Third Ennead
Third Ennead
This chapter presents the English translation of Paul Kalligas’s commentary on the third Enneads of Plotinus. The third Ennead is focused on physical reality and cosmological issues, but viewed from a more general perspective, “dealing with considerations about the universe” (VP 24.59–60). It is the most miscellaneous in character, and Porphyry spends some time in trying to justify his inclusion of treatises like III 4, III 5 and III 8 (VP 25.2–9), without mentioning III 9, which is but a cento of disparate notes without any unity. Nevertheless, this Ennead consistently revolves around issues and concepts central to Plotinus’s understanding of how the universe functions, the forces that pervade it and make it work as it does, and the way in which the various kinds of soul that Plotinus postulates (and which, according to the standard Platonic doctrine, are the cause of every change and motion in the world) govern and organize it into an integrated and coherent whole.
Keywords: physical reality, cosmology, Porphyry, Plotinus, ancient philosophy, universe, soul
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