Episode Details

Plotinus constructed a vision of reality as a cascading emanation from a single unknowable source he called the One. His Enneads shaped Christian mysticism, Islamic philosophy, and Renaissance thought, yet he remains less known than the Plato he claimed to be merely interpreting.

This episode explores how a philosopher from Roman Egypt built a metaphysical system so powerful that it dominated Western thought for a millennium.

• How the One emanates into Mind, Soul, and the material world
• Why Plotinus insisted he was just explaining Plato
• His influence on Augustine, Aquinas, and the Islamic Neoplatonists
• The mystical experiences he described and their philosophical implications