Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to show how Plotinus adapts Aristotle's doctrine of energeia to his own distinctive metaphysics. This dissertation is demanded because no careful and exhaustive study of energeia in Plotinus has yet been written, as a survey of the secondary literature shows. ;The dissertation first isolates all 768 instances of energeia in Plotinus' Enneads. The most significant instances of energeia occur in five treatises: IV, 7 , V, 4 , II, 5 , VI, 7 , VI, 2 . These treatises constitute our key texts and are examined separately and in chronological order. ;Text A yields several important results, among which are that Plotinus basically agrees with Aristotle in defining energeia as ousia and that for Plotinus energeia is unrelated to Aristotle's doctrine of entelecheia which he rejects. ;Text B is a brief treatise outlining how energeia is involved in the production of the second hypostasis out of the First. This treatise describes the Intelligence as at once the equivalent of Aristotle's Self-Thinking Thought and Plato's world of Forms. As equivalent to Aristotle's Separate Intelligence, the second hypostasis is pure energeia and defined as "the energeia of noesis." The One, however, transcends energeia because it is beyond being and intellection. ;The heart of Text D is the distinction between two sets of expressions: he energeia vs. to energeia on and he dynamis vs. to dynamei on. Plotinus applies all these expressions except to dynamei on to the intelligible world. To dynamei on is restricted to the world of sensible matter because it refers to passive potency only. As other texts confirm, the expression he dynamis applies to the One itself. ;Texts D and E are expositions on the nature of the Intelligence as consisting of five logically distinct but really identical energeiai, which Plotinus identifies with the megista gene of Plato's Sophist. In particular, Text D argues that the One must transcend energeia because it transcends the megista gene, the principles of being and knowledge. ;Of the several conclusions reached by this dissertation, the following are most noteworthy: energeia is central to Plotinian metaphysics; energeia can be variously translated in Plotinus as "act" , as "actuation" and as "activity" ; dynamis is significantly prior to energeia in Plotinian metaphysics; energeia develops in Plotinus as a reaction to specific themes in the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle