Porphyry's Life of Plotinus
E736691
Porphyry's Life of Plotinus is a biographical work by the Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry that provides the principal ancient account of the life, character, and teachings of his teacher Plotinus.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Life of Plotinus | 1 |
| Porphyry's Life of Plotinus canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T8473563 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Porphyry's Life of Plotinus Context triple: [Amelius Gentilianus, sourceMention, Porphyry's Life of Plotinus]
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A.
Philostratus’ Imagines
Philostratus’ *Imagines* is a collection of ekphrastic descriptions of paintings, blending art criticism and imaginative storytelling in the form of rhetorical essays from the Second Sophistic period.
-
B.
Proclus' Chrestomathy
Proclus' Chrestomathy is a lost ancient Greek work, known through later summaries, that provided prose epitomes of the early epic poems of the Trojan cycle and other pre-Homeric epics.
-
C.
Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
Diogenes Laertius’ *Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers* is an early third-century biographical and doxographical compendium that preserves many of the principal anecdotes, teachings, and fragments of ancient Greek philosophers.
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D.
Theologia Platonica
Theologia Platonica is Marsilio Ficino’s major philosophical treatise that systematically presents a Christianized interpretation of Plato’s metaphysics and the immortality of the soul, foundational to Renaissance Platonism.
-
E.
Physiologia Stoicorum
Physiologia Stoicorum is a late 16th-century scholarly treatise by Justus Lipsius that systematically reconstructs and interprets ancient Stoic philosophy, especially its physics and theology, for early modern readers.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Porphyry's Life of Plotinus Target entity description: Porphyry's Life of Plotinus is a biographical work by the Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry that provides the principal ancient account of the life, character, and teachings of his teacher Plotinus.
-
A.
Philostratus’ Imagines
Philostratus’ *Imagines* is a collection of ekphrastic descriptions of paintings, blending art criticism and imaginative storytelling in the form of rhetorical essays from the Second Sophistic period.
-
B.
Proclus' Chrestomathy
Proclus' Chrestomathy is a lost ancient Greek work, known through later summaries, that provided prose epitomes of the early epic poems of the Trojan cycle and other pre-Homeric epics.
-
C.
Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
Diogenes Laertius’ *Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers* is an early third-century biographical and doxographical compendium that preserves many of the principal anecdotes, teachings, and fragments of ancient Greek philosophers.
-
D.
Theologia Platonica
Theologia Platonica is Marsilio Ficino’s major philosophical treatise that systematically presents a Christianized interpretation of Plato’s metaphysics and the immortality of the soul, foundational to Renaissance Platonism.
-
E.
Physiologia Stoicorum
Physiologia Stoicorum is a late 16th-century scholarly treatise by Justus Lipsius that systematically reconstructs and interprets ancient Stoic philosophy, especially its physics and theology, for early modern readers.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
ancient Greek biography
ⓘ
biographical work ⓘ philosophical biography ⓘ |
| about |
Neoplatonic school of Plotinus
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
intellectual milieu of 3rd-century Rome ⓘ |
| alternativeTitle |
On the Life of Plotinus and the Arrangement of His Works
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Vita Plotini NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| author | Porphyry NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| centuryOfComposition | 3rd century ⓘ |
| contains |
Porphyry's editorial remarks on the Enneads
ⓘ
biographical anecdotes about Plotinus ⓘ information on arrangement of Plotinus' writings ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | Roman Empire NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| dateWritten | 3rd century ⓘ |
| describes |
character of Plotinus
ⓘ
life of Plotinus ⓘ teachings of Plotinus ⓘ |
| focusesOn |
moral character of Plotinus
ⓘ
philosophical practice of Plotinus ⓘ teaching activity of Plotinus ⓘ |
| hasGenre | philosophical literature ⓘ |
| hasInfluenceOn |
later biographies of philosophers
ⓘ
modern understanding of Neoplatonism ⓘ reception of Plotinus in late antiquity ⓘ |
| hasPerspective | student's account of his teacher ⓘ |
| historicalPeriodDescribed | 3rd century CE ⓘ |
| language | Ancient Greek ⓘ |
| literaryForm | prose ⓘ |
| literaryGenre | biography ⓘ |
| mainSubject | Plotinus NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| mentions |
Ammonius Saccas
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
students of Plotinus ⓘ |
| movement | Neoplatonism NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| partOf | corpus of Neoplatonic literature ⓘ |
| philosophicalTradition |
Neoplatonism
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Platonism NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| preservedIn | manuscript tradition of the Enneads ⓘ |
| provides | principal ancient account of Plotinus ⓘ |
| relatedWork | Enneads NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| settingDescribed |
3rd-century Rome
ⓘ
Alexandria NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| subjectOf |
Neoplatonism scholarship
ⓘ
classical philology studies ⓘ history of philosophy research ⓘ |
| title | Life of Plotinus NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| usedAs | primary source for Plotinus' biography ⓘ |
| writtenBy | Porphyry of Tyre NERFINISHED ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Porphyry's Life of Plotinus Description of subject: Porphyry's Life of Plotinus is a biographical work by the Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry that provides the principal ancient account of the life, character, and teachings of his teacher Plotinus.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Life of Plotinus