Abstract

This dissertation explores the coalescence of theory and method in the Enneads, by showing how Plotinus uses a single system of imagery both to illustrate the structure of his metaphysics, and as an orientation to his dialectical procedure. In the main body of the dissertation, I analyze the geometric symbolism of point, line, circle, and sphere, and show that its pervasive recurrence is due to a fundamental doctrine of analogy that informs the entire structure of the Enneads, both as metaphysical treatise, and as dialectical discourse. ;In the first chapter, I discuss Plotinus' criticisms of discursive methods of doing philosophy as a methodological counterpart to his ontological critique of Aristotelian essentialism and so provide a philosophic justification for the study of geometric symbolism in the Enneads. ;In chapter two I argue that the diagram functions as a synthetic key to Plotinus' entire philosophical system. It is used to illustrate Plotinus' doctrine of exemplarism with reference to a more general theory of immanent causation, according to which the lower order is always contained within a higher order. The diagram suggests that the phenomenal world of multiplicity must be seen as existing within soul or intellect. ;In chapter three I take up the concept of epistrophe, or reversion of the cause to its effect, both as part of an ethical theory and as an element in the Neoplatonic theory of immanent causation. The chapter shows how the consideration that the phenomenal world exists within the intelligible forms the basis of Plotinian ethical theory and practice. ;In chapter four I discuss the symbolism of the sphere. The symbol of the sphere becomes in Plotinus' hands a meditative support whose purpose is to foster the potential for self-awareness and so orient the student upon the path of self knowledge. This training in Plotinus is linked to a radical insistence upon a specific orientation to the truth under consideration: the student must not consider himself/herself as separate from the reality under consideration