The Elements of Avicenna's Physics: Greek Sources and Arabic Innovations
... Trying to clarify the true meaning of Aristotle's criterion of an internal principle of motion, Tartaret recalls that some authors like Avicenna had interpreted this expression as referring to an active principle of motion ( [35] (I, c. 5, ff. 16va-17ra); on Avicenna's position, see [36] (pp. 213-306); on the problem of interpreting the 'principles' involved in Aristotle's definition(s) of nature, see [25]). ...
This paper aims at tracking down, by looking at late medieval and early modern discussions over the ontological status of artifacts, the main steps of the process through which nature became theorized on a mechanistic model in the early 17th century. The adopted methodology consists in examining how inventions such as mechanical clocks and automata forced philosophers to modify traditional criteria based on an intrinsic principle of motion and rest for defining natural beings. The paper studies different strategies designed in the transitional period 1300–1600 for making these inventions compatible with classical definitions of nature and artifacts. In the first part of the paper, it is shown that, even if virtually all medieval philosophers acknowledged an ontological distinction between artifacts and natural beings, these different strategies demonstrate a growing concern about the consistency of the art/nature distinction. The next part of the paper studies how mechanical clocks, even before the Scientific Revolution, served as theoretical models for applying mechanistic views to different objects (be they cosmological, physical or biological). The epistemological function of clocks appears to stem from different factors (like the specific manufacturing of late medieval clocks as well as the evolution of 16th-century mechanics) that are listed in this second part of the paper. These factors, combined with the definitional issues raised by automata, explain that clocks became the symbol of a new approach to natural philosophy, characterized by the collapse of the art/nature distinction and the “mechanization of nature”.
Aristotelian science consists in demonstrations from its first principles, the axioms and definitions. For Avicenna, like Aristotle, a definition gives ‘a formula of the essence’ or quiddity. Avicenna recognizes quiddities in three respects: in themselves, in re, and in intellectu. He grounds definitions on quiddities in themselves. Yet how are we to grasp these quiddities so as to get at the definitions? This chapter summarizes Avicenna’s threefold distinction of quiddity (triplex status naturae), as well as his recognition of both intelligible and perceptible individuals. It will then give an account of how Avicenna thinks that we can come to grasp quiddities in themselves.
This essay will address the following question: how did Avicenna, the follower and commentator of Aristotle, manage to achieve a more comprehensive account of “place” (makān) than Aristotle himself did before differently in Categories and Physics. This theory of “place” is also phenomenological, since Avicenna’s related works deal with the concrete phenomena of the physical world, thereby describing how place shows itself to us, illustrating the ways we understand through its relation to bodies. Rather than delivering the essence of place, Avicenna delineates the priority of place by expressing that every body that is in the physical world must be emplaced. In other words, there would be no world (ʿālam) without local places particular to the things placed in that world. This ontological power of place not only guarantees every body its “proper place” (that is, every thing has its own place by its very nature) but also describes how places must be filled with bodies (i.e., “thinged”), without falling into the error of identifying one with the other. A phenomenological approach to Avicennan physics, in this essay, will disclose that the power of place designated by Aristotle is strengthened in terms of its uniqueness and irreducibility, before giving way to the supremacy of space (spatium) in modern philosophy.
In this paper, I examine Aristotle’s cosmological proof of God’s existence, Avicenna’s metaphysical proof, and Thomas Aquinas’s five-way proof. By comparing these proofs, I argue that philosophers and theologians take different approaches to proving God’s existence not only because they follow different epistemological principles but, more fundamentally, because they construct different metaphysical frameworks in which God as the Supreme Being plays different roles and is thus clarified differently. The proof of God’s existence is also of theological significance. This paper makes an original contribution by showing that, despite Avicenna’s harsh criticism, Aquinas returns to Aristotelian cosmological proof. Moreover, Aquinas goes beyond Aristotle by identifying God not only as the First Mover but also as the Creator. The theme of God’s existence bridges philosophy and theology, and it also clearly reflects the interplay and mutual influence of Greek philosophy, Arabic Aristotelianism, and Latin Scholastics.
In medieval writers we find a distinction between body as a substance – corpus-substantia – and body as a quantity – corpus-quantitas (or quantum). One of the earliest uses of this distinction is in works written by Robert Grosseteste in the 1220s. In this paper I explore his use and understanding of this distinction. I argue that he understands corpus-substantia as such as a dimensionless composite of a first corporeal form, corporeity, and prime matter. Corporeity itself is an active power for three dimensions. Through its infinite and necessary self-multiplication corporeity extends the prime matter it informs into three dimensions, thereby resulting in corpus-quantum. I explore how Grosseteste’s conception of corporeity, though probably based on ideas found in Avicenna, diverges from different understandings of Avicenna’s conception of corporeity proposed by medieval and modern commentators.
Ibn Sīnā (also known as Avicenna; 980?–1037) was the most significant Muslim philosopher and physician of the so‐called Middle Ages. He understood philosophy as a systematic and universal scientific endeavor, and considerably shaped the way in which theological and religious matters – just as much as concerns from within metaphysics, natural philosophy, and logic – have been conceived by Muslim, Christian, and Jewish authors writing in the wake of his accomplishments. His long‐lasting influence is attested by numerous commentaries and reactions to his account of reality. Central aspects of his philosophy include the description of God as well as the scientific explanation of creation, prophecy, evil, and the afterlife.
