caa a22 4500 388113480 CHVBK 20180307125359.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130e199903 xx s 000 0 eng 10.1017/S0957423900002605 doi S0957423900002605 pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.1017/S0957423900002605 Costa Cristina D'Ancona Universita degli Studi di Padova, Dipartimento di Filosofia, Piazza Capitaniato 3, 35139 Padova, Italy Porphyry, Universal Soul and the Arabic Plotinus [Elektronische Daten] [Cristina D'Ancona Costa] Scholars working in the field of Graeco-Arabic Neoplatonism often discuss the role Porphyry, the editor of Plotinus, must be credited with in the formation of the Arabic Plotinian corpus. A note in this corpus apparently suggests that Porphyry provided a commentary to the so-called Theology of Aristotle, i.e., parts of some treatises of Enneads IV-VI. Consequently, Porphyry has been considered as responsible for the (sometimes relevant) doctrinal shifts which affect the Arabic Plotinian paraphrase with respect to the original text. This article aims at submitting this hypothesis to trial on a specific doctrinal point where Porphyry parts company with Plotinus: the relationship between the Demiurgic Intellect and World Soul. The ancient doxographical sources testify that Porphyry, in his conviction to be in agreement with Plotinus, in fact parted company with him in so far as he merged the World Soul into the Demiurgic Intellect, while Plotinus always kept them apart. There are in the Enneads some baffling passages where the role of Intellect as the Demiurge of the sensible world is not clearly distinguishable from the role of World Soul. Notwithstanding that, these passages in the Arabic paraphrase do not bear any trace of the characteristically Porphyrian merging of World Soul into Intellect. The Arabic paraphrase of Plotinus' writings never confuses Intellect and World Soul, as Porphyry did. This fact seems to disprove, at least on this point, the hypothesis of Porphyry's intervention as the explanation for the doctrinal differences between the original Plotinus' text and its Arabic tradition. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999 Arabic Sciences and Philosophy Cambridge University Press 9/1(1999-03), 47-88 0957-4239 9:1<47 1999 9 ASP https://doi.org/10.1017/S0957423900002605 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0957423900002605 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Costa Cristina D'Ancona Universita degli Studi di Padova, Dipartimento di Filosofia, Piazza Capitaniato 3, 35139 Padova, Italy NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Arabic Sciences and Philosophy Cambridge University Press 9/1(1999-03), 47-88 0957-4239 9:1<47 1999 9 ASP CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge