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12 - The status of the individual in Plotinus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2010

Andrea Nightingale
Affiliation:
Stanford University, California
David Sedley
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

In honor of A. A. Long, optimus magister

“Know thyself,” one of the two famous inscriptions at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, seems to ask what the place of human beings is in the cosmos. One interpretation of the oracle would relate it to that other saying, “Nothing too much,” and would go, “Know that you, being human, are mortal. Know your limits. Do not strive after divine wisdom or immortality. Do not tempt the gods.” Another possible interpretation is: “Know that you, being human, have a divine element – reason – within you. Strive to perfect that element and become as divine as is possible for a human being.” The former interpretation may be the more traditionally religious response and is perhaps one of the lessons of Oedipus Rex. The philosophers, whether Plato, Aristotle, or the Stoics, favor the latter interpretation. Plotinus is without doubt in this group, but what is quite striking about him is that he takes “know thyself” to refer not only to knowing ourselves as human beings in general but even as human individuals, and that he believes that ultimately we are divine. So when I seek to know myself I am to ask not only what it is to be human but also what it is for me to be the particular human being that I am. Moreover, I am to seek not merely to be the perfect human being, but to be the perfect me, and in fact, the divine me.

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Ancient Models of Mind
Studies in Human and Divine Rationality
, pp. 216 - 224
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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