RESUMEN Se discute cómo pueden dos filósofos islámicos sostener que la generación del cuerpo es necesaria para que se origine el alma y, al mismo tiempo, afirmar que ésta puede separarse del cuerpo, ya sea transformándose en un intelecto inmaterial -en el caso de al-Fārābī-, o bien en un alma individuada e inmortal -en el caso de Avicena. El primero es cercano al hilemorfismo peripatético; el segundo adopta un dualismo robusto. Se argumenta que la integración de la cosmología, la biología (...) y la noética conduce, en ambos casos, a una reconciliación coherente entre el origen natural del alma y su inmaterialidad. ABSTRACT The article discusses how it is possible for two Islamic philosophers to claim that the generation of the body is necessary for the soul to arise, and, at the same time, to affirm that the latter can separate from the body, whether by becoming an immaterial intellect -in the case of al-Fārābī-, or an immortal, individual soul -in the case of Avicenna. While the former is close to Peripatetic hylemorphism, the latter adopts a robust dualism. The paper argues that the integration of cosmology, biology, and noetics leads, in both cases, to a coherent reconciliation between the natural origin of the soul and its immaterial nature. (shrink)

Se discute cómo pueden dos filósofos islámicos sostener que la generación del cuerpo es necesaria para que se origine el alma y, al mismo tiempo, afirmar que ésta puede separarse del cuerpo, ya sea transformándose en un intelecto inmaterial ‒en el caso de al-Fārābī‒, o bien en un alma individuada e inmortal ‒en el caso de Avicena. El primero es cercano al hilemorfismo peripatético; el segundo adopta un dualismo robusto. Se argumenta que la integración de la cosmología, la biología y (...) la noética conduce, en ambos casos, a una reconciliación coherente entre el origen natural del alma y su inmaterialidad. (shrink)

Avicenna's proof for the existence of God (the Necessary Existent) in the Metaphysics of the Salvation relies on the claim that every possible existent shares a common cause. I argue that Avicenna has good reason to hold this claim given that he thinks that (1) every essentially ordered causal series originates in a first, common cause and that (2) every possible existent belongs to an essentially ordered series. Showing Avicenna's commitment to 1 and 2 allows me to respond to Herbert (...) Davidson's and Richard Swinburne's claim that Avicenna's proof for the Necessary Existent is incomplete and fallacious -/- . (shrink)

The theistic doctrine of creation highlights the significance of the world's dependence on God. For this doctrine, a variety of justifications have been offered based on the ontological and epistemological commitments of a philosopher or theologian. In this dissertation, I defend the thesis that the theistic doctrine of creation is strongly justified when on the one hand the integrity of nature is established by affirming causal necessity while on the other hand the sovereignty of God is maintained by affirming divine (...) simplicity, eternity, and immutability. To construct my argument, in the first chapter, I examine the Aristotelian roots of causal necessity and its development by Avicenna. I also consider objections to causal necessity raised by Hume and al-Ghazālī and some contemporary objections by David Lewis. In the second chapter, I identify three competing theses to explain the integrity of nature, namely, the regularism, the extrinsic necessitarianism, and the intrinsic necessitarianism. I conclude that the intrinsic necessitarianism is the strongest among them. In the third chapter, I make a case for the sovereignty of God by exploring the limits of the concept of the theistic God and claim that sovereignty is conditional on immutability, simplicity, and eternity, which qualify the divine attributes of knowledge, power, and goodness. In the last chapter, after analyzing strengths and weaknesses of theistic accounts of creation, I propose an account of ontological dependence by extending Avicenna's account of creation, which consists in God's conferral of existence, to His sustaining activity at all times during which an object endures. (shrink)

This thesis is concerned with answering the question, what is the central argument of Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Healing that brings its opening ontological approach to the subject of first philosophy to its ultimate theological goal and conclusion? This dissertation contends that it is the function of the fundamental scientific first principles of metaphysics, and in particular the fundamental primary notion necessary, to provide the intelligible link that Avicenna employs to demonstrate the existence and true-nature of the divine necessary existence (...) in itself on the basis of his doctrine of being. This conclusion is pursued through a systematic and cumulative line of inquiry that begins in Part I with Avicenna’s logical–cum–epistemological doctrine of conceptualization and assent, the heuristic order of the basic scientific questions, and his theory of a demonstrative science. The thesis then moves from the wider concentric circles concerned with logical matters into a series of narrowing concentric circles pertaining to the scientific order of the MH. Part II presents a close analysis of the Metaphysics of the Healing’s novel reception and reorganization of Aristotelian metaphysics according to Avicenna’s theory of demonstrative science, which consists in a subject, scientific first principles, and objects of inquiry that includes the species, proper accidents, and the science’s ultimate goal which is the aitiological–cum–theological inquiry into the causes of being. Part III transitions into a still narrower set of concentric circles that provide a detailed explication of the formal and material aspects of the scientific first principles of the Metaphysics of the Healing. Finally, the main argument of the thesis reaches the central point and question of the dissertation in Part IV, which establishes the fundamentality of the primary notion the necessary in the ontology, aitiology, and theology of the Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Healing. Part IV concludes that the principal function of the fundamental primary notion the necessary is to provide the intelligible link that connects Avicenna’s doctrine of being with the divine necessary existence in itself. (shrink)

This dissertation examines Avicenna's theory of efficient causation in light of his approach to central problems in metaphysics, from the proof of the Necessary Existent to his emanative cosmology. Avicenna provides an internally coherent metaphysical account of efficient causation. A metaphysical account of the efficient cause explains the existence of the effect or essence in a way that is not explained by the causes of motion, as investigated in physics. That is, a full explanation of the cause of the existence (...) of an essence is not found in the four causes of natural change and motion. Avicenna aims to clarify what the explanatory division of labor is between the account of the natural philosopher and that of the metaphysician. In so doing, Avicenna develops a theory of causation that ties his innovative concepts of the contingent in itself and necessary in itself to the concept of efficient causation. A central distinction that Avicenna advances in relation to the efficient cause is that between the cause of the effect qua species and the cause of the effect qua individual. The distinction is relevant to understanding his view of the role of the causes of the essence, including the Active Intellect. Drawing on the above theory of efficient causation, the study reexamines Avicenna's famous proof for the Necessary Existent. The analysis shows that his metaphysical account of efficient causation is at the heart of his proof for a Necessary Existent. The "cause of persistence", in particular, is argued to have a more critical role than previously acknowledged, and is explicated in the context of his theory of efficient causation in metaphysics. (shrink)