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<span id="openzim-page-title" class="mw-page-title-main"><span class="mw-page-title-main">Porphyrian tree</span></span>
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<p>In <a href="Philosophy" title="Philosophy">philosophy</a> (particularly the <a href="Theory_of_categories" title="Theory of categories">theory of categories</a>), the <b>Porphyrian tree</b> (also spelled <b>Porphyrean tree</b>)<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-3"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>3<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-4"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>4<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-5"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>5<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> or <b>Tree of Porphyry</b> is a classic device for illustrating a "scale of being" (<a href="Latin_language" class="mw-redirect" title="Latin language">Latin</a>: <i lang="la">scala praedicamentalis</i>), attributed to the 3rd-century <a href="Common_Era" title="Common Era">CE</a> Greek <a href="Neoplatonism" title="Neoplatonism">neoplatonist</a> philosopher and logician <a href="Porphyry_(philosopher)" class="mw-redirect" title="Porphyry (philosopher)">Porphyry</a>, and revived through the translations of <a href="Boethius" title="Boethius">Boethius</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-6"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>6<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>Porphyry suggests the tree in his introduction ("<span title="Latin-language text"><i lang="la"><a href="Isagoge" title="Isagoge">Isagoge</a></i></span>") to <a href="Aristotle" title="Aristotle">Aristotle</a>'s <a href="Categories_(Aristotle)" title="Categories (Aristotle)">Categories</a>. Porphyry presented Aristotle's classification of categories in a way that was later adopted into tree-like diagrams of two-way divisions, which indicate that a species is defined by <a href="Genus-differentia" class="mw-redirect" title="Genus-differentia">a genus and a differentia</a> and that this logical process continues until the lowest species is reached, which can no longer be so defined. No illustrations or diagrams occur in editions of Porphyry's original work; diagrams were eventually made, and became associated with the scheme that Porphyry describes, following Aristotle.
</p><p>Porphyry's <span title="Latin-language text"><i lang="la">Isagoge</i></span> was originally written in Greek, but was translated into Latin in the early 6th century CE by <a href="Anicius_Manlius_Severinus_Boethius" class="mw-redirect" title="Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius">Boethius</a>. Translations by Boethius became the standard philosophical logic textbook in the Middle Ages,<sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-7"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>7<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> and theories of categories based on Porphyry's work were still being taught to students of <a href="Logic" title="Logic">logic</a> until the late 19th century.
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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="History">History</h2></div>
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<p>Philosopher <a href="James_Franklin_(philosopher)" title="James Franklin (philosopher)">James Franklin</a> offers some history of the Porphyrian tree:
</p>
<dl><dd>In medieval education, the standard introduction to Aristotle's works was via Porphyry's <i>Isagoge</i>, and division entered the educated consciousness in the form of 'Porphyry's Tree'. It is not clear that Porphyry himself, in the relevant passage,<sup id="cite_ref-8" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-8"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>8<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> went any further than Aristotle in recommending division. But his brief comment was developed into the Tree by medieval logicians. It appears in <a href="William_of_Sherwood" title="William of Sherwood">William of Sherwood's</a> <i>Introduction to Logic</i> and is given the name <b>Arbor Porphyrii</b> in the most popular medieval logic, <a href="Peter_of_Spain_(author)" class="mw-redirect" title="Peter of Spain (author)">Peter of Spain</a>'s <i>Summulae Logicales</i>.<sup id="cite_ref-9" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-9"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>9<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> <a href="Linnaeus" class="mw-redirect" title="Linnaeus">Linnaeus</a>'s system of static and discrete species was simply the result of filling in the abstract Tree with the names of actual species.<sup id="cite_ref-10" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-10"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>10<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup></dd></dl>
<p>Thus, the notion of the Porphyrian tree as an actual diagram comes later than Porphyry himself. Still, scholars do speak of Porphyry's tree as in the <i>Isagoge</i> and they mean by this only that the idea of dividing genera into species via differentiae is found in the <i>Isagoge</i>. But, of course, Porphyry was only following what was already in Aristotle, and Aristotle was following what was already in his teacher, <a href="Plato" title="Plato">Plato</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-11" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-11"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>11<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Example">Example</h2></div>
<p>The following Porphyrian tree consists of three columns of words; the middlemost (in boldface) contains the series of <a href="Genus" title="Genus">genera</a> and <a href="Species" title="Species">species</a>, and we can take it as analogous to the trunk of a tree. The extremes (the terms that jut out to the left and right), containing the <a href="Differentia" title="Differentia">differentiae</a>, we can take as analogous to the branches of a tree:
</p>
<p>The diagram shows the highest genus to be substance. (Whether substance is a highest genus, really, is not in question here: right now we are only going to discuss what the diagram shows, not whether what it shows is true or false.) The technical term for a highest substance is <i><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/summum_genus" class="extiw external" title="wikt:summum genus">summum genus</a></i>. So, substance is the <i>summum genus</i> as far as this diagram goes. The diagram shows that the genus substance has two differentia, namely, "thinking" and "extended." This indicates that there are two species of the genus substance, thinking substance and extended substance. The diagram does not give a term for the species of thinking substance (this would be "mind"), but it does give the term for the species of extended substance, namely, body. That is, body is a species of the genus substance; body is that species of the genus substance that is extended.
