Porphurios was a man of formidable talent and learning, as his surviving work shows.
He wrote commentaries on P’s dialogues including Sophist and Timaeus, A’s
Categories, On Interpretation, Physics. The nature of his writings on Aristotle’s Ethics, Sophistic
Refutations, Prior Analytics, and Metaphysics 12 remains unclear. Other titles include Isagoge (an
introduction to Aristotle’s Categories), a history of philosophy, Starting points leading to intelligibles
or Sententiae (a philosophical handbook), On Abstinence from eating food from animals (a treatise on
vegetarianism), comments on H, the Cave of the Nymphs (an allegorical interpretation
of Odysseus’ hiding the Phaeacean gifts in a cave in Ithaca: Od. 13.102–112), On how the
embryos are ensouled, a polemical Against the Christians, a commentary on P’s Harmonics
(underscoring Porphurios’ commitment to the Pythagorean view that music manifests the
work of reason in the world), and works on rhetoric and grammar. Particularly important is
Porphurios’ edition of Plo ̄tinos’ writings divided into six books of nine treatises each
(Enneads), prefaced with his Life of Plotinus.
Remaining philosophically close to Plo ̄tinos, Porphurios departed from his mentor,
though never expressly. Porphurios agreed with Plo ̄tinos on the structure of the intelligible
world, acknowledging three divine hupostaseis (the One, the Intellect, and the Soul), but
seemingly disagreed on some aspects of the relation between the intelligible and the sensible
world. Like Plo ̄tinos, Porphurios identified the human soul with the intellect but apparently
maintained contrarily that the human soul was a manifestation of the hupostasis soul,
rather than a power stemming from it. Porphurios also held that Plato regarded immanent
Forms as versions of the transcendent ones, the latter being thoughts of the divine intellect
instantiated into matter. Porphurios seemed to ascribe the same view to Aristotle, affecting
the evaluation of Aristotle’s ontology. Further, Porphurios did not object to the priority of
particulars over universals in Aristotle’s Categories, as did Platonists until Plo ̄tinos: first
because, for him, Aristotle’s treatise examines significant expressions signifying particular
substances, and secondly because Porphurios interpreted “particulars” as the whole class of
entities (e.g. men), which are prior to the universal term (e.g. man). Porphurios saw ethics as
the end of philosophy and agreed with Plo ̄tinos’ division of levels of virtue, but apparently
differed in believing that happiness is not obtained only at the ultimate level of virtue but,
in a different degree, also at the first.
Porphurios’ impact on later generations was huge, especially regarding his example of
writing commentaries on Aristotle and his appreciation of Aristotle’s logic, integrated then
into the Platonist philosophical curriculum. Later Platonist commentators on Aristotle
draw much from him, and in turn commented on his Isagage.
Ed.: J. Bouffartique and M. Patillon, Porphyre, De l’abstinence 4 vv. (CUF 1977 – 1996); A. Smith, Porphyrii
Philosophi Fragmenta (1993).
RE 22.1 (1953) 275–313, R. Beutler; P. Hadot, Porphyry et Victorinus (1968), vols. 1–2; A. Smith, Porphy-
ry’s Place in the Neoplatonic Tradition. A Study of post-Plotinian Neoplatonism (1974); J. Barnes, Porphyry
Introduction (2003); BNP 11 (2007) 646–652, R. Harmon; George Karamanolis, “Porphyry, the First
Platonist Commentator of Aristotle,” in P. Adamson, H. Baltussen, and M. Stone, edd., Science and
Exegesis in Greek, Arabic and Latin Commentaries = BICS S. 83 (2004) 79–113; George Karamanolis and
A. Sheppard, edd., Studies on Porphyry = BICS S. 98 (2007).
George Karamanolis
Poseidippos of Pella (290 – 240 BCE)
Friend and disciple of Askle ̄piade ̄s of Samos, writer of epigrams and a famous member of
the Ptolemaic court in Alexandria in Egypt. Born ca 310 BCE, he makes reference (Epigr.
POSEIDIPPOS OF PELLA