Mensch

The chapter outlines some basic lines of Plotinus’ anthropology, one of the central themes of his philosophy. It begins with his dichotomy of the human being or the self, from which arises the question of the individuality both of the empirical human being associated with the body and of the transcendent intellectual self as well as the problem of the continuity of individual consciousness. The ethics resulting from this anthropology is briefly traced, with the concept of freedom and self-determination at its center. Finally, the human being is briefly distinguished from the animal by addressing, among other things, the question of the transmigration of the human soul into an animal body.