Porphyry

Porphyry, the Phoenician polymath, having studied with Plotinus when he was thirty years old, was a well-known Hellenic philosopher, an opponent of Christianity, and was born in Tyre, in the Roman Empire. We know of his anti-Christian ideology and of his defence of traditional Roman religions, by means of a fragment of his Adversus Christianos. This work incurred controversy among early Christians. His Adversus Christianos has been served as a critique of Christianity and a defence of the worship of the (...) traditional gods, so it is inevitable that his texts involved Biblical culture and religious Hellenism. Augustine, in his De Civitate Dei 10. 28, reproves Porphyry for wasting so much time in learning the theurgic arts and rites. This paper does not inquire into whether Porphyry’s philosophical monistic theology is shown in Plotinus’ Enneads, but focuses on his anti-Christian thought through the fragments that we have, particularly Augustine’s De Civitate Dei. (shrink)

After briefly putting Porphyry’s On Abstinence from Animal Food into its historical context, I present two biological theories which appear in this treatise: the first may be called “providential ecology,” the theory that the natural world operates very well without the intervention of man, that God or Nature takes care of biological balance most effectively without human intervention; the second may be called “the rationality of animals,” the theory that there is no radical distinction between human reason and the rationality (...) displayed by animals. Both theories may be placed into the general philosophical position elaborated by the earlier Neoplatonists conceming man’s place in nature, the character of embodied souls, and the interrelationships between being, God, and λόγοϛ; I have not, however, set myself this larger task. (shrink)

Celebrated as the equal to the great philosophers of old, namely Plato and Aristotle, whom – as Cassiodorus put it – he taught to speak Latin better than they spoke Greek, Boethius aspired to fully emancipate Roman culture from its Greek models through translations and exegesis so faithful they would leave nothing more to be desired from the original. The essay focuses on Boethius philhellenism, without complexes insofar as it had little to do either with the mixed feelings of his (...) Roman predecessors or with the plundering agenda of his Christian contemporaries. Special attention is paid to the close relationship Boethius established between word for word translations and multi-layered commentaries which he thought of and – albeit partially – carried out as part of the same scholarly endeavour. Devoid of literary pretentions as well as free from aspirations to autonomy, Boethius literal rendering and scrupulous interpretation were meant to be completely self-sufficient. Together they stand out as both the most innovative and the most conservative features of his ambitious cultural project. -/- Célébré comme l’égal des grands philosophes du passé, auxquels il aurait appris à parler Latin mieux qu’ils ne parlaient Grec, Boèce a caressé le rêve d’une émancipation radicale de la culture romaine vis-à-vis des modèles grecs qu’il se proposait de traduire et interpréter assez fidèlement pour que la comparaison avec les sources ne soit plus nécessaire. De son effort de livrer un Aristote et un Platon latins à la hauteur des originaux grecs, nous étudions l’étroite solidarité qui relie la traduction mot-à-mot des textes grecs et la restitution scrupuleuse de leur sens. Cette double tâche, que Boèce a conçue et menée d’un seul tenant, nous est dès lors apparue comme le reflet d’un philhellénisme sans complexes, tout aussi éloigné des sentiments ambivalents que nourrissaient vis-à-vis des hellènes ses devanciers romains que des efforts visant à domestiquer l’héritage classique auxquels se livraient certains de ses contemporains de même confession que lui. Affranchis de tout rêve d’autonomie, les traductions et les commentaires de Boèce se conçoivent comme parfaitement autosuffisants. Ensemble ils constituent ce qu’il y a à la fois de franchement novateur et de profondément conservateur dans son projet de faire parler Latin les sources grecques. (shrink)

Allows readers coming from different backgrounds to appreciate the depth and originality with which the Neoplatonists engaged with and responded to a number of philosophical questions central to human reproduction, including: What is the causal explanation of the embryo’s formation? How and to what extent are Platonic Forms involved? In what sense is a fetus ‘alive,’ and when does it become a human being? Where does the embryo’s soul come from, and how is it connected to its body? This is (...) the first full-length study in English of this fascinating subject, and is a must-read for anyone interested in Neoplatonism or the history of medicine and embryology. http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2017/2017-04-40.html. (shrink)

Dans un fragment de son commentaire perdu sur les Catégories d’Aristote, adressé à Gédalios et transmis par Simplicius dans son propre Commentaire surles Catégories, Porphyre évoque la distinction, à première vue énigmatique, entre les termes techniques grecs huparxis et hupostasis. On avance dans laprésente contribution que des passages tirés d’une source inattendue – le De Incarnatione du moine Théodore de Raithu – peuvent illuminerle sens de ce texte porphyrien. Ce résultat fournit l’occasion de quelques réflexions sur l’influence de Porphyre sur (...) la pensée patristique. (shrink)

