1

Porphyry on noetic union (ittiḥād).

“New” Materials from the Muqābasāt of al-Tawḥīdī

The Arabic work entitled “Treatise by Porphyry on the soul” was first published by Kutsch
(1954), on the basis of the ms. Aya Sofya 2456, f. 48b-50b, the same manuscript that contains
what may be the best text of the so-called Theology of Aristotle. Kutsch provided a German
translation and commentary. 40 years later, an English translation by David Wasserstein was
included among the Testimonia et fragmenta incertae sedis in Andrew Smith’s authoritative
collection (1993) of the Fragments of Porphyry, where it appears as fr. 436F.

This Treatise has attracted very little scholarly attention. Until this year, the only article I know
of dedicated to it is the excellent scholarly discussion by Charles Genequand (1996), which
points out its close proximity, in terms of both content and terminology, to the works known as
the Plotiniana Arabica, especially the Theology of Aristotle, that pseudonymous work that
consists in a periphrastic translation, with explanatory glosses and intercalations, of passages
from the last three of Plotinus’s Enneads. Genequand also pointed out that the Treatise on the
Soul is transmitted not only in the version published by Kutsch (hereafter K), but also in no. 97
of the Muqābasāt (quotations or adaptations) by Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī (c. 932-ca. 1032;
hereafter T)1. Just this year, however, after a quarter-century of neglect, Robert Roreitner has
contributed a very important new item to the dossier. In a closely-reasoned and persuasive
study (Roreitner 2021), he shows that it is quite likely that in a key passage of his Paraphrasis of
the De Anima, Themistius is reacting to a text that looks very much like Porphyry’s Treatise on
the Soul. The upshot of these findings is that the plausibility of the attribution of the Treatise on
the Soul to Porphyry, already cautiously accepted by Genequand2 and assumed without
question by Smith/Wasserstein, now seems to be approaching certitude. I will, in this
contribution, therefore assume the Porphyrian authorship of this work. When combined with
recent work by Richard Taylor (Taylor 2019) and others on the importance of Themistius’s
paraphrasis for the noetics of Avicenna, the possibility emerges that Porphyry’s Treatise on the
Soul, as well as the closely related “New Material” (hereafter NM)3 from the Muqābasāt I will
discuss here, may shed light on the previously unexplained fact that Avicenna violently rejects
what he identifies as the Porphyrian doctrine of the conjunction or union (Arabic ittiḥād) of the
human and the divine intellect, which the author of the NM calls the first and second intellect4,
even though, apart from the materials I’ll be discussing today, no text by Porphyry has yet been
identified in which he explicitly maintains this doctrine.

1
Plotinus, Enneads 4.3.25-32; 4.4.1-17; cf. Genequand 1996, 107.
2
Genequand 1996, 111: “au moins (...) plausible”.
3
Genequand studies and translates the passages I am claiming for Porphyry (1996, p. 106), so they are not really
“new”: but he does not discuss them in detail, concerned as he is primarily with the question of whether the views
expressed in K on what the human soul remembers both before and after its terrestrial existence are, or are not,
compatible with the treatment of the subject in the Theology of Aristotle and its source, in this instance, Plotinus’s
discussion in Enneads IV
4
Genequand 1996, 105.
 2

My reasons for suggesting a Porphyrian origin of this material concern both form (textual
transmission) and content.

As far as the textual tradition is concerned, the relevant passages in Muqābasāt 97 (hereafter T)
are structured as follows:

I. p. 398, 14-401.5 ed. Ḥusain: Material that closely coincides with the Treatise on the Soul as
published by Kutsch (hereafter K).
II. p. 401, 7-402.10 Ḥ: The “new materials” that I propose to attribute to Porphyry.
III. p. 402, 11-12 Ḥ: transitional text: “Porphyry said – and he is the commentator” (qāla
Furfūriyūs, wa-huwa al-mufassir...)5
IV. p. 402.11-403.3 Ḥ: same text that appears in the first paragraph of K.

The main difference between K and T thus consists in the fact that the paragraph with which K
begins appears at the end of T. Probably related to this phenomenon is the fact while the
attribution to Porphyry appears in the title of K, it does not appear until near the end of T.

What I want to focus on here is section II, p. 401, 7-402.10 Ḥusain, which, in T, appears smack in
the middle of the material that closely parallels K. Assuming, as argued above, that the
materials corresponding to the Treatise on the Soul in both K and T do indeed go back to
Porphyry in one sense or another, we can envisage at least two alternatives:

1. While following Porphyry’s Treatise closely from p. 398, 14-401.5 H, Tawḥīdī and/or his
immediate source then switched to one or more different Neoplatonic sources, from which he
excerpted the material on p. 401, 7-402.10 Ḥ, before, after a transitional phrase indicating the
author (sect. III, p. 402, 11-12: transitional text: “Porphyry said – and he is the commentator”),
returning to the Porphyry’s Treatise on the Soul at p. 402.11-403.3 Ḥ; or else

2. The entire section p. 398.14-403.3 Ḥ derives, directly or indirectly, from Porphyry.

It seems permissible to incline toward hypothesis 2, on grounds of economy and simplicity. This
inclination could be rendered less plausible if the passage in question here (p. 401, 7-402.10 Ḥ)
displayed few convincing parallels with Porphyrian doctrine which we know from elsewhere,
and it could, of course, be almost definitively refuted if the passage contained doctrines that
contradict Porphyry’s known philosophical views. I will argue here, however, that neither of
these eventualities is in fact the case.

The philosophical themes attested in NM that invite comparison with doctrines attested in the
fragmentary remains of Porphyry’s works are many and varied. They include, at a minimum:

5
For a similar case, in which Tawḥīdī’s contemporary and correspondent Miskawayh sets forth an entire chapter of
discussions of the meanings of the term “One”, only to reveal at the very end of the chapter that “Everything we
have reported in this section is taken from Porphyry”, cf. Miskawayh, Fawz al-Asġar, Question I, ch. 5, p. 50, 9 ed.
ʿUḍayma/ Arnaldez (1987).
 3

1. The doctrine of the imagination and its connection with corporeal extension, and as a faculty
that obscures or veils human perception of incorporeal realities and must therefore be
overcome and transcended6.
2. The epistemology. In the NM, the imagination acts as an intermediary that conveys
impressions (al-āthār) of the physical world, received by the senses, to the intellect7. this
scheme is much simpler than that which is found in later Neoplatonism. Abstractionism plays a
key role in the NM, as it does in Porphyry’s Commentary on the Harmonics of Ptolemy, which
here displays its close proximity to the Peripatetic noetics of Theophrastus and Alexander of
Aphrodisias8.
3. The crucial role played by “inclination” (Arabic mail = Greek rhopê)9, which determines the
orientation of the soul’s attention and, hence, both the transformation of its mode of cognitive
functioning and its mode of being.
4. The doctrine of the post-mortem disappearance of the powers of the irrational soul,
specifically the faculties responsible for growth and sensation, on the grounds that both are
“acquired from the material world”10, presumably in the course of the soul’s descent from the
intelligible world to the world of the senses, at the time of its embodiment.

