Book contents
- Plotinus on the Contemplation of the Intelligible World
- Cambridge Studies in Religion and Platonism
- Plotinus on the Contemplation of the Intelligible World
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Descent and Fall
- Part II Soul
- Part III Intellect
- 6 Looking into Our Face
- 7 All Together in Eternity
- 8 There Is Only One World
- 9 Pamprosopon
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
8 - There Is Only One World
from Part III - Intellect
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 September 2024
- Plotinus on the Contemplation of the Intelligible World
- Cambridge Studies in Religion and Platonism
- Plotinus on the Contemplation of the Intelligible World
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Descent and Fall
- Part II Soul
- Part III Intellect
- 6 Looking into Our Face
- 7 All Together in Eternity
- 8 There Is Only One World
- 9 Pamprosopon
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter discusses the way the contemplation of Intellect and the Forms is related to the experience of the sensible world. Despite the traditional view that Platonism espouses “two worlds”, Plotinus mocks the idea of the sensible and the intelligible as being actually two separated realms. Rather, for him there is only one world but seen from different perspectives by different cognitive activities of the soul. What happens in noetic contemplation is not that the Forms are seen apart from their sensible images, but that they are seen in and through their images, having become transparent to their essences. Or, when the experience is mature, it is rather that the sensible things are seen in and through their intelligible archetypes. To explain that phenomenon, Plotinus uses the continuum of dimness and clarity, and claims that perception is dim intellection, while intellection is clear perception. The contemplation of the transparency of the sensible to the intelligible gives rise to the experience of “bodies in Intellect” or the profound unity of the two realms, where the entire reality of the sensible is to be found in the intelligible.
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- Plotinus on the Contemplation of the Intelligible WorldFaces of Being and Mirrors of Intellect, pp. 294 - 318Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024