The Reception of Aristotle's Metaphysics in Avicenna's Kitab al-Sifa: A Milestone of Western Metaphysical Thought

694 Pages·2006·2.73 MB·English

by  Amos Bertolacci

THE RECEPTION OF ARISTOTLE’S METAPHYSICS IN
AVICENNA’S KIT$B AL-S[IF$"
ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY
THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE
Texts and Studies
EDITED BY
H. DAIBER
VOLUME LXIII
THE RECEPTION OF
ARISTOTLE S METAPHYSICS IN
’
AVICENNA S KIT$B AL S[IF$"
’ -
A Milestone of Western Metaphysical Thought
BY
AMOS BERTOLACCI
BRILL
LEIDEN •BOSTON
2006
This book is printed on acid-free paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bertolacci, Amos.
The reception of Aristotle’s Metaphysics in Avicenna’s Kit§b al-’if§": a milestone of
Western metaphysical thought / by Amos Bertolacci.
p. cm. — (Islamic philosophy, theology, and science, ISSN 0169-8729 ; v. 63)
Revision of the author’s thesis (Ph.D.)—Yale University, 2005.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN-13: 978-90-04-14899-4
ISBN-10: 90-04-14899-X (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Avicenna, 980-1037. Ilahiyat. 2. Aristotle. Metaphysics. 3. Aristotle—Influence. 4.
Philosophy, Islamic—Greek influences. 5. Metaphysics—History. I. Title. II. Series.
B751.Z7B47 2006
181’.5—dc22
2006-44005
ISSN 0169-8729
ISBN 90 04 14899 X
© Copyright 2006 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
Introduction ................................................................................ vii
Abbreviations .............................................................................. xv
PART ONE
The Arabic Reception of the METAPHYSICS
before Avicenna
Introduction ................................................................................ 3
Chapter One—The Arabic translations of the Metaphysics:
a new assessment on account of the evidence provided
by Avicenna ............................................................................ 5
Chapter Two—Beyond al-Kindì and al-Fàràbì: Avicenna’s
position in the history of the Arab reception of the
Metaphysics ................................................................................ 37
Chapter Three—Between Ammonius and Avicenna:
al-Fàràbì’s treatise On the Goals of Aristotle’s Metaphysics .... 65
PART TWO
The Scientific Profile of the METAPHYSICS
According to Avicenna
Introduction ................................................................................ 107
Chapter Four—Avicenna’s conception of the theme of the
Metaphysics: “existent qua existent” as the subject-matter,
the first causes and God as the goal of metaphysics .......... 111
Chapter Five—Avicenna’s reworking of the structure of the
Metaphysics: metaphysics as the discipline dealing with the
species, the properties and the principles of “existent” ...... 149
Chapter Six—Avicenna’s elaboration of the method of the
Metaphysics: metaphysics as a demonstrative, analytical,
non-dialectical science ............................................................ 213
vi contents
Chapter Seven—Avicenna’s view of the relationship of the
Metaphysics with the other parts of the Aristotelian corpus:
metaphysics as the founding discipline ................................ 265
PART THREE
The Content of the METAPHYSICS According
to Avicenna
Introduction ................................................................................ 305
Chapter Eight—The quotations of the Metaphysics in the
Ilàhiyyàt .................................................................................... 309
Chapter Nine—The main source of Avicenna’s conception
of metaphysics as a science: book G and its quotations .... 375
Chapter Ten—Avicenna’s attitude towards dialectic: book B
and its quotations .................................................................. 403
Chapter Eleven—The other sources of the Ilàhiyyàt .............. 441
Conclusion .................................................................................. 471
Appendices
Appendix A: Towards a critical edition of the Ilàhiyyàt: list
of corrections of the Cairo printed text .............................. 483
Appendix B: Index of authors and works quoted in the
Ilàhiyyàt .................................................................................... 559
Appendix C: Overview of the main works by Avicenna on
metaphysics in chronological order ...................................... 581
Appendix D: Names for Aristotle’s Metaphysics
and metaphysics as a discipline in Avicenna’s works .......... 593
Appendix E: The style of the Kitàb al-”ifà" ............................ 607
Appendix F: The terminology for “property” in the
Ilàhiyyàt .................................................................................... 613
Bibliography ................................................................................ 617
Index of Names and Places ...................................................... 655
Index of Aristotle’s Works with Passages Cited ...................... 665
Index of Avicenna’s Works with Passages Cited .................... 666
Index of Manuscripts ................................................................ 669
Index of Texts, Outlines, Tables .............................................. 670
INTRODUCTION
“[...] there is as yet no metaphysics at all.
[...] a complete reform or rather a rebirth of meta-
physics [...] is inevitably approaching”
(I. Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics,
Preface, transl. G. Hatfield, pp. 6–7)
“Insofar as a thinking devotes itself to the path
of experiencing the foundation of metaphysics [...]
in a certain way it has abandoned metaphysics”
(M. Heidegger, What is Metaphysics?, Introduction)
The history of the reception of Aristotle’s Metaphysics can be por-
trayed as a sequence of “reforms”, ending in its definitive “aban-
donment”. The “reforms” started from the very beginning, with the
first “edition” of the Metaphysics by Andronicus of Rhodes in the I
century BC (a collection of scattered Aristotelian material on meta-
physics), and were mainly performed by the commentators (Greek,
Arab and Latin) of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Its “aban-
