Plotinus on the Contemplation of the Intelligible World: Faces of Being and Mirrors of Intellect (Cambridge Studies in Religion and Platonism)

In this study, Mateusz Stróżyński offers an experiential and practical way of understanding Plotinus' thought and philosophy through a focus on the act of contemplation. He argues that contemplation, or direct seeing of the principles of reality, is not merely a part of Plotinus' thought, but rather a significant dimension of it. Moreover, he argues that Plotinus understands metaphysics as a conceptual and propositional description of reality from a third-person perspective, as well as an expression of an experience of that reality from a first-person perspective. Stróżyński focuses on the first phase of the journey to the Good, namely, on the contemplation of the intelligible world: Nature, Soul, and Intellect. He describes the fall of the soul and her return through the lens of the so-called “Great Kinds”: Being, Movement, Rest, Difference, and Identity. Stróżyński also shows how this concept, derived from Plato's Sophist, is creatively used by Plotinus to explain both the loss and the restoration of our ability to contemplate through philosophical practice.