A PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTION ON PLOTINUS’ CONCEPT OF BEAUTY 

AS AN ECSTATIC EXPERIENCE OF THE SOUL 
 

Justin Nnaemeka ONYEUKAZIRI 

 

Abstract 

This paper posits Plotinus‘ conception of beauty as not only one of the answers to the 

question on how to fill the lacuna created by the demise of religious sublimity and 

awareness in many. But is the most persuasive and transforming way for individual 

spiritual transformation and by extension the transformation of the world. It focuses on 

Plotinus‘ concept of beauty, from the perspective of the human person. Attention has been 

given to Plotinus‘ aesthetics mostly within the general scope of Platonism, focusing on the 

notion of beauty as form (intellectual beauty) and on the question of whether or not beauty 

is conceived as symmetry both in Plato and Plotinus. This paper claims that the notion of 

beauty for Plotinus is an ecstatic experience of the soul. Thus, for Plotinus, beauty is not 

just aesthetical, it is more so a spiritual experience in the soul. This focus on Plotinus‘ 

notion of beauty is considered important as an alternative way for the cultivation of the 

interior life, in a world that is increasing becoming secularized. It is also relevant because 

the philosophical focus on beauty has largely been on the object out there. Even when a 

subjective focus is given on the concept of beauty, it is not largely focused on the spiritual 

transformation of the human person. Hence, this paper, is an analytical exposition of 

Plotinus‘ works on beauty. 

Keywords: Aesthetics, Beauty, Ecstatic Experience, Soul 

 

1. Introduction 

Plotinus (203-270 CE), as the father of Neo-Platonism no doubt occupies a very important 

position in the history of Western Philosophy, especially in the ranks of Hellenistic 

philosophers. His impact and the influence of his thoughts on Christian philosophy and 

religion in general during its earlier period is enormous. Thus, his works are not  

unfamiliar to many Christian and Islamic religious and philosophical scholars, especially 

during the early medieval period. While attention has been sizably given to his 

metaphysics, comparably less has been given to his aesthetics. On many occasions, when 

attention is given to his aesthetics, it is done within the general scope of Platonism. By 

focusing on the question of whether or not beauty is conceived as symmetry or in sense- 

perception, this work thus, aims at focusing on Plotinus‘ notion of beauty, from the 

perspective of the human person. That is to say, what does beauty do to the human person; 

how does beauty affect and transform the human person. This paper claims that the notion 

of beauty for Plotinus is an ecstatic experience of the soul. Thus, beauty is not just 

aesthetical, for Plotinus it is more so spiritual. This focus on Plotinus‘ notion of beauty is 



Onyeukaziri A Philosophical Reflection on Plotinus Concept of … 

 

considered important as an alternative way for the cultivation of the interior life, in a 

world that is increasing becoming secularized. It is also relevant because the philosophical 

focus on beauty has largely been on the object out there. Even when a subjective focus is 

given on the concept of beauty, it is not largely focused on the spiritual transformation of 

the human person. Therefore, to execute this research, focus would be given primarily to 

Plotinus‘ works and reference to other texts would be provided if it is necessary to 

understand Plotinus‘ own text. The methodology implored would be more an analytical 

and personal reflective reading of Plotinus. Hence, to put in perspective the Plotinus 

notion of beauty as the ecstatic experience of the soul, a brief exposition of Plotinus‘ 

Cosmology will be exposed. This will help to clarify Plotinus‘ understanding of the soul 

and its relationship with the realities in his cosmology as its relates to his notion of beauty. 

Thus, to execute this, the following steps are taken: first, concisely expose Plotinus‘ 

Cosmology. Second, Plotinus‘ Analysis and Critique of the General Concept of Beauty 

will be exposed. Third, a reflection on Beauty as an Ecstatic Experience of the Soul will 

be expounded. Then there will be a conclusion reflecting on the transforming effect of 

beauty in the individual and the world. 

 

2. Plotinus’ Cosmology 

Plotinus is a thinker of an acutely active and rigorous critical mind, yet deeply spiritual 

and transcendental in his thinking and speculation. O‘Meara (2010:301), describes 

Plotinus thus: ―Among the philosophers of late antiquity Plotinus stands out as a thinker of 

exceptional depth, subtlety, originality and power.‖ He is indeed a man fully devoted to the 

transcendental life, whose last words to his pupil and his doctor, Eustochius, is: ―Try to 

bring the divine in us to the divine in the All‖ (quoted in O‘Meara 2010: 302). As a diehard 

Platonist, to understand the philosophy of Plotinus, and specifically his notion of beauty, 

one has to understand at least the fundamental positions in the philosophy of Plato. For 

instance, with respect to the concept of beauty, Yount (2014:49), notes: 
 

Both philosophers hold the following claims to be true: beauty is a Form; 

beauty is similar to but not identical with the Good; one can have a 

transformative vision of Beauty; the imitator (artist, poet) of Beauty does not 

know if the imitations are in fact beautiful or how bad his imitations are. 
 

