Plotinus Soul Doctrine Study

The theory of soul is a very important part of Plotinus' philosophy which is also one of the central theses of Greek philosophy. As soon as philosophy is born in Greek, the philosophers begin to reflect the problem of soul. Among them, Plato and Aristotle have achieved the pinnacle. They all make great progress, but also leave behind some baffling problems. For examples, Plato emphasizes the immortality of soul, but his dualism is difficult to explain individual as a unity of soul and body. However, Aristotle can explain the integration of soul and body in individual successfully with his theory of form and matter, but can't give much prominence to the immortality of soul. Plotinus tries to find a new route between these two tense theories in order to sum up their fruits and solve the problems of each. His means is to distinguish exterior kinds and interior structure of the soul. There are three kinds of souls which are Hypostasis-soul, the Universal soul and the individual soul. There are three parts in the soul which are intellect, reasoning and sense-perceive. So far as soul's immortality, Plotinus says all souls are immortal; as for the problem of integration, he opposes the opinion which regards soul as in body. Because the lower being exists in the higher one. As the product of soul, body is in soul. Soul is a preexistent substance, it converges and establishes the body. So, in fact, there is no problem of integration here. The relation between soul and body is not as the one between two external objects which discriminates against each other. At the same time the lower parts of soul must associate with body to work. We should also bear in mind that soul itself can't be divided. Every kind and every part of soul are all from the same root, all souls are one.At the bottom of three initial Hypostases, soul is the bridge and tie between the intelligible world and the sensible world. Soul gets Forms from above and gives them to all things on earth which guarantees the reality of phenomena. As a medial role, soul creates the world by means of emanation, soul descends to administer and conduct this world because it is drived by its internal desire. On the other hand, soul also ascends to and transcends Intellect and even achieves the One and unites itself to the Good by the way of aesthetic appreciation, virtue, dialectic, contemplation and love etc. Except this, soul also takes the task of constructing knowledge. It is accomplished by sense, memory, and reasoning. Corresponding to soul' sense-perceive, reasoning and intellect, there are three kinds of knowledge, i.e. sensible knowledge, reasoning knowledge and intelligible knowledge. Among them, the last one is also an effective means for soul to ascend and unite itself to the One. During all of these processes, soul realizes these goals by the principle of "knowing by likeness". Another essential principle which runs through Plotinus' theory of soul and his whole philosophy is the idea of "the great chain of beings", i.e. the lower being depends on the higher one, the product is lower than and exists in its producer. The top of this chain is the One or the Good, all things come from and also try to return to him. Hence, returning to the One is the ultimate end of soul. And, this ability is deep in all souls. Because soul is a substance which has many different levels and abilities, the One and Intellect are all present in every soul. Each of our soul all has some divinity by which we can ascend to and achieve the ultimate mystic uniting. So, ascending and uniting is actually a process of returning, i.e. returning deeply to soul and self where the divine hypostases are always shining and illuminating.In order to express these main points, in the part of introduction, I will introduce the character of Plotinus' time and his individual personality, I will present the reason why I choose...