ABSTRACT
Plotinus has a great deal to say about human psychology, phenomena such as the soul’s relation to the body, the emotions, sense-perception, reasoning and memory. While his views must count as dualistic in the sense that the soul is a distinct entity with an independent existence, the picture is not simply that of an immaterial soul occupying a lifeless body: it is much more nuanced and complex than that. Let us say from the start that his psychology is broadly speaking Aristotelian in that the main faculties of the embodied soul are vegetative, sensitive and rational. This Aristotelian scheme is, however, applied in the context of a position that is in all essentials Platonic. Plotinus maintains Plato’s conception of the human soul in the Phaedo and other dialogues as an essentially rational entity, and following leads from Plato’s Alcibiades I, he distinguishes between the soul itself, the soul using the body, and a compound of body and soul. Some aspects of his psychology also bear a certain Stoic flavor. I have in mind particularly Plotinus’ account of a single center of conscious experience, which resembles the Stoic ruling part of the soul. Partly as a result of this mixture of influences, partly no doubt due to Plotinus’ genius, we find moves and views regarding human psychology that are genuinely original.
