1.  The three hypostases:

2.  The One.  Plato's the Good.  Ineffable, transcendent, perfect; knowable only through what it is not.

3.  Intellect.  The Realm of Being; the Realm of the Forms/Ideas.  A "One-in-Many":  the Forms are the thoughts of the Intellect; in thinking them, they are given being.  Aristotle's Prime Mover (self-thinking thought).  Eternity is the mode of existence of Intellect.

4.  Soul.  Immanent in the physical world of Becoming, but transcendent to it.  The "higher" part of Soul contemplates Intellect.  The "lower" part generates the Physical World guided by the seminal reasons (logoi spermatikoi).  A "One-and-Many".  Three distinctions:  Soul, World Soul, individual souls; the latter two are aspects of the former.  Time is the "life" of the Soul.

(a)  World Soul:  the physical cosmos has a soul and is thus a living organism (see, eg, Timaeus).

(b)  Individual souls.  Composed of two parts:  one remains in the realm of Intellect (the "higher" part of Soul), the other descends to inhabit a coporeal body in the physical world.  Hence humans are directly connected to the One via the Intellect.  Individuals are the link between the realms.  Humans as amphibians.

Note:  The Stoics held individual souls are fragments of the World Soul.  For Plotinus, both are on equal footing as aspects of Soul.  (The Stoic cosmos might be characterized as consistiing of just the third hypostasis:  Soul.  The mediator is air (pneuma).  See Ficino, later.)
 

1. What is the distinction between the "higher" aspect of Soul and Intellect?  Soul is that aspect of Intellect which "falls"?
2. What is the relation between an individual soul and the corporeal body it "inhabits"?
• Plato:   The body as an instrument (and a prison) for the soul.  The soul is immaterial and immortal: exists before and after the body.
• Aristotle:    The soul is the immaterial Form and the body is the Matter.  An individual = soul + body = form + matter.
• Plotinus:    An individual = soul + body, but body itself consists of matter and form.  Hence 3 distinctions:  soul₁, soul₂, body.  Soul₂, the form of the body, is a part of the World-Soul.  Soul₁ (the individual soul) is immaterial and immortal and linked with the Intellect.  Note, however, that such disctinctions begin to blur when stress is placed on the fact that both the World-Soul and individual souls are aspects of one and the same Soul.

6.  The two-act theory and the doctrine of procession/reversion:  Plotinus’ solution to the problem of the one and the many.

1. Two aspects to all things:  an "inner act" and an "outer act".  The inner act is the substance or essence of the thing.  The outer act is a distinct entity; an image or likeness of the inner act.


Example:  Heat as the essence of fire (its inner act) vs heat that flows out (emmanates/procedes) from fire (its outer act).
 

2. Each hypostasis is the complete cause of the next lower one.  The lower one emmanates (“procedes”) from the higher as the outer act of the higher.  This accounts only for the existence or "matter" of the lower level.  This matter is then informed, and the lower hypostasis comes into being,  through the act of contemplating ("reverting" back to) the higher one.  Characteristics:  Procession and reversion are non-temporal events.  Procession is necessary, undeliberate and undiminishing.

• Intellect procedes necessarily from, and without diminish to, the One (the One is perfect; that which is perfect reproduces itself).  Intellect contemplates the One and brings itself and the Forms into being; the Forms are the representation in the Intellect of the One produced in the act of reversion.
• Soul procedes necessarily from, and without diminish to, the Intellect.  Soul contemplates the Intellect and brings itself and the seminal reasons into being.
• The Physical World emmanates from Soul with the seminal reasons directing the participation of physical objects in the Forms.