donment”, on the other hand, can be ascribed to the original thinkers
on metaphysics of the Modern Era. The reforms by commentators
aimed at improving the Aristotelian account of this discipline (as in
Andronicus’ edition), by either clarifying its content, or elucidating
its articulation, or refining its method, or enlarging its scope to
encompass other perspectives on metaphysics, like those of Neoplatonic
philosophy and Christian or Islamic faith. These efforts of amelio-
ration and expansion, however, conveyed a progressive departure
from the Metaphysics, thus preparing the ground for the subsequent
dismissal of this work together with the type of metaphysics it expressed.
In accordance with the spirit of the “scientific revolution”, the main
concern about metaphysics in Modern times was to provide a rad-
ical foundation of this discipline as a science: once scholars realized
that this goal could not be attained by means of partial adjustments
of Aristotle’s dictate, but required a complete revision of traditional
metaphysics, they abandoned the Metaphysics in its entirety as the
normative text on metaphysics, and explored new directions of
research. The “post-Aristotelian” stage of metaphysics, starting with
viii introduction
Descartes, followed two distinct paths: either the complete neglect of
this discipline as inevitably non-scientific (as in Hume), or the attempt
to reconstruct it as a rigorous science on a totally different basis (as
in Kant), relegating the Aristotelian heritage to a function little more
than terminological.
Avicenna (Ibn Sìnà, 980 ca.–1037 AD) plays a key-role in this
overall process. His attitude towards Aristotle’s Metaphysics marks the
transition from the stage of exegetical “reform” to that of self-assertive
“abandonment”. On the one hand, Avicenna’s metaphysical oeuvre is
the last and widest of a series of transformations of Aristotle’s Metaphysics
that took place during the Middle Ages. On the other hand, within
the Peripatetic tradition it constitutes the first concrete replacement
of this work with an original treatment on metaphysics, thus allow-
ing metaphysics the possibility of an autonomous progress. In so far
as Avicenna’s most important works on metaphysics are constitu-
tively linked with the Metaphysics, take into account all the previous
reflection on this work, and keep the non-Aristotelian components
of metaphysics (Neoplatonic and theological) within the boundaries
of Aristotle’s original framework, they are an expression of the
Medieval Peripatetic tradition. But in so far as they are not com-
mentaries on the Metaphysics (neither literal exegeses nor paraphrases),
but original reworkings of it, and display epistemological concerns
about metaphysics that are largely foreign to Aristotle, they antici-
pate the Modern approach to metaphysics. The impact of Avicenna’s
thought on Descartes (the “father” of Modern metaphysics), recently
pointed out by scholars, cannot be coincidental.1 Whereas in the
East the substantial progress represented by Avicenna’s metaphysics
in comparison to Aristotle’s homonymous writing was immediately
perceived, and the former somehow substituted the latter (either to
be accepted and commented upon, or to be criticized), in the West
Aristotle’s Metaphysics kept on being the textbook on metaphysics for
a few centuries, and Avicenna’s point of view was inserted in the
commentaries on the Metaphysics, in different amounts and degrees,
until the definitive abandonment of this work, as described above.
In sum: Avicenna’s metaphysics is both continuous and discon-
tinuous with Aristotle’s Metaphysics. While being Aristotelian in its
guidelines, it goes far beyond Aristotle in its overall purport. As a
1 See Druart [1988]; Mc Tighe [1988]; Hasnawi [1997b]; Jolivet [1997].
introduction ix
synthesis of both respects, it is unprecedented in the history of the
reception of the Metaphysics, and can be compared to Proclus’ meta-
physics with regard to the previous Platonic tradition. In this per-
spective, it is not exaggerated to regard Avicenna as the second
authority on metaphysics, after Aristotle himself, within the Aristotelian
school, and the initiator of a new phase of the history of this discipline.
Reform and abandonment, continuity and rupture, tradition and
innovation: this two-fold attitude of Avicenna towards Aristotle’s
Metaphysics is the essence of his “interpretation” of this work. Avicenna’s
interpretation of the Metaphysics in his most important work on meta-
physics—the Ilàhiyyàt ([Science of ] Divine Things) of the Kitàb al-”ifà"
(Book of the Cure)—is the object of the present study.
* * *
The imperfect state of Aristotle’s writings—a situation poignantly
described by contemporary Aristotelian scholars as a contrast between
“ideal” and “achievement” in Aristotle’s philosophical system2—has
not escaped Aristotelian interpreters throughout history. In the Intro-
duction of one of his philosophical summae, the Ma“riqiyyùn (Easterners),
Avicenna states that the Aristotelian corpus presents “loose ends”,
“breaches”, “imperfections” and “defective theories”, and is in need
of “addition”, “correction”, and “revision”; the required restoration—
he continues—was not accomplished by previous Aristotelian schol-
ars, and only Avicenna himself “perfected” what Aristotle and his
successors “meant to say but fell short of doing, never reaching their
aim in it”.3
The defects of Aristotle’s writings, of which Avicenna shows a keen
perception, are especially puzzling in the case of the Metaphysics. This
work elicits two main categories of problems. The first regards what
we can call the “form” of the Metaphysics, namely the scientific profile
of the discipline it contains. To this rubric belong issues such as
what the metaphysics deals with, how it is structured, what method
it follows, how it relates to the other sciences of the Aristotelian
corpus etc. What Aristotle says in all these regards is often either ellip-
tical, or ambiguous, or, even worse, inconsistent. The second category
2 Barnes [2000], pp. 59–63.
3 Ma“riqiyyùn, pp. 2, 14–3, 5; pp. 3, 13–14. English translation in Gutas [1988],
pp. 45–47.