Besides, the philosophical kinship shared between Plato and Plotinus, to understand 

Plotinus‘ philosophy, one also, needs to understand the positions where Aristotle differs 

from Plato. More so, how Aristotle attempts to resolve the problems he considers inherent 

in Plato‘s philosophy. This is because Plotinus, though being the most outstanding and 

faithful Platonist, especially during the Hellenistic period, he never considered Aristotle as 

an adversary of Plato. Plotinus, considers Aristotle as walking on the same philosophical 

paths as his master, Plato, and that he misunderstood certain positions of Plato. This, he 



Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 1(1), 2021 

 

tries to rectify by mutually employing the philosophical thoughts of both Plato and 

Aristotle in his own philosophical discourse. Keeping with the philosophical spirit of the 

Hellenistic Roman periods, Plotinus thoughts are not merely rational philosophical 

positions separated from life, but a philosophy of life. A seeking, that is aimed at being a 

source of moral and spiritual ways of life for a person. During this period, in fact, 

philosophy as spirituality, the training and preparing of the soul for death, was at its peak. 

Keeping this in mind, the perspective of the cosmology of Plotinus could be understood. 
 

As a Platonist, Plotinus‘ world-view or cosmology is idealist, thus, he maintains the key 

trends of Plato‘s cosmology and cosmogony. Plato‘s main exposition of his cosmology is 

in the dialogue entitled, Timaeus. And Plato‘s cosmology is the fruit of his reflection and 

the discussion with his students in Timaeus. Plotinus believes in a world that is structurally 

ordered, with three hypostases/principles: The One, the Intellect (nous) and the Soul 

(psuche). O‘Meara (307: footnote no. 11), observes: ‗Modern studies sometimes refer to 

Soul, Intellect and the One, in Plotinus, as ―hypostases‖. However, Plotinus uses the term 

hupostasis to refer, not to the One, but to the realities it produces, and a better term for all 

three would be ―principles‖, as suggested by Gerson 1994:3.‘ He holds the existence of an 

ultimate transcendental reality, the First Principle, which he calls the One or the Good. 

The One is the First, ―in the sense that it is simplest, and the self-Sufficient, because it is 

not composed of a number of parts‖ (Against the Gnostics, Bk II, 9(1),10). From the one 

comes the Divine Intellect which contains the Forms of all things. After the Divine 

Intellect comes the Soul, and then the bodies and all other lower realities of purely 

corporal nature. The One is the generative force of all things, thus it is the transcendental 

Absolute Being, Good, Beauty and Truth. Thus, the One is beyond the complete grasp of 

every human language. Hence, he maintains, ‗whenever we say ―the One‖ and whenever 

we say ―the Good,‖ we must think that the nature we are speaking of is the same nature, 

and call it ―one‖ not as predicating anything of it but as making it clear to ourselves as far 

as we can‘ (Against Gnostics, BK II, 9(1), 5-10). Thus however, language is used, 

however, because it is the only way to communicate or engage in a discourse of the One. 

The One is not like the Judeo-Christian God, that is, a creator outside the world. The One 

is eternally transcendent from the world and immanent in the world. In the same way, 

other levels of being in the Plotinus‘ universe, are not completely apart from another. 

Hence, though the Divine Intellect, the Soul and body are distinct beings, the body is in 

the soul, the soul is in the Intellect and the Intellect is in the One. 
 

While the One is the Absolute Good, Plotinus conceives matter, that is the sense-world, as 

the principle of evil (in the moral sense). Plotinus, employs a rational formative principle 

which he calls, logos, that flows from the Intellect, to explain the becoming and order of 

all things by providence (On Providence (1), Book 3(2),15-25). On the hierarchical order 

of levels of being in Plotinus, Armstrong (1966: xvii), elucidates that the One though 

ontological remote and distinct from other beings in his cosmology, the One is 



Onyeukaziri A Philosophical Reflection on Plotinus Concept of … 

 

metaphysically present in all the other beings in the hierarchy. Hence, Armstrong 

(Armstrong,1966: xii) contends that there is an outgoing movement from unity (the One) 

to ever-increasing multiplicity (matter), which is a downward movement; the other 

movement is an upward movement from multiplicity to unification (the One). He 

considers these two movements as the profound tension in the thought of Plotinus on the 

understanding of the First Principle. 
 

