Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-sd5qd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-13T08:32:49.973Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Plotinus and India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Extract

One of the most interesting recent attempts to interpret the peculiarities of Plotinus's philosophy is that of Bréhier in his ‘La Philosophie de Plotin’(Bibl. de la Revue des Cours et Conférences, Boivin, Paris, 1928). His thesis, contained in the last four chapters of the work, is that Plotinus, instead of being simply the continuator of the Greek rationalist tradition, is the founder of modern European Idealism, or, perhaps more accurately, Pantheism. ‘Avec Plotin nous saisissons done le premier chatnon d'une tradition religieuse qui n'est pas moins puissante au fond en Occident que la tradition chretienne …’. He is the spiritual ancestor of Spinoza and Hegel. It is interesting in passing to compare this view with that of Dean Inge, for whom Plotinus is the spiritual begetter of S. Thomas Aquinas. The divergences of modern interpreters of the Plotinian metaphysic are often both amusing and suggestive.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1936

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable