The Aporetic Method in Plotinus’ Enneads

Abstrakt

There seem to be two tendencies in the Plotinian scholarship concerning spiritual method of the Enneads. First is more general and the other more specific and focused on the analysis of the text. The paper follows the second type of study and attempts to present and analyze Plotinian use of aporia as a spiritual exercise. Traditionally aporia was used as a point of departure for philosophical discussion (e.g. by Aristotle) and sometimes Plotinus follows this tradition. But at other times he uses aporia as a point of arrival – he creates a painful tension due to the fact that discursive thought is unable to know the nature of the One (or, less frequently, also Intellect). The tension becomes a sort of spiritual labor in which the contemplation is born and the tension is released. Several passages from the Enneads are analyzed to show various uses of that method.