On Abstinence from Animal Food
De Abstinentia — the first sustained philosophical case for vegetarianism
Tradition: Neoplatonism / ethics of animals
If animals reason and feel, justice extends to them — a Neoplatonist argument for the meatless life
De Abstinentia is addressed to Firmus Castricius, a former student who had returned to eating meat. In four books, Porphyry argues that (I) the philosophical life requires purification from bodily excess; (II) the traditional sacrifices and meat-eating they entail are corruptions of an originally bloodless piety; (III) animals possess reason and sensation, and justice therefore extends to them; and (IV) various cultures (the Essenes, the Egyptian priests, the Indian Brahmans) practise abstinence, showing it is achievable. It is the most sophisticated ancient argument for vegetarianism and the moral consideration of animals.
Author
Editions cited
- Porphyry: On Abstinence from Killing Animals (Gillian Clark, Duckworth, 2000)
- Porphyre: De l'abstinence (Jean Bouffartigue & Michel Patillon, Les Belles Lettres, 1977–95)
- Select Works of Porphyry (Thomas Taylor, 1823; repr. Prometheus Trust, 1994)
School Embodiments
The ethical argument rests on Neoplatonic metaphysics: the soul's purification and return to the intelligible world require detachment from bodily pleasures, including the pleasure of eating meat.
"Abstinence from animal food is part of the purification of the soul and its preparation for the contemplation of the intelligible." (De Abstinentia I.29, paraphrase)
Book III is the most sustained ancient argument that animals have reason (logos) and that justice extends to all rational beings, not just humans.
"Those who say that only human beings have a share in reason are like those who say that only they themselves have a share in truth." (De Abstinentia III.1, paraphrase)
Porphyry traces the vegetarian tradition back to Pythagoras and the doctrine of transmigration: if the soul migrates between species, killing an animal may be killing a reincarnated human.
"Pythagoras forbade the eating of animals, teaching that all ensouled beings are akin." (De Abstinentia I.3, paraphrase)
Porphyry engages critically with the Stoic argument that animals are irrational and exist for human use — his counter-arguments borrow Stoic logical tools.
"The Stoics deny reason to animals — but observe the fox testing the ice: this is practical reasoning." (De Abstinentia III.4, paraphrase)
The Platonic ethics of purification (Phaedo, Republic) provides the framework: the philosopher separates soul from body, and abstinence from meat is part of that separation.
"The philosopher's task is to separate the soul from the body — and nothing binds the soul to the body more than the pleasures of the table." (De Abstinentia I.29, paraphrase)
Internal Tensions
The chief tension is between the Neoplatonic depreciation of embodied life (the body is a prison, matter is almost non-being) and the passionate defence of animal welfare that follows from extending reason and justice to animals. If the material world is a fall, why care so much about the suffering of its inhabitants? Porphyry's answer — that compassion purifies the soul — is persuasive but sits awkwardly with the metaphysical framework. A second tension: the argument applies only to "the philosopher" (De Abstinentia I.27), not to everyone — an elitism that limits its practical scope.
I. Time
The Neoplatonic framework: time is emergent, an image of eternity. The historical argument in Book II (from original bloodless sacrifice to corrupt blood sacrifice) implies a linear degeneration narrative. "In the beginning, piety was pure and bloodless." (De Abstinentia II.5, paraphrase)
Attributes
II. Space
Not discussed philosophically. The ethnographic material in Book IV (Indian Brahmans, Egyptian priests, Jewish Essenes) gives the treatise a global geographical scope.
Attributes
III. Matter
The body is matter ensouled — a Neoplatonic composite. Animals possess material bodies animated by rational souls. The material world is the arena of moral action. "Every ensouled creature participates in reason to some degree." (De Abstinentia III.8, paraphrase)
Attributes
IV. Observer
The observer is a soul temporarily embodied, seeking purification. Animals are also observers — they perceive, reason, and suffer. Knowledge is mediated through sensation and intellect. The cosmic order (Neoplatonic emanation) governs the hierarchy of souls. "If animals can reason, they are kin to us." (De Abstinentia III.1, paraphrase)
Attributes
V. Energy
The emanative power of the One sustains all levels of being. The argument for abstinence is partly energetic: eating meat binds the soul more tightly to the body and its passions. "Heavy food weighs down the soul." (De Abstinentia I.45, paraphrase)
Attributes
VI. Information
The Forms in Intellect are the archetypal information. Animal rationality — the central claim of Book III — means that animals participate in the informational order of the cosmos. "The logos in animals is imperfect but not absent." (De Abstinentia III.8, paraphrase)
Attributes
Personas that cite this work
Personas with the nearest attribute fingerprint
Historical figures whose own classification on the same six-dimensional grid lands closest to this work's. Computed by attribute-agreement on coordinates both address.
Computed school proximity
The work's attribute fingerprint scored against all schools using the same quiz scorer. Useful as a sanity check on the hand-curated embodiments above.
How On Abstinence from Animal Food resolves each dilemma
50 resolved positions across 4 dimensions, including 13 distinctive where the majority of schools go the other way · 7 unaligned.
Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.
Time · 9 dilemmas · 3 distinctive
Persistence, the future, and the direction of becoming.
6 mainstream positions
Matter · 7 dilemmas · 3 distinctive
What stuff is — fundamental, relational, or appearance.
4 mainstream positions
Observer · 37 dilemmas · 5 distinctive
Mind, agency, and the knower's relation to the known.