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/lit/ - Literature

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17563813 No.17563813 [Reply] [Original]

Has anyone here read the Enneads? I've heard it has a reputation as difficult but I've also seen reviews that disagreed. Can you comment on its intelligibility? I've read a few Platonic dialogues (Gorgias, Republic, Symposium, Phaedo) and have a base knowledge of Neo-Platonism (Have read Augustine's Confessions and a few works of Etienne Gilson that touch on it). Would I be able to hack it or are there other prerequisites I need to tackle first?

>> No.17563850

>>17563813
I will read it next year I think and I'll let you know.

>> No.17563859

>>17563813
Yes I have. It's very structured so if you don't understand anything you can easily look it up online.

>> No.17563952
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17563952

>>17563813

Plotinus can be tricky, but he's really not that bad if you have a firm understanding of Plato. You'll get something out of it even if you only understand half of what he says. I say jump in.

>> No.17563987

>>17563813
There is also Lloyd Gerson

>> No.17564002

>>17563859
The full version? I'm surprised the most common edition seems to be an abridgement.
>>17563952
How firm a grasp is required? I have a pretty good sense of Platonic hard realism as opposed to Aristotelian moderate realism, and the general Neo-Platonic idea of being as flowing from the One who in a sense doesn't "exist" because it is beyond being. Is that enough of Plato?

>> No.17564186

>>17564002

>Is that enough of Plato?
The Timaeus and the Parmenides are of critical importance for Neoplatonism more broadly. At the very least, some understanding of what those two dialogues contain would be helpful in understanding Plotinus. The figure of the divine craftsmen in the Timaeus is historically important for understanding how the Platonic Forms come to reside in a divine mind. Aristotle is important here too, but I digress. Plato's creation story in the Timaeus is picked-up by the Neoplatonists, but with a twist. Plato describes creation in time. Later thinkers think Plato did this for teaching purposes and understand him as describing something that is forever taking place, with each stage of creation happening all at once without beginning or end. The hypotheses in the second part of the Parmenides come be understood as describing the structure of reality itself.