I think it's important to realise that what happens in Neo-Platonism beginning with Plotinus and Porphyry and then going on for the next several centuries, is a real kind of contest for the ideas and convictions of the intelligentsia of… — Peter Adamson Copy Share Image
This condition of uncertainty and unrest in the Roman Empire might explain why at Plotinus' philosophy encourages us to sort of flee from the physical world and towards the world of ideas. — Peter Adamson Copy Share Image
Plotinus thought that the entire world has a single soul. He also thought that each animal and plant and of course human, has an… — Peter Adamson Copy Share Image
Assuming there is an intellect, we're clearly not this universal intellect or we would know it. So that's one function of soul. — Peter Adamson Copy Share Image
The body is some kind of image of you, it's kind of something that's just attached to your soul, some kind of outside principle,… — Peter Adamson Copy Share Image
The forms are part of the mind, or really are the mind, they're just the contents of this universal night. — Peter Adamson Copy Share Image
Before the 3rd century you're having several philosophical schools still as a going concern. You have not only the Platonists and the Aristotelians but… — Peter Adamson Copy Share Image
Unlike later Neo-Platonists, Plotinus says that our souls are always connected to the universal intellect and that we never really fall away. — Peter Adamson Copy Share Image
The forms in intellect are some kind of blueprint or model on which the physical world is based, and something needs to come along… — Peter Adamson Copy Share Image
Once you're in a kind of revealed religious tradition, you wind up having to explain how the things said about God in the Bible… — Peter Adamson Copy Share Image
Al-Ghazali is the most important philosophical theologian of classical Islam, and Moderation in Belief is among his most important works. It sets out al-Ghazali's… — Peter Adamson Copy Share Image
In fact Plotinus thought not only that soul in general is eternal so that you always have soul, but he thought that each person's… — Peter Adamson Copy Share Image
Basically the problem is that if the intellect is looking at or beholding the forms, what it will get is some kind of representation… — Peter Adamson Copy Share Image
