University of California Publications in Philosophy, Vol. 2 (Classic Reprint)
Description:... Excerpt from University of California Publications in Philosophy, Vol. 2 At the very beginning, however, we seem to find in Plotinus the very opposite of dialectic thought; for we find him declaring, with constant iteration, that the Real is One. Dialectical thought, on the contrary, emphatically asserts the many in one. Again, we find him seemingly divesting the world of quality after qual ity, until even the innermost core is abstracted, and nothing is left. Dialectical thought, on the contrary, is synthetic, lifting each limited and one-sided phase to a meaning and reality more richly inclusive, until the Whole is consummated in that which is at once the source and container of all that is real. Is not the One of Plotinus the analytic one of empty, formal identity, the inane goal of a via negativa? This is the condemnation of P10 tinus that has been most widely pronounced. The purpose of the present paper is to attempt a vindication of the synthetic char acter of Plotinus's philosophy, an exhibition of his thought as, in truth, not the departure from, but the further development of the tentative dialectic of his predecessors. In order to this, we must examine in all essential details the meaning which Plotinus assigns to the One.
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