Greece & Rome · c. 245 – 6th c. CE
Neoplatonism
All reality flows from a single, ineffable source, the One, through Intellect and Soul down to matter, and the soul’s task is to turn back and return to it.
How does the many come from the One, and how do we return?
In 3rd-century Rome, amid political crisis and competing salvation religions, Plotinus reread Plato as a unified system, absorbing Aristotle’s theory of intellect. His pupil Porphyry edited his treatises, and later teachers in Athens and Alexandria, such as Proclus and Hypatia, made it the last great school of pagan philosophy.
Every multiplicity depends on a unity that holds it together, so the first principle must be absolutely one, beyond being and thought. It does not create by choice but overflows, as light radiates from the sun, producing Intellect (the realm of Forms), which produces Soul, which produces the visible world. Because we came from the One, we can return through philosophy, virtue and contemplation.
- The One, beyond being, is the source of all things.
- Reality is a hierarchy of emanation: One, Intellect, Soul, matter.
- The soul can ascend back to union with the One.
Through Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius, al-Farabi and Avicenna it became the metaphysical framework of medieval Christian, Islamic and Jewish thought, and it inspired Renaissance Florence and many mystical traditions.
Thinkers
c. 204–270PlotinusFounder of Neoplatonism, teaching in Romec. 234–305PorphyryPlotinus’ student, editor and biographer412–485ProclusHead of the Platonic school in Athens and Neoplatonism’s great systematiserborn c. 350–370; died 415HypatiaMathematician and Neoplatonist teacher in AlexandriaKey texts
Where it came from
Grew out ofPlatonismPlotinus read Plato’s dialogues as one system, placing the Good of the Republic, now called the One, at the summit of reality.Borrowed from
AristotelianismPlotinus built Aristotle’s self-thinking divine intellect into his second level, Intellect, and Porphyry made Aristotle’s logic the standard introduction to Platonism.Grew out of
PythagoreanismLater Neoplatonists such as Iamblichus and Proclus revered Pythagoras and gave number a central place in the unfolding of reality.
What it led to
Borrowed byPatristic & Augustinian philosophyAugustine read “the books of the Platonists”, likely Plotinus and Porphyry in Latin, and took from them God as immaterial Good and evil as mere privation.Borrowed by
Falsafa (Arabic Aristotelianism)The so-called Theology of Aristotle, actually a paraphrase of Plotinus, gave Arabic philosophy its picture of the world emanating from the One.Borrowed by
Sufi metaphysicsSufi metaphysics of a world flowing from and returning to the One parallels Neoplatonism; scholars debate how direct the borrowing was.