About us
We're a Late Platonist/Neoplatonist study group focused on the writings of Plato and Plotinus.
We listen to passages from the original texts and discuss them together, with the aim of deepening both our understanding and our lived practice of Platonism as a philosophy of life.
"Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smoothes there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work. So do you also: cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiselling your statue, until there shall shine out on you from it the godlike splendour of virtue, until you shall see the perfect goodness surely established in the stainless shrine.
When you know that you have become this perfect work, when you are self-gathered in the purity of your being, nothing now remaining that can shatter that inner unity, nothing from without clinging to the authentic man, when you find yourself wholly true to your essential nature, wholly that only veritable Light which is not measured by space, not narrowed to any circumscribed form nor again diffused as a thing void of term, but ever unmeasurable as something greater than all measure and more than all quantity—when you perceive that you have grown to this, you are now become very vision: now call up all your confidence, strike forward yet a step—you need a guide no longer—strain, and see." -Enneads I, 6.9
Upcoming events
1
On Beauty (Plotinus, Ennead I.6)
·OnlineOnlineIn this session, we’ll listen to the tractate On Beauty from Plotinus’ Enneads (about 30 minutes). This is one of his most important writings, where he explores what beauty truly is and why it has such power over the soul.
Plotinus moves from visible beauty to moral beauty, and finally to absolute Beauty itself — showing how beauty awakens memory of the divine, draws the soul upward, and becomes the path of return to the Good.
Key themes include:
- Why beauty is not merely symmetry or proportion
- How the soul recognizes beauty through inner likeness
- Purification as the path to becoming beautiful
- The ascent beyond sense to the source of all Beauty
Here's the text and audio if you’d like to check them out beforehand:
Text: On Beauty
Audio: https://archive.org/details/enneads/enneads_05_plotinus_i6.flacAfter listening, we’ll open a shared discussion around questions such as:
- What makes something truly beautiful?
- Why does beauty move the soul so deeply?
- How does Plotinus connect beauty, virtue, and purification?
- What does it mean to “become beautiful” inwardly?
Beginners are very welcome, but this is advanced material.
You’ll get much more out of the discussion if you check out this Introduction to Neoplatonism beforehand.10 attendees
Past events
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