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Interpreting Avicenna: Science And Philosophy In Medieval Islam-Proceedings Of The Second Conference Of The Avicenna Study Group (Islamic Philosophy, Theology, and Science) PDF

280 Pages·2004·1.22 MB·English
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Preview Interpreting Avicenna: Science And Philosophy In Medieval Islam-Proceedings Of The Second Conference Of The Avicenna Study Group (Islamic Philosophy, Theology, and Science)

INTERPRETING AVICENNA: SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY IN MEDIEVAL ISLAM ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE Texts and Studies EDITED BY H. DAIBER and D. PINGREE VOLUME LVI INTERPRETING AVICENNA: SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY IN MEDIEVAL ISLAM Proceedings of the Second Conference of the Avicenna Study Group EDITED BY JON McGINNIS with the assistance of DAVID C. REISMAN BRILL LEIDEN•BOSTON 2004 This book is printed on acid-free paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Avicenna Study Group. Conference (2nd : 2002 : Mainz, Germany) Interpreting Avicenna : science and philosophy in medieval Islam / edited by Jon McGinnis with the assistance of David C. Reisman. p. cm. — (Islamic philosophy, theology, and science, ISSN 0169-8729 ; v. 56) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 90-04-13960-5 1. Avicenna, 980-1037—Congresses. 2. Philosophy, Islamic—Congresses. 3. Philosophy, Medieval—Congresses. 4. Islam and science—History—Congresses. I. Title. II. Series. B751.Z7A925 2004 181’.5—dc22 2004050584 ISSN 0169-8729 ISBN 90 04 13960 5 © Copyright 2004 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands CONTENTS Note on the Transliteration of Arabic and Persian ................ vii Introduction ................................................................................ ix METHODOLOGY Chapter One The Pseudo-Avicennan Corpus, I: Methodological Considerations .............................................. 3 David C. Reisman (University of Illinois, Chicago) AVICENNA ON NATURAL PHILOSOPHY AND THE EXACT SCIENCES Chapter Two Ibn Sìnà on Chance in the Physics of a“-”ifà" .................................................................................... 25 Catarina Belo (University of Oxford) Chapter Three On the Moment of Substantial Change: A Vexed Question in the History of Ideas ........................ 42 Jon McGinnis (University of Missouri, St. Louis) Chapter Four Intellect, Soul and Body in Ibn Sìnà: Systematic Synthesis and Development of the Aristotelian, Neoplatonic and Galenic Theories ...................................... 62 Robert E. Hall (Queen’s University, Belfast) Chapter Five Non-Discursive Thought in Avicenna’s Commentary on the Theology of Aristotle .............................. 87 Peter Adamson (King’s College, London) Chapter Six The Conception of the Angle in the Works of Ibn Sìnà and a“-”ìràzì .................................................... 112 Irina Luther (Russian Academy of Sciences) vi contents AVICENNA ON THEOLOGY AND METAPHYSICS Chapter Seven Avicenna’s Argument for the Existence of God: Was He Really Influenced by the Mutakallimùn? ...... 129 Ömer Mahir Alper (Istanbul University) Chapter Eight Reconsidering Avicenna’s Position on God’s Knowledge of Particulars ...................................................... 142 Rahim Acar (Marmara University) Chapter Nine The Reception of Book B (Beta) of Aristotle’s Metaphysics in the Ilàhìyàt of Avicenna’s Kitàb a“-”ifà" ............................................................................ 157 Amos Bertolacci (Yale University) Chapter Ten The Relation Between Form and Matter: Some Brief Observations on the ‘Homology Argument’ (Ilàhìyàt, II.4) and the Deduction of Fluxus .......................... 175 Olga Lizzini (Università di Roma—“La Sapienza,” Italy) THE HERITAGE OF AVICENNA Chapter Eleven The Three Properties of Prophethood in Certain Works of Avicenna and al-˝azàlì .......................... 189 M. Afifi al-Akiti (University of Oxford) Chapter Twelve Resurrection (Ma'àd) in the Persian Óayàt an-Nufùs of Ismà'ìl Ibn Mu˙ammad Rìzì: The Avicennan Background ............................................................................ 213 Roxanne D. Marcotte (The University of Queensland) Bibliography ................................................................................ 237 Index .......................................................................................... 253 Index of Names ...................................................................... 253 Index of Arabic Words .......................................................... 