Wilberding, James. Review of Pauliina Remes' PLOTINUS ON SELF. NDPR (May 2009).

Remes, Pauliina. Plotinus on Self: the Philosophy of the 'We'. Cambridge: CUP, 2007.

One's 'self,' like one's 'true love,' might seem prima facie to be the kind of term whose very meaning demands its own uniqueness. Of course we can speak of someone having 'another (and another) true love,' but we can't do so without diminishing the sense of the phrase. Used often enough one might suspect that it refers to nothing more than someone whom one really likes or desires. So what are we to make of someone like Plotinus who suggests that each one of us has two selves -- an embodied self and an immaterial self? This is the question that Remes sets out to tackle in her recent book, in which she aims to demonstrate that Plotinus does have a coherent and unified conception of the self that has an important role to play in his metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. This is a rich book that discusses far more than could be covered in a single review, and in what follows I shall focus on what I take to be some of its central theses on the unity of selfhood. . . .

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Stamatellos, Giannis. Review of Pauliina Remes' PLOTINUS ON SELF. BMCR January 6, 2009.

Remes, Pauliina. Plotinus on Self: the Philosophy of the 'We'. Cambridge: CUP, 2007. During the last thirty years of scholarship considerable attention has been paid to Plotinus' theory of the self. The first complete monograph derives from G. O. Daly's influential study Plotinus' Philosophy of the Self (published in 1973) and, so far, a considerable number of studies have been published on Plotinus' conception of selfhood, with more recently the work of Richard Sorabji Self: Ancient and Modern Insights about Individuality, Life and Death (Oxford, 2006). Remes' book aims to offer a new, complete and multi-angled study on Plotinus' philosophy of the self 'not just for students and scholars of Neoplatonism but also for readers interested in self and/or ancient philosophy in general, but who may be unacquainted with the subtleties of the heavy metaphysics of Plotinus' (p. 18). Ancient philosophers constantly declared the importance of self-knowledge and self-reflection. From the Presocratic and the Socratic exhortation to 'know yourself', to the Stoic psychology of the self, the concept of selfhood underlies not only the self-reflective nature of psyche but also the perceptible and cognitive relation of ourselves to the others. Plotinus develops the concept of selfhood in different philosophical matters. Initially he notably prefers the plural 'we' in place of a singular 'I' and poses, as Remes correctly states (p. 9), the central philosophical aporia: 'Who are we?' (Ennead VI.4.14.16). This question highlights the distinction between the terms 'person' and 'self'; whereas 'person' is a term related to the body, preferences and responsibilities, the term 'self' is more directly related to human soul. . . . Read the rest here: http://www.bmcreview.org/2009/01/20090106.html.

Adamson, Peter. Review of Pauliina Remes' NEOPLATONISM. NDPR (January 2009).

Remes, Pauliina. Neoplatonism. Cheshire: Acumen, 2008.

Acumen's new series, Ancient Philosophies, offers student-friendly overviews of various figures and aspects of ancient thought. (Where "ancient thought" is rather broadly construed: forthcoming volumes will deal with Confucianism and Classical Islamic Philosophy.) The volume under review here, on Neoplatonism, is one of four to appear so far, the others being on the Presocratics, Cynicism, and Stoicism. It is by Pauliina Remes, who has recently established herself as an up-and-coming scholar of Neoplatonism with her excellent book Plotinus on Self. Moreover, there is a plausible need for a book like this: the only book really comparable to the present one was originally published in 1972. Remes' book benefits extensively from recent work on Plotinus and other Neoplatonic authors, and offers a readable and accurate introduction to the topic. So it is a welcome resource, especially for anyone who teaches in this area. The first problem that Remes would have had to consider in writing this book was the scope of her task. Neoplatonism, broadly construed, takes in nearly all philosophy in Greek subsequent to Plotinus, including Byzantine philosophy. It furthermore includes a lot of the medieval tradition: even if one hesitates to call, say, Averroes or Aquinas a Neoplatonist, there isn't much doubt that it is an accurate word to use for al-Farabi, to say nothing of the Pseudo-Dionysius and Eriugena. In the event Remes has opted for a narrow (and hence feasible) treatment of "Neoplatonism," whose scope is restricted not only to the late ancient tradition up to commentators of the Alexandrian school in the 6th c. AD, but to the pagan Platonists of this period. Thus she remarks that John Philoponus was "not, properly speaking, a Neoplatonist," because he was Christian (32). Within "Neoplatonism" thus defined, Remes further skirts around the commentators on Aristotle, no doubt because this same series will soon add a volume on the commentators by Miira Tuominen. In sum, then, Remes gives a somewhat restrictive idea of what "Neoplatonism" is, but she is probably right to do so. It should be added, on the other hand, that the later traditions left out by her definition are dealt with in a summary fashion in a closing chapter on the Neoplatonic legacy. A second problem in writing a book like this is whether to organize the material thematically or historically. Remes has opted for the former, with chapters on such topics as psychology, epistemology and ethics and politics. (This last chapter, incidentally, is an example of how Remes weaves recent scholarship into her account: her treatment of Neoplatonic political philosophy makes good use of the groundbreaking recent monograph by Dominic O'Meara on the topic.) She presents the problems faced by the Neoplatonists first and foremost as philosophical ones, and is at pains to make Neoplatonism accessible to the modern reader. . . .

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