6
There are close parallels between these doctrines as expressed in the NM and those found in passages of Proclus
which scholars have suggested, on independent grounds, may derive from Porphyry: cf. Proclus, In Eucl., p. 50, 9-
55, 20 Friedlein (for the attribution to Porphyry, cf. Chitchaline 1994); with Proclus, In Remp., II, 107.25: τῆς ἐν ἡμῖν
φαντασίας ἐπιλυγαζούσης τὸν μερικὸν νοῦν (attribution: Hadot 2006, 50-57), cf. Porphyry, Sentence 40, p. 48, 6-7
Lamberz: κάλυμμα λαβὼν τὴν ὑποδραμοῦσαν τῆς ὑπονοίας φαντασίαν: “avoir accepté comme un voile la
représentation insinuante liée à la supposition”, translation Brisson et al. 2005, vol. I p. 363. Cf. Theiler 1966, 204.
Cf. NM section E: “because imagination obscures it” (li-annahū yalbasu ʿalayhī al-wahm). It should be noticed that
the imagination plays little or no role in the account of the process of abstraction given in the works of Alexander
of Aphrodisias, with which Porphyry’s views bear such strong resemblances in other respects.
7
Cf. Chase 2010, 385 ff.
8
Cf. Porphyry, In Harm Ptol. p. 14, 10 Düring; Chase 2010, p. 395 et passim.
9
Genequand 1996, 106-107. Cf. Porphyry, Sentence 1; 3 (the mode of presence or incorporeal to corporeal entities
takes place by voluntary inclination, incorporeal forms “s’étant inclinés vers eux pour autant qu’il leur est naturel
de s’incliner” (pros auta rhepsanta hêi pephuke rhepein; transl. Brisson et al., 2005, vol. I, p. 309); 4; 28; 30; 32. Cf.
Dörrie 1959, 88-89; Dörrie 1976, 449-452; 481-482 (who compares Ambrose’s expression inclinata ad materiem in
the De Isaac vel anima, § 5, CSEL 32.1, p. 645.18). Theiler 1966, 188 n. 55 compares the use of inclinari and vergere
in Augustine. See also Porphyry, On What Depends on us, fr. 271, p. 392, 19 Smith (the rhopê of the soul toward a
specific life is what Plato means by the choice (hairesis) of lives in the Myth of Er); Porphyry, On the Soul against
Boetos, fr. 245 F, p 263, 18 Smith: most people are incapable of perceiving the divine powers of the human
intellect, because of the egotism that makes them incline toward what is below (dia philautian (...) eis ta katô
rhopês).
10
On the conflicting reports of Porphyry’s doctrine of the fate of the irrational soul after death, see Smith 1974,
63ff.; Deuse 1983, 213ff. Porphyry writes that just as a partless seed sprouts “powers” or “faculties” (dunameis)
when planted, thus becoming multipartite, so the soul, originally simple qua incorporeal during its sojourn in the
intelligible world, “sprouts” parts or faculties when it enters the world of generation and corruption to become
incarnate in a human body. After death, the soul releases those parts or powers that are the soul’s irrational
faculties back into the planetary spheres from which the soul collected them during its descent from the intelligible
world. Once restored to the cosmos, these irrational faculties may or may not persist, possibly in dispersed form
(in contrast to the doctrine of Iamblichus, for instance, who upheld the doctrine that the irrational soul survives as
a whole after the individual’s death). On the process by means of which the intellectual soul gradually acquires the
elements of the irrational soul vehicle in each planetary sphere as it descends, assembling them into a psychic
 4

There are many more. All of these themes are worthy of further investigation, but in view of
the topic of the panel in which I have the honor of participating, I want to focus here on the
doctrine of union (ittiḥād) between what our author calls the first and the second intellect, as
set forth primarily in our sections B, D and E in your handout. Let us address them in order.

In our Section B, the author discusses the differences in mode of cognition between what he
calls the First and second intellects, and how these differences are abolished when union
(ittiḥād) takes place between them. It seems clear11 that here the First intellect corresponds to
the Agent, Active, or Productive Intellect of the Peripatetics, while the second intellect refers to
the human intellect in its various stages (material, dispositional, in act). The First intellect thinks
everything all at once (baġtatan), says our author and so does the second intellect when, once
it has been freed from the obstacles presented by material things, it is united (mutaḥḥidan)
with the first intellect. Prior to such contact, the second intellect is impeded by material things,
which cause it to come into contact with magnitudes12. This is why the second intellect, in its
default state, thinks one thing after another: i.e., it is limited to discursive thought (Arabic al-
fikr = Greek dianoia). Thus, for the author of the NM, in the absence of union with the First
Intellect, the second, human intellect’s contact with matter and extension forces it to engage in
discursive thought alone.

Section D returns to the question of the union (ittiḥād) between the second, psychic or human
intellect and the First Intellect. This union occurs when the second intellect inclines (Arabic
māla = Greek rhôpê) toward the First intellect. Henceforth, when imagination conveys to the
second intellect the traces or impressions (al-āṯār) of the sensible world in the form of sense
impressions, it knows them with a knowledge that is necessary (ʿilman ḍarūriyyan), by stripping
them of their dimensions and intervals. Thus, as a result of its union with the First Intellect, a
union that the human Intellect accomplishes merely by its voluntary inclination toward the First
Intellect, the human intellect carries out some form of abstraction that consists in reversing the
process of materialization carried out by the imagination. This is strongly reminiscent of the
process of abstraction that appears in Porphyry’s Commentary on Ptolemy’s Harmonics (Chase
2010).

vehicle (Greek okhêma) that consists in a semi-corporeal “spirit” or “breath” (Greek pneuma), cf. Genequand 1996,
110; Chase 2004.
11
Cf. Genequand 105. My colleague Adrien LeCerf points out a possible parallel from Porphyry fr. 432 Smith, taken
from the Syriac Prophecies of the Pagan Philosophers, which speaks of “the radiance, the second mind”, identified
with a light that illuminates the world. Yet the parallel may not be relevant, since in the NM this second intellect,
whatever it may be, seems not to be human. For parallels in Arabic literature (al-Kindī, al-Masʿūdī) cf. Genequand
1996, 105 n. 8.
12
Such is my tentative rendering of the difficult expression an yatawaṣṣala bi-l-maqāyīs. Genequand (1996, 106)
translates al-maqāyīs by “raisonnements”, which also a possible interpretation.
 5

Section E begins by situating the psychic intellect13 within a hierarchy of cognitive levels: it is
poised on the border between the two extremes of the First Intellect and the imagination.
Thus, in descending order, we have the following scheme of cognitive faculties:

First/ Agent Intellect => psychic/second/human intellect => imagination => sense perception14.