This means, that while there is generative movement of multiplicity downwards from the 

One via the Intellect and the Soul, there is a transcendental ascending movement of 

unification and perfection, from the Soul via the Intellect to the One. This ontological 

relationship between the One, the Intellect and the Soul and their downward and upward 

movements respectively, are very essential in understanding Plotinus‘ notion of beauty. 

Below, then, shall be an analysis of his critique of the general conception of the beautiful. 

 

3. Plotinus’ Analysis and Critique of the General Concept of Beauty 

Plotinus‘ concept of beauty is brilliantly exposed in his treatise entitled, On Beauty. 

Plotinus begins this treatise by reflecting on how beauty has been hitherto generally 

understood. Hence, Plotinus (On Beauty Book(Bk) 1, 6(1), 1-5) submits: 
 

Beauty is mostly in sight, but it is to be found too in things we hear, in 

combinations of words and also in music, and in all music [not only in songs]; 

for tunes and rhythms are certainly beautiful: and for those who are advancing 

upwards from sense-perception ways of life and actions and characters and 

intellectual activities are beautiful, and there is the beauty of virtue. 
 

In the above reference, Plotinus briefly summarizes how beauty has been generally 

conceived before and during his era. Thus, it should not be understood as the definition of 

beauty proper to him. His assertion is, according to the general view of many, beauty is 

conceived as activities within the realm of sense-perception. He strongly disagrees with 

this position. To this general view, the organs for sight and hearing, are the most prevalent 

human organs in the activities of conceiving beauty. When this is the case, then objects of 

beauty, could be found in physical and visible objects of nature and in fine and literary art 

works, like painting, sculpture, drawings, music, poetry, and songs of different forms.   

The second level of the general view of beauty in his submission stated above, is the 

conception  of  beauty  in  ―action  and  characters.‖  Though  Plotinus  did  not  provide 

examples of the beauties conceived in ―action and characters‖. It would not be incorrect to 

include here the beauties of drama, play and other theatric activities and the beauty of 

sports and military actions. The third level of the general view of beauty, is the beauty of 

or in intellectual activities: this would include all contemplative activities that engage the 

human mind or intellect. Definitely the engagement in the natural sciences, mathematics 



Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 1(1), 2021 

 

and above all Philosophy (metaphysics) would belong to this category of beauty. The 

fourth level of the general view of beauty is the beauty of virtue: The beauty of virtue as 

the name implies is the beauty of the soul as a result of the virtuous activities of the soul. 

Thus, this, is the beauty we perceive in the actions of a courageous, humble, patient, 

charitable person and the like. 
 

Among the four general views of beauty highlighted above as summarized by Plotinus, the 

first and the second are not considered to be essential in what Plotinus constitutes as the 

beautiful. He only considers the third and the fourth views as the activities where what 

constitutes beauty could be possible. It shall be argued below, that Plotinus considers the 

beauty of virtue as the greatest of all conceptions of beauty. The beauties of intellectual 

activities and the beauty of virtue are both that of non-sense-perception. They are spiritual 

in nature, for they involve and engage the interior life of a person. Therefore, Plotinus 

considers the realm of sense-perception as not being principal for the conception of 

beauty. 
 

In the second paragraph on the treatise On Beauty (Bk 1, 6(1), 10-20), Plotinus raises six 

questions which could be considered as fundamental aesthetic questions: 
 

a. What makes us imagine or think a thing (body) is beautiful and attracts us? 
b. How are all the things which depend on the soul beautiful? 
c. Are things all beautiful by a single beauty or are there different beauties in different 

things? 

d. What is this single or multiple beauties? 

e. What is the principle of beauty which is present in bodies (things)? 

f. What is it that attracts the gaze of people to a thing and makes them to enjoy the thing? 
 

(a) raises the question on the why and where of the beautiful. Is the beautiful objectively  

in things or subjectively in the person who perceives the object? In other words, is the 

beautiful in the object per se, or in the person per se or in both? (b) presupposes that 

things depends on the soul to be judged to be beautiful. Which means that the beautiful is 

not in the object per se. But the critical question of (b), is how does the beautiful in a 

thing/object depend on the soul? This he claims has to do with the forms of things. Things 

can be beautiful because they possess forms. As would be argued below, for Plotinus to be 

formless is to be ugly; formlessness is disorder. The question (c) raises the problematic 

that is inherent when the beautiful is conceived in respect to being ―well-proportioned‖ or 

mathematically symmetrical. When a beautiful house is adjudged to be such, is it as a 

result of the combination of the beauty of the constituted parts that are well-proportioned 

or is it as a result of the collective whole, which is the house? If it is either a single beauty 

or multiple beauties, (d) seeks to know what this beauty or these beauties are. (e) raises the 

questions on the quiddity of beauty, what makes beautiful things beautiful? That is to say 

what is the Form of beauty per se? He considers, the last question (f) of a paramount 



Onyeukaziri A Philosophical Reflection on Plotinus Concept of … 

 

importance. For the understanding of it, he thinks is a stepping-stone to the understanding 

of the rest of the questions. (f) presupposes that the beautiful attracts and excites. But why 

do we get attracted to the beautiful and are excited in the beautiful is the crux of the 

question. 
 

