THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE has been taken to be central to Avicenna’s metaphysics and ontology of being. Due to the influence that this distinction had on Thomism, and to a lesser extent on Maimonides’s work, some Medievalists and Orientalists took Avicenna’s distinction between essence and existence to be characterized by essentialism. A.-M. Goichon’s books Léxique de la Langue Philosophique d’Ibn Sina, Vocabulaires Comparés d’Aristote et d’Ibn Sina, and La Philosophie d’Avicenne et son Influence en Europe all offer a (...) great contribution to the translation and understanding of Avicenna’s works. However the interpretive reception of Goichon’s works has had a strong influence on subsequent Medievalists as well as Orientalist scholars. This impact on scholars, along with the stress on Avicenna’s influence on Thomism, has led in some instances to an exaggerated stress on the centrality of the essence/ existence distinction in Avicenna’s metaphysics. This state of affairs has eventually overshadowed other important aspects of Avicenna’s ontology of being and of his metaphysical and logical analysis of being in terms of the modalities of necessity, contingency, and impossibility. The examination of Avicenna’s metaphysics under the spell of all of these factors leads to an intellectually discomforting position that construes his ontology as essentialism. Consequently this leads to the interpretation of his work as being that of a metaphysician who subordinates existence to essence. Such interpretation has been even adopted by experts on Avicenna’s work within the Western scholarship as well as among some Arabists. For instance, some scholars stress that Averroes and Mulla Sadra are the metaphysicians of existence, while taking Avicenna to be the metaphysician of essence. John Caputo, a leading interpreter of Heidegger’s thought, makes extensive references to the work of the Thomist scholar Étienne Gilson in the context of examining Aquinas’s adoption of the Avicennian distinction between essence and existence. Caputo’s discussion of the essence/existence distinction adopts the standpoint that Gilson reflects in the reading of Avicenna’s metaphysics as being the starting point of a longstanding essentialist tradition that culminates with Hegel’s Science of Logic. This line of argumentation already supplies Caputo with sufficient arguments that enable him readily to stamp Avicenna’s metaphysics with Heidegger’s critique of the metaphysical tradition. Caputo based himself on what the Thomist scholar Gilson offers in this regard, particularly in taking Aquinas’s metaphysics to be the metaphysics of esse. Gilson’s position may itself be questioned on the ground that its interpretation of Avicenna has been pervaded by Thomist inclinations; this is the case, given that Gilson and other scholars construe Avicenna’s metaphysics as being essentially the metaphysics of essence. Based on this, Caputo accepts the claim that Avicenna’s ontology is essentialist. Such readings lead to the conclusion that Avicenna subordinates existence to essence and consequently that his ontology is characterized by what Heidegger takes to be a mark of the oblivion of being. The question that ought to be raised in this regard is whether the position of secondary scholarly sources is accurate. This is the case, given that some of the scholars, who propagate the claim that Avicenna is an essentialist, are after all scholars who have not consulted or studied the primary sources. Rather, they primarily rely on secondary sources that mediate Avicenna’s metaphysics through the Thomist scholarship and Latin translations. This is clearly the case with Gilson’s consideration of Avicenna’s corpus, which is addressed from the standpoint of Latin renderings of Avicenna’s texts rather than consulting the original Arabic or Persian texts. Having said that, the issue becomes more complicated in the light of considering Arabist or Medievalist scholars who do consult the primary Arabic sources, yet still hold that Avicenna is an essentialist. Such scholars remain under the influence of earlier translations and interpretations that were offered by prominent Orientalist scholars, who addressed the essence/ existence distinction in the light of broad philosophical concerns with Medieval Latin and Jewish philosophy, or by tracing the Aristotelian and Peripatetic influences on Islamic and Arabic philosophy. Some scholars like Gilson might even go further in terms of considering the works of Avicenna and Averroes from the standpoint of mapping out the doctrinal quarrels between Scotism and Thomism. The Medievalists who consult primary sources, yet who are still under the spell of earlier Orientalist views, do not attempt to review some of their positions by going back to a closer examination of the texts and to a questioning