ABSTRACT
§ 1 . Platonism is essentially an ethical doctrine and unites all its detail into a single theory of development toward perfection. Neo-Platonism starts with this idea, and its claim to be a revival of Platonism rests on the extent to which this ethical purpose is common to both. But while the outlines are similar the details are very different. The atmosphere of Neo-Platonism is at once more impersonal and more subjective. Plato diffuses an atmosphere of practical activity, and thinks chiefly of the good life as a system of human activities. Plotinus, the founder of Neo-Platonism, turns his eyes away from the world of change and action to the inner life of timeless meditation. For Plato the world that lies beyond the senses was a justification of human effort: it was primarily an answer to those who saw in life nothing but a ceaseless change that made effort vain and progress only a synonym for process. For Plotinus the supersensible is the spiritual world of the mystic. The years that intervene between Plato and Plotinus have slowly generated a distinction between the sensible and the supersensible world which is subtly different from that of Plato. The mysticism of Plato ends with an insight into the reality of life; the mysticism of Plotinus begins from that point, abstracts the reality from life, and views existence as a state from which man strives to flee that he may depart from it and be with God. The change hinges upon the interpretation of Plato. If emphasis is laid on Plato’s idea of the body as the tomb of the soul; if contemplation is valued before action; if the whole process of education is regarded exclusively as a liberation of the soul, the origin of Neo-Platonism can at once be seen. The divergence of Neo-Platonism from Platonism lies mainly in the metaphysical view of intellect as a cosmic reason. The Stoic doctrine of universal reason had been really a veiled materialism; nevertheless its “pantheism” only required a fresh interpretation of reason to emerge as a theory of all-embracing intellect. If the pneuma of the Stoics is found to be an inadequate concept of the supreme unity, it is none the less true that it formulates an idea of unity closely akin to that of Plotinus. Neo-Platonism owes to the Stoics its conception of all embracing unity, of passionless reason, and of pure rationality as the human ideal. Plotinus objects to many of the details of Stoic doctrine, as he objects also to Aristotle; but his metaphysical doctrine is strongly marked with Stoic characteristics and Aristotelian notions. This Neo-Platonism is therefore no mere reproduction of Platonic doctrine. It is to a large extent an independent construction by reason of the new standpoint adopted. Plotinus has a new idea of the rational life as something distinctively subjective. Out of this arise his virtues and his vices; for it leads to a deeper view of thought and at the same time makes impossible that trans-subjective use of thought on which he builds a metaphysic not unlike the vagaries of Gnosticism.
