Concept of Imagination in Aristotle and Avicenna John Peter Portelli Department of Philosophy

107 Pages·2008·6.18 MB·English

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Concept of Imagination in Aristotle and Avicenna
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John Peter Portelli
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Department of Philosophy
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Thesis aubmitted to
the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research 1 •
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~n'partial fulfillment of the requir~ments
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for the de.g ree of Master of Arts h
McGill Uni veral ty
March, 1979.
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Abstract
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Until the beginning'ôf the second h!l! of this century
historian:~f ;~hilosophy
it was the custom of to'emphasize the
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importance of Muslim philosophy simply because" Greek' phi19'sophy
d±~ec~' Musl~m"
was mediated to the west thro\u gh the aid'of the
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philo sophers.' Such an emphasi s, however, ,t-ended t0 di sregard ,î"
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any original philosophical contribution'on the part of the ,Arabs. ,l'
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And thus, unfQrtunately, the so-called Muslim philo.sophers·were \
merely regarded as commentators,' But i t is not the càse that,
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Avicenna, who is best known for his elaborate distinction J
between essence and existence -- a distinction
barely,st~ted
in AristotJ,e but the basis for Aquinàs' ,De Ente et Essentia,
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was merely a comrnentator. This distinction i8 U8ually' cited
by scholars w~o maintain that Avicenna did not 'just ~ep~oduce
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Aristotelian thought in a Semitic language. . Another int1 eresting•
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case, which has not yet been brought ta the surface, is his
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concept of imagination. Serious commentators on Av1cenna, such
as Prof. F. Rahman, have dealt with this bef,ore, but it
c~mcept
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has been mistakenly regarded as variation of Aristotle'é 'idea
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of imagination. The aim of this thesis is to
show~hat in't~is
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case Avicen,na ,develope<k or perhaps radically al tered Aristôtle', s ..
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! concept of imagination. 'T,llUS in this thesis l investigate in
detail,Aristotle's and Avicenna's,concepts of imagination
/l showihg and explaining the development. il also produce
.,. - .- of my own to defend such, a position against other
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~ opposed' views, particularly that offered"by Prof. F. Rahman~ who
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(, ,'maintains that Avicenna's internàl 'senses are ~ariataons of
Aristotle's phantasia.
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( Résumé
Avant la seconde moitié du vingtième siècle, les hi,storiens
de la .Phi1o~oPh~e O?t insisté 'sur l'importance de la pensée
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musUlmane seule4ent parce que f'a phi1osophie....grecque a 'étl
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t'ransmis à: l'Occident par l' assis~ance di-recte des philosophes
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musulmans. " Ce fait a miniIÎlisé la contribution originale
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", ph'i1osophique de la part des Arabes.' Ma1heureùsement cette
interprJ,tation relégua les phi1osopl').es musul~;ns au rang des
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simples. commentateurs. ~vicenn~, pourtant, est généra1ement~'
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connu pour ',la dis,tinctiQn qu' il ~ établie entre l'essence et
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l' ~x~st,enÇ5e - distinc,tian à peine formu1é~ par Aristot~ m~is \
centrale dans L'Etre et l'Essence de Saint Thomas.
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C'est .le cas généralement a~firmé par les historieùs de ,la
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(~~i~osoPhie qui m§lintiennent qU.'Avicenne n'a pas seu1emen~
" :' r~produi t la pensée d' Aristote en langage sémitique. Un autIre
é1ément,int~ressant de la philosophie d"Avice,n ne, qui n'a pas
e?core été explofé, est son co~cept d,' imagination. C e ~onc ept'
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/ a, été.. signalé ,par d~s \ ?ommentateurs sérieux, tel que le
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prof~sseur. F. Rahman, mai~, il a été considéré par erreur comme
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. une variation de l" idée Aristotélici,enne d'imagination. L'objet
"\' de cette thèse est de montrer. qu'Avicenne a développé, et
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peut-~tre radicalement transformé le conc:pt, d'imagination
d "Aristote. Donc, daris cette thèse, j'examine 'en détail le
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concept'd'imagination d'Aristote et d'Avicenne; je montre e~
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exp!ique aussi ce développement. Enfin, je présente,mon
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ar~ertation pour défen~r7 cette position contre les àutres
. ponts de vue opposé, en particulièrement ceux O'fferts par
, prof. F. Rahman pour 'q,ui le "sens interne" -d'Avicenne sont de.s
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variations de la phantasia d'Aristote.