Yet this is no fixed, rigid hierarchy: instead, it is dynamic and governed, at least in part, by
human free will. The human intellect seems to be able to transform its ontological mode of
existence by merely modifying the orientation of its inclination or attention. When the human
intellect directs its inclination – i.e., when it orients its attention – downward toward the
imagination, it becomes the imaginative intellect (al-ʿaql al-wahmī), aka discursive thought and
deliberation (fikr wa-rawiyya). In contrast, when its attention is oriented upward, it becomes
the psychic intellect (al-nafs al-nafsānī), i.e. an intellect than thinks without deliberation,
discursive thought or time. This freedom to orient the faculty of attention, and the ontological
transformation that results from such an orientation of the attention, are fundamental
principles of pre-Iamblichean Neoplatonic thought. Indeed, for Plotinus we literally are that
which we pay attention to, and Porphyry takes over and intensifies his teacher’s doctrine15. As
Porphyry puts in his Sentence 3016:

In particular hypostases (...) which can incline (rhepein) toward the multiple, there is also the
possibility to convert (epistrephein) toward what has been engendered. Hence, the fault
(hamartia) was theirs, and theirs the reviled infidelity. For them, then, matter is evil, because
they can convert towards it, whereas they could remain converted toward the divine.

In what we might call Porphyry’s ethical metaphysics, then, the basic fault or sin (hamartia) for
such particular hypostases as the human soul and intellect is that, whereas they can direct their

13
Al-ʿaql al-nafsānī; cf. Treatise on the Soul, p. 268. 2 Kutsch. Cf. Proclus, In Remp., I, 281, 8; Philoponus apud
Simplicium In Phys., vol. 10, p. 1159, 35; Simplicius (?) In De an., p. 245, 21, paraphrasing Aristotle, to whom the
author refers as “Plato’s best interpreter” (ho tou Platônos aristos exêgêtês), et saep. The expression is also
frequent in Priscianus, Metaphrasis in Theophrastum (p. 26, 6-26) which seems to reinforce the hypothesis of
Bossier and Steel that Priscianus is the real author of the De anima commentary; Damascius, De Princ., I, 289, 6
Ruelle. According to Simplicius (In Phys., vol. 9, p. 268, 26-27 Diels), when Aristotle affirms in the De anima (3.5)
that the intellect is separable, Alexander of Aphrodisias insisted that this did not refer to the psychic intellect (mê
peri tou psukhikou nou) but to the divine one; Philoponus, In DA, vol. 15, p. 539, 16 (also in the context of an
interpretation of De an. 3.5).
14
On the imagination as intermediary between intellect, and sense, cf. Theology of Aristotle, p. 36, 3-4 Badawi:
“for it sc. the imagination (al-tawahhum) is intermediate and positioned between intellect and sense” (mawḍūʿ
bayna-l-ʿaql wa-l-ḥiss). This is also a Porphyrian doctrine; cf. Sentence 43, p. 54, 18-19 Lamberz: “the cognitive
faculties in us, all at one, are sense-perception, imagination, and intellect” (γνωστικαὶ δὲ δυνάμεις ἐν ἡμῖν ἀθρόον
αἴσθησις, φαντασία, νοῦς).
15
Cf. Chase, Unpublished (2019).
16
Porphyry, Sentence 30, p. 20, 17-21, 7 Lamberz: Ἐν δὲ ταῖς μερισταῖς ὑποστάσεσι καὶ πρὸς πολλὰ ῥέπειν
δυναμέναις ἔνεστι καὶ πρὸς τὰ γεννήματα ἐπιστρέφειν· ὅθεν καὶ ἐν ταύταις ἦν ἡ ἁμαρτία, ἐν ταύταις ἡ
λελοιδορημένη ἀπιστία. ταύταις οὖν κακὸν ἡ ὕλη τῷ ἐπιστρέφεσθαι ἐπ’ αὐτὴν δύνασθαι, δυναμέναις ἐστράφθαι
πρὸς τὸ θεῖον.

 6

attention upward toward the intelligible word, they instead choose to direct it downward
toward the material world of the senses, which, in a sense, the soul has in fact generated17. The
soul’s inclination (rhopê) produces a “certain secondary power”(deuteran tina dunamin -
possibly the irrational faculties of the soul) – that is contiguous to bodies18. As in the New
Materials we have studied here, so for Porphyry in his preserved Greek works, inappropriate
inclination – downward rather than upward, comme il faut – is in the root of all evil, and is the
pagan Neoplatonic equivalent of Original Sin. Even once the soul has committed this sin,
however, all hope is not lost. Through an abstemious philosophical lifestyle, keeping one’s
distance from matter and passions it inspires, human beings can choose to dedicate themselves
to following what Porphyry refers to as “the acts and discourses which, insofar as is possible,
raise us up to a life that is intellectual, free of all imagination and passion (aphantaston apathê
te zôên)”19. This is Porphyrian ethical metaphysics in a nutshell, and it coincides perfectly, as far
as I can see, with what we have seen of the New Materials from the Muqābasāt of Tawḥīdī.

If I am right in assuming that there is no good reason to separate K (the Treatise on the Soul as
published by Kutsch) from the NM, then it is legitimate to adduce testimony from the former to
shed light on the latter, particularly with regard to the doctrine of ittiḥād. In K, (p. 268, 13-17),
we read the following:

when we are in the body, then we are the second, psychic intellect (al-ʿaql al-ṯānī al-nafsānī),
and this is because the psychic intellect and the first intellect, when they are in the upper
world, are one thing, not united in form as air is united with light (lā yattaḥidu bi-ṣūratihī ka-
ittiḥād al-hawāʾi bi-l-ḍawāʾ), but in a purer way. It [i.e. the second intellect] only becomes other
than it [i.e. the First Intellect] when it comes to be in the body through the intermediary of the
soul, so that we are certainly the pure intelligence (fa-lā maḥālata iḏan annā naḥnu al-ʿaql al-
naqī).

