Plotinus Ennead IV.3-4.29

John Dillon is Emeritus Fellow and former Regius Professor of Greek at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland as well as founder and Director Emeritus of the Centre for the Study of the Platonic Trad­ition in Trinity College. He is the author of many books on the history of the Platonic tradition, including The Middle Platonists; Alcinous, The Handbook of Platonism; Iamblichus, De Anima; The Heirs of Plato: A Study of the Old Academy, 347–274 BC; and editor of three collections of essays on Platonism and Christianity and on the platonic heritage. In 2004 he was awarded the Academy Gold Medal in the Humanities by the Royal Irish Academy, and in 2010 he was elected a Corresponding Member of the Academy of Athens.

The soul is the key doctrine in Plotinus, both as a topic and as justification for his methodology. For humans to turn to address the soul is for them to obey the Socratic injunction to ‘know thyself’. It is the point of entry into a study that will open to all of reality, insofar as it can be known. As bequeathed from his predecessors Plato and Aristotle, the soul has two functions, to be the principle of life and unity for a body, but also to be a pivot of vision or realization that may turn either up or down"". - Heythrop Journal