Porphyry (c.232–c.304), Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, second to Plotinus in influence. He was born in Tyre, and is thus sometimes called Porphyry the Phoenician. As a young man he went to Athens, where he absorbed the Platonism of Cassius Longinus, who had in turn been influenced by Ammonius Saccas in Alexandria. Porphyry went to Rome in 263, where he became a disciple of Plotinus, who had also been influenced by Ammonius. Porphyry lived in Rome until 269, when, urged by Plotinus to travel as a cure for severe depression, he traveled to Sicily. He remained there for several years before returning to Rome to take over Plotinus’s school. He apparently died in Rome.
Porphyry is not noted for original thought. He seems to have dedicated himself to explicating Aristotle’s logic and defending Plotinus’s version of Neoplatonism. During his years in Sicily, Porphyry wrote his two most famous works, the lengthy Against the Christians, of which only fragments survive, and the Isagoge, or ‘Introduction.’ The Isagoge, which purports to give an elementary exposition of the concepts necessary to understand Aristotle’s Categories, was translated into Latin by Boethius and routinely published in the Middle Ages with Latin editions of Aristotle’s Organon, or logical treatises. Its inclusion in that format arguably precipitated the discussion of the so-called problem of universals in the twelfth century. During his later years in Rome, Porphyry collected Plotinus’s writings, editing and organizing them into a scheme of his own – not Plotinus’s – design, six groups of nine treatises, thus called the Enneads. Porphyry prefaced his edition with an informative biography of Plotinus, written shortly before Porphyry’s own death.
See also NEOPLATONISM, PLOTINUS , TREE OF PORPHYR. W.E.M.