|
Porphyry (philosopher)
Porphyry of Tyre (; grc-gre, Πορφύριος, ''Porphýrios''; ar, فُرْفُورِيُوس, ''Furfūriyūs''; – ) was a Neoplatonic philosopher born in Tyre, Roman Phoenicia during Roman rule. He edited and published ''The Enneads'', the only collection of the work of Plotinus, his teacher. His commentary on Euclid's ''Elements'' was used as a source by Pappus of Alexandria. He wrote original works in the Greek language on a wide variety of topics, ranging from music theory to Homer to vegetarianism. His ''Isagoge'', or ''Introduction'', an introduction to logic and philosophy, was the standard textbook on logic throughout the Middle Ages in its Latin and Arabic translations. Porphyry was, and still is, also well-known for his anti-Christian polemics. Through works such as ''Philosophy from Oracles'' and '' Against the Christians'' (which was banned by Constantine the Great), he was involved in a controversy with early Christians. Biography The '' Suda'' (a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Philosophy
Western philosophy encompasses the philosophical thought and work of the Western world. Historically, the term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the pre-Socratics. The word ''philosophy'' itself originated from the Ancient Greek (φιλοσοφία), literally, "the love of wisdom" grc, φιλεῖν , "to love" and σοφία '' sophía'', "wisdom"). History Ancient The scope of ancient Western philosophy included the problems of philosophy as they are understood today; but it also included many other disciplines, such as pure mathematics and natural sciences such as physics, astronomy, and biology (Aristotle, for example, wrote on all of these topics). Pre-Socratics The pre-Socratic philosophers were interested in cosmology; the nature and origin of the universe, while rejecting mythical answers to such questions. They were specifically interested in the (the cause or first principle) of the w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julian The Apostate
Julian ( la, Flavius Claudius Julianus; grc-gre, Ἰουλιανός ; 331 – 26 June 363) was Roman emperor from 361 to 363, as well as a notable philosopher and author in Greek. His rejection of Christianity, and his promotion of Neoplatonic Hellenism in its place, caused him to be remembered as Julian the Apostate in Christian tradition. A nephew of Constantine, Julian was one of few in the imperial family to survive the purges and civil wars during the reign of Constantius II, his cousin. Julian became an orphan as a child after his father was executed in 337, and spent much of his life under Constantius's close supervision.''Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity'', "Julian the Apostate", p. 839 However, the emperor allowed Julian to freely pursue an education in the Greek-speaking east, with the result that Julian became unusually cultured for an emperor of his time. In 355, Constantius II summoned Julian to court and appointed him to rule Gaul. Despite his inexperien ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Enneads
The ''Enneads'' ( grc-gre, Ἐννεάδες), fully ''The Six Enneads'', is the collection of writings of the philosopher Plotinus, edited and compiled by his student Porphyry (270). Plotinus was a student of Ammonius Saccas, and together they were founders of Neoplatonism. His work, through Augustine of Hippo, the Cappadocian Fathers, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and several subsequent Christian and Muslim thinkers, has greatly influenced Western and Near-Eastern thought. Contents Porphyry edited the writings of Plotinus in fifty-four treatises, which vary greatly in length and number of chapters, mostly because he split original texts and joined others together to match this very number. Then, he proceeded to set the fifty-four treatises in groups of nine (Greek. ''ennea'') or ''Enneads''. He also collected ''The Enneads'' into three volumes. The first volume contained the first three ''Enneads'' (I, II, III), the second volume has the ''Fourth'' (IV) and the ''Fifth'' ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phoenice (Roman Province)
Phoenice ( lat, Syria Phoenīcē ; grc-koi, ἡ Φοινίκη Συρία, hē Phoinī́kē Syría ) was a province of the Roman Empire, encompassing the historical region of Phoenicia. It was officially created in 194 AD and after , Phoenice Syria was divided into Phoenice proper or Phoenice Paralia, and Phoenice Libanensis, a division that persisted until the region was conquered by the Muslim Arabs in the 630s. Administrative history Phoenicia came under Roman rule in 64 BC, when Pompey created the province of Syria. With the exception of a brief period in 36–30 BC, when Mark Antony gave the region to Ptolemaic Egypt, Phoenicia remained part of the province of Syria thereafter. Emperor Hadrian (reigned 117–138) is said to have considered a division of the overly large Syrian province in 123–124 AD, but it was not until shortly after c. 194 AD that Septimius Severus (r. 193–211) actually undertook this, dividing the province into Syria Coele in the north and Syri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
On The Cave Of The Nymphs In The Odyssey
''On the Cave of the Nymphs in the Odyssey'' ( grc, Περὶ τοῦ ἐν Ὀδυσσείᾳ τῶν νυμφῶν ἄντρου, la, De Antro Nympharum) is a treatise by the Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry. It is an exegesis of a passage from Homer's ''Odyssey'', which Porphyry interprets as an allegory about the cosmos and the soul. Summary ''On the Cave of the Nymphs in the Odyssey'' is an exegesis of lines 102 to 112 in book 13 of the ''Odyssey'', which describe a cave on Odysseus' home island of Ithaca. The passage follows here in original Greek and in Robert D. Lamberton's English translation: Porphyry leaves open whether the cave actually existed or was an invention by Homer, but in either case stresses its significance as an allegory. He associates the cave motif with Plato's allegory of the cave and the Mithraeum (the cave sacred to adherents of the Roman mystery religion centered on the god Mithras) and regards it as a symbol for the world. The Naiads and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isagoge
The ''Isagoge'' ( el, Εἰσαγωγή, ''Eisagōgḗ''; ) or "Introduction" to Aristotle's "Categories", written by Porphyry in Greek and translated into Latin by Boethius, was the standard textbook on logic for at least a millennium after his death. It was composed by Porphyry in Sicily during the years 268–270, and sent to Chrysaorium, according to all the ancient commentators Ammonius, Elias, and David. The work includes the highly influential hierarchical classification of genera and species from substance in general down to individuals, known as the Tree of Porphyry, and an introduction which mentions the problem of universals. Boethius' translation of the work, in Latin, became a standard medieval textbook in European scholastic universities, setting the stage for medieval philosophical-theological developments of logic and the problem of universals. Many writers, such as Boethius himself, Averroes, Abelard, Scotus, wrote commentaries on the book. Other writers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aristotelianism
Aristotelianism ( ) is a philosophical tradition inspired by the work of Aristotle, usually characterized by deductive logic and an analytic inductive method in the study of natural philosophy and metaphysics. It covers the treatment of the social sciences under a system of natural law. It answers why-questions by a scheme of four causes, including purpose or teleology, and emphasizes virtue ethics. Aristotle and his school wrote tractates on physics, biology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics, and government. Any school of thought that takes one of Aristotle's distinctive positions as its starting point can be considered "Aristotelian" in the widest sense. This means that different Aristotelian theories (e.g. in ethics or in ontology) may not have much in common as far as their actual content is concerned besides their shared reference to Aristotle. In Aristotle's time, philosophy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scholasticism
Scholasticism was a medieval school of philosophy that employed a critical organic method of philosophical analysis predicated upon the Aristotelian 10 Categories. Christian scholasticism emerged within the monastic schools that translated scholastic Judeo—Islamic philosophies, and thereby "rediscovered" the collected works of Aristotle. Endeavoring to harmonize his metaphysics and its account of a prime mover with the Latin Catholic dogmatic trinitarian theology, these monastic schools became the basis of the earliest European medieval universities, and scholasticism dominated education in Europe from about 1100 to 1700. The rise of scholasticism was closely associated with these schools that flourished in Italy, France, Portugal, Spain and England. Scholasticism is a method of learning more than a philosophy or a theology, since it places a strong emphasis on dialectical reasoning to extend knowledge by inference and to resolve contradictions. Scholastic thought ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pierre Hadot
Pierre Hadot (; ; 21 February 1922 – 24 April 2010) was a French philosopher and historian of philosophy specializing in ancient philosophy, particularly Neoplatonism. Life In 1944, Hadot was ordained, but following Pope Pius XII’s encyclical '' Humani generis'' (1950) left the priesthood. He studied at the Sorbonne between 1946–1947. In 1961, he graduated from the École Pratique des Hautes Études. In 1964, he was appointed a Director of Studies at EPHE, initially occupying a chair in Latin Patristics, before his chair was renamed "Theologies and Mysticisms of Hellenistic Greece and the End of Antiquity" in 1972. He became professor at the Collège de France in 1983, where he assumed the chair of the History of Hellenistic and Roman Thought. In 1991, he retired from this position to become ''professeur honoraire'' at the collège; his last lecture was on 22 May that year. He concluded his final lecture by saying, "In the last analysis, we can scarcely talk about wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaius Marius Victorinus
Gaius Marius Victorinus (also known as Victorinus Afer; fl. 4th century) was a Roman grammarian, rhetorician and Neoplatonic philosopher. Victorinus was African by birth and experienced the height of his career during the reign of Constantius II. He is also known for translating two of Aristotle's books from ancient Greek into Latin: the '' Categories'' and ''On Interpretation'' (''De Interpretatione''). Victorinus had a religious conversion, from being a pagan to a Christian, "at an advanced old age" (c. 355). Life Victorinus, at some unknown point, left Africa for Rome (hence some modern scholars have dubbed him ''Afer''), probably for a teaching position, and had great success in his career, eventually being promoted to the lowest level of the senatorial order. That promotion probably came at the time when he received an honorific statue in the Forum of Trajan in 354. Victorinus' religious conversion to Christianity (c. 355), "at an advanced old age" according to Jerome, made a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sossianus Hierocles
Sossianus Hierocles (fl. 303 AD) was a late Roman aristocrat and office-holder. He served as a ''praeses'' in Syria under Diocletian at some time in the 290s. He was then made ''vicarius'' of some district, perhaps Oriens (the East, including Syria, Palestine, and, at the time, Egypt) until 303, when he was transferred to Bithynia. It is for his anti-Christian activities in Bithynia that he is principally remembered. He was, in the words of the '' Cambridge Ancient History'', "one of the most zealous of persecutors". While in Bithynia, Hierocles authored ''Lover of Truth'' (Greek: Φιλαλήθης, ''Philalethes''; also known as Φιλαλήθης λόγος, ''Philalethes logos''), a critique of Christianity. ''Lover of Truth'' is noted as the first instance of the trope, popular in later pagan polemic, of comparing the pagan holy man Apollonius of Tyana to Jesus Christ. Hierocles was among the campaigners for a stronger policy against Christians present at Diocletian's court t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Augustine
Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings influenced the development of Western philosophy and Western Christianity, and he is viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers of the Latin Church in the Patristic Period. His many important works include ''The City of God'', '' On Christian Doctrine'', and '' Confessions''. According to his contemporary, Jerome, Augustine "established anew the ancient Faith". In his youth he was drawn to the eclectic Manichaean faith, and later to the Hellenistic philosophy of Neoplatonism. After his conversion to Christianity and baptism in 386, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy and theology, accommodating a variety of methods and perspectives. Believing the grace of Christ was indispensable to human fre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
