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Front Page Titles (by Subject) In English - The Ethical Treatises, being the Treatises of the First Ennead
Return to Title Page for The Ethical Treatises, being the Treatises of the First EnneadThe Online Library of LibertyA project of Liberty Fund, Inc.Search this Title:Also in the Library:
In English - Plotinus, The Ethical Treatises, being the Treatises of the First Ennead [253 AD]Edition used:The Ethical Treatises, being the Treatises of the First Ennead, with Porphry’s Life of Plotinus, and the Preller-Ritter Extracts forming a Conspectus of the Plotinian System, translated from Greek by Stephen Mackenna (Boston: Charles T. Branford, 1918).
Part of: The Enneads, or The Ethical Treatises , 5 vols.About Liberty Fund:Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. Copyright information:The text is in the public domain. Fair use statement:This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless otherwise stated in the Copyright Information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. It may not be used in any way for profit.
In EnglishThe Neo-Platonists: a study in the history of Hellenism: by Thomas Whittaker (Cambridge University Press: 1901): as a formal scientific exposition of the entire history of the school and a chart of the Plotinian system (some sixty pages summing the Enneads) this book is of the first value. Much useful suggestion is contained in “The Wisdom of Plotinus: a Metaphysical Study” by Charles J. Whitby, London (William Rider and Son: 1909). There is nothing more helpful, in its own wide sphere, towards the understanding and appreciation of Plotinus than the late Principal Caird’s beautiful work “The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers: Gifford Lectures for 1901-2” (Glasgow: MacLehose: 1904): this book, written in the loftiest spirit, contains some exquisite fragments from the Enneads: the author presumably disdained the humble work of a mere translator, but had he given us a complete rendering the world would have been the richer by a classic of thought and a classic of language. In “Neo-Platonism” by C. Bigg, D.D. (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge: 1895), we have a good general summary, rather popular in tone, of the system and of its antecedents and results. Another work which would serve as an adequate explanation of practically the whole system is “The Problem of Evil in Plotinus”: B. A. G. Fuller: 1912: it includes translations of many cardinal passages and is written throughout in as lucid a style as has ever expounded a metaphysical system. “The Philosophy of Plotinus,” by David Sylvan Guthrie (Philadelphia, Dunlop Printing Co., 1896): is a brief summary containing a helpful index to the most fundamentally significant passages of the Enneads. The valuable works of Miss Underhill, dealing with the history and methods of the schools and masters of mysticism, are too well known to need more than the naming. The translator owes acknowledgment to G. R. S. Meade, whose great labour on the Hermes’ documents gave him much valuable suggestion. Edward Carpenter’s work “The Art of Creation” (George Allen: 1907) will be found very helpful as exhibiting, in modern terms and with the support of modern metaphysical and scientific investigation, a great deal that is either basic or implied in the Plotinian system. |

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