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Was Hegel a Neoplatonist?
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I have started reading a book by Philip Stanfield, Hegel the Consummate Neoplatonist where he claims (page 1):
From a materialist perspective (‘matter’ or objective reality is primary to consciousness) I will argue that Hegel’s philosophy is most obviously Neoplatonic, that it is the consummation of a philosophical current begun by Plotinus and that Hegel’s philosophy can neither be understood nor accorded the full appreciation it deserves without understanding that current.
I don't know anything about Hegel and little about Neoplatonism, but I find Plotinus very interesting which is why Stanfield's book interests me.
A partial answer might be given by Robert Jackson to a question linking Plato and Hegel, but the connection seems weak: https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/54023/29944
In order to get a bearing, I wonder what an overview would be to the question: How much connection is there between Hegel and Neoplatonism?
Reference
Stanfield, P, Hegel the consummate neoplatonist https://philipstanfielddotcom.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/hegel-the-consummate-neoplatonist-a2.pdf
hegel plotinus neoplatonism
asked 3 hours ago
Frank Hubeny
3,3412834
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up vote
4
down vote
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I have started reading a book by Philip Stanfield, Hegel the Consummate Neoplatonist where he claims (page 1):
From a materialist perspective (‘matter’ or objective reality is primary to consciousness) I will argue that Hegel’s philosophy is most obviously Neoplatonic, that it is the consummation of a philosophical current begun by Plotinus and that Hegel’s philosophy can neither be understood nor accorded the full appreciation it deserves without understanding that current.
I don't know anything about Hegel and little about Neoplatonism, but I find Plotinus very interesting which is why Stanfield's book interests me.
A partial answer might be given by Robert Jackson to a question linking Plato and Hegel, but the connection seems weak: https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/54023/29944
In order to get a bearing, I wonder what an overview would be to the question: How much connection is there between Hegel and Neoplatonism?
Reference
Stanfield, P, Hegel the consummate neoplatonist https://philipstanfielddotcom.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/hegel-the-consummate-neoplatonist-a2.pdf
hegel plotinus neoplatonism
asked 3 hours ago
Frank Hubeny
3,3412834
It seems that the book is supposed to give the answer to this question, no? What are you expecting from an answer here that you will not find in the book?
– Eliran H
2 hours ago
"The term “Neoplatonism†refers to a philosophical school of thought that first emerged and flourished in the Greco-Roman world of late antiquity, roughly from the time of the Roman Imperial Crisis to the Arab conquest, i.e., the middle of the 3rd to the middle of the 7th century. [...] Neoplatonic ideas have continued to influence Western thinkers of the idealist persuasion, such as the Cambridge Platonists (who were really Neoplatonists), Leibniz, Hegel, Schelling, Fichte, Bergson and Teilhard de Chardin, to name but a few."
– Mauro ALLEGRANZA
2 hours ago
Maybe useful : Aspects of Hegel’s Interpretation of Plotinus.
– Mauro ALLEGRANZA
1 hour ago
My sense is that your question in the title and the question you pose in the final sentence of the body paragraph would have very different answers. I would think that declaring Hegel to BE a Neoplatonist would be a rather unorthodox and perhaps provocative view among Hegel scholars. By contrast, my sense is that the INFLUENCE on Hegel of Neoplatonist thinkers is widely acknowledged in a word but that there isn't all that much detailed scholarship on the issue. Seems like the book you're reading might be as good a place as any to get a bearing.
– transitionsynthesis
1 hour ago
Hegel wants things to move. He is more like calculus than arithmetic. So the big influence in Hegel by far is Aristotle. Now the substratum is Spinoza, universe as God itself (this was Einstein's God). But as a famous Hegel scholar said, there is a little of everything in Hegel (J.N. Findlay) but Findlay said it better than I do.
– Gordon
1 hour ago
 |Â
show 4 more comments
up vote
4
down vote
favorite
up vote
4
down vote
favorite
I have started reading a book by Philip Stanfield, Hegel the Consummate Neoplatonist where he claims (page 1):
From a materialist perspective (‘matter’ or objective reality is primary to consciousness) I will argue that Hegel’s philosophy is most obviously Neoplatonic, that it is the consummation of a philosophical current begun by Plotinus and that Hegel’s philosophy can neither be understood nor accorded the full appreciation it deserves without understanding that current.
