Conclusion

Abstract

“His writings contain an admixture of Stoic and Peripatetic doctrines which escape notice”.¹ Porphyry’s well-known remark is as appropriate to Plotinus’ psychology as to other parts of his philosophy. But the Stoic contribution to his doctrines of the soul is a small one. Among the Platonists of the period preceding Plotinus’ own, there were varying attitudes to Aristotle. Some, like Albinus, incorporated important points of Aristotelian doctrine in their thought, while others, like Atticus, rejected what they regarded as the pernicious errors of the Peripatetics and were more inclined to mix Stoicism with their Platonism.² Plotinus followed the former of these two factions. The most important Aristotelian element in his system is of course the doctrine that an actively thinking mind is identical with its objects, a doctrine which is the basis of Plotinus’ second hypostasis ³and of his view on higher cognition.