This testimony adds crucial elements to our dossier. Here, the union (ittiḥād) of the First and
second/human Intellect is envisaged as ontological, and characterizing the pre-embodied
condition in the intelligible world. The term thus designates the state in which the soul, prior to
its descent to the sensible world and its incarnation in a human body, is united, substantially
and without distinction, with the hypostasis of the Intellect. This state of union is interrupted
only when the human soul, due to its desire for independence and/or its seduction by the
image of itself it sees reflected within matter, descends to the sensible world. While still in the
intelligible world, however, the second/psychic intellect’s mode of union with the First Intellect
is one that is analogous but superior to the union between air and light the takes place when
the sun illuminates the visible cosmos. In a fragment from his lost work On the Soul against
Boetos (fr. 248, p. 248 Smith), Porphyry used a very similar analogy to illustrate the way the
soul animates the body:

17
Cf. Genequand 1996, 106: “c’est en effet l’âme, aidée de l’intellect, qui produit le monde sensible”.
18
Porphyry, Sentence 4, p. 2, 6-9 Lamberz. Cf. Porphyry, De abstinentia, I.30.6 dunameôs hôs pros ta têide
legomenês; Genequand 1996, 106-107.
19
Porphyry, De abstinentia, I.30.1, p. 64 ed. Bouffartigue-Patillon.
 7

it is the presence (parousia) of the soul that animates the body (...) as the rising of the sun
illuminates the air, which is dark without its radiation. Yet (...) the light that spreads through the
air is not that which connatural to the sun...20.

Just as, in this Greek text from Porphyry’s Against Boetos, the soul’s animation of the body is
similar to, but not identical with, the way the sun illuminates the surrounding air, so, in the
Arabic version of the Treatise on the Soul, the mode in which the First and second or psychic
intellects are united in the intelligible world is similar to, but superior to and hence not identical
with, the way the sun illuminates the surrounding atmosphere.

Here we have, I think, a hint as to how a Neoplatonist such as Porphyry may have been able to
adopt and incorporate within the Neoplatonist world-view, the Peripatetic doctrine of the
junction of the human intellect with the divine Agent intellect. The junction (Arabic ittiṣāl),
which occurs during our life here on earth, between the human, second, or psychic intellect
with First or agent Intellect, is merely the more or less temporary restoration, here on earth, of
the primordial unity between soul and intellect that we all enjoyed prior to the moment when
quasi-culpable dissatisfaction caused our soul to break that original union, abandon the
intelligible world, and descend to earth, passing through the celestial spheres and accruing, or
“sprouting”, as it were, irrational faculties like a planted seed. Nevertheless, by dint of
philosophy, we can, according to Porphyry, undo the damage caused by our “self-love”
(philautia), enjoying a foretaste of the restored unity with the Intellect which, if we live
virtuously, will be our post-mortem condition, as the soul, exiting the body and rising back up
through the spheres, restores to them the irrational faculties that it had borrowed on its way
down. Once the souls is freed from these irrational, material veils21, there will henceforth be no
obstacle to the soul’s complete and definitive (re-) union with the divine, hypostatic Intellect.
As a result, the division between subject and object, which is an artefact our lives in material
world, will be abolished.

The idea of the restored unity, after the death of the human individual, between human soul
and divine Intellect, is clearly described in the Theology of Aristotle22:


20
Porphyry, On the Soul Against Boetos, fr. 248F Smith = Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica 15.2-3, p. 374 ed. Mras:
παρουσίᾳ μὲν τῆς ψυχῆς ζωτικὸν γέγονε τὸ τοῦ ζῴου σῶμα, ὡς (...) ἡλίου ἀνατολῇ πεφώτισταί γε ὁ ἀήρ,
σκοτεινὸς ὢν ἄνευ τῆς τούτου ἐκλάμψεως. ἀλλ’ οὔτε (...) τὸ ἐναέριον φῶς τὸ σύμφυτον τῷ ἡλίῳ φῶς....Cf.
Porphyry, Summikta Zêtêmata, fr. 261F Smith = Nemesius, De Natura hominis, p. 40, 22ff. ed. Morani: “just as the
sun, by its presence, transforms the air into light by making it luminous, and the light is united (henoutai) to the air
(...) in the same way the soul, when it is united to the body, the only difference between that the sun, since it is a
body and circumscribed in place, is not everywhere its light is” (ὡς γὰρ ὁ ἥλιος τῇ παρουσίᾳ τὸν ἀέρα εἰς φῶς
μεταβάλλει ποιῶν αὐτὸν φωτοειδῆ, καὶ ἑνοῦται τῷ ἀέρι τὸ φῶς (...) τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ ἑνουμένη τῷ
σώματι ἥλιος σῶμα ὢν καὶ τόπῳ περιγραφόμενος οὐκ ἔστι πανταχοῦ, ἔνθα καὶ τὸ φῶς αὐτοῦ).
21
The corresponding Arabic term is al-qušūr: cf. Theology of Aristotle, p. 7, 1; 32.3; 99.14-16; 100.5 Badawi. Al-
Šahrastānī (Kitāb al-milal wa-l-niḥal p. 828 ed. Badrān = vol. II, p. 196 Jolivet-Monnot) attributes this doctrine to
Empedocles; for the possible origin of this report in Porphyry’s Philosophical History, cf. Altheim-Stiel 1954, 28-29.
22
p. 34, 18-35, 7 Badawi
 8

when the soul is in the intelligible world, she is united (tattaḥidu) with the intellect, and there is
nothing intermediate at all between her and the intellect. Likewise, when the soul leaves this
world and comes to be in that upper world, she makes her way towards the intellect and
adheres to it; and when she adheres to she is united (tawaḥḥadat) with it, without her essence
perishing, but she becomes clearer, more pure, and more blameless because she and the
intellect are made one thing, (...) She is in this way because she herself becomes what
intelligizes and what is intelligized23. And she only becomes like this because of the intensity of
her connection (ittiṣāl) with the intellect and her unification (tawaḥḥud) with it, such that it is if
as she and it are one thing.

In the Theology of Aristotle, the union or contact between soul and intellect, both prior to the
soul’s descent to the sensible world and after its separation from the body and return to the
intelligible, is thus described, without any apparent difference in meaning, by verbal forms
derived from the eighth form of the roots w-ṣ-l and w-ḥ-d. Both ittiṣāl, and ittiḥād, in fact, along
with their finite forms, seems to be a double translation of the Greek henôsis at Plotinus,
Enneads 4.4.2.26. At this early stage, then, there seem to be no differences in nuances of
meaning between the two terms, although in later Islamicate thought, and especially in Fārābī
and Avicenna, only ittiṣāl was retained as an acceptable term for the conjunction between the
human and the divine intellect, while ittiḥād was usually explicitly rejected, on the grounds of
its Christian and/or pantheistic connotations.

According to the Arabic extracts from Porphyry, during our life on earth the human intellect can
transform itself: once united with the First intellect, it can achieve the latter’s mode of timeless,
non-deliberative, non-discursive thought. In other words, the human intellect can now perceive
or comprehend all things at once, in a timeless, global intuition that seems to be identical with
the modality of divine thought as described, for instance, in the fifth book Boethius’
Consolation of Philosophy, according to which God sees all things in an eternal present. For
Porphyry, this mode of divine thought – which can, however fleetingly, be enjoyed by human
beings in hoc mundo – is one in which the distinction between subject and object no longer
applies, but in which “the knowable and knowledge are identical” 24.

23
li-annahā taṣīru hiya al-ʿāqil wa-l-maʿqūl.
24
Marius Victorinus, Adversus Arianos, IV, 24, 3-4 ed. Henry-Hadot: Idem ergo cognoscibile et cognoscentia. An
Arabic version of this dictum might read something like fa-inna al-maʿlūm wa-l-ʿilm šāyʾun wāḥidatun. On the
notion of absolute knowledge in Porphyry, cf. P. Hadot 1968, vol. I, p. 424ff. In the 20th century, the founders of
quantum mechanics, such as Bohr and Heisenberg, also saw the task of science as overcoming and transcending
the gap between subject and object of knowledge. In his Philosophical Manuscript of 1942, Heisenberg wrote that
“one would be guilty of a much too crude simplification if one wished to divide the world into an objective reality
and a subjective reality”, cf. C. Chevalley 1998, 269; 372. For Bohr, whom Heisenberg appears to be following here,
as he often does (cf. Chevalley, op. cit. 186-188), the distinction between subject and object is more or less
arbitrary, or at least determined by the context in which the scientist seeks to communicate her results: cf. Bohr,
“Physical Science and the Problem of Life” (1967), in Niels Bohr, Collected Works, vol. 10, Amsterdam etc.: Elsevier,
1999, p. 123.
 9

In both the De anima, or the psychological part of the Šifãʾ , and the Išārāt25, Avicenna
expresses nothing but scorn and contempt for the false, misleading doctrines defended by
Porphyry in his On the Soul. These doctrines, which, according to Avicenna neither Porphyry nor
his Peripatetic followers could really understand, are in fact mere fantastic, poetic and Sufistic
utterances (aqwāl muḫīla šiʿriyya ṣūfiyya)26, based on imagination (ʿalā al-taḫayyul). The key
points of this false doctrine are as follows: in the act of intellection, the human soul becomes
identical with the intelligibles: more specifically, when an intelligizing substance thinks an
intelligible form, it becomes identical with that form27. They further claim that the rational soul
can only intelligize by means of contact (ittiṣāl)28 with the Agent Intellect (al-ʿaql al-faʿʿāl) – a
point with which Avicenna agrees – but the Porphyrians err in concluding that when the Agent
Intellect contacts the human soul, the Agent Intellect actually becomes the acquired human
intellect29.

Avicenna finds many aspects of this doctrine unacceptable: in general, the doctrine of the soul’s
substantial identification with the object of its intellection is impossible: it implies the soul’s
substantial change, which would amount to the destruction of the soul and the coming-into-
being of a new, wholly different one. The idea that the divine Agent intellect could actually
become identical with the human intellect in the moment of contact or conjunction (ittiṣāl) is
particularly repulsive. Indeed, unless the Agent Intellect is to be particularized and partitioned,
which is unacceptable, any such contact with the human soul and/or its intellect would have to
be complete, simultaneous, and instantaneous. if this were to happen, in a single moment of
intuitive insight, the human soul would become perfect and have contact with all the
intelligibles: in other words, although Avicenna does not say so explicitly, the human soul would
become omniscient. But this absurd; like John Philoponus before him30, Avicenna holds that as
long as the human soul is in the body, it is always in a state of potentiality, not actuality. While
it is true, says Avicenna, that in the act of intellection there is identity between intelligizer,
intellect, and intelligized object, this identity cannot be realized within the human soul.

Given that Avicenna explicitly attributes this these doctrines to Porphyry’s “Books on the Soul”,
and that both the Maqāla fī-l-nafs, attributed to Porphyry in the Arabic tradition, and the “new
materials” we have studied today, contain what seem to be the same teachings, at least in so
far as the union between the human soul and the divine Intellect is concerned, I think there can

25
= 229-230T, p. 251-252 Smith (1992)
26
Avicenna, K. al-Šifā 5, 6, p. 240.5 Rahman: aqwāl muḫīla šiʿriyya ṣūfiyya
27
Avicenna, Išārāt p. 267, 3f. Dunyā : al-jawhar al-ʿāqil iḏā ʿaqala ṣūratan ʿaqliyyatan ṣāra huwa hiya
28
Avicenna, Išārāt, p. 280, 5 Dunyā
29
fa-yakūnu al-ʿaqla al-mustafād.
30
In his lost Contra Aristotelem, Philoponus reserves the mode of non-discursive thought for God alone. According
to Simplicius (translation Chase in Bodnár et al., 2012, p. 57), Philoponus stated that: “...the <human> intellect (...)
does not simultaneously know God, an angel, and the differences and commonalities of souls, and so on, but
proceeding transitionally (metabatikôs) from thought to thought, it does not admit two thoughts at the same time
and in the same respect. For he [Philoponus] says this is proper to God, but not to the angelic or the psychic
intellect (psukhikos nous)”. This is precisely the position of Avicenna, who states (De an., 6, p. 241, 18-19 Rahman)
that “it is not in our soul’s power to understand things simultaneous and all at one all at once (fa-innahū laysa fī
wusʿin anfusinā an taʿqula al-ašyāʾ maʿan dafʿatan wāḥidatan).
 10

be little doubt that these are the Porphyrian works Avicenna had in mind. If, as Roreitner
claims, this Porphyrian material is also the target of Themistius’ critical discussion in his
Paraphrase of the De anima, then we have an additional factor explaining Avicenna’s hostility
to Porphyry’s views. I suspect that the matter goes deeper, however, and that Avicenna’s ire
may in fact be primarily directed against the “Baghdadis”, in particular Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī and his
followers, who may have had a great deal more Porphyrian material available than scholars
have realized so far.

