ABSTRACT
Neoplatonic metaphysics does more than tell a story; it is illocutionary as well as indexical, in so far as it tells us how to see the world and how things got to their present state, and o ers a corrective for our current condition, namely ignorance.1 Neoplatonic metaphysics seeks to explain appearances (the world) in a way that simultaneously calls that very thing – the world – into question. Accordingly, the metaphysical discourses of Neoplatonism move in two directions: they are constructive, a rming and revealing a vision of reality that is not yet in evidence. Plotinus attracts the reader into the project of uncovering that reality by o ering instructions (see Rappe 2000) in how to work with the text or doctrine: “Shut your eyes and change to and wake another way of seeing”;2 “Let there be in the soul a shining imagination of a sphere”;3 “One must not chase a er it, but wait quietly til it appears” (Enn. V.5[32].8.4). ese discourses are also deconstructive and apophatic. Plotinus assists his reader in denying and removing a vision of reality that is already too much in evidence: “How to see this? Take away everything!”4