reception of dominant translations and interpretations. There is a hermeneutic need to return to the primary texts and to reexamine them in the light of new philosophical concerns. This return and reexamination are also needed in the light of questioning and adopting new methodological inclinations in translation and interpretation. This becomes a pressing issue given the seriousness of the philosophical consequences that might arise if we readily take Avicenna’s metaphysics to be characterized by essentialism. The examination of Avicenna’s ontology must account for the renderings of the terms mahiya, dhat, and wujud, be it in Latin, English, or French, or in terms of the Arabic/persian semantic, syntactic, and grammatical structure and derivation. The nuances of translation are determined by how these terms are philosophically used within the text and in the course of the development of Avicenna’s arguments. Such linguistic investigations would elucidate the philosophical interpretation of the essence/existence distinction in the light of addressing contemporary philosophical concerns, as these are attested with the consideration of Heidegger’s critique of classical ontology. (shrink)
Ikhwan al-Safa' (The Brethren of Purity) were the anonymous adepts of a tenth-century esoteric fraternity of lettered urbanites that was principally based in Basra and Baghdad. This brotherhood occupied a prominent station in the history of science and philosophy in Islam due to the wide reception and assimilation of their monumental encyclopaedia: Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa' (The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity). This compendium contained fifty-two epistles that offered synoptic explications of the classical sciences and philosophies of the age. Divided (...) into four classificatory parts, it treated themes in mathematics, logic, natural philosophy, psychology, metaphysics and theology, in addition to moral and didactic fables. The Ikhwan were learned compilers of scientific and philosophical knowledge, and their Rasa'il constituted a paradigmatic legacy in the canonization of philosophy and the sciences in mediaeval Islamic civilization. -/- This present volume gathers studies by leading philosophers, historians and scholars of Islamic Studies, who are also the editors and translators of the first Arabic critical editions and first complete annotated English translations of the Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa', which will be published in the OUP Series that this present volume initiates, as well as being members of the Editorial Board. -/- The chapters of this present volume explore the conceptual and historical aspects of the philosophical and scientific contents of the Rasa'il and their classification, as well as investigating the authorship and dating of this corpus and the impact that the Ikhwan's intellectual tradition exercised in the unfolding of the history of ideas in Islam. (shrink)
In attempting to address the heideggerian Seinsfrage, by way of situating it between the platonic conception of ̉όν in the Sophist and of χώρα in the Timaeus, this paper investigates the ontological possibilities that are opened up in terms of rethinking space. Asserting the intrinsic connection between the question of being and that of space, we argue that the maturation of ontology as phenomenology would not unfold in its furthermost potential unless the being of space gets clarified. This state of (...) affairs confronts us with the exacting ontological task to found a theory of space that contributes to an explication of the question of being beyond its associated temporocentric determinations. Consequently, our line of inquiry endeavors herein to constitute a prologmenon to the elucidation of the question of the being of space as “ontokhorology.”. (shrink)
This article examines Heidegger’s account of dwelling while placing it in the broad context of a wide array of his lectures and the constellation of his collected writings. The focus on this question is primarily ontological in character, in spite of the spatial significance of the phenomenon of dwelling, and the bearings it has on a variety of disciplines that interrogate its essence, be it in architectural humanities and design or in geography, which probe the various elements of its architectonic (...) and topological underpinnings. The investigation of Heidegger’s reflections on dwelling will be connected in this line of inquiry with his consideration of what he refers to as “the gathering of the fourfold,” namely as “earth, sky, mortals and divinities,” and the manner they are admitted and installed into “things,” all to be set against the background of his meditations on the origins of the work of art, and on the unfolding of the essence of modern technology as en-framing. (shrink)
