Marsilio Ficino as Reader of Plotinus: The ‘Enneads’ Commentary

Stephen Gersh, Litt. D (2019), Cambridge University, former Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge and Emeritus Professor of Medieval Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, has published many books on ancient, medieval, and modern philosophy including From Iamblichus to Eriugena (Brill, 1978).

Acknowledgements

Citations of the Plotinus Commentary

Preface



General Introduction: The Commentary on Plotinus’ Enneads

 1 Religious Philosophy or Philosophical Religion

 2 Plotinus’ Disclosure of Plato’s Mysteries

 3 The Correction of Peripateticism

 4 The Exegetical Approach to the Enneads

 5 The Place of the Plotinus Commentary in Ficino’s Work

 6 The Place of the Commentary in the Earlier “Plotinian” Tradition



Excursus 0: The Problem of Ficino’s exhortatio



Part 1: Analogy and Trinity

1 Plotinus and Christianity

 1.1 The Christian Context

 1.2 The Three Primary Substances: Terminology

 1.3 The Heretical Errors



2 Ficino’s Logic of Analogy

 2.1 The Platonic Genera and Their Mysteries

 2.2 The Analogy between Platonic Genera and Peripatetic Categories

 2.3 Ficino and Analogy

 2.4 Ratio and Analogy



Excursus 2: Substance and Quality

 x2.1 Substance

 x2.2 Quality



3 The Trinitarian Analogue

 3.1 Ficino, Plotinus, and Aquinas on the Trinity

 3.2 The “Plotinian” Trinity



Part 2: From Ontology to Agathology

4 The Structure of Soul

 4.1 Importance of the Commentary on Ennead I

 4.2 Soul and Animate Being

 4.3 From Microcosm to Macrocosm



5 The Unembodied Soul

 5.1 The Higher Soul in the Commentary on Ennead I

 5.2 Summary of Ficino’s Doctrine of Soul

 5.3 The Higher Soul in the Commentary on Ennead IV



6 The Embodied Soul

 6.1 The Embodied Soul in the Commentary on Ennead IV



7 Transmigration and Embodiment

 7.1 Ficino against Transmigration

 7.2 Ficino and Origen



8 Sensation

 8.1 General Theory of Sensation

 8.2 Ficino’s Innovations

 8.3 Vision



9 Intellect and Ideas

 9.1 Intellect and Intellectual Soul

 9.2 Analogies of Light

 9.3 The Divine “Splendour” and “Figure”

 9.4 Intellect’s Relation to the Ideas

 9.5 The Relation of Ideas to One Another

 9.6 The Range of Ideas

 9.7 The Distinction between Intellect and the Intelligible

 9.8 Agent and Possible Intellect

 9.9 The Distinction between Discursive and Non-discursive Thinking

 9.10 Ideas, Formulae, and Seminal Reason-Principles

 9.11 The Temporalization of the Ideas

 9.12 Intellect’s Relation to Number



10 Soul’s Choice between Good and Evil

 10.1 The Good

 10.2 The Multiplicity of Goods

 10.3 The (Sub-) Contrariety of Good and Evil

 10.4 The Soul’s Choice: Ficino between Plotinus and Augustine



11 The Threefold Reversion

 11.1 Return and Triplicity

 11.2 The Triadic Preamble to Ennead I. 3

 11.3 The Commentary Proper



12 Ascent to Beauty

 12.1 Irradiation of Beauty: lumen and color

 12.2 The Divine Nature of Beauty: lumen

 12.3 Reception of Beauty: splendor



13 Ascent to the One and the Good

 13.1 Presence

 13.2 Futurity

 13.3 Ascent by Will



Excursus II: Daemons and Soul

 xII.1 Internal and External Daemons

 xII.2 Plotinus’ Daemon



PART 3: Matter, Reason, Spirit

14 Matter

 14.1 Negative and Affirmative Approaches

 14.2 The Structure of the Commentary on Ennead II. 4

 14.3 Quantity

 14.4 Dimensionality

 14.5 Privation

 14.6 Infinity



Excursus 14: Potency and Act

 x14.1 The Structure of the Commentary on Ennead II. 5

 x14.2 Potency and Act

 x14.3 The Metaphysical Continuum of Potency and Act

 x14.4 The Intelligible World

 x14.5 Potency and Act in Relation to Soul

 x14.6 The Sensible World

 x14.7 The Relation of Primal Matter to Being-in-Potency and Being-in-Act



15 Ratio

 15.1 The Primal Ratio in Christianity

 15.2 The Primal Ratio in Plotinus



Excursus 15: Non-formal Ratio

 x15.1 Ratio as Principle of Form

 x15.2 Ratio between the Real and the Nominal

 x15.3 Ratio above and below Form



16 Spirit

 16.1 Heaven, Fire, and Spirit

 16.2 Heaven as Macrocosm

 16.3 Fire as Macrocosm

 16.4 Spirit as Macrocosm and Microcosm

 16.5 Conspiration

Conclusion

Bibliography