Plotinus and the Neoplatonists

A Brief History of the Platonic School of Late Antiquity

There are a few gifts from the ancient world which have made a lasting impact on the way we think, live, and project our ideas into the future. Neoplatonism, the school of philosophy and theology championed by a few wise men and women, including the famous Hypatia of Alexandria, was a jewel among those gifts from late antiquity. And it all came together under the quill of a Greek-speaking Egyptian named Plotinus.

Plotinus (born 205 CE, Lyco, or Lycopolis, Egypt—died 270, Campania, Italy) was a major Hellenistic philosopher who founded the school of thought known as Neoplatonism. His philosophical system is laid out in the Enneads, a collection of his treatises edited by his student, Porphyry. Plotinus’s work is essentially a reinterpretation and systematic synthesis of Plato’s philosophy, but it also incorporates elements from Aristotle and Stoicism.