ABSTRACT
The direct impact of Porphyry on the Arabic tradition, however, was slight. Porphyry was known chiefly for having written the Isagoge, a text which in Arabic as in Latin was treated as part of the Aristotelian logical curriculum. Interest in the Isagoge starts already in the Syriac tradition; it was translated into Syriac more than once and Ibn al-Muqaffa ’ epitomized it. The contrast between Alexander and the later Neoplatonic commentators shows that the question of how far to take the analogy between art and nature could have far-reaching metaphysical consequences. It provides us with the necessary context to understand what might have been behind the aforementioned fragment of Porphyry’s Physics commentary. The Baghdad Peripatetics are explicit in tracing the teleology of nature ultimately to the providence of God Himself.