Thus, he asks: ―What is it that attracts the gaze of those who look at something, and turns 

and draws them to it and makes them enjoy the sight?‖ First, he gives the general responses 

of people. The first and common response is ―good proportion of the parts to each 

other and to the whole, with the addition of good colour‖ (Bk 1, 6(1), 20-25). Simply put,  

being  beautiful  is  being  ―well-proportioned  and  measured.‖  This  is  the  question: 

whether or not beauty is symmetry? There has been a scholarly controversy among 

scholars on Plotinus, whether Plato and Plotinus have the same view on beauty as 

symmetry. Yount (2014:49-51), claims, Anton and Rist, posit that Plato did not hold 

beauty as symmetry but Plotinus does; but contrary to their views, he argues that both 

Plato and Plotinus are in agreement on the idea of symmetry and beauty. Yount argues, 

that Plotinus holds that beauty is Form, but only argues for beauty as symmetry with 

regards to objects of sense-perception. And he believes that, that is also Plato‘s position. 

Gerson (1994), seems to hold that Plotinus was reluctant to identify beauty with 

symmetry.  He  contends:  ―On  reflection,  however,  the  refusal  to  identify  beauty,  even 

bodily beauty, with symmetry is somewhat puzzling. As we have seen, matter is 

unmeasuredness or absence of symmetry and form is a kind of symmetry‖ (p. 213). 
 

This paper argues, neither Plato nor Plotinus opposes this theory, they both hold that well- 

proportioned and measure of parts and the whole, make up what is said to be beautiful. 

Nevertheless, they did not consider well-proportioned and measure, that is, symmetry, as 

what defines the beautiful. It is the contemporaneous Hellenistic school of thought, the 

Stoics, who exclusively define the beautiful as well-proportioned and measured with the 

addition of good colour (see Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, IV). Plotinus‘ contention on 

this theory, is that if well-proportioned and measured is what essentially defines the 

beautiful, it implies that ―nothing single and simple but only a composite thing will have 

any beauty‖ (Bk 1, 6(1), 25-30). For if beauty is in the whole as well-proportioned, it 

implies, the parts cannot be beautiful, since the parts are not well-proportioned. But how 

can there be the whole without the part? One can not even conceive the whole without 

necessarily conceiving the parts. Hence, Plotinus contends, if it is the case that beauty is 

exclusively well-proportioned, then, only the whole will be beautiful not the parts that 

make the whole. For the parts of a whole, do not have the property of beauty by 

themselves. When the beauty of a thing is grasped, the thing is grasped as a whole not in 

parts. 
 

Plotinus‘ question for those who claim that beauty is well-proportioned per se, then will 

be, how can the whole be beautiful when the parts that makes the whole are not beautiful? 



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Plotinus‘  counterargument  is  that,  ―if  the  whole is  beautiful  the  parts  must  be  beautiful 

too; a beautiful whole can certainly not be composed of ugly parts; all the parts must have 

beauty‖ (Bk 1, 6(1), 30-35). Therefore, he deductively contends that it is not possible for 

the whole to be beautify without the parts. More so, even for a body that is whole, 

sometimes either because of lack of colours, or excess of colour from natural sunlight or 

from human made lights, things are judged to be beautiful or not beautiful. Therefore, 

Plotinus rejects this theory of beauty as well-proportioned as unsubstantial. He adjudges, 

―being beautiful is something else over and above good proportion, and good proportion is 

beautiful  because  of  something  else‖  (Bk  1,  6(1),  40-45).  This  ―something  else‖  that 

constitutes ―being beautiful‖ is what this paper intends to disclose and  will be explored 

below. Plotinus, further rejects this theory (beauty as well-proportioned or symmetry) by 

arguing from beauty as actions: intellectual actions and virtuous actions. He holds that it 

will  be  practically impossible  to  state  what  constitutes  the  ―well-proportioned‖  in  these 

non-body-like activities, if one considers them as having beauty. 
 

