Plotinus Biography

Plotinus was an ancient philosopher considered as the pioneering founder of Neo-Platonism, a philosophical movement of the Graeco-Roman world in late antiquity. He is also known as the last most famous pagan philosopher and his metaphysical writings have inspired centuries of Pagan, Christian, Jewish, Islamic and Gnostic metaphysicians and mystics. He developed metaphysics of comprehensible sources of the rational world and the human soul and told the world that the definitive cause of everything is 'the One' or 'the Good'. It is entirely simple and cannot be seized by thought or given any positive resolve. He was the true follower of Plato and considered himself as the expositor and advocator of the philosophical stance whose supreme exemplar was Plato himself. Apart from highly influencing the Western thought, he also influenced the 17th century England, medieval Islamic spirituals and medieval Indian philosophers. The philosophy of Plotinus is characterized in the complete collection of his discourses, collected and edited by his student Porphyry into six books of nine discourses each. They have been handed down to us under the title of the ‘Enneads’.