I don't know anything about Hegel and little about Neoplatonism, but I find Plotinus very interesting which is why Stanfield's book interests me.
A partial answer might be given by Robert Jackson to a question linking Plato and Hegel, but the connection seems weak: https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/54023/29944
In order to get a bearing, I wonder what an overview would be to the question: How much connection is there between Hegel and Neoplatonism?
Reference
Stanfield, P, Hegel the consummate neoplatonist https://philipstanfielddotcom.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/hegel-the-consummate-neoplatonist-a2.pdf
hegel plotinus neoplatonism
asked 3 hours ago
Frank Hubeny
3,3412834
I have started reading a book by Philip Stanfield, Hegel the Consummate Neoplatonist where he claims (page 1):
From a materialist perspective (‘matter’ or objective reality is primary to consciousness) I will argue that Hegel’s philosophy is most obviously Neoplatonic, that it is the consummation of a philosophical current begun by Plotinus and that Hegel’s philosophy can neither be understood nor accorded the full appreciation it deserves without understanding that current.
I don't know anything about Hegel and little about Neoplatonism, but I find Plotinus very interesting which is why Stanfield's book interests me.
A partial answer might be given by Robert Jackson to a question linking Plato and Hegel, but the connection seems weak: https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/a/54023/29944
In order to get a bearing, I wonder what an overview would be to the question: How much connection is there between Hegel and Neoplatonism?
Reference
Stanfield, P, Hegel the consummate neoplatonist https://philipstanfielddotcom.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/hegel-the-consummate-neoplatonist-a2.pdf
hegel plotinus neoplatonism
hegel plotinus neoplatonism
asked 3 hours ago
Frank Hubeny
3,3412834
asked 3 hours ago
Frank Hubeny
3,3412834
asked 3 hours ago
Frank Hubeny
3,3412834
asked 3 hours ago
Frank Hubeny
3,3412834
asked 3 hours ago
Frank Hubeny
3,3412834
3,3412834
It seems that the book is supposed to give the answer to this question, no? What are you expecting from an answer here that you will not find in the book?
– Eliran H
2 hours ago
"The term “Neoplatonism†refers to a philosophical school of thought that first emerged and flourished in the Greco-Roman world of late antiquity, roughly from the time of the Roman Imperial Crisis to the Arab conquest, i.e., the middle of the 3rd to the middle of the 7th century. [...] Neoplatonic ideas have continued to influence Western thinkers of the idealist persuasion, such as the Cambridge Platonists (who were really Neoplatonists), Leibniz, Hegel, Schelling, Fichte, Bergson and Teilhard de Chardin, to name but a few."
– Mauro ALLEGRANZA
2 hours ago
Maybe useful : Aspects of Hegel’s Interpretation of Plotinus.
– Mauro ALLEGRANZA
1 hour ago
My sense is that your question in the title and the question you pose in the final sentence of the body paragraph would have very different answers. I would think that declaring Hegel to BE a Neoplatonist would be a rather unorthodox and perhaps provocative view among Hegel scholars. By contrast, my sense is that the INFLUENCE on Hegel of Neoplatonist thinkers is widely acknowledged in a word but that there isn't all that much detailed scholarship on the issue. Seems like the book you're reading might be as good a place as any to get a bearing.
– transitionsynthesis
1 hour ago
Hegel wants things to move. He is more like calculus than arithmetic. So the big influence in Hegel by far is Aristotle. Now the substratum is Spinoza, universe as God itself (this was Einstein's God). But as a famous Hegel scholar said, there is a little of everything in Hegel (J.N. Findlay) but Findlay said it better than I do.
– Gordon
1 hour ago
 |Â
show 4 more comments
It seems that the book is supposed to give the answer to this question, no? What are you expecting from an answer here that you will not find in the book?
– Eliran H
2 hours ago
"The term “Neoplatonism†refers to a philosophical school of thought that first emerged and flourished in the Greco-Roman world of late antiquity, roughly from the time of the Roman Imperial Crisis to the Arab conquest, i.e., the middle of the 3rd to the middle of the 7th century. [...] Neoplatonic ideas have continued to influence Western thinkers of the idealist persuasion, such as the Cambridge Platonists (who were really Neoplatonists), Leibniz, Hegel, Schelling, Fichte, Bergson and Teilhard de Chardin, to name but a few."
