Ancient · AD 204–270
Who influenced Plotinus?
Influences and legacy
Recast Plato as a mysticism of the One — the engine behind later Christian and Islamic thought.
Plotinus was influenced by Plato and Aristotle, and went on to influence Porphyry and Augustine of Hippo. That is 4 lines of the 448 documented lines of influence between the 279 thinkers on this map.
Read on Wikipedia Portrait: Anonymous Unknown author, Public domain See the whole map
Who was Plotinus?
Plotinus was born and raised in Roman Egypt and studied with the self-taught Platonist Ammonius Saccas. Modern scholars regard him as the founder of Neoplatonism, a name 19th-century historians gave to his philosophy.
His metaphysics rests on three principles: the One, the Intellect and the Soul. Neoplatonism carried great weight in late antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and his work inspired pagan, Jewish, Christian, Gnostic and early Islamic thinkers and mystics.
Summarized from the lead of the Wikipedia article.
Who influenced Plotinus?
2 direct influences on this map, earliest first.
Who did Plotinus influence?
2 thinkers on this map draw directly on Plotinus.
- Porphyry c. 234–305
- Augustine of Hippo AD 354–430
The line of teachers behind Plotinus
The longest documented line of influence ending at Plotinus runs 6 generations back, to Thales of Miletus.
Two steps away from Plotinus
Indirect influences
- Through Plato: Pythagoras, Parmenides, Empedocles, Protagoras, Socrates, Philolaus
The second generation
Contemporaries of Plotinus
Thinkers on this map born within 25 years of Plotinus, with no direct line between them.
- Origen c. 185–254
Plotinus by the numbers
- Direct influences
- 2
- Direct followers
- 2 — #48 of 279 on this map
- Thinkers upstream
- 15
- Thinkers downstream
- 158
- Wikipedia languages
- 79 — #23 of 54 among ancient philosophers
- Card rarity
- Epic
Questions about Plotinus
- Who influenced Plotinus?
- Plato and Aristotle.
- Who did Plotinus influence?
- Porphyry and Augustine of Hippo.
- When did Plotinus live?
- AD 204–270. The map files Plotinus under the ancient world.
- How rare is the Plotinus card?
- Wikipedia carries an article on Plotinus in 79 languages, which makes it an Epic card. Legendary starts at 100 languages, Epic at 50 and Rare at 25.
More ancient philosophers
- Confucius 551–479 BC
- Aristotle 384–322 BC
- Plato c. 428–348 BC
- Socrates c. 470–399 BC
- Pythagoras c. 570–495 BC
- Laozi c. 6th c. BC
- Cicero 106–43 BC
- Thales of Miletus c. 624–546 BC