257 NOTE ON THE TRANSLITERATION OF ARABIC AND PERSIAN The transliteration follows the rules of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft for both Arabic and Persian, with the exception of aw and ay for dipthongs instead of au and ai, and á instead of à for the alif maqßùra. The Persian -h (representing the tà" marbù†a) is retained, and the Persian i∂àfah is represented as -i or -yi. INTRODUCTION The papers gathered in this volume represent in part the proceed- ings of The Second Annual Avicenna Study Group Symposium held during the First World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies (University of Mainz, 12–13 September 2002). The Avicenna Study Group was formed in March 2001 at the end of The First Graduate Student Conference on Ibn Sìnà (Yale University). The purpose of The Avicenna Study Group is to facilitate communication concerning recent academic research on the life, times and thought of Avicenna through annual meetings, to disseminate information on manuscripts, primary and secondary material related to Avicenna and medieval Arabic philosophy in general, and to serve as the first stage in pro- jected major collaborative research projects on Avicenna. The pre- sent volume represents the second collective activity of The Avicenna Study Group. Considered as a whole, the papers included in the present vol- ume represent the major trends and concerns of current scholarship on the life, thought and works of Avicenna, arguably the most impor- tant and influential philosopher during the medieval period in the East and West. The contributions of these scholars are divided here topically into four sections: (I) Methodology, (II) Avicenna on Natural Philosophy and the Exact Sciences, (III) Avicenna on Theology and Metaphysics and (IV) the Heritage of Avicenna. Perhaps the single most important desideratum for future progress in Avicenna studies is the establishment of a corpus of “authentic” Avicennan texts or, conversely, identifying Pseudo-Avicenna works. Yet despite the recent advances in the textual and philological method- ologies introduced into Avicenna studies, little attention has been paid to establishing such a corpus. The section “Methodology” con- sists of David C. Reisman’s paper “The Pseudo-Avicennan Corpus, I: Methodological Considerations.” Although in this paper Reisman does not hazard a list of Pseudo-Avicenna works, he does provide a prolegomenon to such future research by suggesting needed prin- ciples and methodologies appropriate to such a study. In this respect, he treats various terminological issues and defines different genre cat- egories of the Pseudo-Avicenna corpus, as well as suggesting principles x introduction to be used in identifying misattribution. Concerning this latter point, the evidence for misattribution will be either external or internal, as one might expect. Reisman goes on though, and delineates different types of both evidence and carefully examines under what conditions such evidence should or should not count against the authenticity of a text. Reisman’s overarching principle is one of caution in identi- fying a work as part of the Pseudo-Avicenna corpus. Still, as Reisman remarks “caution is never to be confused with indecision.” Scholars will find Reisman’s study invaluable for studying the numerous treatises ascribed to Avicenna and helping to establish their true authenticity. The section “Avicenna on Natural Philosophy and the Exact Sciences” contains five papers that address different aspects of Avicenna’s philosophy of nature, or physics, psychology (theory of the soul) and mathematics. These contributions provide careful stud- ies of various issues in Avicenna’s natural philosophy and mathe- matics. Moreover, they point out the influence of the classical heritage on Avicenna’s thought as well as Avicenna’s own substantive modifica- tions of Greek thinkers, whether of Aristotle in physics, Galen in medicine, Plotinus in psychology, or Euclid in mathematics. What becomes clear is that though Avicenna was strongly affected and deeply concerned with many of the same problems as his Greek forerunners, he was also a thoroughly independent and original thinker. The study of the relationship between Avicenna and the classical heritage is only now beginning to receive the attention it deserves, and so the observations offered in these five papers will undoubtedly open up new vistas for future Avicennan scholarship. Catarina Belo’s “Ibn Sìnà on Chance in the Physics of a“-”ifà"” explores the similarities and differences between Aristotle’s and Avicenna’s accounts of “chance” and “fortune.” The issue is important since at its core is the more pressing philosophical issue of deter- minism. More markedly than Aristotle, argues Belo, Avicenna main- tains that for every occurrence there is a necessary, essential cause, and consequently chance plays no part in the occurrence of events or the coming to be of things. Indeed, chance is not an independ- ent, or even partial, cause of anything; rather, chance is only an accidental cause, namely, an end that is the culmination of a nexus of essential causes, and yet an end that was not expected. Given Avicenna’s deterministic universe the problem of the relation between God and evil arises, a problem to which Belo turns at the end of her paper. Avicenna’s theodicy is essentially Neoplatonic in that

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