The internal dimensions of the sensible object in the thought of Plotinus and Aristotle

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Kevin Corrigan, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 1981-12
• Publisher: Dalhousie University
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: Dalhousie University
• License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): https://ojs.library.dal.ca/dionysius/article/download/6253/5555
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Dionysius
• Volume: 5
• Start Page: 98
• End Page: 126
• Keywords: categories; soul-entelechy theorgy; Aristotle; genera of being; Enneads; Porphyry
• Research Categories: Philosophy; History, Ancient

Abstract

In several passages of the Enneads, Plotinus is openly critical of Aristotle. In IV.7,8, he rejects the soul-entelechy theory; in II.4.14, he criticises the function of the three principles, from, privation and matter, and in III.7, he rejects the Physics definition of time. But the locus classicus of this explicit criticism is the long work, VI,1-3, dividd by Porphyry into three treatises, which constitutes a sustained attack upon the ten Aristotelian categories as genra of being. In the opening chapters of VI.1, it is argued that sensible and intelligble substance can not on Aristotelian principles form one genus, and in the critique of substance in VI.3,1-8, Plotinus concludes that sensible substance can only be "an aggregate of qualities and matter", not true substance, but an imitation. This will also be Porphyry's view.