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Porphyry and Plotinus' Metaphysics

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Porphyry and Plotinus' Metaphysics forthcoming in G. Karamanolis and A. Sheppard, eds. Studies in Porphyry for the most part purely Plotinian and often taken verbatim or nearly so from the Enneads, as can Porphyry and Plotinus’ Metaphysics 4 Steven K. Strange be seen from the excellent apparatus fontium in Lamberz’s Teubner edition: what is supplied by Emory University Porphyry himself seems intended to help clarify and only occasionally to expand upon his Plotinian basis.5 If this picture of the Sententiae as a sort of handbook, like the Encheiridion of As editor and popularizer of his teacher Plotinus, as a founding figure of Neoplatonism, Epictetus, intended for Plotinian progressors, is correct, then any originality or innovation to be and as an important commentator on Plato and Aristotle, Porphyry deserves to be considered a found in the work will have been unintentional on the part of its author, and it is therefore not major figure in the history of philosophy. But though a first-rate scholar of philosophy as well as surprising to find the work cited somewhat rarely in discussions of Porphyry’s own thought. of other fields—and as such a worthy successor to his first tutor in Platonic philosophy, the A.C. Lloyd in his important article in the Cambridge history of later Greek and early medieval learned Longinus—it is much less clear to what extent Porphyry can be considered an original philosophy6 did claim to find in the Sententiae a new conception of the soul’s return to the contributor to the development of ancient philosophy.1 Indeed, much of Porphyry’s extant work intelligible realm (by abstracting in thought from all logical particularity),7 but he admits that this consists of excerpts, often extensive verbatim excerpts, from earlier writers: this is true of his De conception seems to have been suggested to Porphyry by the final chapter of Ennead VI.4-5, abstinentia, of his Pythagoras biography,2 and of his philosophical epistle to his wife, the Ad Plotinus’ treatise on the omnipresence of Being in the sensible world (VI.5.12). We should thus Marcellam, and it seems to hold as well of his extant commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories not look to the Sententiae for any specifically Porphyrian as opposed to Plotinian metaphysics.8 and on Ptolemy’s Harmonics, neither of which make any claim to originality and both of which Porphyry’s originality vis-à-vis Plotinus, if any, must be found in other works. But is it in seem only to wish to present older material in readily accessible form. Porphyry’s principal fact to be found? I wish to approach this question by examining some of Porphyry’s apparent extant metaphysical work, the so-called Sententiae ad intelligibilia ducentes, in Greek disagreements with Plotinus in metaphysics, to see whether they really are disagreements or !"#$%!& '$#( )! *#+)! (which might more precisely be rendered as “resources for merely further cases where, as in the Sententiae, Porphyry is merely expanding upon or trying to approaching the intelligible world”) appears to be an attempt at a sketch of the main points of explicate Plotinus. It is of course possible that where Porphyry thinks he is explicating Plotinus Plotinian Neoplatonism, and might usefully be compared with the Encheiridion, the collection of he is really disagreeing with him, but before we decide that this is so, we should first make sure excerpts made by Arrian of Nicomedia from his Discourses of Epictetus. Certainly, as A. C. we understand Porphyry’s point of view on the supposed disagreement in question. Thus I will Lloyd once remarked, the notion that a student looking to Porphyry’s Sententiae will find in it an first try to define somewhat more precisely how I think we should see Porphyry’s attitude toward easy introduction to the philosophy of Plotinus will not survive experiment,3 but the chapters of agreement with Plotinus. Following that, I will focus specifically on what Porphyry has to say the work do present well-defined discussions of crucial points upon which one who wished to about the Plotinian Hypostases in some of his attested fragments.9 Here he will reveal himself as make progress in Plotinus’ thought might do well to meditate. The material of the Sententiae is -2- www.24grammata.com exegete of his master to a greater degree than has heretofore been recognized. I will close with a genuine apodeictic knowledge. Plotinus on the other hand asserts that dialectic, the developed few rather sketchy remarks about the relevance of this material to the fragments of the ability or power to properly employ collection and division, just is what philosophical knowledge Anonymous Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides that has been attributed to Porphyry by Pierre or epistêmê is (Enn. I.3.5,1). This is an example of Plotinus’ rather deep understanding of Hadot. Various features of this text turn out to reflect Porphyry’s discussion of the Plotinian differences between Plato and Aristotle, a rather important point, since Porphyry’s disagreements Hypostases, and this appears to buttress Hadot’s controversial attribution of it to Porphyry. with his master are often seen in terms of Porphyry’s ‘harmonizing’ tendency to defend Aristotelian views and attempt to fit them with Platonist ones, while Plotinus tends to reject We certainly do find areas of metaphysics where Porphyry is an innovator at least in the them. sense that he rejects views that were held by his teacher Plotinus. One such area, as was pointed out by P. Hadot in his classic article “La métaphysique de Porphyre”,10 concerns the very notion Porphyry, as Hadot points out, adopts from pre-existing Platonist speculation a conception of metaphysics itself as a special field of inquiry, that is, metaphysics conceived on analogy with of the ‘parts’ of philosophical