SOURCE: Preus, Anthony. “Biological Theory in Porphyry's De abstinentia.” Ancient Philosophy 3, no. 2 (fall 1983): 149-59.

In the following essay, Preus discusses two biological theories—providential ecology and the rationality of animals—set forth in On the Abstinence from Animal Food.

Context

The earlier Neoplatonists are not famous for their contributions to biological science, for the good reason that they did not do any serious biological investigations.¹ But the secondary literature has ignored the subject even more than it deserves. Although many pages have been written about Neoplatonic theories of the soul, only a few have been devoted to the physiological consequences of the embodiment of souls and even fewer treat the non-psychological parts of the biological investigation.² But there are reasons for thinking that Neoplatonists ought to have said something about biology: Neoplatonists took Plato's Timaeus almost as a sacred text, and the last 40 pages or so of that...