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Online Lecture

The Concept of Hamartia in Plotinus.

May 3, 2022

Lecture will take place on Zoom
7-9pm Athens & 6-8pm Alexandria
6-8pm Paris

5-7pm Oxford
12-2pm New York

Abstract

Plotinus’ ascription of a double hamartia to the soul in tractate IV 8 [6] raises exegetical and philosophical issues which take us to the very foundations of his ethics. As a preliminary stage in the clarification of these issues, an analysis of his use of hamartia and related concepts will be undertaken. In the first part of the paper an attempt will be made to identify the sense and connotations of the concept in its different Enneadic contexts. In the second part, the use of hamartia in IV 8 [6] will be discussed in comparison with that of tolma in V I [10]. The third part will be devoted to what may be regarded as a change of mind on Plotinus’ part when in I 8 [51] he ascribes the fall of the soul to a darkening of its illumination by matter, and in I 1 [52] 12, where he goes as far as describing the soul as anamartētos in its descent.

Suzanne Stern-Gillet
(Victoria University of Manchester)

Suzanne Stern-Gillet, Lic. Phil., MPhil, DPhil is Professor Emerita of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Bolton and Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Manchester. She is the author of Aristotle’s Philosophy of Friendship, 1995, the editor (or co-editor) of six collections, the last in date being A Text Worthy of Plotinus, 2021 (with K. Corrigan and J. Baracat), and the author of some sixty articles on ethics and moral psychology in ancient thought. She is currently at work on a monograph on Plato’s Ion and on a translation and commentary of Plotinus’ Ennead I 2 [19].