Plotinus and the first principle: ¿a pantheism?

Abstract

Still today, Neoplatonism continues to be a hermeneutical challenge for those who dare to go into its crossroads. Its peculiar conception of the divine is a core aspect of this viewpoint. Armstrong, one of the most celebrated contemporary scholars of the matter, has begun a reading line in which the plotinian conception of divinity is being read in pantheistic terms. Thusly, this essay aims to show the inherent difficulties to this stance, bearing in mind how complex the conception of Plotinus’s first principle, which can be found in the Enneads, is. By assessing different interpretative viewpoints, we will demonstrate that the hermeneutics behind this works cannot overlook these aporias. Finally, we will show that it is impossible to support a pantheistic reading of the Enneads. At the same time, this will highlight the dialectics of the One as a principle of formation of what is real, due to the impossibility of supporting an entire ontological identity shared by the One and the sensible entities