Plotinus the original Neoplatonist
Plotinus the original Neoplatonist, which is a bit of an oxymoron because essentially what he did was to rehash the work that was done by Plato, assumed that there were several levels of being 1) the ONE (or the good, as he like to call it) 2) the “nous” (reason) 3), the soul or souls 4) the world perceivable by the senses 5) all matter (i.e. the cause of all evil)
Why Plotinus is important despite his utter dorkyness is the fact that Neo-Platonism has had a very large influence on the world. Most notably the effect of Neo Platonism was felt at the beginning of the medieval period when the confluence of Greek thought i.e. NP was incorporated into Christian doctrine by Augustine in order to give Christianity more rational credence.
I think that the hierarchical structure of being established by the Neoplatonists is illegitimate. The reason I say so is because the world begins and ends with what we perceive as subjects, not with what is revealed to use by a Rational system. What I mean by this is that the world is only available to use through our senses, we don’t have any thing else to go on other than the information that is provided to us through them. How this phenomenon discounts the NP structure of being is by way of the fact that the NeoPlatonist system assumes that there is more to life than what we make it, it assumes that reality is somewhere else, hidden in an an “idea” that can only be accessed with the abstract power of reason.
Reason has it’s limits, for instance, reason can not determine the base Reason for everything or anything. Reason hangs upon the assumption that there is a natural “Reason” for things to be. I say that there is no, absolutely no, justifiability in this stance. the only thing that we, as humans, are left with is the actuality of the events of or own existence, we can describe an event as it happens and give it a corresponding meaning but we can never give something legitimate meaning based upon a Rational appraisal of an it, because if we honestly accept the absurdity of reality (i.e. its baselessness’) we find that everything is meaningless. Which takes me back to my original statement that the world begins and ends with what we perceive as subjects, based upon our experience of reality, not upon an abstract notion of what exist in a world of ideas and reason. Word up G.