Plotinus Ennead IV.9: on Whether All Souls Are One: Translation, with an Introduction, and Commentary

An early philosophical essay investigates the idea that individual human souls and the world-soul are united as one distinct entity. It examines and refutes common objections and materialist perspectives, proposing that every soul reflects the entire soul hypostasis—much like a theorem captures the essence of a whole science. This short, early treatise undertakes to explain the controversial thesis that all souls—this includes individual human souls and the world-soul—are in some sense just one soul. Plotinus considers a number of objections that can be raised against the thesis. For instance, if the thesis is true, it may seem to follow that that everything that holds for one soul also holds for every other soul. Plotinus seeks to explain that such objections are off the mark, which also shows that the thesis about the unity of soul is not a claim about strict identity of all souls. He then (chapter 5) considers and rejects two materialistic hypotheses about the relationship between individual souls and the world-soul. In the final chapter he presents his own solution: the individual souls and the world-soul are all the soul hypostasis. He likens the relationship between the hypostatic soul and the individual souls with that between a science and the theorems of the science: each theorem potentially contains the whole science and can in a sense be said to be it.