Porphyry

author

Porphyry

A major voice in late ancient philosophy, this thinker helped preserve the ideas of Plotinus while shaping the study of logic for centuries to come. His works range from metaphysics and religion to ethics, making him one of the most wide-ranging authors of the Neoplatonic world.

2 Audiobooks

Arguments of Celsus, Porphyry, and the Emperor Julian, Against the Christians Also Extracts from Diodorus Siculus, Josephus, and Tacitus, Relating to the Jews, Together with an Appendix

Arguments of Celsus, Porphyry, and the Emperor Julian, Against the Christians Also Extracts from Diodorus Siculus, Josephus, and Tacitus, Relating to the Jews, Together with an Appendix

by active 180 Celsus (Platonic philosopher), Siculus Diodorus, Flavius Josephus, Emperor of Rome Julian, Porphyry, Cornelius Tacitus

Select works of Porphyry : Containing his four books on abstinence from animal food; his treatise on the Homeric cave of the nymphs; and his Auxiliaries to the perception of intelligible natures. With an appendix, explaining the allegory of the wandering of Ulysses

Select works of Porphyry : Containing his four books on abstinence from animal food; his treatise on the Homeric cave of the nymphs; and his Auxiliaries to the perception of intelligible natures. With an appendix, explaining the allegory of the wandering of Ulysses

by Porphyry

About the author

Born in Tyre around 234 CE and later active in Rome, Porphyry was a Neoplatonic philosopher best known as a student of Plotinus. He edited and published the Enneads, the collection that carried Plotinus's thought into later generations, and he also wrote a Life of Plotinus that remains an important source for his teacher's career.

Porphyry wrote on an unusually broad set of subjects, including philosophy, logic, religion, and ethics. His Isagoge, an introduction to Aristotle's Categories, became hugely influential in the Greek, Arabic, and Latin traditions and helped shape medieval discussions of logic and universals.

He is also remembered for works that show how seriously he connected philosophy with the way a person should live. Texts such as On Abstinence from Eating Animals present a vision of intellectual and moral discipline, while other surviving writings reveal a sharp, questioning mind engaged with the religious debates of his time.