ABSTRACT
Although the One is the ultimate principle and source of all, Intellect stands at the very core of Plotinus’ metaphysics. The Greek term Nous defies exact translation into English. The German Geist gives a more rounded impression than the English ‘mind’ or ‘intellect’ which suggest more the notion of discursive reason, which Plotinus locates at a lower level than the intuitive thought characteristic of what we will translate as ‘Intellect’. But Intellect is not simply an activity, it is a real existent; in fact it is Being par excellence. This combination of Thought and Being derives from Plotinus’ deep consideration of vital elements of Aristotelian metaphysics which he deployed in his interpretation of Plato. Put at its very simplest he has creatively combined the Aristotelian idea of a self-contemplating deity with the Platonic Forms. Such a combination was not entirely new. Plato had posited the Forms, or ideal archetypes, as the ultimate source of all knowledge and reality; while Aristotle, finding problems with this theory, not least with its static nature, preferred to place a divine intellect as the first cause. Subsequent Platonists sought ways of utilising both of these concepts. The idea of the Forms as the thoughts of God had a long history before Plotinus, as had the general influence on Platonism of Aristotelian ideas. What is new in Plotinus is the vigorously systematic and radical way in which he manages these ideas to achieve a richly coherent concept of an active intelligible cosmos. The static Platonic world of Forms is transformed into a vital level of Being.
