"Neither the Morning, Nor the Evening Star is So Fair": Virtue and the Soul of the World in Plotinus, Treatise 19 (I, 2) and Treatise 20 (I, 3)

Abstract

In Treatises 19 (I, 2) and 20 (I, 3), Plotinus unfolds several ‘grades’ of virtue by interpreting the Platonic dialogues. Beginning with the goal of Theaetetus, “likeness to god”, Plotinus frames his discussion with a glance to the virtue exhibited by World Soul, giving a cosmic significance to the Delphic command, “know thyself”. Within this cosmic framework, the limited sphere of human, “political” virtues is subordinated to higher forms of purification. Purificatory virtue is revealed as the missing step between the political virtues and their archetypes. This step is mediatory and dynamic; as a lower form of purification, civic virtue is dignified as the necessary condition for the soul’s divinisation. World Soul is the exemplary possessor of perfect virtue, and as such operates as the mediatrix for human souls. This particular mediation illustrates the foundation of virtue for Plotinus: the non-anthropocentric, providential activity of the most contemplative of all souls.