forthcoming in G. Karamanolis and A. Sheppard, eds.

Studies in Porphyry

Porphyry and Plotinus’ Metaphysics

Steven K. StrangeEmory UniversityAs editor and popularizer of his teacher Plotinus, as a founding figure of Neoplatonism,and as an important commentator on Plato and Aristotle, Porphyry deserves to be considered amajor figure in the history of philosophy. But though a first-rate scholar of philosophy as well asof other fields—and as such a worthy successor to his first tutor in Platonic philosophy, thelearned Longinus—it is much less clear to what extent Porphyry can be considered an originalcontributor to the development of ancient philosophy.

Indeed, much of Porphyry’s extant work consists of excerpts, often extensive verbatim excerpts, from earlier writers: this is true of his

Deabstinentia

, of his Pythagoras biography,

and of his philosophical epistle to his wife, the

Ad Marcellam

, and it seems to hold as well of his extant commentaries on Aristotle’s

Categories

and on Ptolemy’s

Harmonics

, neither of which make any claim to originality and both of whichseem only to wish to present older material in readily accessible form. Porphyry’s principalextant metaphysical work, the so-called

Sententiae ad intelligibilia ducentes

, in Greek

!"#$%!&

'$#(

*#+)!

(which might more precisely be rendered as “resources for approaching the intelligible world”) appears to be an attempt at a sketch of the main points of Plotinian Neoplatonism, and might usefully be compared with the

Encheiridion

, the collection of excerpts made by Arrian of Nicomedia from his

Discourses of Epictetus

. Certainly, as A. C.Lloyd once remarked, the notion that a student looking to Porphyry’s

Sententiae

will find in it aneasy introduction to the philosophy of Plotinus will not survive experiment,

but the chapters of the work do present well-defined discussions of crucial points upon which one who wished tomake progress in Plotinus’ thought might do well to meditate. The material of the

Sententiae

is-2-for the most part purely Plotinian and often taken verbatim or nearly so from the

Enneads

, as can be seen from the excellent

apparatus fontium

in Lamberz’s Teubner edition:

what is supplied byPorphyry himself seems intended to help clarify and only occasionally to expand upon hisPlotinian basis.

If this picture of the

Sententiae

as a sort of handbook, like the

Encheiridion

of Epictetus, intended for Plotinian progressors, is correct, then any originality or innovation to befound in the work will have been unintentional on the part of its author, and it is therefore notsurprising to find the work cited somewhat rarely in discussions of Porphyry’s own thought.A.C. Lloyd in his important article in the

Cambridge history of later Greek and early medieval philosophy

did claim to find in the

Sententiae

a new conception of the soul’s return to theintelligible realm (by abstracting in thought from all logical particularity),

but he admits that thisconception seems to have been suggested to Porphyry by the final chapter of

Ennead

VI.4-5,Plotinus’ treatise on the omnipresence of Being in the sensible world (VI.5.12). We should thusnot look to the

Sententiae

for any specifically Porphyrian as opposed to Plotinian metaphysics.

Porphyry’s originality vis-à-vis Plotinus, if any, must be found in other works. But is it infact to be found? I wish to approach this question by examining some of Porphyry’s apparentdisagreements with Plotinus in metaphysics, to see whether they really are disagreements or merely further cases where, as in the

Sententiae

, Porphyry is merely expanding upon or trying toexplicate Plotinus. It is of course possible that where Porphyry thinks he is explicating Plotinushe is really disagreeing with him, but before we decide that this is so, we should first make surewe understand Porphyry’s point of view on the supposed disagreement in question. Thus I willfirst try to define somewhat more precisely how I think we should see Porphyry’s attitude towardagreement with Plotinus. Following that, I will focus specifically on what Porphyry has to sayabout the Plotinian Hypostases in some of his attested fragments.

Here he will reveal himself as

-3-exegete of his master to a greater degree than has heretofore been recognized. I will close with afew rather sketchy remarks about the relevance of this material to the fragments of theAnonymous

Commentary

on Plato’s

Parmenides

that has been attributed to Porphyry by PierreHadot. Various features of this text turn out to reflect Porphyry’s discussion of the PlotinianHypostases, and this appears to buttress Hadot’s controversial attribution of it to Porphyry.We certainly do find areas of metaphysics where Porphyry is an innovator at least in thesense that he rejects views that were held by his teacher Plotinus. One such area, as was pointedout by P. Hadot in his classic article “La métaphysique de Porphyre”,

concerns the very notionof metaphysics itself as a special field of inquiry, that is, metaphysics conceived on analogy withAristotle’s ‘theology’ or ‘first philosophy’, as the science that deals with supersensible reality,literally ‘beyond’ physics or the science of nature. It is apparent from Plotinus’ treatise

Ondialectic

(

Ennead

I.3) that Plotinus did not accept this Aristotelian/Peripatetic view of the statusof metaphysics. For Plotinus, what deals with intelligible reality is rather Dialectic, conceived onthe model of the dialectical method of Plato’s late dialogues, the

Sophist

Statesman

and

Philebus

, which employs collection, division and definition in order to induce contemplation of the Ideas as the contents of

Nous

or the Divine Intelligence.

