Beauty, Beautiful, and Beautifulness in Plotinus (Enn. I,6 [1] 6,13–32)

• Authors: ZAMORA CALVO JOSÉ MARÍA
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The purpose of this paper is to analyze Plotinus’ Ennead I,6 [1] 6,13–32, where the complex terminology in reference to beauty renders significant nuances about the different levels of reality in which the beautiful manifests itself. In fact, Plotinus begins by adopting an ascending approach, and postulates that the beauty of soul consists in being purely and entirely what it is: an incorporeal, intellective and divine form (6,13–21). Further on, in 6,25, he changes his perspective and proposes a hierarchy of beauties in descending order, departing from the Good, identified with the beautifulness, followed by the Intellect that is the beautiful, passing through the soul, made something beautiful by the Intellect, up to the sense objects, which are made beautiful by the soul (6,25–32). A close reading of the cited passage unveils how the general terms referring to beauty, at times overlapped, are better defined if considered within the frame the henological-processional schema of Plotinus’ ontology.

Keywords

EN

Plotinus; Beauty; Beautiful; Beautifulness; Ennead I,6 [1]

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS
• PHILOSOPHY: PHILOSOPHY

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Eirene. Studia Graeca et Latina
• Year: 2017
• Volume: 53
• Issue: 1-2
• Pages: 127-149

Contributors

author

ZAMORA CALVO JOSÉ MARÍA

• Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Departamento de Filosofía, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Campus de Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid – Spain