– Mauro ALLEGRANZA
2 hours ago
Maybe useful : Aspects of Hegel’s Interpretation of Plotinus.
– Mauro ALLEGRANZA
1 hour ago
My sense is that your question in the title and the question you pose in the final sentence of the body paragraph would have very different answers. I would think that declaring Hegel to BE a Neoplatonist would be a rather unorthodox and perhaps provocative view among Hegel scholars. By contrast, my sense is that the INFLUENCE on Hegel of Neoplatonist thinkers is widely acknowledged in a word but that there isn't all that much detailed scholarship on the issue. Seems like the book you're reading might be as good a place as any to get a bearing.
– transitionsynthesis
1 hour ago
Hegel wants things to move. He is more like calculus than arithmetic. So the big influence in Hegel by far is Aristotle. Now the substratum is Spinoza, universe as God itself (this was Einstein's God). But as a famous Hegel scholar said, there is a little of everything in Hegel (J.N. Findlay) but Findlay said it better than I do.
– Gordon
1 hour ago
It seems that the book is supposed to give the answer to this question, no? What are you expecting from an answer here that you will not find in the book?
– Eliran H
2 hours ago
It seems that the book is supposed to give the answer to this question, no? What are you expecting from an answer here that you will not find in the book?
– Eliran H
2 hours ago
"The term “Neoplatonism†refers to a philosophical school of thought that first emerged and flourished in the Greco-Roman world of late antiquity, roughly from the time of the Roman Imperial Crisis to the Arab conquest, i.e., the middle of the 3rd to the middle of the 7th century. [...] Neoplatonic ideas have continued to influence Western thinkers of the idealist persuasion, such as the Cambridge Platonists (who were really Neoplatonists), Leibniz, Hegel, Schelling, Fichte, Bergson and Teilhard de Chardin, to name but a few."
– Mauro ALLEGRANZA
2 hours ago
"The term “Neoplatonism†refers to a philosophical school of thought that first emerged and flourished in the Greco-Roman world of late antiquity, roughly from the time of the Roman Imperial Crisis to the Arab conquest, i.e., the middle of the 3rd to the middle of the 7th century. [...] Neoplatonic ideas have continued to influence Western thinkers of the idealist persuasion, such as the Cambridge Platonists (who were really Neoplatonists), Leibniz, Hegel, Schelling, Fichte, Bergson and Teilhard de Chardin, to name but a few."
– Mauro ALLEGRANZA
2 hours ago
Maybe useful : Aspects of Hegel’s Interpretation of Plotinus.
– Mauro ALLEGRANZA
1 hour ago
Maybe useful : Aspects of Hegel’s Interpretation of Plotinus.
– Mauro ALLEGRANZA
1 hour ago
My sense is that your question in the title and the question you pose in the final sentence of the body paragraph would have very different answers. I would think that declaring Hegel to BE a Neoplatonist would be a rather unorthodox and perhaps provocative view among Hegel scholars. By contrast, my sense is that the INFLUENCE on Hegel of Neoplatonist thinkers is widely acknowledged in a word but that there isn't all that much detailed scholarship on the issue. Seems like the book you're reading might be as good a place as any to get a bearing.
– transitionsynthesis
1 hour ago
My sense is that your question in the title and the question you pose in the final sentence of the body paragraph would have very different answers. I would think that declaring Hegel to BE a Neoplatonist would be a rather unorthodox and perhaps provocative view among Hegel scholars. By contrast, my sense is that the INFLUENCE on Hegel of Neoplatonist thinkers is widely acknowledged in a word but that there isn't all that much detailed scholarship on the issue. Seems like the book you're reading might be as good a place as any to get a bearing.
– transitionsynthesis
1 hour ago
Hegel wants things to move. He is more like calculus than arithmetic. So the big influence in Hegel by far is Aristotle. Now the substratum is Spinoza, universe as God itself (this was Einstein's God). But as a famous Hegel scholar said, there is a little of everything in Hegel (J.N. Findlay) but Findlay said it better than I do.