Dialectic, that is, the method of Collection and Division, is for Plotinus the genuine method of inquiry of the philosopher: anexcellent example of his application of it is his official treatment of the overall structure of theintelligible world in the second book of his treatise

On the kinds of Being, Ennead

VI.2. Dialecticis opposed for Plotinus to Aristotelian metaphysics because he sees that Aristotle conceives themas opposed as well: Aristotle’s science of being

qua

being or first philosophy is explicitly areplacement and rejection of Plato’s conception of dialectic as the method of the true philosopher—for Aristotle thinks Platonic dialectic can only yield probabilities and opinion, not-4-genuine apodeictic knowledge. Plotinus on the other hand asserts that dialectic, the developedability or power to properly employ collection and division, just

what philosophical knowledgeor

epistêmê

is (

Enn

. I.3.5,1). This is an example of Plotinus’ rather deep understanding of differences between Plato and Aristotle, a rather important point, since Porphyry’s disagreementswith his master are often seen in terms of Porphyry’s ‘harmonizing’ tendency to defendAristotelian views and attempt to fit them with Platonist ones, while Plotinus tends to rejectthem.Porphyry, as Hadot points out, adopts from pre-existing Platonist speculation a conceptionof the ‘parts’ of philosophical inquiry that classifies them in the order ethics—physics—theologyor metaphysics, that is, the study of the divine, which is also sometimes called epoptic after thevisionary aspect of the mysteries.

This conception of the structure of philosophy is consistentwith Porphyry’s greater continuity with Middle Platonist traditions, in contrast to Plotinus’ more pronounced radicalism, though of course Porphyry was often willing to follow Plotinus’ moreradical innovations as well, as in the case of the theory of Hypostases and the transcendence of the first One, or the placement of the Platonic Ideas within

Nous

, where he was first induced byPlotinus to break with the views of his earlier, more traditional teacher Longinus (

Vita Plotini

§18).

Porphyry employs the threefold division of philosophy into ethics, physics, andmetaphysics to order the treatises of Plotinus in his edition of them, the

Enneads

: the first

Ennead

concerns ethics, the second and third physics, and the fourth through sixth the divinehypostases:

the fourth

Ennead

soul, the fifth

nous

, and the sixth (although Porphyry does notexplicitly say so in the

Life of Plotinus

) more advanced topics—in metaphysics, category theoryand number—and the One (VP §§24-26).

Through the very arrangement of the treatises of the

Enneads

, therefore, Porphyry has imposed upon the reading of Plotinus a not wholly appropriate

-5-Aristotelian element—for Platonic/Plotinian dialectic is not merely another term for Aristotelianmetaphysics, nor in fact does Plotinus in fact anywhere directly address the question of thedivision of the parts of philosophy.

Porphyry’s ordering of the

Enneads

also introduces thesomewhat misleading suggestion—which is also the generally accepted view—that the real goalof Plotinian philosophy is contemplation of and union with the One, the principal topic of the lastthree treatises of

Ennead

VI, whereas it is clear from Plotinus’ treatise on

eudaimonia

Ennead

I.4, that he instead conceives of the

telos

or goal of life as the sage’s identification with theDivine Intelligence or

Nous

The effect on our reading of the

Enneads

by Porphyry’sarrangement of the treatises deserves, I think, more attention than it has received.This raises again the issue of Porphyry’s alleged Aristotelianism and his tendency toharmonize Aristotle with Platonism, points on which he is usually thought to have differedsignificantly from his master. In my view, however, it is easy to make too much of this. I haveargued previously,

following fundamental work of A. C. Lloyd,

that at least in the area of logic and metaphysics, it is Plotinus rather than Porphyry who should be seen as originating this‘Aristotelianizing’ tendency within Neoplatonism. For Porphyry treats the criticisms thatPlotinus directs against the text of Aristotle’s

Categories

Ennead

VI.1 as

aporiai

to besolved,

and solves them in such a way that the

Categories

is seen precisely to be a work of logic and not of metaphysics, a work whose untoward metaphysical implications—concerningthe diminished reality of Platonic genera and species, for example—can be defused and the textand the

Organon

as a whole made safe for use by Platonists.This has usually been construed as Porphyry’s response to an attack by Plotinus’ onAristotle’s

Categories

, but in pursuing this project Porphyry was not necessarily being untrue toPlotinus’ intentions. No doubt many of the criticisms of the

Categories

that Plotinus retails in the-6-first book of

On the kinds of Being

were intended by their originators, such as the 2

century CE(?) figures Lucius and Nicostratus, as hostile critiques of Aristotle. But in Plotinus that they can be seen as directed not against Aristotle himself, but rather against the standard interpretation of Aristotle’s

Categories

as found in Peripatetic commentators: one could mention Alexander of Aphrodisias’ lost commentary on the work as among Plotinus’ possible or even likely targets.

For example, many of the arguments in

Ennead

VI.1 are directed against the assumption that theten categories are to be construed as metaphysical

summa genera

. But it is very far from clear that Aristotle could have intended this interpretation, since for example he states in the

Categories

itself that quality is a homonym (§8 init., 8b25-26), which would be impossible if thecategory of quality were a genuine genus, which by definition is predicated synonymously of itsspecies. I think that we should assume that Plotinus is suggesting that this standard interpretationof the

Categories

is wrong, and not that it is Aristotle who is wrong on this point.

Porphyryresponds to this critique by assuming that Aristotle’s categories are intended to be a classificationof

sensible

items and properties only, i.e., he accepts the main point of Plotinus’ critique, that thecategories cannot be a complete classification of everything that exists. Porphyry certainly doesdisagree with Plotinus about whether the ten categories of Aristotle are actually applicable tosensible reality: Plotinus denies that they are, but Porphyry accepts them.

So on this point atleast Porphyry thinks Aristotle can be harmonized with Platonist metaphysical truth, whereasPlotinus doubts that complete harmony is achievable, but still sees the disagreement as not beingthe flat-out opposition that it has often been taken to be. In another essay, P. Hadot has shownhow Porphyry (via Dexippus) argued that Plotinus’ critiques of the Aristotelian category of substance (

ousia

) in

On the kinds of Being

can be read in a way that brought out the fundamentalharmony of the philosophies of Plotinus and Aristotle.