Neoplatonic Virtue: On the Daimon and the Soul’s Ascent
In this class, we complete our reading of Plotinus’ treatise On Our Allotted Guardian Spirit (Ennead III.4), focusing on the soul’s daimonic destiny and its capacity for recollection and ascent.
We explore how birth disturbs the soul's original alignment, why even the wise do not begin life under their true daimon, and how the soul can recover its guiding spirit by returning to its original choices.
Drawing from Plato’s Timaeus, Phaedo, and the Republic, we discuss the soul’s journey through embodiment, its relation to the World Soul, and the double motion of animation: through presence and through withdrawal.
The class concludes with reflections on the Spindle of Necessity and the soul’s freedom to ascend toward the intelligible or descend toward multiplicity, setting the stage for our upcoming discussions of virtue in Porphyry’s Launching-Points to the Intelligible.
👉 Next Class: We begin reading Porphyry’s chapter on the fourfold scale of virtues.