– Gordon
1 hour ago
Hegel wants things to move. He is more like calculus than arithmetic. So the big influence in Hegel by far is Aristotle. Now the substratum is Spinoza, universe as God itself (this was Einstein's God). But as a famous Hegel scholar said, there is a little of everything in Hegel (J.N. Findlay) but Findlay said it better than I do.
– Gordon
1 hour ago
 |Â
show 4 more comments
2 Answers
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The claim that Hegel stands in a line of which Plotinus was the originator looks highly suspect to me.
I make just two points. In the first place, Hegel's Absolute or God, or One if one chooses that terminology, has an inescapably historical dimension. The Absolute develops through time, seeking ever more adequate modes of expression and embodiment, ever more adequate concepts and modes of knowledge through which it can be understood in and by the expanding self-consciousness of human beings - which is also its own self-consciousness. Whatever one makes of this, nothing like it could be remotely true of the One of Plotinus. Plotinus' One has no such historical dimension. It is, and eternally is what it is. It cannot undergo the historical development by which Hegel's Absolute unfolds in time. The perspective is quite different.
Secondly, in the Absolute Hegel had to reconcile infinity and personality. The Absolute is not a person but it is present in and known to persons; and these persons, with their capacity for self-consciousness, are manifestations of the Absolute - and necessary, not merely contingent, manifestations.
Plotinus's view of the relation of persons, or souls (psuches), to the One is quite different. The One is that perfect excellence with which the soul, in some way alienated, must reintegrate itself. It must return to the One and do so by its own efforts. Rist refers to :
Plotinus'
confidence, based on personal mystical experience, that a return
to the sources of the soul, to Nous and to One, is possible for
every soul. For such a return to excellence is possible in
Plotinus, as in Plato, by the soul's own efforts. The soul needs
no further help from the One, or from Gods or saviours (III,
2, 8-9) to enable it to return, for it has been generated from
eternity with the necessary powers within itself. Yet although
Plato, like Plotinus, thinks that man can be "saved" by his
own efforts, he fails to make clear on what psychological theory
such a doctrine is based. In Plotinus, however, the psychological
theory is made explicit: it is the theory of the undescended part
of the soul. (John M. Rist, 'Integration and the Undescended Soul in Plotinus', The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 88, No. 4 (Oct., 1967), pp. 410-422 : 417.)
Hegel can accommodate no such view. Persons are not 'declensions' from the Absolute to which by some means they must return. Rather, they are products or manifestations of the historically developing Absolute. The rough picture is that the Absolute must in the temporal process express itself in persons, in self-conscious minds. They are a phase of its development; this is radically different from Plotinus' idea of the One as an already existing perfection from which human souls, psuches, persons, have managed to alienate themselves and with which they must reintegrate themselves.
answered 46 mins ago
Geoffrey Thomas
17.7k21470
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Plato sets the question of the Good going. In Aristotle it is read as a plenum. By example: All normal (this concept was not a problem for Aristotle as it is toady) human beings have some mathematical sense. Some develop it, improve it, bring it to fullness. They become master geometricians. Winning the fullness of being with respect to geometry.
Plotinus interprets all matter as evil, or as sheer lack, and the "silence and abyss" of nous as the Good. Ergo, the more one can move beyond the "temple images" in the inmost penetralium, even in the very idea of the "Good," which is now thought as a work of the demi-urge, and a trick of the intelligence, one reaches what is genuinely good. The parallel is: all human beings can resist material life, some develop this tendency, some to perfection. In Hegel, the path that is followed regards (moral) freedom as "the spirit of lightness," and reality opposes it as the spirit of gravity.
Gravity: wicked matter. Freedom: unbearable lightness. In Plotinus, the silence of the abyss is itself the goal, it is the "place beyond the stars." In Hegel there is a return to the material with the gain. A perfection of the evil lack inherent in stupid matter. One might read the interpretation of Plato's Cave in Heidegger in this connection, the going up and coming back down.
Note: What is written in the "Geoffrey Thomas" answer is also correct, but I wanted to bring Hegel closer to Plotinus.
answered 23 mins ago
Dwarf
46217
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2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
up vote
3
down vote
The claim that Hegel stands in a line of which Plotinus was the originator looks highly suspect to me.
