Marsilio Ficino as Reader of Plotinus: The ‘Enneads’ Commentary / / Stephen Gersh.

• Superior document: History of Metaphysics: Ancient, Medieval, Modern ; 5
• VerfasserIn: Gersh, Stephen,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden ;, Boston : : Brill,, 2024.; ©2024
• Year of Publication: 2024
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: History of Metaphysics: Ancient, Medieval, Modern ; 5.; Religious Studies, Theology and Philosophy E-Books Online, Collection 2024.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (577 pages)

This book represents the first ever systematic philosophical study of Marsilio Ficino’s Commentary on Plotinus’ ‘Enneads’ (first published in Florence, 1492), this work of Ficino being arguably as definitive for the Florentine thinker’s later work as the Platonic Theology was for his earlier. Publication of the present study uniquely illuminates the extent to which Plotinus had always been the crucial influence over Ficino’s revolutionary projects of introducing Platonic thought based on original Greek sources to western Europe, correcting certain features of late medieval and Renaissance Aristotelianism, and laying the foundations of a new Christian Platonism. The study can be read both as an independent introduction to Ficino’s later philosophy and as the complement to the first modern edition and translation of the Commentary on the 'Enneads' itself also by Stephen Gersh ( I Tatti Renaissance Library , 2017-).

Table of Contents

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.