O tempo no pensamento de Plotino

Abstract

The problem about the category time was elaborated, by Plotinus, in his treatment of life and of the world. Consequently, in defining what the time is, Plotinus recourses to the generating and animating principle of the things, what they are, essentially. In developing the treatise in which he dedicates the issue, Plotinus recognizes that it is something inherent to the soul, as it is life and, its activity, the proper effect of time. Man realizes that he is in time and, therefore, he is able to ask what he is. Accordingly, the process of knowledge of time highlights a selfknowledge of the soul, since it is by the soul that man opens himself to the knowledge and recognizes himself there. Time is for the life of the soul, and its derivation comes from a superior and, hence, an eternal principle. Therefore, in developing this issue, Plotinus recourses to the Platonic understanding where time is something derived from eternity. Thus, time and eternity belong to the order of life, be that the life of the soul and this, the life of the intellect. For this reason, the understanding of what is the time and the eternity comes from the henologic understanding of the reality described by Plotinus.