Der Geist als Bild des Einen

Plotinus claims that Intellect, the second hypostasis, is an image of the transcendent One or Good. While this is certainly an application of the paradeigmatist language inherited from the Platonic theory of Forms, it is not obvious how this claim squares with the Neoplatonic axiom that the One transcends Being and Thought and is absolutely formless. I argue that Plotinus solves this dilemma by interpreting Plato’s characterization of Intellect and Being as “Good-like” in such a way as to refer, not to the eidetic properties of Intellect, but to the goodness, desirability and unifying power it receives from the One. While these are not reducible to Intellect’s essence, they are nevertheless an integral part of its being insofar as Intellect is fully real and intelligible only through the First Principle’s presence in it. It may be said, then, that Intellect is an image of the One in a non-paradigmatic sense.