</p><p>Now that we have seen body as a species of substance, we treat body as a genus itself. As a genus, it has two differentia of its own, inanimate and animate. So, there are two species of body, inanimate body and animate body. The diagram does not tell us what the term for inanimate body is, but it indicates a term for animate body, namely, animal. Animal is an animate species of the genus body.
</p><p>And, again, now that we have looked at animal as a species of the genus body, we look at animal now as a genus and consider its differentia, which are shown on the diagram to be irrational and rational. Thus, according to the diagram there are two species of the genus animal, irrational animal and rational animal. We are not told by the diagram what a term for irrational animal is, but the diagram indicates that a rational animal is a human. Thus, human is a rational species of the genus animal.
</p><p>Beneath human, however, there are no further species. "This" and "that" if they are considered differentiae, are of a special kind that map the species human not onto a new species but onto particular humans.<sup id="cite_ref-12" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-12"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>12<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> The particular human Plato is named in the diagram. Plato is not a species (that is why his name is not in bold, unlike the species above). So, human is the lowest species in this diagram. The technical name for the lowest species in such a scheme is the <i><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/infima_species" class="extiw external" title="wikt:infima species">infima species</a></i>. So, for this diagram, human is the <i>infima species</i>.
</p>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="See_also">See also</h2></div>
<ul><li><a href="Hegelian_Dialectic" class="mw-redirect" title="Hegelian Dialectic">Hegelian Dialectic</a></li>
<li><a href="Hierarchy" title="Hierarchy">Hierarchy</a></li>
<li><a href="Linnaean_taxonomy" title="Linnaean taxonomy">Linnaean taxonomy</a></li>
<li><a href="Ontology" title="Ontology">Ontology</a></li>
<li><a href="Ontology_(information_science)" title="Ontology (information science)">Ontology (information science)</a></li>
<li><i><a href="Sefer_HaIkkarim" title="Sefer HaIkkarim">Sefer HaIkkarim</a></i></li>
<li><a href="Level_of_analysis" title="Level of analysis">Level of analysis</a></li>
<li><a href="Tree_of_life" title="Tree of life">Tree of life</a></li>
<li><a href="Hasse_diagram" title="Hasse diagram">Hasse diagram</a></li></ul>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Notes">Notes</h2></div>
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<li id="cite_note-1"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-1">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1238218222">
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</style><cite id="CITEREFEco2014" class="citation book cs1">Eco, Umberto (2014-02-25). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.google.com.br/books/edition/From_the_Tree_to_the_Labyrinth/nh35AgAAQBAJ"><i>From the Tree to the Labyrinth</i></a>. Harvard University Press. p. 45. <a href="ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <bdi>978-0-674-72816-5</bdi>.</cite></span>
</li>
<li id="cite_note-2"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-2">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFVance1987" class="citation book cs1">Vance, Eugene (1987). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.google.com.br/books/edition/From_Topic_to_Tale/nu4LB_59o8MC"><i>From Topic to Tale: Logic and Narrativity in the Middle Ages</i></a>. U of Minnesota Press. p. 87. <a href="ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <bdi>978-0-8166-1536-0</bdi>.</cite></span>
</li>
<li id="cite_note-3"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-3">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFSweeneyCarrollFurlong2007" class="citation book cs1">Sweeney, Leo; Carroll, William J.; Furlong, John J. (2007-03-19). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.google.com.br/books/edition/Authentic_Metaphysics_in_an_Age_of_Unrea/BmVLAwAAQBAJ"><i>Authentic Metaphysics in an Age of Unreality, Second Edition</i></a>. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 55. <a href="ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <bdi>978-1-59752-215-1</bdi>.</cite></span>
</li>
<li id="cite_note-4"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-4">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFDrăgan2021" class="citation book cs1">Drăgan, Nicolae-Sorin (2021-10-25). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.google.com.br/books/edition/Differences_Similarities_and_Meanings/VgZGEAAAQBAJ"><i>Differences, Similarities and Meanings: Semiotic Investigations of Contemporary Communication Phenomena</i></a>. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p. 117. <a href="ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <bdi>978-3-11-066290-0</bdi>.</cite></span>
</li>
<li id="cite_note-5"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-5">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFBennettFellbaum2006" class="citation book cs1">Bennett, B.; Fellbaum, C. (2006-10-26). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.google.com.br/books/edition/Formal_Ontology_in_Information_Systems/9wTvAgAAQBAJ"><i>Formal Ontology in Information Systems: Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference (FOIS 2006)</i></a>. IOS Press. p. 136. <a href="ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <bdi>978-1-60750-211-1</bdi>.</cite></span>
</li>
<li id="cite_note-6"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-6">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">James Franklin, "Aristotle on Species Variation", <i>Philosophy</i>, 61:236 (April 1986), pp. 245-252.</span>
</li>
<li id="cite_note-7"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-7">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/medieval-categories/#WilOckBCa128D134">Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy</a> - Medieval Theories of the Categories</span>
</li>
<li id="cite_note-8"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-8">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Franklin's note: "Porphyry, <i>Isagoge</i>, trans. E. W. Warren (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1975), 34."</span>
</li>
<li id="cite_note-9"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-9">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Franklin's note: "<a href="Norman_Kretzmann" title="Norman Kretzmann">N. Kretzmann</a>, <i>William of Sherwood's Introduction to Logic</i> (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1966), 54; Peter of Spain, <i>Summulae Logicales</i>, <a href="J%C3%B3zef_Maria_Boche%C5%84ski" title="Józef Maria Bocheński">I. M. Bocheński</a> (ed.) (Turin: Marietti, 1947), 17-18."</span>
</li>
<li id="cite_note-10"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-10">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">James Franklin, "Aristotle on Species Variation", <i>Philosophy</i>, 61:236 (April 1986), pp. 245-252. The passage quoted here is from pp. 251-252.</span>
</li>
<li id="cite_note-11"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-11">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">A number of Plato's dialogs contain the idea of division in them: see <a href="Sophist_(dialogue)" title="Sophist (dialogue)">Sophist</a>, <a href="Philebus" title="Philebus">Philebus</a>, <a href="Statesman_(dialogue)" title="Statesman (dialogue)">Statesman</a>, <a href="Republic_(dialogue)" class="mw-redirect" title="Republic (dialogue)">Republic</a> (book VII), and <a href="Parmenides_(dialogue)" title="Parmenides (dialogue)">Parmenides</a>.</span>
</li>
<li id="cite_note-12"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-12">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">For a discussion of "this" and "that" as universals/differentia, see <a href="Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel" title="Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel">G. W. F. Hegel</a>, <i><a href="Phenomenology_of_Spirit" class="mw-redirect" title="Phenomenology of Spirit">Phenomenology of Spirit</a></i>, "A. Consciousness", "I. Sense-Certainty: or the 'this' and 'meaning' [Meinen]", translated by A. V. Miller, Oxford University Press, pp. 58-66.</span>
</li>
</ol></div></div>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="References">References</h2></div>
