The Triad “Being, Living, and Thinking” and the Dynamic Structure of Thought in Plotinus

This article examines the dynamic character of the Plotinian conception of reality based on his particular appropriation of the identity of the notions of being, living, and thinking. It is argued that this proposal is characterized both by its adoption of classical sources (above all, Aristotelian epistemology) and by the extension of the triadic structure of the Intellect to reality as a whole. This extension allows Plotinus both to show the continuity between the different levels of reality (because of the origin of life in general from the Life of the Intellect) and to account for the necessity and possibility for the human soul to ascend to the Intellect. In this way, it is shown how the dynamic structure of the Intellect determines the contemplative, self-constitutive, and creative moments of each of the hypostases of Plotinus’s system.