Plotinus on Self and Happiness

Abstract

AbstractPlotinus divides the self into into an embodied soul, subject to the vicissitudes of physical existence, and an everlasting incorporeal intellect that is completely unaffected by its bodily counterpart. In Ennead 1.4 he criticizes the accounts of happiness (eudaimonia) given by Epicureans, Stoics, and especially Aristotle. His chief objection is their psycho-physicalism. He agrees that a virtuous person will achieve happiness in the face of extreme misfortune, but he insists that only a fully incorporeal and immortal self can achieve the independence from body that such invulnerability requires. A virtuous self, even when embodied and in pain, engages unconsciously in continuous intellectual activity, unaffected by its body.