Abstract

The following essay deals with Plotinus’ metaphors of theatre in his work On Providence, which should clarify, what is and what should be the existence of man. The first metaphor presents the life of man through the image of an actor who understands that his role is not real. The other two metaphors reveal the fate of man as given, essential and not phantomic and, thus, appear to contradict the first one. The contradiction is only illusive, because each metaphor of existence, each existential is valid for different type of man, which is characterized by different “quality of soul”.