Conclusion

The Porphyrian material we’ve studied here looks for all the world like a revised and corrected
version, or rather an interpretatio neoplatonica, of the noetic doctrine of Alexander of
Aphrodisias, which, although intended to clarify the doctrine Aristotle’s De Anima, remains
frustratingly vague on several key points, despite the best efforts of scholars and interpreters
both ancient and modern. I would argue that the new Porphyrian materials shed new light on
the doctrine of the union (Greek henôsis = Arabic ittiṣāl or ittiḥād) between the human and the
divine intellect, on at least the following points:
1. We now know how this conjunction happens: through the voluntary orientation of the
individual human being’s attention.
2. We know what its effects are: it transforms the modus operandi of the human cognitive
apparatus, allowing us to switch from our normal mode discursive thought, conditioned by time
and contaminated by the imagination, to a mode of intuitive, holistic, atemporal insight
characteristic of divine thought.
3. We have not only an epistemological, but also a metaphysical explanation for the nature of
this conjunction: it represents the temporary restoration, in hac vita, of the state of substantial
union between the soul and intellect that reigned in the intelligible world, before out souls
descended to the sensible world, and will be regained more permanently after our death,
provided we have lived a sufficiently pious and philosophical life.

Many questions remain open, of course. Much further work needs to be done in scouring the
works of Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī, Tawḥīdī, Miskawayh el alii for traces of Neoplatonic doctrines, some at
least of which may derive from Porphyrian material. In addition, future research will also have
to decide whether the striking, sometimes word-for-word parallels between the Porphyrian
materials we have studied today and various texts from the Plotiniana Arabica do or do not
reinforce the suggestion I have argued for elsewhere, that Porphyry may indeed, contrary to
the scholarly consensus, have played a crucial role in elaborating the Theology of Aristotle and
the rest of the Plotiniana Arabica.

Michael Chase


 11

Appendix: text and translation of the “New Materials”

from Al-Tawḥīdī, Muqābasāt.


Texts and Sigla

Al-Tawḥīdī, al-Muqābasāt,

ed. Muḥammad Tawfīq Ḥusain. 1970. Baghdad: Matbaʿa al-Iršād (T).
ed. Ḥasan al-Sandūbī. 1929. S.l.; al-Maṭbaʿa al-Raḥmāniyya (S).

Porphyry (?), Maqāla fī al-nafs, ed. Wilhelm Kutsch. 1954. “Ein arabisches Bruchstück aus
Porphyrios Περὶ ψυχῆς und die Frage des Verfassers der Theologie des Aristoteles”, Mélanges
de l’Université St. Joseph 31: 263-286 (K).

Porphyrii Philosophi Fragmenta. 1993 ed. Andrew Smith, Fragmenta Arabica Davide
Wasserstein interpretante. Stuttgart and Leipzig: B. G. Teubner.



Al-Tawḥīdī, Muqābasāt 97, p. 401, 7ff. ed. Ḥusain.


Extract A

It was said: “And what need do the soul and qīla: fa-mā hāja al-nafs wa-l-ʿaql ilā al-ʿillati al-
the intellect have of the First Cause?” He ūlā? qāla: ḥāja al-maʿlūli31 ilā al-ʿillati, fa-
said: it is the need of the effect for the cause: innahū laysa min maʿlūlin ṭabīʿī aw ṣināʿī 32
it is not from a natural or artificial effect, tanqaṭiʿu ʿanhū ʿillatuhū allā fasada wa-bāda,
from which the cause is disconnected, lest it ka-l-ḥayy fa-innahū iḏā fāraqathū ḥayātuhū
perish and pass away, like a living being: for bāda wa-fasada wa-ka-l-nāmy iḏā fāraqathū
when its life abandons it, it passes away and al-namāʾ
perishes; or like a plant, which, when <the
faculty of> growth abandons it,
p. 401.10 Ḥ 401.10
passes away and perishes: as are the arts, bāda wa-fasada wa-ka-ḏālika al-
trade, and construction. ṣināʿāt wa-l-tijāra33 wa-l-bināʾ.


B

31
ḥāja al-maʿlūmi S: ḥāja al-maʿlūli Ḥ
32
wa-lā ṣināʿī S: aw ṣināʿī Ḥ
33
tijārāt S: tijāra Ḥ
 12

And he said: the First Intellect comprehends wa-qāla: al-ʿaql al-awwal yadruku al-ašyāʾ
things all at once, and the second intellect baġtatan, wa-l-ʿaql al-ṯānī yadrukuhā ayḍan35
also comprehends them all at once, when it baġtatan, iḏā kāna mutaḥḥidan bi-l-ʿaql al-
is united to the First Intellect, and material awwal, lā taʿūquhū36 ʿanhū al-ašyāʾ al-
things do not prevent it from it. When they hayūlāniyya. fa-iḏā ʿāqatahū37 iḥtāja an
do prevent it, it needs to come into contact yatawaṣṣala bi-l-maqāyīs, wa-yadruku šayʾan
with magnitudes34, and it comprehends one baʿda šayʾ38
thing after another.


C
Again, the intellect that is second by wa-ayḍan al-ʿaql al-ṯānī bi-l-wahm huwa
imagination is the one that is the cause of allaḏī ʿillatun al-aqdār wa-l-masāfāt42 al-
corporeal dimensions39 and intervals40, and jismiyya43, wa-innamā kāna al-wahm ka-
the imagination is like this only because it ḏālika li-annahū yaqbalu āṯāra al-jismi, fa-
receives the traces of the body. Thus, it yujassimu al-ašyāʾ wa-yunkiru al-ṣuwar al-
mujarrada.

