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Porphyry, Arabic

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Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy

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Abstract

The author of the Isagoge, Porphyry was first and foremost seen as an authoritative commentator of Aristotle by his Arab readers. Following in the footsteps of Ammonius and his school in Alexandria, also in the Arabic-speaking world the Isagoge was placed at the beginning of the Organon, and has been incessantly commented upon in medieval Arabic philosophy. The Alexandrian tradition also disseminated the topic, ultimately derived from Porphyry, of the harmony between Plato and Aristotle. Some works other than the Isagoge were known to some extent in the Arabic-speaking world but Porphyry’s name is linked first and foremost to the logical corpus of Aristotle, and only secondarily to other parts of the corpus (Physics, Nicomachean Ethics). Porphyry was also known as the “commentator” of the spurious Theology (in fact, Plotinus’ Enneads).

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  1. Dipartimento di Filosofia, Università di Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Cristina D’Ancona

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  1. Cristina D’Ancona
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  1. Department of Philosophy, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada

    Henrik Lagerlund

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D’Ancona, C. (2011). Porphyry, Arabic. In: Lagerlund, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9729-4_413

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