Links:
https://pfk.qom.ac.ir/?lang=en
https://pfk.qom.ac.ir/article_2417.html?lang=en
https://pfk.qom.ac.ir/article_2417_a12a5059dfe54e9fb3410447d9c0a3c2.pdf
JPTR, 2023, Vol.25, No.1
Although overshadowed by his celebrated commentaries on Ibn ʿArabī and Ibn al-Fāriḍ, Dāwūd al-Qayṣarī’s (d. 750/1351) treatise on the philosophy of time – the Nihāyat al-bayān fī dirāyat al-zamān (The Utmost Elucidation Concerning Knowledge of Time) – is a notable milestone in the history of Islamic conceptions of temporality. Composed around the start of Qayṣarī’s tenure as head of the first Ottoman madrasa, the Nihāyat al-bayān rejects the Aristotelian definition of time as the number of motion in favor of Abū l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī’s concept of zamān as the measure of being. Challenging, likewise, portrayals of time as a flux or succession of fleeting instants, Qayṣarī propounds instead an absolutist vision of time as an integral, objectively existent whole. Qayṣarī’s reassessment of dominant medieval theories of temporality – including kalām atomism and the Neoplatonic distinction between time, perpetuity, and eternity – is thus shown to be a key early example of what was to become an abiding Ottoman interest in time and timekeeping.
Many later thinkers in the Islamic world pick up on, and further expand, the idea of intuition (ḥads) as they react to Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā). Focusing on figures from the twelfth–thirteenth century, in this paper we will focus especially on the following points of debate: (1) Avicenna’s idea that intuition is distingiushed from normal (discursive) thought by lacking ‘motion’, (2) The question of how and why different individuals differ in the extent of their intuition, (3) The role of intuitive thought in grounding knowledge: is intuition needed every time a certain item of knowledge is grasped for the first time, and hence without a teacher; and further, is intuition needed as an ultimate justification for all non-intuitive knowledge?
Investigating historical sources for positions on animals and animal ethics within philosophy of the Islamic world is a profound challenge, given the quantity and diversity of possible source texts. This article argues that Ibn Sīnā’s (Avicenna, d. 428/1037) philosophy provides a hitherto unappreciated account of animal well-being. By tracing his conception of providence to that of essences, and by highlighting the role of psychological powers in ensuring the attainment of essential goods, this article argues that Avicenna can account both for essential goods and interests proper to individual species and for the capacity of animals to attain these goods and interests. This account rests on Avicenna’s rich teleology, which includes the role of the lawgiver as the upholder of justice within human society. In the end, human goods and animal goods are articulated with the same overarching account, which human beings are called to know.
Die arabische Rezeption des Aristoteles lässt sich grob in drei Stadien einteilen. Während ihrer Anfangs- und Endphase – in den ersten Anfängen der islamischen Zivilisation und in der nachklassischen Periode – war das Bild, das man in der islamischen Welt von Aristoteles hatte, ziemlich vage, um nicht zu sagen: nebulös. Aristoteles wurde als eine Art Allzweckweiser behandelt, zunächst, weil man ihn nicht hinreichend gut verstand, dann aber auch, weil er zu sehr das war, was man eine alte Bekanntschaft nennt: Eine zwar achtunggebietende Figur, vielleicht sogar ein Stellvertreter für die griechische Philosophie insgesamt, der aber doch mehr Karikatur als wirklicher Mensch war.
Employing Constructive Type Theory (CTT), we provide a logical analysis of Ibn Sīnā’s descriptional propositions. Compared to its rivals, our analysis is more faithful to the grammatical subject-predicate structure of propositions and can better reflect the morphological features of the verbs (and descriptions) that extend time to intervals (or spans of times). We also study briefly the logical structure of some fallacious inferences that are discussed by Ibn Sīnā. The CTT-framework makes the fallacious nature of these inferences apparent.
This article explores a novel approach to the analysis of the external world in postclassical Ashʿarite kalām . While discussions of physical reality and its fundamental constituents in the classical period of Islamic thought turned chiefly on the opposing views of kalām atomism and Aristotelian hylomorphism, in the postclassical period kalām thinkers in the Ashʿarite tradition forge a new frame of inquiry. Beginning most earnestly with the philosophical works of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, a critical approach is developed addressing received views in ontology, including the relation of substance to accident, the status of Aristotelian form and matter, and part-to-whole relations. Drawing on Rāzī’s al-Mulakhkhaṣ and al-Mabāḥith , kalām thinkers develop several concepts to distinguish arbitrary or mind-dependent ( iʿtibārī ) composites (‘man-plus-stone’) from non-arbitrary composites (e.g., tree, paste, and house). Most notably, they adopt a substance-plus-accident ontology in opposition to the Aristotelian hylomorphism of falsafa . The mutakallimūn will conceive of composites as possessing ‘real unity’ ( ḥaqīqa muttaḥida ) while dispensing with the explanatory and causal role of Aristotelian substantial forms.
Scholarship on medieval philosophy has rightfully acknowledged the historical and systematical merit of Avicenna’s (d. 1037) thought in all divisions of philosophy. Avicenna however did not provide a systematic theory of individuation: matter, existence, ‘individual intentions’, and other candidates equally appear in his works as candidates for the principle of individuation. This systematic gap was to be filled in post-Avicennian Islamic philosophy. In this paper, I will focus on two figures: Avicenna’s disciple Bahmanyār b. Marzbān (d. 1066) and Šihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī (d. 1191), the founder of what has come to be called Islamic Illuminationism. We will see that Bahmanyār, inspired by Avicenna’s Marginal Notes, connects individuation with matter, motion, time, and position. Suhrawardī in his turn will present a revolutionary attempt to break with the Aristotelian-Avicennian tradition of explaining individuation through spatiotemporally designated matter. His position, as I will show, comes close to what we nowadays call primitive individuation.
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