Plotinus

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Plotinus (c.205–70). Founder of Neoplatonism and mystic. His works were published after his death by his pupil Porphyry in six ‘Enneads’ (Groups of Nine). The major theme of Plotinus' thought is the relation of the One (to hen) or the Good at the summit of the chain of beings to the realm of multiplicity. Beneath the undifferentiated One is the intelligible world of ideas (nous) and, beneath it, the World Soul (psyche). This latter is the creator and orderer of the material world. The aim of the Plotinian scheme is to attain knowledge of the One by a return to it through contemplation.

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