Once the Stoics had drawn attention to the qualitative uniqueness of individuals, and attributed it to differences in form, the problem of the nature of that form might expectably have been discussed within a non-pantheist, but still providentialist and specifically Platonist world view. That brings us to Plotinus, who took up the question of individuality, albeit hesitantly, even incoherently, and without apparent awareness of the full significance of the issues involved. His chief ‘anthropological’ concern was to defend Plato’s two-substance account of the soul–body relationship and to fend off Aristotelian and Stoic attacks on it. His attempt to do that – though apparently convincing the young Augustine – can hardly be called an unqualified success.1