After establishing that the theory on well-proportioned and measured in addition with 

good colour, is not sustainable for defining the beautiful, he proffers what he thinks the 

primary beauty in bodies is. He maintains that the primary beauty in bodies: 
 

Is something which we become aware of even at the first glance; the soul 

speaks of it as if it understood it, recognizes and welcomes it and as it were 

adapts itself to it. But when it encounters the ugly it shrinks back and rejects it 

and turns away from it and is out of tune and alienated from it (Bk 1, 6(2),1- 

10). 
 

With this reference, Plotinus maintains a different position on the conception of the 

beautiful. He points to the soul as the fundamental factor in the conception of the 

beautiful. He makes the soul of the human person the ground where the activities of 

beauty take place. For him what makes a thing beautiful is the form of the thing, and this 

form of the thing can only be grasped by the soul of the human person. Hence, without the 

soul it is not possible to grasp the beauty of things. But how does Plotinus conceive the 

soul, which is for him the fundamental principle where the conception of the beautiful 

happens? 
 

Plotinus‘ conception of the soul is akin to the fundamentals of Plato‘s conception of the 

soul, however, it has its own specificity. Plotinus agrees with Plato, in the understanding 

of the soul as the true spiritual and incorporeal being of the human being that inhabits in a 

physical  and  corporal  body.  Thus,  both  agree  that  the  soul  is  the  ―great  intermediary 

between the worlds of intellect and sense and the representative of the former in the latter‖ 

(Armstrong, 1966: xxii). Plotinus, unlike Plato, distinguishes the concept of the third 

hypostasis/principle (that is to say, the hypostasis after the One and the Intellect, in the 



Onyeukaziri A Philosophical Reflection on Plotinus Concept of … 

 

hierarchical structure of Plotinus‘ cosmology as exposed above), into two: the individual 

souls and the Universal Soul. This means for Plotinus, the third hypostasis (the soul) in his 

hierarchy of beings, though one reality is understood in two ways, the Universal Soul and 

the individual souls. The Universal Soul is the same soul that individuates itself as the 

individual souls in every human person. Thus the individual soul as the form of the body 

for Plotinus is more in the sense of the Plato‘s form than in the sense of the Aristotle‘s 

form. The soul of which Plotinus speaks of in reference to beauty, is the individual souls. 

It is the part of a person where the contemplation of forms, and actions of virtues are 

produced and enacted. It is that part of a person that can bring the individual into union 

with the Absolute One. 
 

Hence, Plotinus maintains that, the soul by its very nature, ―is related to the higher kind of 

reality in the realm of being, when it sees something akin to it or a trace of its kindred 

reality, is delighted and thrilled and returns to itself and remembers itself and its own 

possessions‖ (Bk 1, 6(2), 5-10). What this implies, is that Plotinus thinks that the soul 

which is spiritual has the similitude and capacity not only to recognize the beauty as a 

form of everything beautiful, but to also delight in beauty per se. In other words, there is 

something in the nature of the soul that enables it to grasp the beautiful. It is only by the 

means of the soul that beauty as one of the forms produced by the One, by the creative 

principle of Logos in the Intellect can be grasped and experienced by the human person. 
 

Hence, it implies that for Plotinus, the beauty is not in sense-perceptions but in the soul or 

the Intellect. He maintains, that things are beautiful in the material world because they 

participate in the form of the beauty in the Intellect. He puts it thus: ―We maintain that the 

things in this world are beautiful by participating in form‖ (Bk 1, 6(2),15). While he 

explains absolute ugliness, thus: ―for every shapeless thing which is naturally capable of 

receiving shape and form is ugly and outside the divine formative power and form‖ (Bk 1, 

6(2),15-20). One should be careful not to understand the sense of form here, merely as the 

structure of a thing as in Aristotle‘s notion of form. For as in Plato‘s notion of form, 

Plotinus holds that everything has, or better put is capable of a form. If beauty is well- 

formness, ugliness is the distortion of form. It is thus the privation of the form of a thing 

that is naturally capable of receiving form, which is thus, outside the divine formative 

power, that is said to be absolute ugliness. 
 

Below, shall be an exposition of how the soul grasps the form of the beautiful and what 

happens to the soul in its experience of the beautiful. 