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(:, \... Acknowledg"e' ment
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l would like to thank Professor A. Trentman, my
supervisor, ,apq H. M. Bra:oken for theirl>encouragement !
Pro~.e.s,.s.QI1
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and suggestions. , Moreover, l would a so like to thank
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" U Vishwas Govi trikar', Clarence son, Doùglas Dollinger
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and Laura Brown wi th whom l had variou while
discus~.ions
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writing this thesis. Finally, thanks re due to my wife, ft
Anna, for qer careful typing and proof-reading of this thesis. 1
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Contents
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Introduction i\ 1 .
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Chapter Ohel 1 Aristotle gn Imagination 12 .
Cila1p ter'Twol Avicenna on Imaginat~~, 32
Chapter Threel. The InternaI S~nses and Rahman's Thesis ,70
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• Conclusion
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-,t Bt'bliography 99
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Introduction
It is not a véry easy task to determine with precision
when Muslim philosophy as such began. Besides one ,rnight even
contest the fact whether Muslim as such existed at
p~iloso~hy
aIl, sinee the so-called Musllm philasophers spent'quite a
/-oeat deal of their time in the Greeks and in
tran~lating
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defendi·ng their fai th. It is known that during M
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life and after his death, there were cer renowned
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Mu~+im thûnkers. But the problem is whether these be,
considered philosophers (in the sense of having deve oped
systems of philosophy of the~r own), t haye
treated with important philosopnical issues. One migh really
doubt the philosophical character of the writing of'
pu~ely
sorne of them, but, - 4 the that sorne ike
one;cannot_n~gate f~ct
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al-Farabi or, can considered
espec~ally, Avicenn~ b~
"philo sophers
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Usually, historians of philosop!!y di vide Muslim .
~~st those:i~
philosophers into two groupai those in-the an
the west. The most renowned Muslim philosophers in the west\
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are without doubt Ibn Rushd or Averroes (1126-1198) bom at
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Cordova of a family of laWyers and Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406)
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born at Tunis of a family whose origin goes back to Seville
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k /- (Spain) . The fonher~ defended the Falasi, fa a~J in~ st al-Ghazali
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was a philosopher of history and in a way might be seen as a
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f Karl Marx.
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But in this are mostly in the
int~oduction'we intereste~
Muslim philosophers who came from the east, mainly_from Turkey,
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Persia and Egypt. The' most weIl known are al-Kindi '-.:t;a:n A-rab
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'born in the beginning of the 9th' century in the town of KUf.k.,
Iraq), al-Farabi (a :Turk who died: in 'the year 9.50) 'and Ibn Sina
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or Avicenna (a Persi~n b~rn in the,sear 980). Of less
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importance, but it ~~ ~ell to menpion him i8 al-Ghazali born
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in the year 1059 at ~os in Khorsar .
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The importance of Muslim philosophy arises from the fact
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that Greek P\itosOPhY was mediatedito the west, particularly
~entr~s learni~g WhiC~
to the of in Scholasticism flourished'
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in the 12th and l)th centurie.s, through the direct aid of t,he
Muslim philosophers. And a knowledge of Muslim philosophy
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.-' is essential for a fully historîbal co~pr.ehe nsion of Medieval
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ph:i:'losophy in Europ'e.
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There werè two main'Latin of the Greek
translâ~ions
classics:
(i) The first was that translate~ from the A~abic translation
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of the Greek texts. Here we diséetn the mediation of the Muslim
philosophers, who among o,ther scholars were in the .
worki~g
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variou's centres of intellectual acti vi ty, which shifted from
one pl,a~ of learning ta ?-nother,. :
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\ (ii) The second was that translated directl~ from the Greek
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, texts. But this was.only done during the time of Aquinas, who
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might be said to have discovered the real Aristotle. For
quite a long time, the Western M dieval philosophers were only
touc~~dJ:'àtorted
in wri 'ngs of Plato-and Aristotle.
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( While translating the original texts the MusIim~philosophers
had made various commentaries.' These cornmentaries, in which
one can notice l'f,eo-Platànic and Islamic, tendencies, were also
studied 'by the phil,osophers and at times they were
Medi~l
considered to be part of the real Greek texts.
