The aim of the volume is to show how the Platonic and Plotinian metaphysics do not differ in their fundamental principles and, in addition, that Plotinus’ writings should be mainly considered as a good interpretation of Plato.
This claim is inclined to assume a unitarian and systematic approach towards Plato's dialogues, without subscribing the Tübingen position (according to Y. there is in fact ‘enough explicit evidence of Plato's view of his first principles’ [p. xix] in the written doctrines), and also rejects what Y. calls the ‘standard view’ (p. xxiii), according to which Plotinus’ goal would be to reply to Stoics as well as Gnostics and, more generally, to every materialistic paradigm of his age. Granted that his ‘culture influenced his thought to some extent’ (p. xxiv), none the less Plotinus’ answers and proposals belong to a Platonic perspective.
In order to argue this position, Y. makes use of a methodology based upon a sort of ‘compatibility principle’ (p. xxviii), which asserts that even if Plato and Plotinus did not have identical views, they nevertheless did not construct opposite models. Such a premise not only postulates that we cannot find any Plotinian statement that ‘is incompatible in principle’ (p. xxix) with Plato, but even affirms that the two philosophers had such a similar common set of claims that one ‘cannot find an essential difference between them’ (p. xxxi).
The project develops six metaphysical issues (The One/Good as the source of all things, Beauty, Intellect, the All-Soul, the Hypostases and finally Matter) where this compatible view could be uncovered more clearly.
The occurrences about the One in the Parmenides and the Good in the Republic seem to represent the heart of Y.'s thesis, which implies a strong interpretation of Plato's assertion ‘beyond being’, since the Platonic Good – once considered as equivalent to the One of the First Hypothesis of the Parmenides – is conceived as having ‘a transcendence and otherness’ (p. 17) above all the other forms. Y. himself is well aware that ‘this is one of the most controversial sections of the book’ (p. 26), for it shows Plato and Plotinus sharing the same consideration of the metaphysical status of the highest principle (see pp. 26ff.), an interpretation on which few commentators would agree, relying on the notion that what we really find in Plato should not be confused with what Plotinus thought.
The second chapter attempts to establish whether Plotinus and Plato agree about the relationship between the form of Beauty and the notion of symmetry. After quoting some passages where Plotinus refuses the possibility of this identification, Y. traces the lines of a compatible perspective in Plato and Plotinus, given that both of them maintain that symmetry is not the essence of Beauty, though ‘symmetry is involved in beauty’ (p. 51) and Beauty reveals symmetry in perceptible bodies. Other resemblances in the two philosophical models are (a) the similarities between Beauty and Good (see pp. 51ff.), though they are not identical, (b) the statement that ‘we already have the vision of Beauty before we incarnate on earth’ (p. 63) and (c) the transformative power of Beauty, ‘which changes its experiencer from thence onwards’ (p. 57).
We can concur with these correspondences, even though it should be noted that there is no reference to Ennead 3.5, where Plotinus’ analysis is quite peculiar and somehow not Platonic, since the exegesis of Symposium and Phaedrus is applied to the ontological dependence of hypostases one on another.
The third and fifth sections, respectively dedicated to the Intellect and to hypostases, seem to me more controversial. It is common knowledge that the ontological structure of the second hypostasis dates back to the Plotinian exegesis of Phaedrus, Parmenides, Sophist and Timaeus. It is undoubtedly correct that the Plotinian Nous is the equivalent, as noêton, of the intelligible region embracing the forms and, as noêsis, of a nature thinking all of them. But one would hardly subscribe to the view that this corresponds to the genuine Platonic formulation of this doctrine, as well as to the assertion that there is no contradiction between Plato and Plotinus on Intellect. I also cannot wholly share Y.'s acknowledging of the possibility of finding in Plato's Parmenides and Timaeus evidence of a doctrine of three hypostases (see pp. 99ff.), for which ‘Plotinus’ mentioning of emanation does not prove that the views of Plato and Plotinus are … incompatible’ (p. 108).
The discussions on World-Soul and Matter in Plato and Plotinus are more conclusive, though the role played by Matter in the Enneads also depends both on the unwritten doctrines and on the Aristotelian intelligible matter.
I believe that even if the compatibility criterion provides evidence of Plotinus’ dependence as an exegete on Plato, it disregards the influence on the Enneads of the philosophical tradition after Plato (see for example J.D. Turner and K. Corrigan [edd.], Plato's Parmenides and Its Heritage. Volume 1: History and Interpretation from the Old Academy to Later Platonism and Gnosticism [2011]). It follows that when an identification between Plato and Plotinus is too strongly maintained, we have the impression of an effort to ‘Plotinise’ Plato. However, on the grounds of the previous considerations, the text deserves undoubted praise for its original reading of Plotinus, which represents an interesting challenge to the standard interpreters.
