PORTA, SIMONE (PORZIO, Portius, Porcius). — Aristotelian philosopher, born in Naples in 1496, died there in 1554. His principal works are: *De mente humana disputatio* (Florence 1551); *An homo bonus vel malus volens fiat* (ibid. 1551); *De rerum naturalium principiis* (Naples 1553).
A follower of Pomponazzi (q.v.), he made profound use of his knowledge of Greek to read the texts directly and interpret their thought with the aid of philology. As a naturalist, he prioritized physics over metaphysics (*De rerum* etc., pp. 5 ff.), whose determinism extends even to man: true freedom consists in self-sufficiency; only God is therefore truly free (*An homo* etc., p. 59). The immortality of the human soul is excluded by the intrinsic union of every faculty with the body, so that reason itself, to know, must become sense (*sensificatur*): the simplicity and impossibility of the intellect are not arguments for its immortality (*De mente* etc., pp. 66-70; cf. also pp. 61, 21-22, 27 ff.). The affirmation of immortality arises from our imperfection, which seeks fulfillment in the knowledge of God, driving man to desire what is impossible for him (op. cit., p. 97).