On the other hand, the by the Islamic
developmen~
philosophers of Greek thought, which was also received by
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sho~ing th~ s~~'
Scholastic s, helped'- in (i) importanc e of Ari s'
• contribution to philosophy, although their interpretations
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wer~ 'influenc~d by Plato's thQUght, (ii) providing a purely
philosophical schema on the part of certain Muslim philosophers
( . 'Avicenna) . Such philosophical contained important'
schemes'~
purely philosophical developments of the Greeks' thought and
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which were later on re-developed by the Scholastics. A clear
example is found in Aquinas and Avicenna. The latter developed~
the d~stinction between essfnce ~nd existence barely stated in
Aristotle, and Aquinas on Avicenna's development.
~la~orated
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One of the major difficulties with which the Scholastics
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were faced was the reconciliation of philosophy with theology,
particularly Christian Theology. And this attempted
reconciliation brought about various polemics. Such a difficulty
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~as not a totally'new one in the history of philosopny as a
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similar problem had already been encountered by the MuSlim
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\ philosophers, who arnong other things had engaged themselves in
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'. reconciling the G~eek P~i~osoPhers with the tenets, of the Koran~
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Such a problem, was not an' leasy one to solve as the basis of the
Greco-Roman and Islamic cultures were not similar. The idea of
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a Religion had never been consîdered very
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by the Greek philosophers, while the .whqle mode of the Islamic
life was based upon such a religionl
Eventually there arase tw<? main schools which 'deal t wi th -
this prbblem, namely, the Kalam rand the. Falg§ifa. These two
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'schools agreed on certain point~, but their differences leid
. to a serious disputation', As a resul t of this we find various
attacking each other, The main attack on the part
philosopher~
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work The Destruction -of -th-e Philosophers, was a criticism' of
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Avicenna, the major exponent of the Falasifa, On thè other
han~, in his work e~ti tled Destruction of the Destruction of the
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Philosophers Ibn Rushd defended Ibn Sina.
The word "kalam" is usually translated by ttle word
"theology", though this is not the exact word. 'rhe meaning i t
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eventually acquired is "controversy, discussio~', or
conversation ... J The .name f the first school mentioned deri ved
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i ts name from this Arabie word "kalam" whose literaI meaning .
is "ward" (the word of God).
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The thinkers,inc1uded in the Kalam school' employed
philosophy only as an aid in reaching their goal, namely,. .... firmly ,
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to establish the religious beliefs of the Koran. Philosophy
is only a tool or instrument,but not the end. Thus al-Farabi
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himself, who is as one of,the Falasjfa, in the
conslder~d
Ihsa al- ulum, regards the ilm ·al-kalam as "a science wh-ich
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( enables a map to produee the victory of the dogmas and actions
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laid down by the Legislator of the religion «M~àIDmed», and
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to refute aIl opinions contrad~cting them. ,,4 Ibn Khaldun and
Muhammed 'Abduh elaborate on this, but nothing new is added. (
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The p'roponents of this school were the first Muslims to
assimilate Greek philosophy. Such an assimilation began to
take place thé flourishing of the second centre, Darnascus.
duri~g
The developmen~ of Mus• lim thouod ght and phîlosophy are character(' ised
by the vaFious shifts of the intellectual centres from city
to city,! The lirst centre w,as Muhammed s city Medina.
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This in~ellectual centre flour,ished in the 7th century just
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after the reath of the Prophet. But no philasophical ac~ivity
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as took"place here.
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/DamaSCLj-s',was the second centre during the Umayyad Dynasty
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(8t~ Land 9th centur.ies)". 'rhe Kalam schOGll owes its beginning'
to thi~ cerltre wheré phllosophy was only conceived as an,aid
to theology. Reason was together wi th medi taition and
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reflection only to eluci~ate and defend the tenets of the Koran.
It was during'this period that tne Kalam school ôrganised Î
itself. They had mentality of apologists of Islam who
t~e
sought the aid of philosophy ta establish' the reasonableness
of b.elieving in the Koran. And i t was this character of
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discursive and reasoned apal.ogià, which was-.to attr.act the attac1cs
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bath of the traditionalists 'and of the'Falasifa.
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philosophy -- Atomistic Occasionalism, which is presented in a
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way ~hat suggests that it was deduced from the Koran. The
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world is pictured as a disconti:puous structure of{ Accidents if
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(atoms) which are constantly recreated by the extrinsic décrees
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