To date there are two well known translations of Plotinus' work in circulation; Mackenna's and Armstrong's. Each translation contributes to the understanding of Plotinus' philosophy.

Armstrong's translations/editions are considered the cornerstone for modern scholarship. Armstrongs understanding of the Greek language allows him to get extremely close to what Plotinus is trying to say. His footnotes are especially rewarding and insightful.

A sound background in Plato and Aristotle is needed to understand Plotinus. However those who have had the ultimate mystical experince with 'Unity' itself are naturally excused.

If you desire to study and quote Plotinus, then it is safe to say that this is the 7 volume-set to have (so far).

As is typical for the Loeb classical library books, the volumes are physically small, and the original text (Greek, for Plotinus) is given on the left hand page, with the English translation on the right.

The Preface describes the historical context within which Plotinus wrote, offers a summary of this thought, and a survey of Plotinus translations, commentaries, and studies. This material is supplemented by short introductions and synopses at the start of each chapter, and by abundant and detailed footnotes. The footnotes explain translation difficulties (not uncommon with Plotinus), and also identify the sources of Plotinus' references to other writers. These materials are excellent.

The only thing that this edition lacks is an index. The editors plead the difficulty of indexing Plotinus, and recommend "Lexicon Plotinianum" by J. H. Sleeman and Gilbert Pollet as an alternative. This work is, however, out of print (is it even in English? I am not sure) so it is not a very helpful suggestion. As it is, given Plotinus' rather scattered way of writing, an index is missed.

The Enneads are a collection of Plotinus' writings from fairly late in his life. Porphyry, his student, encouraged him in writing down his teachings, and acted as his posthumous editor (he also wrote a short biography of Plotinus which is included in the first volume). The works as they exist today are as they were received from Porphyry. As editor, Porphyry created his own organization for the works based on subject matter. This order is completely different from the order in which Plotinus wrote them. Porphyry, however, did document the original ordering.

From my own experience, however, I would recommend strongly reading Plotinus' writings in the order Plotinus wrote them rather than the order in which Porphyry arranged them. The major advantage I found was that it was much easier to follow the reasons why Plotinus believed what he did, even if the subject matter does jump around a bit. I tried Porphyry's order first, and almost gave up in despair before trying again in Plotinus' order. I have come to the conclusion that much of Plotinus' reputation as a bad writer is due to unfortunate but well-intended editorial decisions by Porphyry. Given that the Loeb edition presents Plotinus' writings in Porphyry's order, and that the Loeb edition is in multiple volumes, reading Plotinus this way does have a certain entertaining quality as well (first get volume IV, read a treatise, then get volume VI, read another, then get volume I, read another, and so on).

An important recommendation I would make for the reader is that he be properly prepared in his background reading. All of Aristotle and all of Plato would be ideal (as well as a worthwhile activity in its own right), but if the would-be reader of Plotinus finds that a little daunting and wants to get started sooner, there are a few works that he should make a particular effort to read: Plato's "Phaedo", "Republic" (Books VI, VII), "Parmenides", and "Timaeus"; Aristotle's "Physics", "On the Heavens", "On the Soul", and "Metaphysics". Plato, as the earlier writer, should be read first (by the way - don't be discouraged when you find you don't understand the second half of "Parmenides", Plotinus is going to tell you what he thinks it means in due course, so all you need to do is understand the references). If you don't have Plato or Aristotle, for Plato, Cooper's "Plato: Complete Works" (in one volume), and for Aristotle, Barnes' "Complete Works of Aristotle" (in two volumes), are excellent.

This Loeb Classical Library edition of the works of Plotinus is in seven volumes. The titles are as follows:

Plotinus I: Porphyry on Plotinus, Ennead I (Loeb Classical Library, 440)

Plotinus II: Ennead II (Loeb Classical Library, 441)

Plotinus III: Ennead III (Loeb Classical Library, 442)

Plotinus IV: Ennead IV (Loeb Classical Library, 443)

Plotinus V: Ennead V (Loeb Classical Library, 444)

Plotinus VI: Ennead VI, Books 1-5 (Loeb Classical Library, 445)

Plotinus VII: Ennead VI, Books 6-9 (Loeb Classical Library, 468)

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Below is the combined table of contents for those volumes:

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR VOLUME I:

Preface (editors)

Sigla (editors)

On the Life of Plotinus and the Order of his Books (Porphyry)

Ennead I:

1. What is the Living Being, and What is Man? (53)

2. On Virtues (19)

3. On Dialectic (20)

4. On Well-being (46)

5. On Whether Well-being Increases with Time (36)

6. On Beauty (1)

7. On the Primal Good and the Other Goods (54)

8. On What Are and Whence Come Evils (51)

9. On Going Out of the Body (16)

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR VOLUME II:

Sigla (editors)

Ennead II:

1. On Heaven (40)

2. On the Movement of Heaven (14)

3. On Whether the Stars are Causes (52)

4. On Matter (12)

5. On What Exists Actually and What Potentially (25)

6. On Substance, or On Quality (17)

7. On Complete Transfusion (37)

8. On Sight, or How Distant Objects Appear Small (35)

9. Against the Gnostics (33)

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR VOLUME III:

Sigla (editors)

Ennead III:

1. On Destiny (3)

2. On Providence I (47)

3. On Providence II (48)

4. On Our Allotted Guardian Spirit (15)

5. On Love (50)

6. On the Impassibility of Things without Body (26)

7. On Eternity and Time (45)

8. On Nature and Contemplation and the One (30)

9. Various Considerations (13)

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR VOLUME IV:

Preface to the Loeb Plotinus IV-V (A. H. Armstrong)

Sigla (editors)

Ennead IV:

1. [2] On the Essence of the Soul I (4)

2. [1] On the Essence of the Soul II (21)

3. On Difficulties About of the Soul I (27)

4. On Difficulties About of the Soul I (28)

5. On Difficulties About of the Soul III, Or On Sight (29)

6. On Sense Perception and Memory (41)

7. On the Immortality of the Soul (2)

8. On the Descent of the Soul into Bodies (6)

9. If All Souls are One (8)

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR VOLUME V:

Preface to the Loeb Plotinus IV-V (A. H. Armstrong)

Sigla (editors)

Ennead V:

1. On the Three Primary Hypostases (10)

2. On the Origin and Order of the Beings Which Come After the First (11)

3. On the Knowing Hypostases and That Which is Beyond (49)

4. How That Which is After the First Comes From the First, And on the One (7)

5. That the Intelligibles are not Outside the Intellect, and on the Good (32)

6. On the Fact that that Which is Beyond Being does not Think, and on What is the Primary and What the Secondary Thinking Principle (24)

7. On the Question Whether there are Ideas of Particular Things (18)

8. On the Intelligible Beauty (31)

9. On Intellect, the Forms, and Being (5)

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR VOLUME VI:

Preface to the Loeb Plotinus VI, VII (A. H. Armstrong)

Sigla (editors)

Ennead VI (continued in volume VII):

1. On the Kinds of Being I (42)

2. On the Kinds of Being II (43)

3. On the Kinds of Being III (44)

4. On the Presence of Being, One and the Same, Everywhere as a Whole I (22)

5. On the Presence of Being, One and the Same, Everywhere as a Whole II (23)

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR VOLUME VII:

Preface to the Loeb Plotinus VI, VII (A. H. Armstrong)

Sigla (editors)

Ennead VI (continued from volume VI):

6. On Numbers (34)

7. How the Multitude of Forms Came into Being, and on the Good (38)

8. On Free Will and the Will of the One (39)

9. On the Good or the One (9)

The numbers in parentheses indicate Plotinus' order of composition, which differs from the order given them by Porphyry and which this edition follows.

The bracketed numbers for the first two chapters of Ennead IV are an alternate ordering for them.

