INTRODUCTION

Readers of Plotinus are familiar with the phrase “from the alone to the Alone,” which describes the soul’s ascent to and union with the One. My title attends to that first alone, of the soul’s movement to itself, the precondition for its movement toward the One. The soul must first move from its initial forgetfulness of itself, its ignorance, and its perilous moral status to recover its identity in an initial ascent at once intellectual and moral. The soul begins as isolated in the body, deriving its knowledge from the senses that it activates within the body. Its first move