic existence. 1. All human beings from birth onward live to the realm of sense more than to the Intellectual. Forced of necessity to attend first to the material, some of them elect to abide by that order and, their life throughout, make…