More than six centuries of Greco-Roman intellection culminate in ... monotheism. "Anything existing after The First must necessarily arise from that First, whether immediately or as tracing back to it," says Plotinus, 'the last great philosopher of antiquity' and the first of the "neo-Platonists." Drawing on the philosophy of Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, and centuries of Hellenistic scholarship, Plotinus (AD204-270), presents an epistemology and mysticism that has obvious and fundamental similarities to Judeo-Christian theology. Plotinus offers a single but triune deity, One God in three persons. Interestingly similar to Trinitarian theology, but there are huge differences in Plotinus' theology and that of Christianity. Recall that in Plotinus' day, Christianity was viewed as an indefatigable social pariah, an anti-establishment cult. For Plotinus, man was reconciled with the divine by means of diligent intellection, discernment, and imitation of the Absolute and immaterial consciousness (God). In other words, man may reconcile himself with God by virtue of his own will and effort. By contrast, in Christian doctrine reconciliation is a divine gift which man can accept, but could never earn by virtue of his own efforts toward the Right. And yet Plotinus approaches more closely to a Christian understanding of ethics than he himself could have known, stating that if the aspiration towards logic and virtue "which is in our nature exists also in this Ruling-Power, then we need not look elsewhere for the source of order and of the virtues in ourselves."
The Enneads is a collection of six sets of treatises compiled by Porphyry, a student and confidant of Plotinus. Although they are not presented in the order in which Plotinus produced them (and MacKenna omitted a few), the tractates embody Plotinus' system, which he held to be an advancement of Plato's system and one wholly superior to Aristotle's.
Plotinus' theology seems inadequate when compared to that of Augustine a century and a half later. But his logic is interesting -- Augustine cited him often -- and his understanding of the primacy of "the One" is something that readers will recognize as resembling the theology of monotheism:
"This Highest cannot be divided and allotted, must remain intangible but not bound to space, it may be present at many points, wheresoever there is anything capable of accepting one of its manifestations. ... It is precisely because there is nothing within the One that all things are from it: ... Seeking nothing ... lacking nothing, the One is perfect ... and in its exuberance has produced the new; this product has turned again to its begetter and been filled and has become its contemplator..."

The Enneads (the Nines) is the greatest surviving work of spiritual philosophy of late antiquity.

Here we have expounded Plotinus' interpretation of the perennial philosophy. We are shown that the material world has a spiritual origin, for all of creation emanates down from the divine Source, through the various levels of manifestation, to our own world. Moreover, we are shown that mankind's ultimate goal is to turn away from the distractions of this lower material creation and seek union with this divine Source (God, the One, the Good.)

While Plotinus critised the Gnostic sects of his day, it is obvious that his own idea of intuitive intellectual knowlege, where subject and object unite in perfect understanding, is pure gnosis. The main disagreement seems to have been on the nature of the material world: The Gnostics held it to be inherently evil, while Plotinus saw it as simply lower and inferior, yet basically good.

This Penguin edition has a large and informative introductory section. It includes an excellent biography of Stephen Mackenna, the translator, who gave his life and health to this work. There is also a good brief historical sketch of late historical times to help the reader to understand the period in which Plotinus wrote. Plus, the brief, condensed, well-structured, outline of Plotinus' system of Philosophy is invaluable in getting an initial grip on the concepts that are expanded upon in the main work. Finally, Porphyry's brief contemporary biographical sketch of Plotinus is included.

There is great wisdom in this book for those who can penetrate the traditional intuitive mindset. This only to be expected since Plotinus studied the perennial philosophy at the great library of Alexandria for over a decade. There is also the fact that Plotinus admitted to three episodes of enlightenment, epiphany, or cosmic consciousness in his life. Like all true masters, he was more of a reciever of timeless divine truths than an originator of anything new and contrived.

The Enneads is a staggering vision of unity. The concept of the soul plays a central part. Here's my take at a very brief summation:

1. The source of the soul ... and of everything else lies in a oneness (the One) that can be inferred but never contacted. So the One isn't a personal God. It isn't aware of us, so it doesn't intervene in our affairs.

2. What the soul receives ... are the goodness and intelligence that emanated from the source and are the principal characteristics of our cosmos. We exist in a cosmos that is fundamentally good and intelligent and we can sense and see that.

3. The mixed blessing for the soul ... is embodiment in matter, which, on the positive side, provides a context for helping and for personal growth. In a world of many, the one soul appears as many souls.

4. The downside of that blessing ... are pain, isolation, and the suffering and distraction caused by attachment to material things. Evil is real but we're created in a fundamentally good and intelligent place and with powers to deal with it.

5. The way to live ... includes recognizing that the many souls are in fact one. Individuality is the reward and the price the soul paid to become embodied. Just as the One gives richly via its emanations, so we should give to the cosmos. Enjoy and feel awed by the beauty around and within you.

6. We're no small things ... but a product of the One, of its Intelligence and Soul... each of our souls linked to each other via that one soul.

7. Soul and body go well together. The individual body being material isn't permanent. But the soul and the cosmos are, so the soul re-enters material life via a new body.

Unlike some religious positions that may seem similar, all of this and more can be demonstrated in a rational presentation that begins with just a few stated assumptions. That's what you'll find in The Enneads, a culmination of centuries of ancient Greek philosophy. As much a treasure as a book can be.

