Avicenna's Metaphysics in Context 9781501711527

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AVICENNA'S METAPHYSICS IN CONTEXT

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Avicenna's Metaphysics in Context Robert Wisnovsky

Cornell University Press Ithaca, New York

© 2003 by Robert Wisnovsky All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 2003 by Cornell University Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wisnovsky, Robert, 1964Avieenna's metaphysics in context / Robert Wisnovsky. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and indexes. ISBN 0-8014-4178-1 (cloth) 1. Avicenna, 980-1037-Contributions in metaphysics. 2. Metaphysics. I. Title. B751.Z7W57 2003 181'.5-dc21 2002041521

Printed in Great Britain

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Acknowledgements

vii

A Note on Translitération and Citation

ix

Introduction

1

PART I. AVICENNA AND THE AMMONIAN SYNTHESIS 1. Aristotle Perfection in the Definitions of the Soul and of Change

21

2. Alexander and Themistius Attempts at Reconciliation

43

3. Proclus, Ammonius and Asclepius The Neoplatonic Turn to Causation

61

4. Proclus, Ammonius and Philoponus Neoplatonic Perfection and Aristotelian Soul

79

5. Greek into Arabic The Greco-Arabic Translations and the Early Arabic Philosophers

99

6. Avicenna on Perfection and the Soul The Issue of Separability

113

PART II. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE AVICENNIAN SYNTHESIS 7. Essence and Existence (A) Materials from the Kalām and al-Fārābī

145

8. Essence and Existence (B) Shay'iyya or Sababiyya?

161

9. Essence and Existence (C) The Question of Evolution

173

10. Causal Self-Sufficiency vs. Causal Productivity

181

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Contents

11. Necessity and Possibility (A) Materials from the Arabic Aristotle

197

12. Necessity and Possibility (B) Materials from al-Fārābī

219

13. Necessity and Possibility (C) Materials from the Kalām

227

14. Necessity and Possibility (D) The Question of Evolution

245

Conclusion

265

Appendix I Tables of Greco-Arabic Translation

269

Appendix II Transcriptions of Lemmata from MS Uppsala Or. 364

211

Bibliography

279

Index of Lemmata

293

General Index

297

Acknowledgements So many people have helped me reach the stage of publishing a book about Avicenna's metaphysics that it is difficult to know how to thank them all. I suppose I should just describe my intellectual trajectory from its beginning. Elizabeth Fine taught me Greek in high school, and introduced me to the beautiful strangeness of ancient texts. When I was a sophomore at Yale, Dimitri Gutas convinced me to enroll in first-year Arabic, and then, perhaps feeling responsible, was kind enough not to fail me. At Yale Abbas Amanat introduced me to Islamic history, and Gerhard Bôwering supervised my senior thesis on the Ikhwân as-Safa°. A postgraduate year at Oxford studying with Fritz Zimmermann showed me how serious medieval Arabic thought could be. Even though this book preserves not a single sentence from my Princeton Ph.D. dissertation, "Avicenna on final causality", I owe a great debt to my doctoral supervisor, Hossein Modarressi: he guided me gently through the most difficult Avicennian texts, corrected my translations with care and suggested further avenues of inquiry. At Princeton Sarah Waterlow Broadie was the second reader of my dissertation, and Fadlou Shehadi and Parviz Morewedge were my external examiners. Also at Princeton, Stephen Menn introduced me to medieval philosophy, Michael Cook introduced me to kalâm, and Jim Morris introduced me to Sufi thought; and courses on Aristotle's psychology and natural philosophy with, respectively, Myles Burnyeat and Pierre Pellegrin showed me the high level of philological and philosophical rigor which scholars of ancient philosophy demand of themselves. The world of the late-antique commentators on Aristotle opened up when Richard Sorabji hired me as his postdoctoral research assistant at King's College London. Through my work there I was introduced to Duckworth's editor, Deborah Blake, who has waited patiently for this book to ripen. Wolfhart Heinrichs, Bill Graham, Bill Granara, Roy Mottahedeh, Bashi Sabra, Muhsin Mahdi, John Murdoch, Ayman El-Desouky and Wheeler Thackston have all been supportive and stimulating colleagues here at Harvard. In particular, my good friend and colleague Carl Pearson and I have had countless conversations about the history of Aristotelian and Neoplatonic philosophy, and I learned something important from every single one of them. Not only Carl but Sylvia Berryman, Ian Crystal, Richard Sorabji, Victor Caston, Everett Rowson, Thérèse-Anne Druart, Michael Marmura, Dimitri Gutas and Jules Janssens each spent much of their precious time reading and criticizing earlier versions of this work. Above all others, however, Stephen Menn has served as a paradigmatic mentor: patient and generous, but also severe and exacting. He knows how much I owe him.

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Acknowledgements

I am also grateful to many other friends, colleagues and students who have guided me on particular issues and pointed me towards useful and interesting materials; these include Rahim Acar, Amos Bertolacci, Allan Gotthelf, Dag Hasse, Angela Jaffray, Yaron Klein, Christian Lange, Craig Martin, Sait Ozervarli, Amy Profères, Ahmed al-Rahim, David Reisman, Will Robins, Jim Robinson, Joe Saleh, Jeff Spurr, Abe Stone, Moshe Taube and Hikmet Yaman. Hussein Rashid helped me enormously with the logistics of producing cameraready copy. My twelve-year-old son Simon Wisnovsky was born at the same time I started to wrestle with Avicenna's Ilâhiyyàt. My own experience, combined with that of his beloved Red Sox, should teach him that it is good simply to persevere. I am strengthened by the love I receive from Simon and from my two-year-old daughter Jasmine Parsons, as well as from my parents Mary and Joe Wisnovsky, from my brother Peter Wisnovsky, and from my in-laws Sheila, Emma and Anne Parsons. What I cannot even begin to express is my gratitude to my wife Laila Parsons. A historian of the modern Middle East, she started out skeptical of my project's value. After many long rigmaroles together, and also some acute editing on her part, she has now come to believe in its significance, and this has meant more to me than anyone else's opinion. I dedicate this book to her.

A Note on Transliteration and Citation Throughout this volume individual Arabic and Persian letters have been transliterated according to the system adopted by the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. However, I have retained the sun letters when transliterating the Arabic definite article, and elided the hamzat al-wasl, and for everything other than titles of books or individual names and terms, I have fully vocalized the transliterated text; thus wa-s-sababu fi dhâlika, but also Aristûtâlîs, at-Tabïca. The Greek long vowels have been transliterated as ê and 0, and the iota subscript as -