ABSTRACT
We began our introduction to the philosophy of Plotinus by concentrating on the individual as he finds himself in this world. For the individual, as thinker and speculator, is the starting point of Plotinus’ philosophy. The fate of the individual, his descent into body and return to the Intelligible world, form the core of his thinking. Throughout the Enneads we are strongly conscious of his direct appeal to his listeners (and readers) to look to their own experience and apply his teaching to the way in which they conduct their lives. Many of the treatises are structured to appeal in this way. For example V.1 begins with an invocation to us as individuals to realise the situation we are in and to recognise the different levels of reality which make up our Being, from discursive reason to intellect. These then point to the macrocosm to which we are related at every level. Having established the existence and nature of the three Hypostases from an examination of our own nature, Plotinus then adverts to their gradual unfolding in the history of philosophy whose culminating point is, of course, Plato. The treatise closes by returning to these levels of reality within ourselves:
Now just as these three exist for the system of Nature, so, we must hold, they exist for ourselves.
