Porphyry's Introduction
Publisher: Oxford University Press
The Introduction to philosophy, written by Porphyry at the end of the second century AD is the most successful work of its kind ever to have been published. Porphyry's aim was modest: he intended to explain the meaning of five terms, 'genus', 'species', 'difference', 'property', and 'accident' - terms that he took to be important to Aristotelian logic and metaphysics, and hence to philosophy in general. Thus in principle the Introduction is simple and elementary. In face, there are sometimes difficulties an