The base of Plotinus' philosophical system begins with what he calls The One, which is all things and no things... absolute unity, completely indivisible and set beyond existence. From The One emanates the less perfect universal Intellect from which the universal Soul emanates also less perfect, from which individual souls emanate. Plotinus postulates that every man is conflicted between a desire for individuality and a stronger, but poorly guided, yearning to return to the absolute unity of the one. He outlines that all beautiful things are more or less reflections of the Unity that all souls seek, but we are easily distracted by the reflections, blinded by the bodily, and led astray. he offers a cosmological view of the universe as it extends from the One and a partial guide to returning oneself to the One, although it is a journey he himself has not been able to complete.
Partially philosophic and partially a beautiful spiritual account, The Enneads are essential reading for anyone wanting to fully understand western philosophy; to see a crucial development on Platonic ideas and to see his influence in later philosophy/theology such as the works of Thomas Acquinas. It is so valuable its own right as a well written and thoughtful attempt to express something very familiar but unwordable that runs through the human psyche.
The Elmer O'Brien translation is a good introductory text for anyone wishing to become acquinted with, but not deeply familiar with the works of Plotinus. He presents a sort of "best of the treatises" arranged in a way that he finds most accesible to the reader. For the more devoted scholar, the multitude of Loeb copies will both be more accurate, more complete, more comprehensive and offer the oppurtunity to read the greek text directly, which offers many insights that can't be conveyed into a perspicacious english text. As an introductory read, however, the O'Brien far outweighs the McKenna translation in accuracy and conveys a tone somewhat more akin to the actual writings of Plotinus.

Few people today read Plotinus whose work ranked with Plato's and Aristotle's in Antiquity. Indeed a knowledge of this difficult and esoteric philosopher's thought is a must for understanding western philosophy through Spinoza. Unfortunately, MacKenna's edition-- the standard in English-- is lacking for many reasons (looseness and excessive liberty in translation for one). O'Brien avoids these pitfalls. This is a beautiful translation of a well-chosen representation of texts. Start with "On Beauty" for an easy introduction to a mystic tradition now largely forgotten. Make no mistake about it, however, Plotinus is difficult, albeit rewarding, to read under any circumstances (I almost suspect it is a proof of insanity to claim to comprehend fully "The Three Primal Hypostasis"). Luckily O'Brien has done several things to help the reader. Aside from a beautiful translation ably annotated, he supplies a useful introduction and an appendix of texts from Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics that Plotinus creatively appropriated and reinterpreted in a highly original way. O'Brien thoughtfully directs the reader's attention to the appropriate passage[s] in Plotinus. Read this book and you will begin to understand how the teaching of this esoteric Neo-Platonist was once a serious rival to Christianity. I highly recommend this book.

Plotinus ought to be read and digested by anyone who asks the ultimate question. Ultimately, his words point to a central experience - and presuppose that we wish to tread the same way. Western philosophy has had a lot of 'stick' in recent years, an inevitable reaction - given the fact that since the 18th c., much if not most Western philosophy has become a head trip - a tangle of knots. Modern philosophers like Heidegger have located the problem further back - with Platonism, and it has become a common place to see all Western philosophy as chopped logic, resulting in a fragmented perception of reality.

Everything Plotinus says - points to a crowning experience, what he termed 'henosis' - realising a state of 'at-onement.' Hence, any idea of identifying Plotinus use of the term 'Nous' (translated as 'intellect' in English) with its narrower, modern equivalent, would be a fatal misunderstanding. Plotinus leaves no room for distinctions between the knower and the known, presenting a marked parallel with Buddhist intuitions. Given the extensive influence that Buddhism has exerted upon western culture in recent years, it would be a crime to ignore the fruit-ful parallels afforded by Plotinus.

More to the point, a reading of Plotinus raises some serious questions about the verdict of people like Heidegger - when it comes to the history of Western philosophy. Moreover, it would not do to whinge about the Christian refutation of 'pagans,'as if the Church ignored Plotinus. His ideas influenced the early Church fathers - an influence that continued with people like Aquinus, Augustine - Eckhart etc.Hence, Heidegger's view of Western philosophy/theology as a kind of degeneration and fragmentation of 'Being' - is open to question, and one wonders why a whole generation of scholars like him, have persistently ignored what philosophers like Plotinus had to say. It is not all 'bad news.' A certain kind of 'Platonism' may well amount to what Nietzsche called 'the palest and thinnest ideas of all,' but by the same token, another form of it helped shape the intuitions of Meister Eckhart, and inspired Renaissance thinkers like Ficino. W.Y. Evans-Wentz, the noted American scholar-gypsy, a Rhodes scholar who sat at the feet of eminent Tibetan Lamas, and helped pave the way for a Western absorption of Buddhist ideas, held Plotinus in great esteem - seeing a perennial philosophy in the best of Western and Oriental civilisation.Hence, the Paul Brunton foundation endeavoured to promote a proper study of Plotinus' thought.