I make just two points. In the first place, Hegel's Absolute or God, or One if one chooses that terminology, has an inescapably historical dimension. The Absolute develops through time, seeking ever more adequate modes of expression and embodiment, ever more adequate concepts and modes of knowledge through which it can be understood in and by the expanding self-consciousness of human beings - which is also its own self-consciousness. Whatever one makes of this, nothing like it could be remotely true of the One of Plotinus. Plotinus' One has no such historical dimension. It is, and eternally is what it is. It cannot undergo the historical development by which Hegel's Absolute unfolds in time. The perspective is quite different.
Secondly, in the Absolute Hegel had to reconcile infinity and personality. The Absolute is not a person but it is present in and known to persons; and these persons, with their capacity for self-consciousness, are manifestations of the Absolute - and necessary, not merely contingent, manifestations.
Plotinus's view of the relation of persons, or souls (psuches), to the One is quite different. The One is that perfect excellence with which the soul, in some way alienated, must reintegrate itself. It must return to the One and do so by its own efforts. Rist refers to :
Plotinus'
confidence, based on personal mystical experience, that a return
to the sources of the soul, to Nous and to One, is possible for
every soul. For such a return to excellence is possible in
Plotinus, as in Plato, by the soul's own efforts. The soul needs
no further help from the One, or from Gods or saviours (III,
2, 8-9) to enable it to return, for it has been generated from
eternity with the necessary powers within itself. Yet although
Plato, like Plotinus, thinks that man can be "saved" by his
own efforts, he fails to make clear on what psychological theory
such a doctrine is based. In Plotinus, however, the psychological
theory is made explicit: it is the theory of the undescended part
of the soul. (John M. Rist, 'Integration and the Undescended Soul in Plotinus', The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 88, No. 4 (Oct., 1967), pp. 410-422 : 417.)
Hegel can accommodate no such view. Persons are not 'declensions' from the Absolute to which by some means they must return. Rather, they are products or manifestations of the historically developing Absolute. The rough picture is that the Absolute must in the temporal process express itself in persons, in self-conscious minds. They are a phase of its development; this is radically different from Plotinus' idea of the One as an already existing perfection from which human souls, psuches, persons, have managed to alienate themselves and with which they must reintegrate themselves.
answered 46 mins ago
Geoffrey Thomas
17.7k21470
add a comment |Â
up vote
3
down vote
The claim that Hegel stands in a line of which Plotinus was the originator looks highly suspect to me.
I make just two points. In the first place, Hegel's Absolute or God, or One if one chooses that terminology, has an inescapably historical dimension. The Absolute develops through time, seeking ever more adequate modes of expression and embodiment, ever more adequate concepts and modes of knowledge through which it can be understood in and by the expanding self-consciousness of human beings - which is also its own self-consciousness. Whatever one makes of this, nothing like it could be remotely true of the One of Plotinus. Plotinus' One has no such historical dimension. It is, and eternally is what it is. It cannot undergo the historical development by which Hegel's Absolute unfolds in time. The perspective is quite different.
Secondly, in the Absolute Hegel had to reconcile infinity and personality. The Absolute is not a person but it is present in and known to persons; and these persons, with their capacity for self-consciousness, are manifestations of the Absolute - and necessary, not merely contingent, manifestations.
Plotinus's view of the relation of persons, or souls (psuches), to the One is quite different. The One is that perfect excellence with which the soul, in some way alienated, must reintegrate itself. It must return to the One and do so by its own efforts. Rist refers to :
Plotinus'
confidence, based on personal mystical experience, that a return
to the sources of the soul, to Nous and to One, is possible for
every soul. For such a return to excellence is possible in
Plotinus, as in Plato, by the soul's own efforts. The soul needs
no further help from the One, or from Gods or saviours (III,
2, 8-9) to enable it to return, for it has been generated from
eternity with the necessary powers within itself. Yet although
Plato, like Plotinus, thinks that man can be "saved" by his
own efforts, he fails to make clear on what psychological theory
such a doctrine is based. In Plotinus, however, the psychological
theory is made explicit: it is the theory of the undescended part
of the soul. (John M. Rist, 'Integration and the Undescended Soul in Plotinus', The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 88, No. 4 (Oct., 1967), pp. 410-422 : 417.)