This paper focuses on the methodological issues related to the obstacles and potential horizons of approaching the philosophical traditions in Islam from the standpoint of comparative studies in philosophy, while also presenting selected case-studies that may potentially illustrate some of the possibilities of renewing the impetus of a philosophical thought that is inspired by Islamic intellectual history. This line of inquiry is divided into two parts: the first deals with questions of methodology, and the second focuses on ontology and phenomenology (...) of perception, by way of offering pathways in investigating the history of philosophical and scientific ideas in Islam from the viewpoint of contemporary debates in philosophy. A special emphasis will be placed on: (a) interpreting the ontology of the eleventh century metaphysician Ibn Sīnā (known in Latin as: Avicenna; d. 1037 CE) in terms of rethinking Heidegger’s critique of the history of metaphysics, and (b) analyzing the philosophical implications of the theory of vision of the eleventh century polymath Ibn al-Haytham (known in Latin as Alhazen; d. ca. 1041 CE) in terms of reflecting on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception. (shrink)
This paper consists of critical interrogations and speculative reflections on the ethical bearings of Emmanuel Levinas’ resourceful and intricate views on death, otherness, and time, while illustrating the nature of the philosophical challenges confronting the interpreters of his prolific writings, and investigating their intellectual, moral and political prolongations. This line of inquiry probes the multiple aspects of ethical responsibility that are entailed by the “face-to-face” relation with the other, and their potential theoretical extensions in meditations on the notion of “visage”, (...) particularly in the context of concrete practices and everyday demands. Moreover, this study offers selective analytic parallels with Martin Heidegger’s thoughts on mortality, along with associated pointers by Jean-Paul Sartre, in view of further elucidating the ethical implications of Levinas’ thinking, and exploring their tacit entanglements with politics. (shrink)
In attempting to address the heideggerian Seinsfrage, by way of situating it between the platonic conception of ̉όν in the Sophist and of χώρα in the Timaeus, this paper investigates the ontological possibilities that are opened up in terms of rethinking space. Asserting the intrinsic connection between the question of being and that of space, we argue that the maturation of ontology as phenomenology would not unfold in its furthermost potential unless the being of space gets clarified. This state of (...) affairs confronts us with the exacting ontological task to found a theory of space that contributes to an explication of the question of being beyond its associated temporocentric determinations. Consequently, our line of inquiry endeavors herein to constitute a prologmenon to the elucidation of the question of the being of space as “ontokhorology.”. (shrink)
This paper investigates the objections that were raised by the philosopher ‘Abd al-La&tdotu;īf al-Baghdādī against al-&Hdotu;asan ibn al-Haytham’s geometrisation of place. In this line of enquiry, I contrast the philosophical propositions that were advanced by al-Baghdādī in his tract: Fī al-Radd ‘alā Ibn al-Haytham fī al-makān, with the geometrical demonstrations that Ibn al-Haytham presented in his groundbreaking treatise: Qawl fī al-Makān. In examining the particulars of al-Baghdādī’s fragile defence of Aristotle’s definition of topos as delineated in Book IV of the (...) Physics, which was rejected on mathematical grounds by Ibn al-Haytham, a special attention is also given to highlighting the systemic distinctions between the entities that are studied within the speculative physical doctrines of common sense and immediate experience, and the postulated ‘objects’ of scientific and mathematical research. (shrink)
Cet article se propose de lire la Métaphysique d’Avicenne à la lumière de la thèse heideggérienne de l’oubli de la question de l’être dans l’histoire des ontologies classiques. L’avicennisme est étudié dans le contexte des discussions philosophiques de la phénoménologie herméneutique et de l’ontologique fondamentale, dépassant ainsi le cadre de l’analyse historiographique et philologique. Il est toutefois plus complexe de juger de l’avicennisme en se situant au dehors des limites de son milieu intellectuel, historiquement distant du nôtre, les mésententes risquent (...) de devenir encore plus grandes au vu des débats actuels sur l’ontologie engendrés par la pensée heideggérienne L’approche du point de vue de l’herméneutique phénoménologique moderne s’appuie ici sur les textes avicenniens et s’effectue dans le contexte de la critique tangentielle de l’avicennisme par Heidegger. (shrink)