34
Arabic verbs derived from the root w-ṣ-l are often used to translate the Greek sunaptein, “to contact, come into
contact with” (Aristotle, De Cael., De Gen. anim., Poet.; Proclus, ET 15; 16.32). On the idea that extension
(diastasis) entails multiplicity, cf. Porphyry (?) ap. Procl., In Eucl., 53.3-4: “for with extension (diastasis) there
appear the greater and the less, and multiplicity (plêthos)”. On the probable Porphyrian origin of this section of
Proclus’s Euclid commentary, see Chitchaline 1994. Cf. Porphyry, Sentence 37, p. 45, 2 Lamberz: the part of the
soul that has inclined toward matter (to (...) pros hulên rhepsan) has acquired the disposition to prosomilein enulôi
= “entrer en relation avec ce qui est engagé dans la matière” (translation Brisson et al., 2005, vol. I. p. 359);
Porphyry, On the Soul Against Boethos, fr. 245F, p. 263, 3 Smith: the soul prospelazei têi thnêtêi phusei,
“approaches the mortal nature”.
35
ayḍan yadrukuhā S: yadrukuhā ayḍan Ḥ
36
wa-lā taʿūquhū S: lā taʿūquhū Ḥ
37
ʿāqatahū S Ḥ: aʿāqthū ms Š sec. Ḥ
38
bi-šayʾin baʿda šayʾ S Š sec. Ḥ: šayʾan baʿda šayʾ Ḥ
39
For this meaning of the Arabic al-qadr, cf. Avicenna, De anima I, 226, 61 ed. Rahman, rendered in the Latin
translation by dimensio. Cf. the Arabic and Latin Glossary
(https://algloss.de.dariah.eu/?latin=&arabic=&english=&root=qdr&nav=a&var=la&src=ala&src=ali&src=alc&src=ab
s&src=acb&src=ahc&src=aho&src=apt&src=anr&src=arg&src=are&src=ari&src=arj&src=avl&src=ava&src=avm&src
=avg&src=avq&src=ar2&src=ar3&src=arp&src=fai&src=fas&src=gzo&src=itu&src=kgr&src=kig&src=kso&src=kid&sr
c=maa&src=mab&src=nip&src=pff&src=pac&src=pta&src=raa&src=rab&src=tan&src=tfh&src=tfg&src=tfa&src=tal),
consulted May 17 2021.
40
For Arabic al-masafāt as meaning “spatial distance”, cf. Arabic and Latin Glossary
(https://algloss.de.dariah.eu/?latin=&arabic=&english=&root=swf&nav=a&var=la&src=ala&src=ali&src=alc&src=ab
s&src=acb&src=ahc&src=aho&src=apt&src=anr&src=arg&src=are&src=ari&src=arj&src=avl&src=ava&src=avm&src
=avg&src=avq&src=ar2&src=ar3&src=arp&src=fai&src=fas&src=gzo&src=itu&src=kgr&src=kig&src=kso&src=kid&sr
c=maa&src=mab&src=nip&src=pff&src=pac&src=pta&src=raa&src=rab&src=tan&src=tfh&src=tfg&src=tfa&src=tal)
consulted May 17 2021.
42
al-jismaniyya ... ʿilman ṣuwariyyan (p. 3.33.15-18 S) is omitted by Ḥ, who relegates it to the app. crit.
43
huwa allaḏī ʿalayhī al-aqdār wa-l-masāfāt al-jismiyya S: huwa allaḏī ʿillatun al-aqdār wa-l-masāfāt al-jismiyya Ḥ
 13

corporealizes things41 and rejects the

separate forms.

D
As for when it inclines toward the First wa-ammā iḏā māla ilā al-ʿaql al-awwal
Intellect, it is united with it, and when the ittaḥada bi-hī, fa-iḏā adā ilayhī al-wahm al-
imagination conveys to it the traces which it āṯāra allatī qabilahā min al-ḥiss, ʿalimahā
has received from sense, it knows them ʿilman ʿaqliyyan wa-alqā ʿanhā al-iqdār wa-l-
scientifically, and it discards the measures masāfāt wa-alqā ʿanhā al-iqdār wa-l-masāfā
and intervals from them44,
405.15 Ḥ 401.15 Ḥ
for it knows them by a knowledge that is wa-ḏālika annahū yaʿlamuhā ʿilman
necessary. ḍarūriyyan45.



Section E
402.1 Ḥ 402.1 Ḥ
He said: the psychic intellect has two limits46, wa-qāla: li-l-ʿaql al-nafsānī ṭarafānī
one of which borders on the First Intellect. aḥadhumā yalī al-wahm48 wa-l-āḫar yalī 49 al-
When it inclines toward the imagination, it ʿaql al-awwal fa-iḏā50 māla ilā al-wahm kāna
becomes discursive thought and deliberation, fikran wa-rawiyyatan li-annahū yalbasu
because imagination obscures it47, so that it ʿalayhī al-wahm51 fa-yarīdu an yataḫallasa, fa-
wishes to free itself. As for when it inclines to iḏā māla ilā al-ʿaql al-awwal kāna ʿaqlun
the first intellect, it becomes an intellect that

41
Cf. Porphyry? apud. Procl., In Eucl., p. 52, 20-24. Friedlein: “the imagination, holding the central position in
<modes of> knowledge (...) since it is not outside the body, produces the objects of its cognition from the
partlessness of <intelligible> life to partition (merismos), extension (diastasis), and and figure (skhêma)”.
44
Compare Porphyry, Commentary on the Harmonics of Ptolemy, p. 13, 21ff. Düring, translation Chase 2010, p. 383:
“For once matter has been informed (eidopepoiêmenês) by the aforementioned reason (logos), judgment (krisis)
comes about when the soul happens to pay attention (ephistamenên) to beings and as it were detaches (apospôsan)
the forms from matter once again, and receives them within itself and, in a way, restores them (apokathistasan), so
that the judgment may become immaterial.”
45
ʿilman ṣuwariyan S: ʿilman ḍarūriyyan Ḥ
46
For the meaning of ṭaraf, cf. Genequand 1996, with references n. 13.
47
Cf. Porphyry? ap. Procl., In Rempl., II, 107, 24-25 ed. Kroll, who speaks of “l’imagination qui est en nous couvrant
d’ombre l’intellect partiel” (κατὰ μίμησιν τῆς ἐν ἡμῖν φαντασίας ἐπιλυγαζούσης τὸν μερικὸν νοῦν), trans.
Festugiêre, vol. III, p. 51). On the probable Porphyrian origin of this passage, confirmed by the parallel with
Macrobius (Commentary on Scipio’s Dream, I.2.3-21), cf. P. Hadot 2006, ch. 5, p. 50-57.
48
aḥadhumā ṭaraf al-wahm S Š sec. Ḥ: aḥadhumā yalī al-wahm Ḥ
49
ṭaraf S Š sec. Ḥ: yalī Ḥ
50
fa-ammā iḏā S Š sec. Ḥ: fa-iḏā Ḥ
51
lā yaltabisu ʿalayhī al-wahm S: li-annahū yalbasu alayhī al-wahm Ḥ: laysa yalbasu L. Ḥ explains that he deleted
laysa to avoid contradiction in the passage: “if the imagination does not envelop the intellect, then what does the
intellect want to get rid of?”
 14

comprehends without discursive thought, mudrikan bi-lā fikra wa-lā rawiyyati wa-lā
deliberation or time. zamānin52.

