Metaphysics

On the Good, or the One

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Plotinus

270

The ninth treatise of the sixth Ennead — often regarded as the culminating text of Plotinus's philosophy — examines the One, the absolute first principle from which all reality proceeds. The One is not a being among others, not even the highest being: it is beyond being, beyond thought, beyond any predicate that would limit or define it. Plotinus describes the soul's mystical ascent to the One not as intellectual comprehension but as the falling away of all distinction — a union in which the soul, stripping off everything it has acquired, arrives at a simplicity that mirrors the One's own. The experience is beyond words: Plotinus can only describe its approach and the joy of its aftermath.