The starting point of this paper is a proposition in Porphyry's Sententiae. There he says, "death is of two sorts: the one is the generally recognised one involving the loosing of the body from the soul; the other is that of the philosophers, involving the soul loosing itself from the body" (9, 1 3). What is most problematic is the last passage of this Sentence: kaί oύ πάυτως σ έττερος τώ ξτέρω ξπεται. This can be translated as "it is not always necessary that either should follow upon the other" or "it is never the case that either should follow upon the other"
I read this line as a denial of both the natural death as a consequence of the death of philosophers and the reverse. However, it is not my aim to present a clear-cut solution to this problem, which seems to be impossible. Rather, considering what Porphyry understands as the death of philosophers, I would like to give an insight into the Sententiae themselves, and into the fact that this work is entitled "Pathways to the Intelligible" (ΆΦορμαί πρός τά υοητά) in the manuscripts.
After resuming the problems that arouse from this passage, I briefly sketch the background of the argument. The source text is certainly Plato's Phaedo. It becomes clear that the problem Sentence 9 contains is already implied in this Platonic dialogue.
Next, before making a concluding remark, I embark upon an explanation of what the death of philosophers means in the ontology of Neoplatonism. It is to be treated together with the notion of ξπιστροφή or κάθαρσις, which Porphyry (and of course Plotinus) inherited from Plato. And it becomes indispensable to interpret the death in relation to the degree of virtues fully discussed in Sentence 32. The survey on these matters makes it clearer in what sense the death of philosophers is not connected to the natural death.
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