Search Results

Journal: Folia Philosophica

Ideas of individuals and gradation of yucή hypostasis in Enneads by Plotinus

Agnieszka Woszczyk

Language: PL | Published: 31-12-2010 | Abstract | pp. 41-52

The paper deals with the problems of the ideas of individuals in Plotinus’ system. The author claims that the concept as described in Enneads should not be seen as separate from the principles of Plotinus’ ontology. It may be proofed by pointing out the psychological context in which Plotinus puts this issue and the kind of understanding of noetic sphere in terms of multitude, which entails the individualization of souls, typical for Plotinus. He takes the ideas of individuals as connected with the concept of alethēs anthropos - the essential way of being of a man in the hypostasis of the Intellect (nous).

2010-12-31



Journal: Folia Philosophica

Aoristos dyas and noetic matter in Enneads by Plotinus

Agnieszka Woszczyk

Language: PL | Published: 31-12-2007 | Abstract | pp. 185-197

The article is devoted to the presentation of the understanding of matter in the philosophy by Plotinus. It also constitutes an attempt to show a surface character of aporia of a hylemorphic structure of the noetic sphere. It points to the difference between a system function of aoristos dyas and noete hyle function from the perspective of dualism of existential principles. A characteristic of noetic matter presented in Enneads remains in an opposition to aoristos dyas constituting the principle of multiplicity and indefiniteness. A noetic matter determines the unity of a nous hyposthasis, and, as such, does not constitute the model of the matter of a sensual sphere. An understanding of the matter alone in the work by Plotinus is, basically, identified with an understanding of an aoristos dyas principle.

2007-12-31



Journal: Folia Philosophica

Metaphysical dualism in "Enneads" by Plotinus

Agnieszka Woszczyk

Language: PL | Published: 31-12-2006 | Abstract | pp. 55-65

The main problem of "Enneads" by Plotinus comes down to showing the possibility of the constitution of multiplicity on the assumption of emanative monism. Ontic unity-multiplicity requires an explanation of both the source of multiplicity and unity, which questions the legitimacy of traditional interpretations in the categories of principial monism. The article is an attempt to re-interpret the philosophy by Plotinus from the perspective of its connections with Plato's agrapha dogmata, i.e. the categories of principle dualism.

2006-12-31



Journal: Folia Philosophica

Basis of Plotinus’ critique of Aristotle’s theory of categories

Agnieszka Woszczyk

Language: PL | Published: 31-12-2011 | Abstract | pp. 169-180

The paper is devoted to analysis of the critique of Aristotelian theory of categories from Enneads, its main arguments and the relation of Plotinus’ theory of the kinds of sense world (kosmos aistheotos) to Aristotle’s categories. According to Plotinus, Aristotelian notion of categories is not a relevant tool of grasping the being in adequate sense, that is, as noetic being. The main argument is focused on the category of substance. There is a difference between how the problem of the kinds of beings is understood in Enn. VI 1 [42] and in Enn. VI 3 [44]. In the latter a basis for taking into account a modified form of Aristotelian categories as acceptable way of predicating of changeable sensual objects can be pointed out.

2011-12-31



Journal: Folia Philosophica

The projection of the first on the One in Plotinus’s Enneads

Józef Bańka

Language: PL | Published: 31-12-2000 | Abstract | pp. 9-19

Plotinus’s doctrine is based on henotheistic and emanative assumptions, and on this basis it develops its own methods of defining the One. This means, among other things, a transformation of the idea of the One, including its original, historically conditioned, content. In this context, the One can be conceived of only as the First, from which everything else emanates, so that in relation to it we can say that it has happened. If it exists, then it is a being in itself, and an index of itself.

2000-12-31



Journal: Folia Philosophica

The conception of monopsychism and the realms of man’s being in Enneads by Plotinus

Agnieszka Woszczyk

Language: PL | Published: 31-12-2009 | Abstract | pp. 115-127

The paper deals with the relation between the individual soul and the Soul taken as the hypostasis. This relation is the crucial element of Plotinus’ psychology and anthropology. It enables the explanation of the possibility of crossing the connection of a man with his body and finding the beyond-individual realms of being. In this way Plotinus presents various levels of self-knowledge of the self as different levels of its identity, from the level of body and senses, through the noetic dimension, to unio mystica.

