The senses of life in Plotinus

Abstract

The aim is to interrogate how Plotinus develops an argument aimed at broadening the concept of life, linked to the notion of eudaimonia in treatise 46 (I 4). This expansion is made in the context of a critique of the Aristotelian conception of eudaimonia. The Plotinian strategy is to extend the concept of homonymy, as well as the consequences of the Aristotelian function argument. By stating that life is said in many ways, Plotinus is saying that there is a good life for every living being, insofar as it fully fulfils its function. Thus, eudaimonia extends to all dimensions of the living world, so that the Aristotelian argument is used against the very Aristotelian restriction of eudaimonia to the "function proper to the human being", as capable of reason.Considered this argument, it is possible to analyse the different registers of life in Plotinus, and it is possible to read the treatise 30 from an antignostic perspective assumed by Plotinus in the cycle of treatises 30-33. On the other hand, it is possible to conceive the extent of Plotinian argumentation on the homonymy of life in dialogue with late Aristotelian commentators.