Plotinus' Beauty Good And The One

Plotinus is a philosopher who is living in the period of Great Rome Empire.He forms his own style through studying Plato and critic Aristotle.He is well known as the Neoplatonism,but Hegel calls him also “an Aristotle”.In China,we recognize him as a Greek Philosopher,but in the continuity of philosophy history,he is also the foundermental of Medieval Philosophy.His works are named the Enneads.In Enneads,the Beauty(??? ?????),the Good(??? ??????)and the One(??? ????)are the essence of Plotinus' philosophy.In Plotinus' philosophy,the Soul and the Intellect all are service for Beauty,Good and the One.Man as a being of embodied soul,how to get to the supreme Beauty,Good and the One? Plotinus gives an answer: the separation of soul and body,the dependent life of soul.Outside of the life,Plotinus discusses the ontology world,the One-Intellect-Soul.Everything is alive according to the world of the One-Intellect-Soul.When the soul wants to be itself,the cosmos get into division.The heaven,the earth,the nature,the plant,the animal and the man all are result of the soul wants to be itself.In the process of the soul to be itself,it lost itself in the generated world.Our survival circumstance formed because of the leap of soul and the lost of soul.In our world everything becomes complicate because of detachable and visible.In the man and animal's world,it's the ensouled body which has the bodily perception,discursive and judgment.In man's world,we form sense-perception,desire and reason.In the ensouled world,action is affected by sense-perception,desire and reason.Animal and man does not have absolute freedom;because action is satisfy bodily desire and reason.In the involved cosmos world,there are two things to be pursuit: Beauty and Good.Plotinus emphasizes that the beauty and good must put into the horizon of soul.If you discuss it in the horizon of body,beauty and good will be service for desire which turns into greedy.Plotinus confirms three kind of beauty: perception-beauty,virtue-beauty and intelligible-beauty.Perception-beauty is formed by body through eye,ear,nose,tough,sense which is named body consciousness.It satisfies man's lower needs.Virtue-beauty has two dimensions: individual and city.Individual virtue identifies itself with the God through the Intellect under the separation of body and soul.Civic virtue identifies itself with the conception of city through temperance which keeps the city steady and protects individual bodily life.Plotinus does not discuss the civic virtue because in the late the Rome Empire happiness and pleasure cannon find in the city.From individual virtue beauty to the intelligible beauty,Plotinus discards the bodily life.In this point,Plotinus dates back to Socrates,the death of Socrates is a return to his own fate,not in the concept of bodily city life.Plotinus concerns that the true beauty is in the world of Intellect.The intelligible-beauty is the original of beauty.The overflow of intelligible-beauty makes the world beautiful,the ugly is the terminal of overflowing which is the material world.Plotinus also confirms three kinds of Good: individual good,civic good and cosmos good.Individual good forms two dimensions: civic good and cosmos good.The civic good makes the man follow the city's convention and laws which can make city life better.Cosmos good makes the man indentify with the universe which gets to the original supreme good.Plotinus acknowledges that the power of cosmos division is the supreme good.The evils are the privation of the good in the process of cosmos division.In the dimension of identity of beauty and good,Plotinus' philosophy transcends the city's happiness and pleasure to the world of cosmos.The cosmos is from the overflowing of the One-Intellect-Soul.Plotinus also discusses the One,the Intellect and the Soul separately.The One is the power of generation.The One is the supreme Good and possesses the absolute free will.The Intellect is the secondary compared to the One,but it's the principle of the All which is the archetype of the involved world.Intellect is differentiated from itself which forms Number and Multiple.The Soul who is seated in the third position is the image of the Intellect.The Soul rushes into the multiple of the Intellect and gets the principle which forms the cosmos.This is the process of the Soul to be itself.Plotinus interprets the formation of the cosmos and the generation of the world in the angle of Idealism.Our world is the presence of the One-Intellect-Soul.In Augustine's works,the One and the overflowing of the One which turns into the God and the God create the cosmos.Plotinus' the One,beauty and good solved the dualism problem of good and evil in the early Augustine' thought.Plotinus' thought gives a method to the interpretation of the Holy Bible.Plotinus is important to the modern world: First,he depicts the whole traditional metaphysical knowledge which imbraces: the nature,the moral and the polis.Second,he discusses the path of knowing from material world to the spirit world up to the super world.Third,he has a cosmos thought which is above the modern linguistic,consciousness,body and emotion studies.Forth,he leaves a place for the ontologic beauty.He takes the art as the original of the nature,the cosmos and the moral.The overflowing of the One,is the beauty,is the creation of art,is the presentation of the cosmos.