Editing Plotinus (section)

=== The true human and happiness ===
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 |quote = The philosophy of Plotinus has always exerted a peculiar fascination upon those whose discontent with things as they are has led them to seek the realities behind what they took to be merely the appearances of the sense.
 |source = ''The philosophy of Plotinus: representative books from the Enneads'', p. vii<ref name="Plotinus1950">{{cite book|author=Plotinus|title=The philosophy of Plotinus: representative books from the Enneads|url=https://archive.org/details/philosophyofplot032843mbp|access-date=1 February 2012|year=1950|publisher=Appleton-Century-Crofts|page=vii}}</ref>
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Authentic human happiness for Plotinus consists of the true human identifying with that which is the best in the universe. Because happiness is beyond anything physical, Plotinus stresses the point that worldly fortune does not control true human happiness, and thus “… there exists no single human being that does not either potentially or effectively possess this thing we hold to constitute happiness.” (Enneads I.4.4) The issue of happiness is one of Plotinus’ greatest imprints on Western thought, as he is one of the first to introduce the idea that [[eudaimonia]] (happiness) is attainable only within consciousness.

The true human is an incorporeal contemplative capacity of the soul, and superior to all things corporeal. It then follows that real human happiness is independent of the physical world. Real happiness is, instead, dependent on the metaphysical and authentic human being found in this highest capacity of Reason. “For man, and especially the Proficient, is not the Couplement of Soul and body: the proof is that man can be disengaged from the body and disdain its nominal goods.” (Enneads I.4.14) The human who has achieved happiness will not be bothered by sickness, discomfort, etc., as his focus is on the greatest things. Authentic human happiness is the utilization of the most authentically human capacity of contemplation. Even in daily, physical action, the flourishing human’s “… Act is determined by the higher phase of the Soul.” (Enneads III.4.6) Even in the most dramatic arguments Plotinus considers (if the Proficient is subject to extreme physical torture, for example), he concludes this only strengthens his claim of true happiness being metaphysical, as the truly happy human being would understand that which is being tortured is merely a body, not the conscious self, and happiness could persist.

Plotinus offers a comprehensive description of his conception of a person who has achieved [[eudaimonia]]. “The perfect life” involves a man who commands reason and contemplation. (Enneads I.4.4) A happy person will not sway between happy and sad, as many of Plotinus' contemporaries believed. Stoics, for example, question the ability of someone to be happy (presupposing happiness is contemplation) if they are mentally incapacitated or even asleep. Plotinus disregards this claim, as the soul and true human do not sleep or even exist in time, nor will a living human who has achieved eudaimonia suddenly stop using its greatest, most authentic capacity just because of the body’s discomfort in the physical realm. “… The Proficient’s will is set always and only inward.” (Enneads I.4.11)

Overall, happiness for Plotinus is "... a flight from this world's ways and things." (Theaet. 176) and a focus on the highest, i.e. Forms and the One.

Plotinus regarded happiness as living in an interior way (interiority or self-sufficiency), and this being the obverse of attachment to the objects of embodied desires.<ref>{{Cite book|chapter-url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plotinus/#HumaPsycEthi|title=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|chapter=Plotinus|year=2018|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University}}</ref>