inquiry that classifies them in the order ethics—physics—theology Aristotle’s ‘theology’ or ‘first philosophy’, as the science that deals with supersensible reality, or metaphysics, that is, the study of the divine, which is also sometimes called epoptic after the literally ‘beyond’ physics or the science of nature. It is apparent from Plotinus’ treatise On visionary aspect of the mysteries.12 This conception of the structure of philosophy is consistent dialectic (Ennead I.3) that Plotinus did not accept this Aristotelian/Peripatetic view of the status with Porphyry’s greater continuity with Middle Platonist traditions, in contrast to Plotinus’ more of metaphysics. For Plotinus, what deals with intelligible reality is rather Dialectic, conceived on pronounced radicalism, though of course Porphyry was often willing to follow Plotinus’ more the model of the dialectical method of Plato’s late dialogues, the Sophist, Statesman and radical innovations as well, as in the case of the theory of Hypostases and the transcendence of Philebus, which employs collection, division and definition in order to induce contemplation of the first One, or the placement of the Platonic Ideas within Nous, where he was first induced by the Ideas as the contents of Nous or the Divine Intelligence.11 Dialectic, that is, the method of Plotinus to break with the views of his earlier, more traditional teacher Longinus (Vita Plotini Collection and Division, is for Plotinus the genuine method of inquiry of the philosopher: an §18).13 Porphyry employs the threefold division of philosophy into ethics, physics, and excellent example of his application of it is his official treatment of the overall structure of the metaphysics to order the treatises of Plotinus in his edition of them, the Enneads: the first intelligible world in the second book of his treatise On the kinds of Being, Ennead VI.2. Dialectic Ennead concerns ethics, the second and third physics, and the fourth through sixth the divine is opposed for Plotinus to Aristotelian metaphysics because he sees that Aristotle conceives them hypostases:14 the fourth Ennead soul, the fifth nous, and the sixth (although Porphyry does not as opposed as well: Aristotle’s science of being qua being or first philosophy is explicitly a explicitly say so in the Life of Plotinus) more advanced topics—in metaphysics, category theory replacement and rejection of Plato’s conception of dialectic as the method of the true and number—and the One (VP §§24-26).15 Through the very arrangement of the treatises of the philosopher—for Aristotle thinks Platonic dialectic can only yield probabilities and opinion, not Enneads, therefore, Porphyry has imposed upon the reading of Plotinus a not wholly appropriate -3- -4- www.24grammata.com Aristotelian element—for Platonic/Plotinian dialectic is not merely another term for Aristotelian first book of On the kinds of Being were intended by their originators, such as the 2nd century CE metaphysics, nor in fact does Plotinus in fact anywhere directly address the question of the (?) figures Lucius and Nicostratus, as hostile critiques of Aristotle. But in Plotinus that they can division of the parts of philosophy.16 Porphyry’s ordering of the Enneads also introduces the be seen as directed not against Aristotle himself, but rather against the standard interpretation of somewhat misleading suggestion—which is also the generally accepted view—that the real goal Aristotle’s Categories as found in Peripatetic commentators: one could mention Alexander of of Plotinian philosophy is contemplation of and union with the One, the principal topic of the last Aphrodisias’ lost commentary on the work as among Plotinus’ possible or even likely targets.21 three treatises of Ennead VI, whereas it is clear from Plotinus’ treatise on eudaimonia, Ennead For example, many of the arguments in Ennead VI.1 are directed against the assumption that the I.4, that he instead conceives of the telos or goal of life as the sage’s identification with the ten categories are to be construed as metaphysical summa genera.
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    Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-76440-7 - The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity, Volume I Edited by Lloyd P. Gerson Table of Contents More information CONTENTS VOLUME I List of contributors page xi List of maps xv General introduction 1 lloyd p. gerson I Philosophy in the later Roman Empire Introduction to Part I 11 1 The late Roman Empire from the Antonines to Constantine 13 elizabeth depalma digeser 2 The transmission of ancient wisdom: texts, doxographies, libraries 25 gabor´ betegh 3 Cicero and the New Academy 39 carlos levy´ 4 Platonism before Plotinus 63 harold tarrant 5 The Second Sophistic 100 ryan fowler 6 Numenius of Apamea 115 mark edwards 7 Stoicism 126 brad inwood v © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-76440-7 - The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity, Volume I Edited by Lloyd P. Gerson Table of Contents More information vi Contents 8 Peripatetics 140 robert w. sharples 9 The Chaldaean Oracles 161 john f. finamore and sarah iles johnston 10 Gnosticism 174 edward moore and john d. turner 11 Ptolemy 197 jacqueline feke and alexander jones 12 Galen 210 r. j. hankinson II The first encounter of Judaism and Christianity with ancient Greek philosophy Introduction to Part II 233 13 Philo of Alexandria 235 david winston 14 Justin Martyr 258 denis minns 15 Clement of Alexandria 270 catherine osborne 16 Origen 283 emanuela prinzivalli III Plotinus and the new Platonism Introduction to Part III 299 17 Plotinus 301 dominic j. o’meara 18 Porphyry and his school 325 andrew smith 19 Iamblichus of Chalcis and his school 358 john dillon © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-76440-7 - The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity, Volume I Edited by Lloyd P.
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