Hegel can accommodate no such view. Persons are not 'declensions' from the Absolute to which by some means they must return. Rather, they are products or manifestations of the historically developing Absolute. The rough picture is that the Absolute must in the temporal process express itself in persons, in self-conscious minds. They are a phase of its development; this is radically different from Plotinus' idea of the One as an already existing perfection from which human souls, psuches, persons, have managed to alienate themselves and with which they must reintegrate themselves.
answered 46 mins ago
Geoffrey Thomas
17.7k21470
add a comment |Â
up vote
3
down vote
up vote
3
down vote
The claim that Hegel stands in a line of which Plotinus was the originator looks highly suspect to me.
I make just two points. In the first place, Hegel's Absolute or God, or One if one chooses that terminology, has an inescapably historical dimension. The Absolute develops through time, seeking ever more adequate modes of expression and embodiment, ever more adequate concepts and modes of knowledge through which it can be understood in and by the expanding self-consciousness of human beings - which is also its own self-consciousness. Whatever one makes of this, nothing like it could be remotely true of the One of Plotinus. Plotinus' One has no such historical dimension. It is, and eternally is what it is. It cannot undergo the historical development by which Hegel's Absolute unfolds in time. The perspective is quite different.
Secondly, in the Absolute Hegel had to reconcile infinity and personality. The Absolute is not a person but it is present in and known to persons; and these persons, with their capacity for self-consciousness, are manifestations of the Absolute - and necessary, not merely contingent, manifestations.
Plotinus's view of the relation of persons, or souls (psuches), to the One is quite different. The One is that perfect excellence with which the soul, in some way alienated, must reintegrate itself. It must return to the One and do so by its own efforts. Rist refers to :
Plotinus'
confidence, based on personal mystical experience, that a return
to the sources of the soul, to Nous and to One, is possible for
every soul. For such a return to excellence is possible in
Plotinus, as in Plato, by the soul's own efforts. The soul needs
no further help from the One, or from Gods or saviours (III,
2, 8-9) to enable it to return, for it has been generated from
eternity with the necessary powers within itself. Yet although
Plato, like Plotinus, thinks that man can be "saved" by his
own efforts, he fails to make clear on what psychological theory
such a doctrine is based. In Plotinus, however, the psychological
theory is made explicit: it is the theory of the undescended part
of the soul. (John M. Rist, 'Integration and the Undescended Soul in Plotinus', The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 88, No. 4 (Oct., 1967), pp. 410-422 : 417.)
Hegel can accommodate no such view. Persons are not 'declensions' from the Absolute to which by some means they must return. Rather, they are products or manifestations of the historically developing Absolute. The rough picture is that the Absolute must in the temporal process express itself in persons, in self-conscious minds. They are a phase of its development; this is radically different from Plotinus' idea of the One as an already existing perfection from which human souls, psuches, persons, have managed to alienate themselves and with which they must reintegrate themselves.
answered 46 mins ago
Geoffrey Thomas
17.7k21470
The claim that Hegel stands in a line of which Plotinus was the originator looks highly suspect to me.
I make just two points. In the first place, Hegel's Absolute or God, or One if one chooses that terminology, has an inescapably historical dimension. The Absolute develops through time, seeking ever more adequate modes of expression and embodiment, ever more adequate concepts and modes of knowledge through which it can be understood in and by the expanding self-consciousness of human beings - which is also its own self-consciousness. Whatever one makes of this, nothing like it could be remotely true of the One of Plotinus. Plotinus' One has no such historical dimension. It is, and eternally is what it is. It cannot undergo the historical development by which Hegel's Absolute unfolds in time. The perspective is quite different.
Secondly, in the Absolute Hegel had to reconcile infinity and personality. The Absolute is not a person but it is present in and known to persons; and these persons, with their capacity for self-consciousness, are manifestations of the Absolute - and necessary, not merely contingent, manifestations.