Stephen Mackenna's translation of the Enneads was a labour of love, and gave his life to the task. It taxed Mackenna's strength, some portions of the text being completed by people like B.S. Page. The Larson edition is of especial value here, examining the nuance of various terms found in Plotinus' work - all told, the best single volume edition of the Enneads. Thanks to John Dillon's endeavours, an economically priced, abridged version of Mackenna's work is available in p/back. Dillon's comments are well worth taking into account. A.H. Armstrong's translation (with the Greek text) is available in separate volumes, but the Larson/Mackenna version - with plentiful notes, cross references etc., is the best buy for the general reader who wants to devote some time to the idioms used by Plotinus. Nobody finds Plotinus an easy read, but as the other reviews testify, those who allow Plotinus' intuitions to play upon their minds, and read between the lines, will find their vision enlarged. It is no small thing to discover that our microcosmic selves participate in the life of the divine energeia - embodying some-thing of its power, enabling us to share in the life of the whole - to feel and know that we are at one with it. Like the Yi-Ching, the Upanishads, or Prajnaparamita, Plotinus' is one of those seminal influences, providing the pinnacle of insight for a whole civilisation. Wells may be forgotten or blocked over, but the water is always there to drink.

Readers of mine may notice that I rarely speak of fiction and prefer
the term "imaginative literature." Plotinus, by trade, was a
philosopher, and some of the greatest in his profession, apart from
unusual powers of reasoning, are not exactly conspicuous for their
imagination. But others did great and displayed fertile imagination
and linguistic felicity. Even if totally refuted in a strictly
philosophical sense, their work remains to be a source of inspiration
and a joy to read.

Plotinus began publishing in the advanced
age of 49. His work became the hidden nursery of Christian theology;
something he certainly didn't intend. The Christian apologist
Tatian, in his address "Against the Greeks," expressed an
increasingly popular sentiment when he said: "I am not to worship
God's creation made for our use. The Sun and the Moon were made on
our account. How then shall I worship my own ministers?" Plotinus,
usually never shrill, replied in strong terms:

"Human
temerity is only too willing to accept such grandiloquent ravings. The
simple folks hear: 'People whose worship is inherited from
antiquity are not His children - you are!' So you address the
lowest of men as brothers, but you deny this courtesy to the Sun and
disown your ties with the Cosmos?" Plotinus created the last great
synthesis of antique philosophy. It combined Plato's theory of Ideas
with a doctrine of emanation, a constant flux of creative energy from
the primeval One through several agencies all the way down to humans,
animals, and matter in various states of lesser reality.

In
this vision even the polytheistic pantheon participates in the
ultimately undivided unity of the cause for our
existence. Plotinus' reasoning is not difficult to follow, but for
us modern semi-barbarians, his discerning subtlety often seems to
verge on empty verbiage. However the basic premise is endearingly
simple: "It is unity that makes a being. The members of every plant
and animal form a unity; separation means loss of existence."
History has been written by the victorious, so our views reflect the
dim opinions of paganism's worst enemy; but let me assure you, in
their days, the Pagans had the better thinkers on their side.


So, once in the saddle, Christians went on the offensive. Egged on
by their bishop, Alexandria's mob flayed alive the philosopher
Hypathia in her own lecture-hall, because she was a mathematician, a
philosopher, a pagan, and - what in the eyes of her Christian
opponents was her worst sin - a woman. Two centuries later, Emperor
Justinian, the bigot, switched off the lights, and drove Athen's
last philosophers into exile. It took a treaty with foreign powers,
that the last pagan intellectuals got permission to go home to their
families and end their lives in peace and darkness.

Plotinus
was always honest about the possibility to actually get it wrong:
"Consider sense knowledge: its objects seem most patently artified,
yet the doubt remains whether the apparent reality may not lie in the
states of the percipient rather than in the material before him."
He even seems to have anticipated the modern concept of gravity: "The
heavens, by their nature, will either be motionless or move by circle;
all other movement indicates outside compulsion."

