Plotinus: The Platonic tradition and the foundation of Neoplatonism

[Autom. eng. transl.] The book "The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus" begins with my essay, dedicated to the Platonic Tradition and the origins of Neoplatonism. The study consists of five paragraphs. In the first I analyze the philosophical sources of Plotinus, from the Presocratics to Socrates, to Plato and Aristotle, up to the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Skeptics, the Medioplatonists, the Neo-Pythagoreans, the Neo-Aristotelians, Philo of Alexandria and Ammonio Sacca, examining in particularly the authors and works explicitly mentioned in the "Enneads" and the philosophical method implemented in them. In the second paragraph, I present the main phases of the history of pagan Platonism, from the ancient Academy to the Middle Ages and the circle founded by Ammonius Sacca in Alessandria. The third paragraph is dedicated to the relationship of Plotinus with Plato, of which the philosopher of Licopoli said to be a simple exegete and continuator, while he introduced important innovations of thought, which I analyze in content and method, with in-depth bibliographical references, creating in short an overall "status quaestionis" on "traditionalist" Plotinus - "innovator". In the fourth paragraph I critically analyze the historiographical "category" of "Neoplatonism", the methodologies and philosophical doctrines that characterize it, in relation to the most widespread philosophical and historiographical interpretations related to it. Finally, in the fifth paragraph I present the most important and innovative philosophical concepts introduced by Plotino in the Platonic philosophical tradition, from hierarchical "procession" to hypostatic levels, cosmology, anthropology and "creative contemplation".