A short essay on the life, personality and philosophical style of plotinus

Ünlü filozof Plotinus’u hayatı, kişiliği, felsefî üslûbu ve felsefî düşünceleriyle beraber değerlendirmeye çalıştığımız bu yazı içerisinde bir yandan filozofun düşünce dünyası, istinat ettiği kaynaklarla beraber irdelenirken diğer yandan ise felsefesinin kendisinden sonrakiler üzerinde bıraktığı etki değerlendirme konusu yapılmaktadır. Yapılan araştırmalara göre, Plotinus’un düşüncesinin temel yapı taşlarının, kendisinden önceki filozoflarda ve düşünce akımlarında bulunduğunu söylemek mümkün gözükmektedir. Zira o, Stoacı ve Epikürcü okullar gibi yeni Pythagorascılar, Kinikler ile Aristotelesçi bilim (Collins 2000: 126) gibi hemen hemen ortadan kaybolmak üzere olan, deyim yerindeyse ölüm kalım savaşı veren felsefeleri bir sentez halinde bir araya getiren ve aşkın olana yaptığı yeni bir vurgu ile düşünce dünyasında kendine has bir konum elde eden önemli filozoflardan biri olarak anılmaktadır. Yukarıda adı geçen filozofları materyalist unsurlarından arındırarak kendisine mal eden Plotinus, felsefî öğretisi içerisinde Aristotelesçi kategorileri kullandığı gibi evrensel doğa sevgisi gibi stoacı unsurlardan da faydalanır. Makale boyunca savunmaya çalıştığımız temel iddia ise Plotinus’un kendisinden önceki felsefelerden ciddi bir biçimde etkilendiğidir. Fakat diğer taraftan o, Hıristiyan, Yahudi ve İslam düşüncesi ile Rönesans düşünürü Marsilio Ficino’ya, daha geç dönemlerde İngiliz romantizm hareketinin kurucularından Samuel Taylor Coleridge’ye, Emerson, Yeats ve daha niceleri üzerinde muazzam bir etki bırakmıştır (Corrigan 2005:3).In our research about Plotinus’s life story and philosophical doctrine, we have tried to take into account the historical and social conditions of Plotinus’s life cycle. Within this scope, during his life it has been seen that different religious beliefs of various communities living together in the Roman empire have united with each other against materialism. Actually, in Rome where the East mystical beliefs assumed a Greek form, religious dispositions and materialist tendencies have started to rise simultaneously (Lange 1990: 101-102). Consequently, in this period New Platonism has appeared before us as a representative act of antimaterialism movements at a culminating point. In this article while we are trying to evaluate the life, philosophical style and thoughts together with the personality of a famous philosopher - Plotinus, we scrutinize his thinking world based on the resources he used. According to this study, it is possible to claim that the basic structures of Plotinus’s thoughts were found in the philosophers and power of thoughts before him. Besides, Plotinus formed a unique form of the surviving philosophies- like Stoic and Epicurean schools, neo-Pytagoreans, Cynics, the popular rhetors of the Second Sophistic and Aristotelean science (Collins 2000: 126). Thus, he is mentioned as a philosopher with his new emphasis and a great contribution for a change in the thought world. Plotinus under his philosophical doctrine adjusted elements of the above mentioned philosophers by purifying them of their materialism and used Aristotelean categories, and Stoic elements such as the universal sympathy of nature. Plotinus had a great influence on those who come after him as he was influenced by his predecessors. Therefore, he left his infinite influence on Christian, Islam and Jews thoughts, renaissance thinker like Marsilio Ficino, and later the founders of English Romantism movement; Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Emerson and Yeats (Corrigan 2005: 3). Our article under the title, “A Short Essay on the Life, Personality and Philosophical Style of Plotinus”, is divided into two sub titles in order to remark the relationship between his life story and his philosophy. In the first sub title, which is “Plotinus’s Life, Personality and Style of Philosophy”, in one hand we evaluate person, school and events affecting the progress of his thoughts, in another hand we try to take into account the relationship of his life story with his unique style of philosophy. The second sub title focuses mainly on his principal characteristic thinkings. The above mentioned second sub title divides again into three under sub titles describing about the three basic thoughts of Plotinus namely, “One/God”, “Derivation” and “Man and Moral”, and ends up with final part of “Conclusion