In a
series of papers from 1969-1978, Professor Robert Fischer (not the
chess-champion) made explicit reference to Plotinus' description
of his mystical ecstasy. Based on controlled experiments with
mind-enhancing substances, Fischer mapped out an ascending continuum
of nervous arousal that bridges the state of meditative torpor on one
end with the surrender to white hot hysteria on the other. Such
ecstasy occurs when amphetamine or LSD or some kind of prayer
discipline breach the amnesic state boundaries, that structure our
layers of memory, and causes an overload of data which freezes the
mental "hard drive."

In Plotinus' own words:
"Abandon the duality of seer and seen, and count both as one, so that
he in its vision does not distinguish, nor even imagines a duality. He
has changed, does no longer own himself, but belongs to the One, a
center in sync with the center. He will behold a solitary light
suddenly revealing itself - not from some perceived object, but pure
and self-contained. We must not enquire its origin, for there is no
"origin." The primal One does not come on cue, it is not
like one who enters, but who is eternally present. Like one who has
entered the temple's inner sanctuary and left the images behind,
the self is perfectly still and alone. This is liberation from the
alien that besets us here ..."

Plotinus enjoyed this
experience only four times in the five or six years that his
biographer Porphyry knew him. Given the choice, I am not quite sure,
whether I really would like to relinquish my distance as separate
observer, but it is a noted fact, that everyone who ever
"returned" from the bright light of such schizoid stupor (which
includes so called "near death experiences") did so with deep
regret. It is a fact of our empirical existence, though not effected
by some numinous sky hook, as Plotinus would like us to think. Still,
the most fantastic of all philosophies could actually be the most
realistic description of the intellect and its evolution, to date.


"The Universe is organized, effective, complex, lavish, but
it cannot be at once symbol and reality. As we look upon the world,
its vastness and beauty and the order of its eternal march, and think
of the gods seen and hidden, and the life of animal and plant, let us
ascend to its archetype, to the yet more authentic sphere of unsoiled
intelligence. That archetypal world is the true Golden Age, age of
Kronos, who is the Intellectual-Principle, the exuberance of the
One." Paganism at its best.

There is no other book that I have come across that contains all I need for the rest of my life! The Enneads is a veritable treasure and guide. I love the Larson edition because it is using MacKenna's poetic translation and compares it with four other translations, using unobstrusive endnotes. Also, the appendix by Anthony Damiani is probably the best piece on Plotinus' philosophy that I have ever read. I cannot too highly recommend this book for its beauty, rapture and yet deep rationality. It's philosophic poetry at its best!

The acclaimed philosopher Sara Rappe has written a very interesting collection of work. The central question - how is the thinking of Plato still applicable today. Extensive research gives as many answers as possible...perhaps not all the answers are necessary. Prof. Rappe's style is shaky at times, of Neoplatism is your thing, you will not be disappointed. A great way to get in touch with classical thinking

If you are an expert in philosophy (or becoming one), this book may be a good value for you. For a modest price, you get access to 16 experts on Plotinus.

However, it was very difficult reading for me, with some of the essays nearly impenetrable. The back cover of the book says it was an aim of the Cambridge Companion series to "dispel the intimidation such readers [ non-specialists] feel when faced with the work of a difficult and challenging thinker". Could have fooled me since The Enneads seem easier going than this collection. Nor did I find these collection the "most convenient and accessible guide to Plotinus currently available". The opposite seems closer to the truth.

The introductory essays presented by the editor John Dillon in Penguin's abridged publication of Stephen McKenna's translation of The Enneads were vastly more readable for me. Avoid the mistake I made of reading this book first: what you may lack in context even if you read Plotinus cold, Plotinus will more than make up for by his sweeping vision and attentiveness to clear explanation. If not, you might try the Karl Jaspers book on the great philosphers that includes a big section on Plotinus.

I wouldn't not recommend this book, because it does provide a great deal of context (e.g. on Plotinus's place within Platonism and his debt to Aristotle and the Stoics), the essayists are indeed top scholars, and the price is excellent. Even if you find one or two of the essayists you really benefit from and read more of them in the future, this book will have served as a good sampler. But be careful thinking that because you are very smart or very interested in Plotinus that this book is worth your time: you may find, like I am finding, that it serves mostly as a reminder of the twisty passages of academia.