Plotinus's view of the relation of persons, or souls (psuches), to the One is quite different. The One is that perfect excellence with which the soul, in some way alienated, must reintegrate itself. It must return to the One and do so by its own efforts. Rist refers to :
Plotinus'
confidence, based on personal mystical experience, that a return
to the sources of the soul, to Nous and to One, is possible for
every soul. For such a return to excellence is possible in
Plotinus, as in Plato, by the soul's own efforts. The soul needs
no further help from the One, or from Gods or saviours (III,
2, 8-9) to enable it to return, for it has been generated from
eternity with the necessary powers within itself. Yet although
Plato, like Plotinus, thinks that man can be "saved" by his
own efforts, he fails to make clear on what psychological theory
such a doctrine is based. In Plotinus, however, the psychological
theory is made explicit: it is the theory of the undescended part
of the soul. (John M. Rist, 'Integration and the Undescended Soul in Plotinus', The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 88, No. 4 (Oct., 1967), pp. 410-422 : 417.)
Hegel can accommodate no such view. Persons are not 'declensions' from the Absolute to which by some means they must return. Rather, they are products or manifestations of the historically developing Absolute. The rough picture is that the Absolute must in the temporal process express itself in persons, in self-conscious minds. They are a phase of its development; this is radically different from Plotinus' idea of the One as an already existing perfection from which human souls, psuches, persons, have managed to alienate themselves and with which they must reintegrate themselves.
answered 46 mins ago
Geoffrey Thomas
17.7k21470
answered 46 mins ago
Geoffrey Thomas
17.7k21470
answered 46 mins ago
Geoffrey Thomas
17.7k21470
answered 46 mins ago
Geoffrey Thomas
17.7k21470
17.7k21470
add a comment |Â
add a comment |Â
up vote
1
down vote
Plato sets the question of the Good going. In Aristotle it is read as a plenum. By example: All normal (this concept was not a problem for Aristotle as it is toady) human beings have some mathematical sense. Some develop it, improve it, bring it to fullness. They become master geometricians. Winning the fullness of being with respect to geometry.
Plotinus interprets all matter as evil, or as sheer lack, and the "silence and abyss" of nous as the Good. Ergo, the more one can move beyond the "temple images" in the inmost penetralium, even in the very idea of the "Good," which is now thought as a work of the demi-urge, and a trick of the intelligence, one reaches what is genuinely good. The parallel is: all human beings can resist material life, some develop this tendency, some to perfection. In Hegel, the path that is followed regards (moral) freedom as "the spirit of lightness," and reality opposes it as the spirit of gravity.
Gravity: wicked matter. Freedom: unbearable lightness. In Plotinus, the silence of the abyss is itself the goal, it is the "place beyond the stars." In Hegel there is a return to the material with the gain. A perfection of the evil lack inherent in stupid matter. One might read the interpretation of Plato's Cave in Heidegger in this connection, the going up and coming back down.
Note: What is written in the "Geoffrey Thomas" answer is also correct, but I wanted to bring Hegel closer to Plotinus.
answered 23 mins ago
Dwarf
46217
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Plato sets the question of the Good going. In Aristotle it is read as a plenum. By example: All normal (this concept was not a problem for Aristotle as it is toady) human beings have some mathematical sense. Some develop it, improve it, bring it to fullness. They become master geometricians. Winning the fullness of being with respect to geometry.
Plotinus interprets all matter as evil, or as sheer lack, and the "silence and abyss" of nous as the Good. Ergo, the more one can move beyond the "temple images" in the inmost penetralium, even in the very idea of the "Good," which is now thought as a work of the demi-urge, and a trick of the intelligence, one reaches what is genuinely good. The parallel is: all human beings can resist material life, some develop this tendency, some to perfection. In Hegel, the path that is followed regards (moral) freedom as "the spirit of lightness," and reality opposes it as the spirit of gravity.
Gravity: wicked matter. Freedom: unbearable lightness. In Plotinus, the silence of the abyss is itself the goal, it is the "place beyond the stars." In Hegel there is a return to the material with the gain. A perfection of the evil lack inherent in stupid matter. One might read the interpretation of Plato's Cave in Heidegger in this connection, the going up and coming back down.
Note: What is written in the "Geoffrey Thomas" answer is also correct, but I wanted to bring Hegel closer to Plotinus.
answered 23 mins ago
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Plato sets the question of the Good going. In Aristotle it is read as a plenum. By example: All normal (this concept was not a problem for Aristotle as it is toady) human beings have some mathematical sense. Some develop it, improve it, bring it to fullness. They become master geometricians. Winning the fullness of being with respect to geometry.