2009-12-31



Journal: Folia Philosophica

The problem of a prenoetic dimension of being in The Enneads by Plotinus

Agnieszka Woszczyk

Language: PL | Published: 31-12-2008 | Abstract | pp. 257-266

The article is devoted to the issue of the constitution of kosmos noetos - the sphere of being out of the prenoetic. Plotinus distinguishes the elements logically earlier than the being itself which also differ from being principles such as hen and aoristos dyas. Thus, there is a difficulty with defining an ontic status of these indirect elements which are not a being yet however differ from the Unity as such and indefiniteness per se. It concerns mainly the status of numbers and primary diversity and movement. The very difficulty derives from a connection of a dynamic perspective of reality in the categories of self-evoking power with the ontology of being understood as Unity-Multitude.

2008-12-31



Journal: Folia Philosophica

Materia-zło i problem dualizmu pryncypiów. Polemika Proklosa z Plotynem w "De malorum subsistentia"

Agnieszka Woszczyk

Language: PL | Published: 26-04-2018 | Abstract

The article aims at illustrating an outline of Proclus’s argumentation leading to the rejection of a thesis about the evil of matter in the context of relevance of objections raised against Plotinus by Diadochus. Proclus, disposing of aporia which Plotinus’s stance is embedded in, creates difficulties instead, which the author of "Enneads" has managed to avoid. An attempt to avert the danger of dualism implies aporetic solutions and, additionally, it generates certain explanatory limitations. These difficulties seem to be the price that Diadochus pays for the axiological neutralization of the matter and apeiron, which happens together with the rejection of parallelism of relation between Good-One and plurality-evil. The existence of relative evil in the forms of parhypostases causes difficulties with the inexplicable presence of irrational elements in the universe, which remain beyond the system of causal influence. Plotinus, in turn, despite the dualistic way of explaining being as a relation of One and Indefinite Dyad (evil-matter) may maintain, which even the polemic with gnostics illustrates, that the whole reality is turned towards Good and that everything, including material universe, is essentially good due to unity. Acknowledging evil per se does not lead in "Enneads" to the devaluation of any form of entitativity, even that clearly marked by the influence of the matter.

2018-04-26



Journal: Folia Philosophica

The opposition between light and darkness in the argumentation of the so-colled philosophia prima: selected problems pertaining to metaphysics

Marek Rembierz

Language: PL | Published: 31-12-2003 | Abstract | pp. 183-212

The ways of argumentation analysed in the present article are meant to satisfy the postulate of investigating into what is first; they are based on the assumption that it is possible to arrive at what is first, and, while describing what is first, they refer to the opposition of light vs.
darkness. Such ways of argumentation can be found, inter alia, in the works of the Pre-Socratics, in the Platonic metaphor of the cave, in Aristotle’s texts, where he develops a theory of arriving at what is the first, in Plotinus’s vision in, and in many later conceptions referring in one way or another to the above mentioned Greek sources. Additionally, the author takes into consideration various problems arising from modem changes in philosophy and connected with the traditional questions about the function of the opposition between light and darkness and related ideas from the circle of metaphysics and theory of cognition. Paramount, in the argumentation of the first philosophers, is the relationship between pairs of opposite ideas such as light vs. darkness, or finite vs. infinite. The said relationship is one of the sources of the categories used in metaphysic and in theory of cognition. The Greeks put forward a model of the world in which light is partly responsible for the visible order; they made light penetrate the realm of cognition. Many fundamental philosophical terms (such as “the light of reason,” “idea,” “theory,” “intuition,” “clarity,” “obviousness”) are permeated with metaphors originating from the opposition between light and darkness. The terms in question are derived from figures involving the action of light, the relationship between murkiness and luminosity, the function, the function of eyesight and optical effects. The role of the discussed opposition is particularly remarkable in the current of thought known as “the metaphysics of light.” Changes in light metaphors are strictly connected with changes in ontological models. This correlation can be traced back to Greek models. The opposition between light and darkness has always been interpreted within a specific metaphysical framework.

2003-12-31