![Ennead IV.8 [6]: On the descent of the soul into bodies — Plotinus](https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/4524104-L.jpg)
Written work · Essential works
Ennead IV.8 [6]: On the descent of the soul into bodies
Περὶ τῆς εἰς τὰ σώματα καθόδου τῆς ψυχῆς
It opens with the famous autobiographical confession: "Many times, waking up to myself out of the body…". It reconciles Plato's apparently contradictory texts on the soul's descent—a fault in the Phaedo and the Phaedrus, a cosmic mission in the Timaeus—and argues that a part of our soul does not descend but remains in the intelligible.
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Authorship note
An authentic treatise by Plotinus, no. 6 in Porphyry's chronological order (Life of Plotinus 4–6), first period (treatises 1–21, written before Porphyry's arrival in 263). The title and the placement in Ennead IV are Porphyry's.
Editions and translations
Editions in your language first, without hiding the others. Each with its cover and its store.
English
Plotinus IV: Ennead IV (Loeb Classical Library 443)
Harvard University Press, 1984
Translation: A. H. Armstrong
ISBN 9780674994881
Bilingüe; el registro de Open Library no indica el volumen: por la secuencia de ISBN corresponde al vol. IV.
Plotinus
Ennead IV.8 (MacKenna)
The Conscious LibraryEnnead IV.8 (MacKenna)
Medici Society; Wikisource, 1924
Translation: Stephen MacKenna
Dominio público (MacKenna murió en 1934).
Español
Plotino, Enéadas III–IV
Gredos (Biblioteca Clásica Gredos, 88), 1985
Translation: Jesús Igal
ISBN 9788424910044
Introducciones, traducción y notas. ISBN visto en el catálogo de Marcial Pons y en catálogos universitarios.
Other works by Plotinus
- Enneads · 301
- Life of Plotinus (by Porphyry) · 301
- Ennead I.1 [53]: What is the living being, and what is man? · 268
- Ennead I.2 [19]: On virtues · 253
- Ennead I.3 [20]: On dialectic · 253
- Ennead I.4 [46]: On happiness (well-being) · 268
- Ennead I.5 [36]: Whether happiness increases with time · 263
- Ennead I.6 [1]: On beauty · 253
- Ennead I.7 [54]: On the primal good and the other goods · 268
- Ennead I.8 [51]: On what are and whence come evils · 268
- Ennead I.9 [16]: On going out of the body · 253
- Ennead II.1 [40]: On the cosmos (or on heaven) · 263
- Ennead II.2 [14]: On the movement of heaven · 253
- Ennead II.3 [52]: Whether the stars are causes · 268
- Ennead II.4 [12]: On matter (or on the two matters) · 253
- Ennead II.5 [25]: On what exists potentially and what actually · 263
- Ennead II.6 [17]: On quality and form (or on substance and quality) · 253
- Ennead II.7 [37]: On complete transfusion · 263
- Ennead II.8 [35]: On sight, or how distant objects appear small · 263
- Ennead II.9 [33]: Against the Gnostics · 263
- Ennead III.1 [3]: On fate · 253
- Ennead III.2 [47]: On providence, I · 268
- Ennead III.3 [48]: On providence, II · 268
- Ennead III.4 [15]: On our allotted guardian spirit · 253
- Ennead III.5 [50]: On love · 268
- Ennead III.6 [26]: On the impassibility of the bodiless · 263
- Ennead III.7 [45]: On eternity and time · 263
- Ennead III.8 [30]: On nature, contemplation and the One · 263
- Ennead III.9 [13]: Various considerations · 253
- Ennead IV.1 [21]: On the essence of the soul, I · 253
- Ennead IV.2 [4]: On the essence of the soul, II · 253
- Ennead IV.3 [27]: Problems of the soul, I · 263
- Ennead IV.4 [28]: Problems of the soul, II · 263
- Ennead IV.5 [29]: Problems of the soul, III, or on sight · 263
- Ennead IV.6 [41]: On sense-perception and memory · 263
- Ennead IV.7 [2]: On the immortality of the soul · 253
- Ennead IV.9 [8]: Whether all souls are one · 253
- Ennead V.1 [10]: On the three primary hypostases · 253
- Ennead V.2 [11]: On the origin and order of the beings after the First · 253
- Ennead V.3 [49]: On the knowing hypostases and that which is beyond · 268
- Ennead V.4 [7]: How what comes after the First derives from the First, and on the One · 253
- Ennead V.5 [32]: That the intelligibles are not outside the Intellect, and on the Good · 263
- Ennead V.6 [24]: That what is beyond being does not think · 263
- Ennead V.7 [18]: Whether there are Forms of individuals · 253
- Ennead V.8 [31]: On the intelligible beauty · 263
- Ennead V.9 [5]: On Intellect, the Forms and Being · 253
- Ennead VI.1 [42]: On the kinds of being, I · 263
- Ennead VI.2 [43]: On the kinds of being, II · 263
- Ennead VI.3 [44]: On the kinds of being, III · 263
- Ennead VI.4 [22]: On the presence of being, one and the same, everywhere as a whole, I · 263
- Ennead VI.5 [23]: On the presence of being, one and the same, everywhere as a whole, II · 263
- Ennead VI.6 [34]: On numbers · 263
- Ennead VI.7 [38]: How the multitude of the Forms came into being, and on the Good · 263
- Ennead VI.8 [39]: On free will and the will of the One · 263
- Ennead VI.9 [9]: On the Good or the One · 253
- Notes of the lectures (by Amelius, lost) · 260
- Eustochius' edition (lost)
- Theology of Aristotle · 840
Sources
- Porfirio. Vida de Plotino y orden de sus libros (Περὶ τοῦ Πλωτίνου βίου καὶ τῆς τάξεως τῶν βιβλίων αὐτοῦ). Texto griego en la ed. de R. Volkmann (Teubner, 1883), en Wikisource en griego; trad. inglesa de Stephen MacKenna (1917), en Wikisource en inglés.
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