Plotinus on the soul

"Plotinus on the Soul is a study of Plotinus' psychology, which is arguably the most sophisticated Platonist theory of the soul in antiquity. Plotinus offers a Platonist response to Aristotelian and Stoic conceptions of the soul that is at the same time an innovative interpretation of Plato's Timaeus. He considers the notion of the soul to be crucial for explaining the rational order of the world. To this end, he discusses not only different types of individual soul (such as the souls of the stars, and human and animal souls) but also an entity that he was the first to introduce into philosophy: the so-called hypostasis Soul. This is the first study to provide a detailed explanation of this entity, but it also discusses the other types of soul, with an emphasis on the human soul, and explains Plotinus' original views on rational thought and its relation to experience."--Back cover Cover 1 Half-title page 3 Title page 5 Copyright page 6 Dedication 7 Contents 9 Preface and acknowledgements 11 Abbreviations 14 Introduction 17 Chapter 1 Unity and creation: why Plotinus introduced thehypostasis Soul 31 The unity of all souls 33 The Craftsman and the creation of a sensible world 41 Chapter 2 The hypostasis Soul 53 The hypostasis Intellect and the Timaean Living Being 54 Propositional and non聞-propositional聞 thought 60 Theoretical and practical thought 67 Creation, contemplation and the Craftsman 77 Chapter 3 The hypostasis Soul and its relation to individual souls 85 Being one and many 86 The hypostasis Intellect, individual intellects and their individuation 94 The hypostasis Soul, individual souls and their individuation 102 Chapter 4 The individual soul in the intelligible and in the sensible world 107 The two lives of the individual soul 108 The priority of the life in the intelligible world 117 Chapter 5 Divine individual souls 127 The World Soul 128 The souls of the stars 136 The soul of the earth 141 The blissfully unperturbed life of divine souls 144 Chapter 6 The human soul: its descent and its confusion in the sensible world 150 Descent as experience 150 Experience and the confusion of the human soul in the sensible world 162 Chapter 7 The human soul: the higher and the lower soul 168 The higher soul and its power in the sensible world 169 The lower soul as faculty of presentation 179 Does the lower soul stem from the World Soul? 187 Chapter 8 The soul and the body 196 Being in 196 Nature, the trace of the soul and the qualified body 202 Animals and plants 208 Bibliography 214 Indices 227 Index locorum 235 Introduction -- 1 Unity And Creation: Why Plotinus Introduced The Hypostasis Soul -- 2 The Hypostasis Soul -- 3 The Hypostasis Soul And Its Relation To Individual Souls -- 4 The Individual Soul In The Intelligible And In The Sensible World -- 5 Divine Individual Souls -- 6 The Human Soul: Its Descent And Its Confusion In The Sensible World -- 7 The Human Soul: The Higher And The Lower Soul -- 8 The Soul And The Body. Damian Caluori. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 198-210) And Index. This is the first comprehensive study of Plotinus' theory of the soul for half a century. It shows how Plotinus derives his psychology from an innovative interpretation of Plato's Timaeus and proposes it as a response to Aristotelian and Stoic conceptions of the soul.