The Six Enneads, sometimes abbreviated to The Enneads or Enneads (Greek: Ἐννεάδες), is the collection of writings of Plotinus, edited and compiled by his student Porphyry (c. 270 AD). The problem of how to render technical terms and expressions is particularly acute when one tries to grapple with Plotinus' long treatise On the Genera of Being. The Six Enneads ... whose name does not appear in the translation except where it was written by Plotinus. of the Plotinian System, 5.
1. As the Enneads are hardly a work one reads cover to cover, I will organize my observations thematically, dealing first with the treatises on psychology, then, more briefly, with those on physics, and, finally, with those on epistemology and metaphysics. Even though everybody grants that the term "category" means "predicate", most scholars today tend to think that Plotinus viewed Aristotle's categories as classifications of beings rather than of words. Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2011. Furthermore, while Armstrong tends to translate the same terms in different ways according to context, the team prefers consistency, to the point that the particle ê, which Plotinus uses to tentatively introduce his solution to an aporia -- and which means roughly "is it not the case that . De an., 2.1, 412a 27-b1). The Six Enneads Plotinus. Geoff Puterbaugh. Send-to-Kindle or Email . The Six Enneads is the collection of writings of Plotinus, edited and compiled by his student Porphyry. The plural "sadnesses" might strike the reader as odd, but this translation conveys Plotinus' distinction here between lupai on the one hand, and to algein on the other. While defending this thesis, Plotinus engages in what seems to be a sustained criticism of Aristotle's conception of the soul as the actuality of a certain kind of body, that is, an organic body having life potentially (Aristot. Plotinus was a student of Ammonius Saccas and they were founders of Neoplatonism.His work, through Augustine of Hippo, the … Having introduced, in chapter 1, the topic of the subject of emotions, perceptions, and thoughts, in chapter 2 Plotinus turns to the nature of the soul itself, and wonders whether the soul is such that it could "admit" or, more literally, "receive" (dechesthai) emotions at all. However, when we turn to Enn., 2.4.14, where Plotinus begins to introduce his account of matter as "privation" (sterêsis) by criticizing the Peripatetic account of matter as something distinct from privation, the advantages of the team's translation over Armstrong's translation are, once again, clear. Download: A text-only version is available for download. However, in light of what we read in 6.1.3.1-12 and 6.1.9.25-32, it does not seem to be a distinction between genera and predicates, as the team's translation by "ten predicates" suggests, but seems, rather, to be a distinction between two ways of classifying beings or things that are, one of which rests on genera, while the other rests on what Plotinus views as a "looser" kind of class, which he calls "category". Thomas Taylor. Diagrams are by Eric Steinhart. The team opts for a different construal, however, and renders the sentence thus: should not be understood as being of sensibles, but rather of the impressions that arise from sense-perception and which are graspable by the living being. Now Plato uses the term "indivisible" unqualifiedly, but "divisible" with a qualification; he says that the soul becomes "divisible among bodies", implying thus that it has not antecedently been divided. A more literal translation of the whole second chapter of Enn., 1.1 might have been, in my view at least, preferable. Through the Latin translation of Plotinus by Marsilio Ficino published in 1492, Plotinus became available to the West. 1st Ennead
Another place where perhaps a more neutral translation might have been preferable is Enn., 6.5.7.4-6. Although more accurate in some respects, the team's translation seems to me to needlessly complicate the philosophical point. Similarly, when we look at Enn., 3.7, Plotinus' treatise on eternity and time, we find at least one substantial improvement over Armstrong's translation, which is crucial for a correct understanding of the text. The first English translation, ... Plotinus. Plotinus on Beauty and Reality makes accessible to intermediate Greek students two treatises that describe the Neoplatonic cosmos of Plotinus.Enneads I.6 and V.1 treat the creation of the universe, the structure of the levels of reality, the place of the human soul in the universe, and how the soul can return to the One, its creator. The team avoids this confusion and translates thus: "Those men [the Stoics] who posit only bodies as beings and that substantiality is to be found among these bodies". Enn., 5.3.1-4 is also a place where one can see a problem with the team's decision to translate the particle ê by "in fact" in order to signal that Plotinus is introducing the solution of an aporia. Psychic and physical treatises, comprising the Second and Third Enneads.--3. The Enneads bring together Neoplatonism--mystic passion and ideas from Greek philosophy--together with striking variants of the Trinity and other central Christian doctrines, to produce a highly original synthesis. When it takes the term aisthêsis to mean an actual perception as opposed to the capacity of perception, the team tends to render it by "act of perception".