Attraction and Distraction:

the Response of the Soul to the Beauty of Intellect as Portrayed in Four Enneads 

By Nissa S. Flanders

While in his early treatises I.6[1] and I.3[20] Plotinus seems to present beauty as an unambiguous aid in the ascent of the soul to the Good, passages from two later treatises (VI.7[38] and V.5[32]) seem to contradict this view as well as contradict each other: VI.7 states that the beauty of intellect, in and of itself, is unattractive until it is enlightened by the Good, while V.5 suggests that intellectual beauty, separated from the Good, can be attractive enough to be a distraction. These passages can be reconciled with each other and with the earlier treatises by considering them to refer to flawed human perspectives rather than to the essence of the beauty of intellect