This is a development of Jorge Gracia's Introduction to the Problem of Individuation in the Early Middle Ages. Here I resolve some of the ambiguities that he points out in respect to Porphyry's and Boethius' initial treatments of individuation by examining them in the context of the related problem of universals and both the Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions of the individual that they were working with. ;Although Porphyry endorses a bundle theory of individuation, his account is ambiguous as to exactly (...) what properties he is including in the individuating set. I argue that we can interpret Porphyry as holding that individuals have a unique but unidentifiable subset of essential properties beyond those assigned by the species form. This strategy essentially amounts to introducing something like an individual form, and is a valid interpretation given his general agenda of reconciling the Platonist/Neoplatonist conception of universals with Aristotle's Categories. ;Boethius' account is ambiguous as well. He could be appealing to a bundle theory that includes accidents in the bundle, or an accidental theory that relies on the numerical distinction of accidents to individuate. I argue that Boethius is best read as endorsing a bundle theory that includes accidents in the set. This makes the most sense given the nature of his Aristotelian solution to the problem of universals . ;Ultimately, Boethius' bundle strategy falls victim to Peter Abailard's objections against the use of accidents to individuate. When we see the ontological mechanics going on underneath Boethius' bundle theory, the intuitive power of Abailard's objections is shown to generate a paradox in which synchronic individuation assumes diachronic individuation and diachronic individuation assumes synchronic individuation. The only obvious way out of this is to introduce individual forms as Porphyry does. But this strategy fails too because it would require an infinite amount of individual forms. From these difficulties, we can see that the root of the problem of individuation in the early medieval period is with the difficulties both Platonic realism and Aristotelian moderate realism have in accommodating both universals and individuals into one ontology. (shrink)

Although Neoplatonism has long been studied, until recently many had dismissed this complex system of ideas as more mystical than philosophical. Recent research, however, has provided a new perspective on this highly influential school of thought, which flourished in the pagan world of Greece and Rome up through late antiquity. Pauliina Remes's lucid, comprehensive, and up-to-date introduction reassesses Neoplatonism's philosophical credentials, from its founding by Plotinus through the closure of Plato's Academy in 529. Using an accessible, thematic approach, she explores (...) the ideas of leading Neoplatonists such as Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus, Simplicius, and Damascius, as well as less well-known thinkers. She situates their ideas alongside classical Platonism, Stoicism, and the neo-Pythagoreans as well as other intellectual movements of the time, including Gnosticism, Judaism, and Christianity. She also considers Neoplatonism's enduring legacy in the history of philosophical thought, providing a gateway to Neoplatonism for contemporary readers. _Copub: Acumen Publishing Limited_. (shrink)

At the beginning of his Isagoge, Porphyry establishes a famous set of questions concerning genera and species, which is the origin of the medieval “Quarrel of universals”. But this text gave rise to difficulty for interpreters: does Porphyry, when elaborating this set of questions, refer to historical positions or does he offer these alternatives in a lingua franca, which would be neutral from a doctrinal point of view? This article focusing on the first of the three alternatives raised by Porphyry (...) aims to show that replacing Porphyry's text in its historical and philosophical background can shed light on the meaning of this alternative. During the Post-Hellenistic period (100 B.C.–200 A.D.), the different schools discussed the ontological status of universals. Therefore, not only does Porphyry use the terminology shaped by former philosophers, but he also alludes to the debate between Stoics, Middle Platonists and Peripatetics. Alexander of Aphrodisias constitutes a precious help to reconstruct this dispute, which this article tries to depict. (shrink)

As is well known, Plotinus's philosophy served as the starting point for the development of all Neoplatonism. It created the basic schema that set the framework for the thought of all later representatives of this tendency from Porphyry to Damascius. The doctrine of the transcendence of the One, of the three original hypostases, the application of the categories of Plato's Parmenides in the construction of ontology—all this and much else besides became the property of the Neoplatonic schools, which were scattered (...) throughout the Roman empire, and was incorporated partly into the Christian theology, which was then in the process of formation. Naturally, as a result of its wide dissemination and the change in its cultural and social environment, Plotinus's legacy appeared in a different light and took on new forms; through these changes in form we can try to understand the difference in content. For this purpose Plotinus's treatise on the virtues is of special interest. The point is that Porphyry relies precisely on this treatise and at times even literally borrows large fragments from it in setting out the doctrine concerning the virtues in the thirty-second maxim . The same treatise serves as a basis for Marinus in his biography of Proclus. The aim of my lecture is to analyze the content of the treatise and its interpretations. (shrink)