 

4. Beauty as Ecstatic Experience of the Soul 

For Plotinus, beauty like truth is grasped by the contemplation of the soul on the form of 

beauty in things, as the soul ascends upwards through the Intellect towards union with the 



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One. The beauty grasped by the contemplation of the soul, is referred by Plotinus as ―the 

beauty beyond.‖ He maintains that, ―about the beauties beyond, which it is no more the 

part of sense to see, but the soul sees them and speaks of them without instruments—we 

must go up to them and contemplate them and leave sense to stay down below‖ (Bk, 6(4), 

1-5). It follows, that, the grasping of the beauty beyond involves a personal encounter or 

an intuitive experience of the soul with the form of the beautiful. To this effect, Plotinus 

posits this experience of the beauty, thus: ―These experiences must occur whenever there 

is contact with any sort of beautiful thing, wonder and a shock of delight and longing and 

passion and a happy excitement‖ (Bk, 6(4),15-20). Thus, one can say for Plotinus the 

quiddity of an aesthetic experience is: a feeling of wonder, a shock of delight, passionate 

longing, and a happy excitement. These feelings are experienced irrespective of the 

beautiful thing encountered. Based on the fact that these experiences take effect in the soul 

of a person, Plotinus thus, argues for the reality of invisible beauties. Hence, holding that 

one can have these aesthetic experiences, he adjudges that the souls can have invisible 

beauties, especially in the soul of those who are passionately in love with the invisible 

activities, which are basically activities of the mind and virtue (See Bk, 6(4),20ff). 
 

Using the metaphor of loving affection stung sharply between lovers, Plotinus, engages in 

a discourse of beauty as an ecstatic experience of the soul. The experience of love between 

lovers, carnal or spiritual, has the characteristic experiences used by Plotinus to describe 

the experience of beauty. They are: wonder, a shock of delight, passionate longing, and a 

happy excitement. Plotinus‘ project here is to demonstrate that the kind of ecstatic 

experience that happens in the soul of the lover in the encounter with the beloved, is a 

similar kind of ecstatic experience that happens in the soul of the person who in union 

with the One, encounters the form of beauty in beautiful things. 
 

Plotinus, asks the question: What makes lovers to have the above feeling? He completely 

rules out all activities on the order of sense-perception, such as shape, colour, size, as the 

cause of the ecstatic experience in the lover. But he claims that what makes lovers have 

these feelings is because of the presence of the souls which possess a moral order of 

virtues. He claims that, ―you feel like this when you see, in yourself or in someone else, 

greatness of soul, a righteous life, a pure morality, courage with its noble look, and dignity 

and modesty advancing in a fearless, calm and unperturbed disposition, and the godlike 

light of intellect shining upon all this‖ (Bk, 6(5),10-15). By this response, Plotinus once 

again dismisses mere ―well-proportioned and colour‖ as the essential properties of beauty. 

He thus exults beauty to a more sublime realm, that is effected by righteousness, virtues 

and an illuminated intellectual life. These properties of beauty, righteousness, virtues and 

illuminated intellectual life, as adduced by Plotinus, are of the invisible and spiritual 

sublime realm that the soul must attain in order to truly grasp the beauty. They are what 

throw us into wonder and excitement when we are in love. Courageous acts or the virtues 

of patient endurance and charity are always attractive and applauded by all, irrespective of 



Onyeukaziri A Philosophical Reflection on Plotinus Concept of … 

 

time, nationality, race, colour or culture. This explains why ethics and aesthetics always 

go together and are rarely inseparable. This sustains the point made above that for 

Plotinus, beauty is essentially a spiritual experience in the soul, not in the activities of 

sense-perception. 
 

Having established beauty as the ecstatic experience in the soul due to the contemplative 

relationship of the soul on the form of beauty, Plotinus further argues that beauty, ―really 

exists‖, by the real existence of the properties that reveal the beautiful above. That is to say, 

beauty as form in the Intellect, has subsistence existence. Beauty is not merely the idea or 

the notion of the beautiful, it has a real existence. Thus, the human soul becomes a 

beautiful soul when it falls in love with Beauty in its path to union with the One. 

According to Gerson (1994:212), this happens ―Because beauty is a property of Forms as 

contemplated, images of Forms possess images of that property. Images of beauty are 

found in bodies, and generally in objects of sight; objects of other senses; ways of life; 

actions; characters; and virtue (1.6.1).‖ In other words, individual things and actions or 

virtue are beautiful because in them is possessed the image of the form of Beauty. 

Therefore, what happens in the experience of the beautiful is the encounter of the soul 

with the form of Beauty per se. This thus, requires a transcending upward movement of 

the human soul beyond the natural realm of sense-perception of individual things. This 

transcendence movement of the soul is enabled and perfected by activities of: virtue, 

righteousness and intellection. Hence, these activities are what makes the soul lovable and 

beautiful. Therefore, for the soul to maintain its beauty, it must not be corrupted by matter 

and the desires and passions of the body. For, ―So we shall be right in saying that the soul 

becomes ugly by mixture and dilution and inclination towards the body and matter‖ (Bk, 

6(5),45-50). Thus, the soul must constantly purge itself of the lust of the body, by leading 

a virtuous and righteous life with a love for a contemplative intellectual life. 
 

