Reading room

Ennead I.1 [53]: What is the living being, and what is man?

Plotinus

One of the last treatises, written when already ill. It distinguishes between the compound of soul and body, which perceives, desires and suffers, and the soul in itself, which remains impassible. It asks who the "we" is that thinks and is responsible, and places it in the rational soul, able to turn its attention upward or downward.