Plotinos: Complete Works, V. 4in Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods
Translated by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie
Plotinus asks a question that still haunts us: can a tree be happy? Can your dog feel something like what you feel when you watch the sunset? This volume of the Enneads launches into one of philosophy's most radical investigations of happiness, stretching the concept beyond human rationality to ask what it really means to flourish. Drawing on Aristotle, the Stoics, and something older, Plotinus argues that happiness is not pleasure or even virtue alone, it is the complete actualization of your essence, the fullest expression of what you are. For a plant, that means being fully a plant. For an animal, fully an animal. For you, something far more. As the last great mind of antiquity, Plotinus builds a bridge between pagan wisdom and Christian theology, between rational philosophy and mystical union with the One. This is philosophy as it was meant to be: dangerous, transformative, impossible to put down.