Socrates in Plato‘s Phaedo, has argued strongly for philosophy as the major means for the 

purification of the soul, asserting: ―release and separation of the soul from the body is the 

preoccupation of the philosophers‖ (67d). Thus, the courageous and self-controlled soul is 

not consumed by the fire of lusts of the body and has no fear of death, since death brings 

forth the final liberation of the soul from the body. Plotinus, then submits: ―So the soul 

when it is purified becomes form and formative power, altogether bodiless and intellectual 

and entirely belonging to the divine, whence beauty springs and all that is akin to it. Soul, 

then, when it is raised to the level of intellect increases in beauty‖ (Bk, 6(5),15-20). As the 

soul ascends upwards toward the Intellect in the Plotinus‘ cosmology, it increases in 

beauty. This is because, ―Intellect and the things of intellect are its beauty, its own beauty 

and not another‘s, since only then [when it is perfectly conformed to intellect] is it truly 

soul‖ (Bk, 6(5),15-20). Since the soul becomes truly the soul when it conforms to the 

Intellect, the soul, thus, becomes truly beautiful when it units with the universal soul, in 

the Intellect. To this effect, Gerson (1994:212), maintains: ―just as the desire for good is 



Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 1(1), 2021 

 

the desire to be associated with Intellect in contemplating Forms, so beauty is that aspect 

of intelligible reality that produces delight in the contemplator when contemplation is 

occurring.‖ Beyond the conformity with the intellect, the soul becomes not only beautiful 

but also good, when it units with the One, God. By God here, Plotinus‘s God should be 

understood. Which is the Ultimate First Principle of reality, which because it is the 

Absolute, is the Absolute Good and the Absolute Beauty. On the contrary, a soul that is 

not tending in union with the One, becomes ugly and evil. Note, by evil, Plotinus means a 

privation of the good, and by ugly he means a privation of the beautiful. Now God, the 

One, is the Absolute Beauty from which comes the Intellect, which is beauty. The soul is 

given beauty by Intellect. Hence it is the shaping of the soul that makes everything 

beautiful. The soul, which is a form can and is what grasps and masters the form of the 

beautiful in all things said to be beautiful. In fact, the things that are beautiful exist 

because they have forms and they are spoken of as beautiful by the form of the human 

person which is the soul (see Bk, 6(7),35ff). 
 

Having established, what beauty, and how the soul can be beautiful and how the soul 

makes everything it grasps beautiful, Plotinus makes a passionate appeal to seek the truly 

beautiful, the One, God. Since, the One, is the remote source of all forms which is the 

cause of the beautiful, the most sublime experience of the beautiful is union with the One. 

He exhorts that the seeking of this beauty is worth more than any other attainment in life. 

Hence for him, failure in life lays not in the inability to attain physical or perceptive 

beauties, nor socio-political beauties. It lays rather in the failure to grasp and unite with 

the Absolute beauty, which is the One. For a true lover of the One gives away every 

attainment in order to be united with the One, God (see Bk, 6(7),35ff). 
 

This kind of person, no doubt must be spiritual minded not carnal; must seek the things 

above not the things below; must search for the good interiorly not exteriorly. Hence, 

Gerson (1994:216), expounding this point, maintains that Plotinus by this position: 
 

… describes and promotes qualifiedly a world-renouncing conversion…. Let 

us remember that this call to holiness…. is located in the middle of a 

discussion of beauty. This remarkable association of the religious with the 

aesthetic is not of course uniquely Plotinian. But it is to say naturally 

Plotinian. 
 

The soul of such a person must be ready to undergo a necessary training, ―first  of all to 

look at beautiful ways of life: then at beautiful works, not those which the arts produce, 

but the works of men who have a name for goodness: then look at the souls of the people 

who produce the beautiful works‖ (Bk, 6(9),1-10). With personal cultivation and training of 

this sort, the flight of the soul to its lover, Intellect, becomes possible and easy. For the 

Intellect, is the beauty par excellence, and from the Intellect, the soul aims at union with 



Onyeukaziri A Philosophical Reflection on Plotinus Concept of … 

 

the source of beauty, the One. Only the souls which are akin and are like the One, can 

grasp  and  be  beautiful  as  the  One.  For  as  he  posits,  ―No  eye  ever  saw  the  sun  without 

becoming sun-like, nor can a soul see beauty without becoming beautiful‖ (Bk, 6(9),25- 

35). What it implies is that one must necessarily become godlike in order to be united with 

the One, God and become beautiful. And the path to godlikeness is the ascent of the soul 

to the intellect, where lies the Form of beauty, by the ascent to the Intellect to union with 

the One. 

