Plotinus

A study of the background, writings, and legacy of Plotinus. Plotinus is considered to be, with Plato and Aristotle, one of the greatest philosophers of the ancient world and the single most important figure of ancient philosophy from Aristotle's death in 323 B.C.E. to the end of the ancient philosophical schools in 529 C.E. His Enneads articulate a powerful and extensive synthesis of Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoic ideas along with the mystical and religious currents of thought of late anitquity, now known as Neoplatonism. Through the mediation of his followers, Porphyry, Proclus, and Augustine, Plotinus was a principal influence in medieval Christian, Jewish, and Islamic philosophy, Renaissance and Early Modern Philosophy. The principal goals of the course are to understand the sources and nature of his philosophic system through a careful reading of the Enneads.