Section F
Thus, discursive thought is merely fa-l-fikr innamā huwa
402.5 Ḥ 402.5 Ḥ
the imaginative intellect53, and the psychic al-ʿaql al-wahmī wa-l-ʿaql al-nafsānī al-
intellect is that which perceives without mudrik bi-lā wahmin wa-lā fikrin wa-lā
imagination and discursive thought, and yaqdiru al-wahm ʿalā anna yatahwahhima
imagination cannot imagine anything without šāyʾan bi-lā šaklin wa-lā wa-lā qadr juzʾī.54
a shape, or a particular magnitude.

G
The Philosopher said: “the intellect alone wa-qāla al-faylasūf: al-ʿaql wahdahū lā
does not die”. By that he wished to yamūtu. arāda bi-ḏālika an yumayyizahū min
distinguish it from the powers of the quwan al-nafsi al-nāmiyyati wa-l-ḥissiyati, li-
augmentative and sensitive soul; for sense anna al-ḥiss wa-l-namāʾ innamā
and growth only disappear because the soul yaḍmaḥallāni55 li-anna al-nafs istafādathumā
acquired both of them from the material min al-ʿālam al-hayūlānī wa-ammā al-ʿaql fa-
world. As for the intellect, it was not lam
402.10 402.10
acquired from this world, and therefore it yustafad min hāḏā al-ʿālam, fa-li-ḏālika56
surivies. baqiya

52
bi-lā rawiyyati wa-lā fikrin wa-lā zamānin S: bi-lā fikra wa-lā rawiyyati wa-lā zamānin Ḥ.
53
The Greek term nous phantastikos, probable equivalent of the Arabic al-ʿaql al-wahmī (“imaginative intellect”),
first appears in Proclus, In Rempl., 2.107.17 Kroll. This passage may derive from Porphyry, cf. Chitchaline 1994, 61-
62.
54
wa-lā qdr jry S: wa-lā qadr juzʾī Ḥ
55
li-anna al-ḥiss wa-l-namāʾ yaḍmaḥallāni S Š sec. Ḥ: li-anna al-ḥiss wa-l-namāʾ innamā yaḍmaḥallāni Ḥ
56
fa-li-ḏālika S H: fa-ka-ḏālika Š sec. Ḥ.
 15

Bibliography


Literature

Altheim, Franz. & R. Stiel. 1954. Porphyrios und Empedocles, Tübingen.

Bodnár, István, et al. 2012. Simplicius, On Aristotle Physics 8.1-5. Translated by István Bodnár,
Michael Chase and Michael Share, London: Bristol Classical Press.

Brisson, Luc., et al. 2005. Porphyre, Sentences. Études d’introduction, texte grec et traduction
française, commentaire par l’Unité Propre de Recherche n° 76 du Centre National de la
Recherche Scientifique avec une traduction anglaise par John Dillon. Travaux édités sous la
responsabilité de Luc Brisson, 2 vols., Paris: Vrin.

Chase, Michael. 2021. “Porphyry and the Theology of Aristotle”. In: D. Calma, ed., Reading
Proclus and the Book of Causes. Volume 2, Translations and acculturations, Leiden-Boston: Brill
(Studies in Platonism, Neoplatonism, and the Platonic Tradition, vol. 26), p. 157-181.

Chase, Michael. Unpublished (2019). “Attention in Neoplatonism: From Plato to Porphyry and
the Christian Church Fathers”.

Chase, Michael. 2010. “Porphyry on the Cognitive Process”, Ancient Philosophy, 30.2: 383-405.

Chase, Michael. 2004. “Omne corpus fugiendum? Augustine and Porphyry on the body and the
post-mortem destiny of the soul”, Chôra: Revue d’Études Anciennes et Médiévales 2: 37-58.

Chevalley, Catherine. 1998, introd. & trans. Werner Heisenberg. Philosophie: Le manuscrit de
1942, Paris: Seuil

Chitchaline, Iouri. 1994. “L'imagination chez Proclus, Porphyre, et Érigène”. In: K. McGroarty,
ed., Neoplatonica, Studies in the Neoplatonic Tradition. Proceedings of the Dublin Conference on
Neoplatonism, May 1992 = Hermathena 162: 57-66.

Deuse, Werner. 1983. Untersuchungen zur mittelplatonischen und neuplatonischen Seelenlehre,
Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag GMBH (Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur,
Mainz, Abhandlungen der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftlichen Klasse, Einzelveröffentlichung
3).

Dörrie, Heinrich. 1959. Porphyrios’ “Symmikta Zetemata”: Ihre Stellung in System und
Geschichte des Neuplatonismus nebst einem Kommentar zu den Fragmenten, München.

 16

Dörrie, Heinrich. 1966. “Porphyrios’ Lehre von der Seele”, Entretiens Hardt 12,
Vandoeuvres/Genève 1966, 167-187; reprinted in idem, Platonica Minora, München: Wilhelm
Fink Verlag, 1976, 441-453

Genequand, Charles. 1996. “La mémoire de l’âme. Porphyre et la Théologie d’Aristote”, Bulletin
d’Études Orientales 48: 103-113.

Hadot, Pierre. 1968. Porphyre et Victorinus. 2 vols., Paris: Études Augustiniennes.

Hadot, Pierre. 2006. The veil of Isis. An essay on the history of the idea of nature, translated by
Michael Chase. Cambridge, Mass. /London, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Roreitner, Robert. 2021. “Themistius against Porphyry (?) on ‘Why we do not remember’”,
Classical Quarterly: 1-7

Smith, Andrew. 1974. Porphyry’s Place in the Neoplatonic Tradition. The Hague: Martinus
Nijhoff.


Taylor, Richard C. 2019. “Avicenna and the issue of the intellectual abstraction of intelllgibles”.
In: M. Cameron., ed., Philosophy of mind in the Early and High Middle Ages, Abington/New
York: Routledge: 56-82

Theiler, Willy. 1966. Forschungen zum Neuplatonismus, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co.-