 
5. Conclusion 

This paper focused on Plotinus‘ notion of beauty as the ecstatic experience of the soul, by 

arguing that sense-perception is not considered essential for the grasp of beauty in 

Plotinus. It engaged in a reflection of Plotinus‘ notion or conception of beauty as it 

concerns the spiritual transformation of the human person. That is to say, what beauty 

does to the human person, how beauty affects and transforms the human person, and by 

extension how the beautiful soul could transform the world. It emphasizes that for Plotinus 

beauty is not just aesthetical, it is more so a spiritual experience in the soul. It is the 

transcending upward movement of the soul in union with the One, through the 

contemplation of the form, Beauty, in the Intellect. 
 

Now, one may ask: Of what relevance is Plotinus‘ philosophy of beauty to the world 

today? This paper contends that Plotinus‘ notion of beauty as ecstatic experience of the 

soul is relevant now, not only for the transformation of the individual human person, but 

also for the transformation of the world today. Of course, when individuals are 

transformed, the world by logical necessity will be transformed since it is individual 

human persons that make up the world as a social reality. The world today 

epistemologically speaking, is a scientifically led world. People today seek empirically 

based fact; thus, truth is becoming equal to fact and knowledge equal to science. Our 

world, led by this epistemologically attitude has brought enormously unparalleled 

economic and technological advancements when compared to any other period in human 

history. The metaphysics that seem to support this epistemological disposition is 

fundamentally materialistic and/or physicalistic. The natural consequence of such 

metaphysical dispositions, coupled with capitalistic economic pursuit, is atheism or at best 

agnosticism or secularism. In this kind of world, religion is either killed, suppressed or 

manipulated. In Africa, and most other parts of developing areas of the world, religion is 

getting more and more manipulated. While in the developed parts, religion is getting more 

and more directly or indirectly suppressed. 
 

As the world becomes more scientifically advanced and economically richer, the souls of 

men and women are becoming more and more impoverished and thirsty for truth, beauty 

and tranquility. The interior part, the soul, of the human person can only be cultivated and 



Aquino Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 1(1), 2021 

 

guided by the teachings of religious masters and/or the teachings of wise persons, 

generally called philosophers. Religion and philosophy take upon themselves the 

responsibility to guide the spiritual, intellectual and moral lives of people. They also 

cultivate the soul to transcend the world of sense-perception and encounter the 

transcendent beyond. But in the event when more and more people are becoming 

areligious, secularized or atheistic, the souls of many are panting for a means to satisfy 

their longing for the sublime and for the order of their interior being. It is little wonder that 

there is revival of philosophical discourses in most developing parts of the world. It is 

interesting to see a wave of revival in the ancient and Hellenistic philosophies in the West 

and the increase intensity in the study and research of classical Chinese philosophy and 

Buddhist philosophy in the East. Many non-religious people are going to Stoicism, Neo- 

Platonism, Epicureanism, Confucianism and Buddhism, as guides to cultivate their interior 

life and spirituality. More and more, it is becoming clearer to many that the problem of the 

world today is not merely socio-political or scientific, It is rather, greatly aesthetical, or 

more precisely meta-aesthetical. There is a role that religion plays in human 

consciousness, which is a constant reminder to the human person on the transient nature of 

this world and of the value and aspiration towards the transcendental. But with 

secularization and atheism overwhelming many parts of the West and with the 

manipulation and commercialization of religion in Africa, aesthetical awakening has 

become a central option for the salvation of human interiority. 
 

This paper posits Plotinus‘ conception of beauty as not only one of the answers to the 

question on how to fill the lacuna created by the demise of religious sublimity and 

awareness in many. But is the most persuasive and transforming way for individual 

spiritual transformation and by extension the transformation of the world. The person who 

follows the path of Plotinus‘ activities of the soul in the grasp of beauty, becomes a 

beautiful soul in itself. The ―beautiful soul‖ of Plotinus, is always longing for and desires to 

remain in the ecstatic experience of beauty and union with the One. It does not attach itself 

to goods and honours of this world of sense-perception. Because it has a beautiful soul, it 

is well-ordered and endeavours to make everything it encounters ordered. The beautiful 

soul puts forms in everything that is formless, by so doing making the ugly beautiful. 

When the souls of men and women of this world are converted, and transformed into the 

beautiful soul of Plotinus, this world will be definitely be more peaceful, just and livable. 
 

Therefore, this paper is a reminder of the place of philosophical reflection in our world 

today and a call to visit or revisit the richness in the philosophy of Plotinus, a man who 

spent his life desiring to have a beautiful soul. 



Onyeukaziri A Philosophical Reflection on Plotinus Concept of … 

 
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