Abstract

Plotinus' treatment of emanation, a central philosophical notion designed to account for creation, signals his important place in the history of ancient Greek philosophy. Emanation is the overflow from one level of reality which produces another level. In Plotinus, emanation from the first principle, the One, is responsible for the creation of both the intelligible world and the sensible world. In the dissertation, I concentrate on emanation from the One and pose the question whether Plotinus is able to provide a satisfactory philosophical explanation of it. Standard scholarly treatments focus on the analogies and metaphors by which Plotinus characterizes emanation. As a philosopher, however, Plotinus relies on the Aristotelian concepts of dunamis and energeia . I examine the ways in which Plotinus uses these terms in attempting to provide an explanation of emanation from the One. ;I argue that Plotinus is unsuccessful in providing a satisfactory explanation of emanation by means of dunamis but that his attempt by means of energeia is successful. I depart from standard treatments of Plotinian dunamis at the level of the One by arguing that Plotinus encounters difficulties in providing an explanation of emanation in terms of it. I examine in detail the problems which Plotinus encounters, and I address the cause of his difficulties. Plotinus' successful attempt to explain emanation relies on a philosophical principle which I call the "Two Activities principle," according to which every substance is composed of two activities, the activity of it and the activity from it. This is a central Plotinian principle and applies to every level of his metaphysics. I examine it in detail, and I discuss its significant philosophical antecedents, particularly in Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. ;I conclude the dissertation by situating Plotinus in the history of philosophy as, on the one hand, a philosopher who is representative of the classical tradition and who utilizes the language of that tradition, and, on the other hand, an innovative thinker who strains that very language in order to communicate his ideas