<p><span class="noviewer" typeof="mw:File"><span></span></span> This article incorporates text from a publication now in the <a href="Public_domain" title="Public domain">public domain</a>: <cite id="CITEREFChambers1728" class="citation encyclopaedia cs1"><a href="Ephraim_Chambers" title="Ephraim Chambers">Chambers, Ephraim</a>, ed. (1728). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/HistSciTech/HistSciTech-idx?type=turn&id=HistSciTech.Cyclopaedia01&entity=HistSciTech.Cyclopaedia01.p0168">"Arbor Porphyriana"</a>. <i><a href="Cyclop%C3%A6dia%2C_or_an_Universal_Dictionary_of_Arts_and_Sciences" title="Cyclopædia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences">Cyclopædia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences</a></i> (1st ed.). James and John Knapton, et al. p. 128.</cite>
</p>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Further_reading">Further reading</h2></div>
<dl><dt>Sources</dt></dl>
<ul><li><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/porphyry_isagogue_01_intro.htm">Porphyry, <i>Isagoge</i></a> (Porphyry's <i>Introduction to Aristotle's 'Categories'</i>.)</li>
<li><i>Porphyry's Introduction</i>, translation and commentary by Jonathan Barnes, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003.</li></ul>
<dl><dt>Studies</dt></dl>
<ul><li>Asztalos, Monika. (1993). "Boethius as a Transmitter of Greek Logic to the Latin West: The Categories". <i>Harvard Studies in Classical Philology</i>, 95 (1993), pp. 367–407.</li>
<li>Blum, Paul Richard. (1999). Dio e gli individui: L' <i>Arbor Porphyriana</i> nei secoli XVII e XVIII. <i>Rivista di filosofia neo-scolastica</i> 91: 18-49.</li>
<li>Franklin, James. (1986). "Aristotle on Species Variation". Philosophy, 61:236 (April 1986), pp. 245–252.</li>
<li>Kretzmann, Norman. (1966). <i>William of Sherwood's Introduction to Logic</i> (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1966).</li>
<li>Martin, John N. (2001). "Proclus and the Neoplatonic Syllogistic". <i>Journal of Philosophical Logic</i>, 30:3 (June 2001), pp. 187–240.</li>
<li><a href="Peter_of_Spain_(author)" class="mw-redirect" title="Peter of Spain (author)">Peter of Spain</a>. (1947). <i>Summulae Logicales</i>, I. M. Bocheński (ed.) (Turin: Marietti, 1947).</li></ul>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="External_links">External links</h2></div>
<ul><li><span class="noviewer" typeof="mw:File"></span> Media related to <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Porphyrian_tree" class="extiw external" title="commons:Category:Porphyrian tree">Porphyrian tree</a> at Wikimedia Commons</li></ul>
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<ul><li><i><a href="Against_the_Christians" title="Against the Christians">Against the Christians</a></i></li>
<li><i><a href="Isagoge" title="Isagoge">Isagoge</a></i></li>
<li><i><a href="On_Abstinence_from_Eating_Animals" title="On Abstinence from Eating Animals">On Abstinence from Eating Animals</a></i></li>
<li><i><a href="On_the_Cave_of_the_Nymphs_in_the_Odyssey" title="On the Cave of the Nymphs in the Odyssey">On the Cave of the Nymphs in the Odyssey</a></i></li></ul>
</div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">Miscellaneous</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em">
<ul></ul>
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<ul><li><a href="Venn_diagram" title="Venn diagram">Venn diagram</a></li>
<li><a href="Square_of_opposition" title="Square of opposition">Square of opposition</a></li>
<li><a href="Karnaugh_map" title="Karnaugh map">Karnaugh map</a></li>
<li><a href="Binary_decision_diagram" title="Binary decision diagram">Binary decision diagram</a></li>
<li><a href="Propositional_directed_acyclic_graph" title="Propositional directed acyclic graph">Propositional directed acyclic graph</a></li>
<li><a href="Sentential_decision_diagram" title="Sentential decision diagram">Sentential decision diagram</a></li>
<li><a href="Truth_table" title="Truth table">Truth table</a></li>
<li><a href="Sequent_calculus" title="Sequent calculus">Sequent calculus</a></li>
<li><a href="Method_of_analytic_tableaux" title="Method of analytic tableaux">Method of analytic tableaux</a></li></ul>
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