Philologie und Philosophie in Porphyrios' Einteilung der Schriften Plotins.

It is the so-called Vita Plotini by Plotinus' editor Porphyry that informs us of the editorial background of the former's Enneads. Taking this background into consideration, the paper attempts to provide the first comprehensive explanation of Porphyry's reasons for organizing Plotinus' writings the way he did. The author shows how Porphyry's arrangement brings together philology and philosophy, revealing the philosophical goal he was evidently pursuing with his editorial choices. The paper begins by using the Vita Plotini to show how Porphyry's organization of the texts constitutes an organic element of an ancient project of textual scholarship. This project furnishes three important formal aesthetic and philosophical principles for the arrangement of the material. Primarily this concerns the relationship of the Enneads to the arrangement of two older editions explicitly referred to by Porphyry: the Epicharmus edition by Apollodorus of Athens and the Aristotle edition by Andronicus of Rhodes. The transition from philology to philosophy that becomes comprehensible in this context conveys greater significance on the relationship of Porphyry's edition to Albin's edition of the Platonic dialogues, making possible a more precise understanding of the editorial aims Porphyry was pursuing with this editorial undertaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]