Product Description
The first book-length philosophical study on the Presocratic influences in Plotinus' Enneads. ... Read more

Product Description
Book Description:

"The Six Enneads, sometimes abbreviated to The Enneads or Enneads, is the collection of writings of Plotinus, edited and compiled by his student Porphyry (c. 270 AD). Plotinus is said to be the one of the founders of Neoplatonism, if not the first Neoplatonist. His work, through Augustine of Hippo, and therefore subsequent Christian and the Arab thinkers, has greatly influenced Western and Near-Eastern thought." (Quote from wikipedia.org)

Table of Contents:

Publisher's Preface; Porphyry: On The Life Of Plotinus And The Arrangement Of His Work; The First Ennead: First Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; Section 4; Section 5; Section 6; Section 7; Section 8; Section 9; Section 10; Section 11; Section 12; Section 13; The First Ennead: Second Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; Section 4; Section 5; Section 6; Section 7; The First Ennead: Third Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; Section 4; Section 5; Section 6; The First Ennead: Fourth Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; Section 4; Section 5; Section 6; Section 7; Section 8; Section 9; Section 10; Section 11; Section 12; Section 13; Section 14; Section 15; Section 16; The First Ennead: Fifth Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; Section 4; Section 5; Section 6; Section 7; Section 8; Section 9; Section 10; The First Ennead: Sixth Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; Section 4; Section 5; Section 6; Section 7; Section 8; Section 9; The First Ennead: Seventh Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; The First Ennead: Eighth Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; Section 4; Section 5; Section 6; Section 7; Section 8; Section 9; Section 10; Section 11; Section 12; The First Ennead: Ninth Tractate; The Second Ennead: First Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; Section 4; Section 5; Section 6; Section 7; Section 8; The Second Ennead: Second Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; The Second Ennead: Third Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; Section 4; Section 5; Section 6; Section 7; Section 8; Section 9; Section 10; Section 11; Section 12; Section 13; Section 14; Section 15; Section 16; Section 17; Section 18; The Second Ennead: Fourth Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; Section 4; Section 5; Section 6; Section 7; Section 8; Section 9; Section 10; Section 11; Section 12; Section 13; Section 14; Section 15; Section 16; The Second Ennead: Fifth Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; Section 4; Section 5; The Second Ennead: Sixth Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; The Second Ennead: Seventh Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; The Second Ennead: Eighth Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; The Second Ennead: Ninth Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; Section 4; Section 5; Section 6; Section 7; Section 8; Section 9; Section 10; Section 11; Section 12; Section 13; Section 14; Section 15; Section 16; Section 17; Section 18; The Third Ennead: First Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; Section 4; Section 5; Section 6; Section 7; Section 8; Section 9; Section 10; The Third Ennead: Second Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; Section 4; Section 5; Section 6; Section 7; Section 8; Section 9; Section 10; Section 11; Section 12; Section 13; Section 14; Section 15; Section 16; Section 17; Section 18; The Third Ennead: Third Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; Section 4; Section 5; Section 6; Section 7; The Third Ennead: Fourth Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; Section 4; Section 5; Section 6; The Third Ennead: Fifth Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; Section 4; Section 5; Section 6; Section 7; Section 8; Section 9; Section 10; The Third Ennead: Sixth Tractate; Section 1; Section 2; Section 3; Section 4; Section 5; Section 6; Section 7; Section 8; Section 9; Section 10; Section 11; Section 12; Section 13; Section 14; Section 15; Section 16; Section 17; Section 18; Section 19; The Third Ennead: Seventh Tractate; Section 1; S ... Read more

Product Description
Margaret Miles brings Plotinus' thought alive for the twenty-first century by relating it to present day concerns. Without glossing over the profound differences between ancient and modern societies, the author points to fascinating parallels between the two, adding an important dimension to our understanding of the Western spiritual heritage.

Miles offers a new interpretation which situates Plotinus' philosophical ideas in the context of the society and culture in which those ideas developed. Using extant evidence (The Enneads, Porphyry's Life), she reconstructs an intense third century conversation, namely the relationship of body and soul. Miles's interpretation of Plotinus will encourage readers from a range of disciplines to question their construction of body, "self," and identity. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An excellent companion to "The Enneads"
Plotinus seemed to remain one of the best-kept secrets of antiquity. His vision is dazzling and his assumptions few.
Although there's a remarkable simplicity to his teachings, that simplicity may be obscured by the dust of 18 centuries as well as the detailed way in which Plotinus presents his teaching.

After my first reading of "The Enneads", I sought out a book which would provide me a better context for understanding it: information about the times including philosophies like Platonism. I've read a few now and this one has been the most helpful.

Margaret Miles appears to have a real love of Plotinus. At the same time, she's definitely a scholar, but a scholar who can write (and write well) to reach beyond other scholars to educated lay readers. Moreover, although she works at a theological school, she presents Plotinus on his own terms, rather than as nothing more than a Christian resource.

The themes Ms. Miles has wisely chosen, body and beauty, run deep and wide through Plotinus's teaching.

