The One and the Many

Chapter 1 examines the relation of the one to the many in Plotinus, which is fundamental for his thought. It establishes a system of axiomatic claims about the one, such as that there is a principle of the whole, which is also the principle of being that transcends being; that the act of producing is ontologically prior to and more perfect than what is produced; and that everything perfect produces of necessity. It further argues that both the one and otherness transpire in the constitution of three different representations of the many, which are the ideal numbers, the intellect that thinks the plurality of the noetic objects, and matter. Otherness, then, inevitably appears as dual and ambiguous, as both the rationally conceivable principle of negativity and also as pure indefiniteness, in which respect it is similar to matter.