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A Comparison of Plotinus's and St. Augustine's Conception of Evil
Košová, Michaela ; Němec, Václav (advisor) ; Novák, Lukáš (referee)
This bachelor thesis is concerned with Plotinus's and Augustine's conception of evil and its main aim is to compare both views and reveal which Plotinus's thoughts inspired Augustine and at which points he had to divert from Plotinus. The key question is in what way both philosophers attempt to answer the question about ontological status and origin of evil. While examining the differences between both conceptions it will be importatnt to explain them with regard to different metaphysical concepts which constitute Plotinus's and Augustine's thinking. First part of the thesis investigates in what sense in Plotinus's theory matter - the last point of emanation of reality from the One - is the principle of evil. Later we encounter tolma, certain illegitimate audacity to become independent from the higher levels which is present in the soul and also at the very emergence of reality as such from the One. However, since soul has a divine origin, it cannot really sin. Plotinus ascribes the ultimate responsibility for evil to matter, utter privation and form of non-being, which can act as a sort of trap for the soul. In the second part we will see that thanks to neoplatonic thinking Augustine too perceives evil as privation but he ascribes its origin to a free decision of created, and thus mutable rational...
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Significance of virtue in the philosophy of Plotinus
Polák, Ján ; Svoboda, David (advisor) ; Sousedík, Prokop (referee)
The place of virtue in the philosophy of Plotinus Abstract The main intention of this thesis is to clarify some aspects of Plotinus's concept of virtue. Significant part of it is a report of J. M. Dillon's article An ethic for the late anthique sage and its comparison with P. Hadot's essay Plotinus or the simplicity of vision, which form a base for characteristics of a dualism between sensual and spiritual world, the body/soul polarity, and relation between higher and lower virtues. Consequently a relationship of a Plotinian sage towards others is being investigated. The result of this thesis confirms that Dillon's interpretation of a radical distinction between polarities mentioned above is exaggerated and his pronouncement of an absence of the element of concern for others in Plotinus's ethical reflextion is basically mistaken. Key words Plotinus, ethics, virtue, neoplatonism, J. M. Dillon, P. Hadot, higher and lower virtues, relation with other, body and soul, sensual and spiritual world, late anthique philosophy.
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Privation concept of evil from Plotinus to Thomas Aquinas
TOMANDL, Antonín
The questions about the origin of evil in the world were often a secondary product of the great philosophical systems. One of the first thinkers to deal with that problem systematically was neoplatonic scholar Plotinus. He developed a theory which he considered to be only a continuation of Plato´s thinking. It became an original theory, which in its core, has influence to this day. This theory was, mostly thanks to St. Augustine, applied to christian theology and became the living doctrine. The goal of this thesis is to demonstrate in what Plotinus´ theory of evil was "christianized" through the hand of Augustin. In other words, how it trasformed from a pagan philosophy to a theological one and how it was preserved for rediscovery in the scholastic era and became a new-again topic of scholastic scholars.
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Matter in Plotin's philosophy
Zajíček, Samuel ; Chlup, Radek (advisor) ; Němec, Václav (referee)
The diploma thesis attempts to present a consistent conception of matter in the philosophy of Plotinus. Its first part therefore contains a presentation of his own ideas about matter employing the interpretation of three key treatises dealing with this topic (Ennead II, 4 (12) "On the Two Kinds of Matter", Ennead III, 6 (26) "On Impassibility of Things Without Body" and Ennead I, 8 (51) "On What Are And Whence Come Evils"), the second part is dedicated to the overview and criticism of major modern interpretations of Plotinian matter. The third part then introduces my own approach, consisting of splitting Plotinus' hypostatis of soul into two hypostases, and identifying matter with the procession (i.e. proodic aspect) of the ontologically lower of the two. Arguments are offered for these nonstandard interpretive choices; the resulting conception is shown both as self-consistent as well as consistent with Plotinus' metaphysics as such, and it is demonstrated to be able to reconstruct the features that Plotinus attributes to matter.
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Good and evil in Plotinus: From the One to matter
Janota, Sebastian ; Chlup, Radek (advisor) ; Němec, Václav (referee)
This thesis focuses on polar qualities of Good and Evil in the work of the Neo-Platonic philosopher Plotinus. Plotinus' metaphysics tries to integrate these contrary principals into a monistic system. The first part of the thesis deals with Plotinus' metaphysics in general. The central term is One - the primal principal and the source of the whole reality - which Plotinus argues for as the only real Good. Another basic term in his work is tolma - the will to separate - being the cause of plurality and providing the other with existence. New kinds of realities arise through tolma and each kind has its own specifics. The Plotinus' hierarchical scale, One - Intellect - Soul, descends to the lowest level of reality - Matter. Matter closes the whole cosmological process. Plotinus characterises Matter as the only real Evil and the originator of all evil. Nevertheless, this weakens his monistic concept. The second part of this thesis, therefore, focuses on Matter. The question is how the infinitely good One may give rise to its own opposite. Thus, this work primarily aims at difficulties connected with this dualism evoking concept and it also introduces various, sometimes highly different ways of interpretation of Plotinus' metaphysics.
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A Comparison of Plotinus's and St. Augustine's Conception of Evil
Košová, Michaela ; Němec, Václav (advisor) ; Novák, Lukáš (referee)
This bachelor thesis is concerned with Plotinus's and Augustine's conception of evil and its main aim is to compare both views and reveal which Plotinus's thoughts inspired Augustine and at which points he had to divert from Plotinus. The key question is in what way both philosophers attempt to answer the question about ontological status and origin of evil. While examining the differences between both conceptions it will be importatnt to explain them with regard to different metaphysical concepts which constitute Plotinus's and Augustine's thinking. First part of the thesis investigates in what sense in Plotinus's theory matter - the last point of emanation of reality from the One - is the principle of evil. Later we encounter tolma, certain illegitimate audacity to become independent from the higher levels which is present in the soul and also at the very emergence of reality as such from the One. However, since soul has a divine origin, it cannot really sin. Plotinus ascribes the ultimate responsibility for evil to matter, utter privation and form of non-being, which can act as a sort of trap for the soul. In the second part we will see that thanks to neoplatonic thinking Augustine too perceives evil as privation but he ascribes its origin to a free decision of created, and thus mutable rational...
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Schelling's idea of the Absolute and Fall in his Philosophie und Religion
Vilímek, Jan ; Karásek, Jindřich (advisor) ; Petříček, Miroslav (referee)
The work deals with concepts of the Absolute and the Fall in Schelling's writing "Philosophy and Religion", written in 1804. The idea of the absolute, as we can find it in author's previous text "Bruno, or On the Nature and the Divine Principle of Things" (1802) is briefly characterised in the first chapter. In this phase of thought Schelling deals with the problematics of emanation of finite things from the absolute. It turns out, that the identity philosophy does not provide adequate means to master it. The possible way-out can be seen in his decision to enrich the existing concept of the identity philosophy by the freedom phenomenon. Kant's conception of radical evil in human nature is analysed in great detail in the second chapter. After development of the idea of absolute and fall it is obvious, that Schelling got inspired here mainly by the conception of intelligible act as founding atemporal act of freedom. The intelligible act is grasped not only as self-determination of finite human will, but as a condition of existence of an un-absolute, empirically realistically differentiated world of finite ratios and structures. We can see the transfer of concepts, which originally served to description of moral principles of human action to the ontology domain. The third chapter deals with the structure of...
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