Porphyry's account of the nature of seeds can shed light on some less appreciated details of Neoplatonic psychology, in particular on the interaction between individual souls. The process of producing the seed and the conception of the seed offer a physical instantiation of procession and reversion, activities that are central to Neoplatonic metaphysics. In an act analogous to procession, the seed is produced by the father's nature, and as such it is ontologically inferior to the father's nature. Thus, the seed (...) does not strictly speaking contain a full-fledged vegetative soul. Rather, it acquires its vegetative soul only while it is being actualized by an actual vegetative soul. This actualization takes place primarily at conception, where the seed as it were reverts back and becomes obedient to the mother's nature, but continues through the period of gestation. In this way, Porphyry can account both for maternal resemblance and for ideoplasty. He uses the Stoic language of complete blending to describe the mother's relation to the seed and embryo, and this reveals that he thinks of individuals as having their own unique individual natures (as opposed to sharing in a single universal nature). In the course of developing this theory, Porphyry makes significant revisions to his philosophical predecessors' views in both embryology and botany. He revises Aristotle's verdict on the relative importance of the female in generation as well as Theophrastus' explanation of the biological mechanics of grafting. Although Plotinus nowhere addresses embryology in the same detail as Porphyry does, we can conclude from his remarks on seeds and plants that his own views were similar to those of his student. (shrink)

Aristotle’s broad characterization of the soul has been challenged on account of its reliance on the notion of a “potentially alive body”. J. L. Ackrill famously claimed that no body can meet this description without being already actually alive. By a close inspection of both metaphysical and embryological texts, this paper argues that (1) it is embryos (and not fully-formed organic bodies) who provide the right kind of potentially alive subjects and that (2) the schematic character of the soul’s common (...) formula accounts for its seemingly intractable features. It also holds that (3) once the homonymous nature of life is brought into the picture, the κοινότατος λόγος appears unproblematic – at least for some of its most troublesome instances. (shrink)