A very great deal of reading, which you’d better attend to pretty quickly.

Hah... okay

Advice. Claude, ChatGPT, character.ai will give you better answers, and quicker, than most here could.

No, seriously, welcome to the Forum and all, and there are folks here who know these materials, but there is a lot in those questions. As the above poster suggests, now we have AI which is like Google on steroids, give it a whirl, but also make sure it recommends the appropriate texts. And also be very wary at the early stage of relying too much on tech, these are the foundation texts for all philosophy and it is really important to take time to absorb them.

How does Kenny describe the difference?
Which book are you reading? Is your exam on this book or upon different materials?
Have you read any of the original writings of Plato and Plotinus?

Sure I'll look a bit better, thanks!

Is this his "A New History?" That's probably my favorite survey of Western Philosophy (although Durant has the best prose), and the topical organization is good, but it's a mile wide and an inch deep (sort of by necessity).


The question your asking isn't an easy one to answer easily. I could recommend sources. Eric Perl's "Thinking Being," would be a good one, even if you just read the Parmenides, Plato, and Plotinus chapters. It has its own particular view of things, but it is a compelling one and his couching of ancient philosophy in the terms of contemporary phenomenology is useful.

Another one I always recommend for its accessibility is Robert Wallace's Philosophical Mysticism in Plato and Hegel, but this is doesn't touch on Plotinus much.

Schindler's "Plato's Critique of Impure Reason" is good on the Plato side of the equation as well, maybe a bit much to try to absorb in a short time period though. Your school might have any of these in a digital library.

Or, sometimes it's helpful to listen to things. The Teaching Company has a really great series of lectures by Michael Sugrue on Plato. For your question you could focus on the ones on the Republic, Parmenides, Phaedrus/Symposium, and Timaeus. These are free with an Audible membership, which I think you could sign up for and cancel (and then you also get one free book). There is a lot less stuff on Plotinus, but the free podcast "A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps," has some decent episodes on Plotinus and they are short. Since these are made for listening, it's easier to drive, etc. while absorbing them than many audiobooks.

I mean, I would highly advise reading them closely and sitting with the texts themselves, but it can be helpful to start with some text that is more accessible and lays out the historical context and connections.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is the other obvious place to go. And the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. They should both have articles on the "One and the Many."