Protoss' S Soul Theory And Platonism Monism

Two general ways illuminate the philosophy of Plotinus. One deals with the procession by which hypostasis generates the universe in sequence. The other concerns about the situation in which we could make a conversion to the hypostasis by turning our eyes from the outer world to the inner self. They can be rendered in academic terms separately as’Monism Method’and’Platonism Method’. However, it is an exacting task to find out why Plotinus could hold these two contradictive methods consistently, considering the well known soul-body dualism and two-world theory of Platonism. The purpose of the current thesis is to argue that only through a meticulous study on the double-dimension of Plotinian psychology could we give a cogent account of his philosophical system.Starting from a textual analysis of Plato’s Phaedo, I attempt to contend in the Introduction that the purpose of Phaedo is to combine the Pre-Socratic search for arche with the’Socratic Turn’. This thread leads us to the key of understanding Plotinian psychology. In Chapter One, I emphasize that Soul-hypostasis occupies an crucial position in Plotinus’ontology. Two most important concepts of his ontology, i.e. procession and conversion, could not be understood properly unless with appealing to the activity of Soul-hypostasis:on the one hand, the best way to understand the implication of the’three levels’of hypostasis is to investigate the conversion of soul to higher level; on the other hand, precession from hypostasis depends on the separation of eidos, which is impossible without the activity of soul. It is obviously by virtue of the double-dimension of Soul-hypostasis that Plotinus could insist an ontological monism while still accepting ’two-world theory’.In Chapters Two, I discuss the relationship between Plotinus and Stoicism, and in Chapter Three, that between Plotinus and Aristotle. Several concepts of Stoic physics, such as’eternal recurrence’,’total mixture’and’sympathy’, proved to be helpful for Plotinus to describe the appearance of transcendent hypostasis in universe. However, Stoicism could only reveals the double-structure of arche, but failed to explain the superiority of the’active arche’. By virtue of his criticizing Stoic ideas about soul and body, Plotinus demonstrates that the difference between the soul of the universe and individual souls is nothing other than the appearance of the same Soul-hypostasis in different levels of bodies. By the same token, Aristotle’s emphasis of’nous in the soul’provided Plotinus with a convenient path to elucidate the relationship between the Nous and the Soul. However, a dualism, i.e. the separation of contemplation and practice, is hidden in Aristotle’s philosophical system which creates a gap between the two. In contrast, scrutiny over Plotinus’discussion about’Know Thyself and ’Individual Form’ rewards us with the finding that Plotinus declaration of ’Contemplation as Practice’implicates his insistence on the appearance of’Individual Nous’ in the activity of each individual soul. The reason why Plotinus could only make a selective absorption of both Stoicism and Aristotelianism is manifestly that neither of these two philosophical resources is able to grasp the double-dimension of the Soul:Stoicism emphasizes the importance of arranging every individual in cosmos but consequently neglects the necessity of our conversion to the higher hypostasis, while Aristotelianism attempts to dissolve individuality in the simplicity of the nous but, as a result, degrades the meaning of embodied soul.In Chapter Four, with an intertextual analysis between Enneads and Timaeus, I argue that the double-dimension of Plotinian psychology was built upon a careful reading of Plato’s dialogues. Firstly, all the fundamental propositions of Plotinian psychology could be traced back to an important statement of Timaeus that soul is the intermediary between ’being’ and ’becoming’. Secondly, Plotinus’s interpretation of Timaeus maintains a good balance between the ’dualism of being-becoming’ and the ’explanation of three arche’ in the dialogue. By following the interpretation of Plotinus, we could avoid the danger of a Stoic or Aristotelian understanding of Timaeus. Also, Plotinus’ interpretation of Republic suggests the same strategy.In the manner of echoing with the text analysis of Phaedo at the beginning, I point out in the Conclusion that Plotinus’ selective absorption of Stoicism and Aristotelianism is no more than a recurrence of Plato’s combination between Pre-Socrates philosophers and Socrates. Accordingly, conversion of soul to the higher hypostasis is neither some ontological ascension nor some functional internalization, but the best route to understand Platonic Monism. To know the place of’each one’s own soul’in the realm of hypostasis is equivalent to making our embodied soul a organic part of the cosmos. They are just like the two sides of the same coin. For Plotinus, the double-dimension of soul reveals the path to the achievement of’The All’, which is pursued by all the Greek philosophers.