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8 - There Is Only One World

from Part III - Intellect

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 September 2024

Mateusz Stróżyński
Affiliation:
Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu, Poland
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Summary

This chapter discusses the way the contemplation of Intellect and the Forms is related to the experience of the sensible world. Despite the traditional view that Platonism espouses “two worlds”, Plotinus mocks the idea of the sensible and the intelligible as being actually two separated realms. Rather, for him there is only one world but seen from different perspectives by different cognitive activities of the soul. What happens in noetic contemplation is not that the Forms are seen apart from their sensible images, but that they are seen in and through their images, having become transparent to their essences. Or, when the experience is mature, it is rather that the sensible things are seen in and through their intelligible archetypes. To explain that phenomenon, Plotinus uses the continuum of dimness and clarity, and claims that perception is dim intellection, while intellection is clear perception. The contemplation of the transparency of the sensible to the intelligible gives rise to the experience of “bodies in Intellect” or the profound unity of the two realms, where the entire reality of the sensible is to be found in the intelligible.

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Plotinus on the Contemplation of the Intelligible World
Faces of Being and Mirrors of Intellect
, pp. 294 - 318
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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  • There Is Only One World
  • Mateusz Stróżyński, Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu, Poland
  • Book: Plotinus on the Contemplation of the Intelligible World
  • Online publication: 03 September 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009494854.012
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  • There Is Only One World
  • Mateusz Stróżyński, Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu, Poland
  • Book: Plotinus on the Contemplation of the Intelligible World
  • Online publication: 03 September 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009494854.012
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • There Is Only One World
  • Mateusz Stróżyński, Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu, Poland
  • Book: Plotinus on the Contemplation of the Intelligible World
  • Online publication: 03 September 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009494854.012
Available formats
×