Plotinus interprets all matter as evil, or as sheer lack, and the "silence and abyss" of nous as the Good. Ergo, the more one can move beyond the "temple images" in the inmost penetralium, even in the very idea of the "Good," which is now thought as a work of the demi-urge, and a trick of the intelligence, one reaches what is genuinely good. The parallel is: all human beings can resist material life, some develop this tendency, some to perfection. In Hegel, the path that is followed regards (moral) freedom as "the spirit of lightness," and reality opposes it as the spirit of gravity.
Gravity: wicked matter. Freedom: unbearable lightness. In Plotinus, the silence of the abyss is itself the goal, it is the "place beyond the stars." In Hegel there is a return to the material with the gain. A perfection of the evil lack inherent in stupid matter. One might read the interpretation of Plato's Cave in Heidegger in this connection, the going up and coming back down.
Note: What is written in the "Geoffrey Thomas" answer is also correct, but I wanted to bring Hegel closer to Plotinus.
answered 23 mins ago
Dwarf
46217
Plato sets the question of the Good going. In Aristotle it is read as a plenum. By example: All normal (this concept was not a problem for Aristotle as it is toady) human beings have some mathematical sense. Some develop it, improve it, bring it to fullness. They become master geometricians. Winning the fullness of being with respect to geometry.
Plotinus interprets all matter as evil, or as sheer lack, and the "silence and abyss" of nous as the Good. Ergo, the more one can move beyond the "temple images" in the inmost penetralium, even in the very idea of the "Good," which is now thought as a work of the demi-urge, and a trick of the intelligence, one reaches what is genuinely good. The parallel is: all human beings can resist material life, some develop this tendency, some to perfection. In Hegel, the path that is followed regards (moral) freedom as "the spirit of lightness," and reality opposes it as the spirit of gravity.
Gravity: wicked matter. Freedom: unbearable lightness. In Plotinus, the silence of the abyss is itself the goal, it is the "place beyond the stars." In Hegel there is a return to the material with the gain. A perfection of the evil lack inherent in stupid matter. One might read the interpretation of Plato's Cave in Heidegger in this connection, the going up and coming back down.
Note: What is written in the "Geoffrey Thomas" answer is also correct, but I wanted to bring Hegel closer to Plotinus.
answered 23 mins ago
Dwarf
46217
edited 16 mins ago
answered 23 mins ago
Dwarf
46217
answered 23 mins ago
Dwarf
46217
answered 23 mins ago
Dwarf
46217
46217
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It seems that the book is supposed to give the answer to this question, no? What are you expecting from an answer here that you will not find in the book?
– Eliran H
2 hours ago
"The term “Neoplatonism†refers to a philosophical school of thought that first emerged and flourished in the Greco-Roman world of late antiquity, roughly from the time of the Roman Imperial Crisis to the Arab conquest, i.e., the middle of the 3rd to the middle of the 7th century. [...] Neoplatonic ideas have continued to influence Western thinkers of the idealist persuasion, such as the Cambridge Platonists (who were really Neoplatonists), Leibniz, Hegel, Schelling, Fichte, Bergson and Teilhard de Chardin, to name but a few."
– Mauro ALLEGRANZA
2 hours ago
Maybe useful : Aspects of Hegel’s Interpretation of Plotinus.
– Mauro ALLEGRANZA
1 hour ago
My sense is that your question in the title and the question you pose in the final sentence of the body paragraph would have very different answers. I would think that declaring Hegel to BE a Neoplatonist would be a rather unorthodox and perhaps provocative view among Hegel scholars. By contrast, my sense is that the INFLUENCE on Hegel of Neoplatonist thinkers is widely acknowledged in a word but that there isn't all that much detailed scholarship on the issue. Seems like the book you're reading might be as good a place as any to get a bearing.
– transitionsynthesis
1 hour ago
Hegel wants things to move. He is more like calculus than arithmetic. So the big influence in Hegel by far is Aristotle. Now the substratum is Spinoza, universe as God itself (this was Einstein's God). But as a famous Hegel scholar said, there is a little of everything in Hegel (J.N. Findlay) but Findlay said it better than I do.
– Gordon
1 hour ago