Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Non-propositional Thought in Plotinus

Non-propositional Thought in Plotinus 258 Non-propositional Thought in Plotinus A.C. LLOYD It is well known to those interested in Neoplatonism that Plotinus speaks regularly of two `intellects'. There is a psychic intellect whose activity he often calls 61tivoia and later philosophers discursive thought; and there is a 'pure' intellect which has not descended into the soul and whose activity later philosophers often call intuitive or non-discursive thought. For the first to be replaced by, or to become the second, which is of course a higher level for the soul, is a necessary step towards contact with the One. Discursive thought means thought that involves transition, an expression often applied to thought by Plotinus. But this can be a temporal transition from one element of a thought to another or a logical transition from a premiss to a conclusion. Singular judgments belong to discursive thought.' I No one doubts that temporal transition and inference are both excluded from the activity of pure intellect. But Plotinus regularly describes the object, or better, content, of this activity as 'everything together' (6yob ;r6tVTa). And in a paper of 1970 I suggested that, extrapolating from Aristotle's notion of a judgment, he supposed that there is a form http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Phronesis Brill

Non-propositional Thought in Plotinus

Phronesis , Volume 31 (1-3): 258 – Jan 1, 1986

Loading next page...
 
/lp/brill/non-propositional-thought-in-plotinus-FUBarM7Xmf

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 1986 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0031-8868
eISSN
1568-5284
DOI
10.1163/156852886X00155
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

258 Non-propositional Thought in Plotinus A.C. LLOYD It is well known to those interested in Neoplatonism that Plotinus speaks regularly of two `intellects'. There is a psychic intellect whose activity he often calls 61tivoia and later philosophers discursive thought; and there is a 'pure' intellect which has not descended into the soul and whose activity later philosophers often call intuitive or non-discursive thought. For the first to be replaced by, or to become the second, which is of course a higher level for the soul, is a necessary step towards contact with the One. Discursive thought means thought that involves transition, an expression often applied to thought by Plotinus. But this can be a temporal transition from one element of a thought to another or a logical transition from a premiss to a conclusion. Singular judgments belong to discursive thought.' I No one doubts that temporal transition and inference are both excluded from the activity of pure intellect. But Plotinus regularly describes the object, or better, content, of this activity as 'everything together' (6yob ;r6tVTa). And in a paper of 1970 I suggested that, extrapolating from Aristotle's notion of a judgment, he supposed that there is a form

Journal

PhronesisBrill

Published: Jan 1, 1986

There are no references for this article.