This is they way scholars should write, well-footnoted but not in a narrow scholarese. This is a great way to meet Plotinus, full of facts and insights from someone really sympathetic to Plotinus, someone who has obviously spent the time to understand him well. I feel quite fortunate to have found this book and appreciate Ms. Miles' caliber and efforts in keeping Plotinus contemporary. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
THIS 22 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Plotinus: The Theosophy of the Greeks, by G. R. S. Mead. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1564597431. ... Read more

Product Description
Plotinus, the founder of the Neoplatonic school of philosophy, conceptualises two different notions of self (or 'us'): the corporeal and the rational. Personality and imperfection mark the former, while goodness and a striving for understanding mark the latter. In this 2007 text, Dr Remes grounds the two selfhoods in deep-seated Platonic ontological commitments, following their manifestations, interrelations and sometimes uneasy coexistence in philosophical psychology, emotional therapy and ethics. Plotinus' interest lies in what it means for a human being to be a temporal and a corporeal thing, yet capable of abstract and impartial reasoning, of self-government and perhaps even invulnerability. The book argues that this involves a philosophically problematic rupture within humanity which is, however, alleviated by the psychological similarities and points of contact between the two aspects of the self. The purpose of life is the cultivation of the latter aspect, the true self. ... Read more

Product Description
THIS 44 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Some Exponents of Mystical Religion, by Rufus Jones. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 0766150860. ... Read more

Product Description
Plotinus, the founder of the Neoplatonic school of philosophy, conceptualises two different notions of self (or 'us'): the corporeal and the rational. Personality and imperfection mark the former, while goodness and a striving for understanding mark the latter. In this 2007 text, Dr Remes grounds the two selfhoods in deep-seated Platonic ontological commitments, following their manifestations, interrelations and sometimes uneasy coexistence in philosophical psychology, emotional therapy and ethics. Plotinus' interest lies in what it means for a human being to be a temporal and a corporeal thing, yet capable of abstract and impartial reasoning, of self-government and perhaps even invulnerability. The book argues that this involves a philosophically problematic rupture within humanity which is, however, alleviated by the psychological similarities and points of contact between the two aspects of the self. The purpose of life is the cultivation of the latter aspect, the true self. ... Read more

Product Description
THIS 7 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Essence of Plotinus: Extracts from the Six Enneads and Porphyry's Life of Plotinus, by Stephen MacKenna. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 0766100928. ... Read more

Product Description
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. ... Read more

Product Description
1929. Edited, preface, and bibliography by G.R.S. Mead. Contents: On the virtues; On Dialectic; On Matter; Against the Gnostics; On the Impassivity of Incorporeal Natures; On Eternity and Time; On the Immortality of the Soul; On the Three Hypostases that rank as the Principles of Things; On Intellect, Ideas, and Real Being; On the Essence of the Soul; A discussion of Doubts relative to the Soul; On the Generation and Order of Things after the First; On Gnostic Hypostases, and That which is beyond Them; That the Nature which is beyond Being is not Intellective, etc.; On the Good, or the One. ... Read more

Product Description
The 15 studies collected here reflect a prolonged interest in the Platonism of late antiquity, and most of them are concerned with its exploration of the themes of human identity and the nature of mind and soul. Modern philosophers call this kind of theorizing the philosophy of mind, and several psychological concepts and activities that feature regularly in work on the philosophy of mind - sense-perception, imagination, memory, our awareness of time - are discussed in this volume. Two figures dominate the collection, Plotinus and Augustine. The author's earliest research was undertaken to test claims that Plotinus was the first philosopher of Antiquity to identify concepts of consciousness and the self, and in particular to map his discourse about the self onto his scheme of three transcendental hypostases, and explore the ways in which these hypostases may be said to be "present" to us, whether in our rational activity or in mystical states of consciousness. From Plotinus he moved onto Augustine.One implicit conclusion of his studies is that their topics and concerns reflect, for the most part, not so much debates between pagan and Christian adversaries, as endeavours by participants in a common culture, that of the Roman world of late antiquity, to understand themselves and their environment. ... Read more

Product Description
THIS 8 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind, by Richard Maurice Bucke. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 076610298X. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A definite case of Cosmic Consciousness
This download is from Richard Maurice Bucke's classic _Cosmic Consciousness_ (1901.)

Plotinus 204-274 (Late Classical Neoplatonist Philosopher) was one of Bucke's fourteen historical examples of the definite attainment of the faculty of cosmic consciousness. The fourteen were: the Buddha, Jesus, Paul, Plotinus, Mohammed, Dante, Las Casas, John Yepes, Francis Bacon, Jacob Behmen, William Blake, Balzac, Walt Whitman, and Edward Carpenter


This study is from the early days of the psychiatric profession when its practitioners could still write seriously of spiritual and mystical matters without being ostracised or ridiculed as "unscientific." Briefly, the author personally experienced a sudden episode of enlightenment and rapture that, while it was only of brief duration, changed his outlook on life forever. He spent the rest of his life, he was in his mid-thirties at the time, trying to figure out what had happened to him, and if there were any others.

What he found was that such sudden occurances of enlightenment, these epiphanies, had been occuring to mystics, philosophers, writers, and artists all through recorded history. Not only that, but they were occuring with increased frequency as time went on. Bucke concluded that this marked an evolutionary trend. Carried out to its logical conclusion, he postulated that one day "cosmic consciousness" as he termed it, would be as common in the human race as self consciousness currently is. He based this on the manner in which the ancestors of man slowly climbed from the simple consciousness of animals to an almost universal state of self consciousness. ... Read more

Product Description
1908. Being the Sixth Treatise of the First Ennead Literally Translated. ... Read more