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
2
On the Descent of the Soul into the Body (Plotinus, Ennead IV. 8)
·OnlineOnlineIn this session, we’ll listen to Plotinus’ tractate On the Descent of the Soul into the Body (Ennead IV.8). Here Plotinus explores one of the central questions of Platonism: why the soul, which belongs to a higher intelligible reality, comes to be involved with the world of body and matter.
Plotinus argues that the soul does not simply “fall” into the body in a purely negative sense. Rather, the soul has a dual orientation: one aspect remains rooted above in the intelligible world, while another extends downward to animate and order the visible cosmos.
Key themes include:- Why the soul comes into contact with the bodily world
- The distinction between the higher and lower activity of the soul
- The idea that a part of the soul never descends
- How embodiment relates to the soul’s task in the cosmos
Here's the text if you’d like to check it out beforehand - https://w.wiki/JHtA
After listening, we’ll open a shared discussion around questions such as:
- Why does Plotinus say the soul descends into body?
- In what sense does part of the soul remain above?
- How does this view differ from the idea of a simple “fall” into matter?
- What does this imply about the relationship between our higher and lower selves?
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.
4 attendees
Plotinus, Enneads V. 4 & IV. 9
·OnlineOnlineIn this session, we’ll listen to two short tractates from Plotinus’ Enneads: How the Secondaries rise from The First: and on The One (V.4), and Are all Souls One? (IV.9).
In the first text, Plotinus explains how all reality flows from the First Principle, the One — not through deliberate creation, but through an eternal overflow of perfection. From this source arise Intellect, Soul, and the ordered universe.
In the second, he examines the relationship between individual souls and the greater unity of Soul itself, raising the question of whether the many souls we experience are ultimately expressions of a single living principle.
Key themes include:
- What Plotinus means by emanation from the One
- How the First Principle can give rise to all things without diminishing itself
- The relationship between individual souls and the universal Soul
- Unity and multiplicity in the structure of reality
Here's the texts if you’d like to check them out beforehand - V. 4 IV. 9
After listening, we’ll open a discussion around questions such as:
- What does Plotinus mean when he says all things “proceed” from the One?
- How can many souls arise from a single source?
- In what sense are we both individual and part of a greater unity?
- How does this vision change how we understand selfhood and reality?
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.
2 attendees
Past events
11
