ARTICLES ON AVICENNA, AVERROES and MAIMONIDES
Arabian
physician and philosopher, born at Kharmaithen, in the province of Bokhara,
980; died at Hamadan, in Northern Persia, 1037. From the autobiographical
sketch which has come down to us we learn that he was a very precocious
youth; at the age of ten he knew the Koran by heart; before he was sixteen
he had mastered what was to be learned of physics, mathematics, logic,
and metaphysics; at the age of sixteen he began the study and practice
of medicine; and before he had completed his twenty-first year he wrote
his famous "Canon" of medical science, which for several centuries, after
his time, remained the principal authority in medical schools both in Europe
and in Asia. He served successively several Persian potentates as physician
and adviser, travelling with them from place to place, and despite the
habits of conviviality for which he was well known, devoted much time to
literary lobours, as is testified by the hundred volumes which he wrote.
Our authority for the foregoing facts is the "Life of Avicenna,", based
on his autobiography, written by his disciple Jorjani (Sorsanus), and published
in the early Latin editions of his works.
Besides the medical "Canon," he wrote voluminous commentaries
on Arisotle's works and two great encyclopedias entitled "Al Schefa", or
"Al Chifa" (i.e. healing) and "Al Nadja" (i.e. deliverance). The "Canon"
and portions of the encyclopedias were translated into Latin as early as
the twelfth century, by Gerard of Cremona, Dominicus Gundissalinus, and
John Avendeath; they were published at Venice, 1493-95. The complete Arabic
texts are said to be are said to be in the mS. in the Bodleian Library.
An Arabic text of the "Canon" and the "Nadja" was published in Rome, 1593.
Avicenna's philosophy, like that of his predecessors among the Arabians,
is Aristoteleanism
mingled with neo-Platonism, an exposition of Aristotle's
teaching in the light of the Commentaries of Thomistius, Simplicius, and
other neo-Platonists. His Logic is divided into nine parts, of which the
first is an introduction after the manner of Porphyry's "Isagoge"; then
follow the six parts corresponding to the six treatises composing the "Organon";
the eighth and ninth parts conists respectively of treatises on rhetoric
and poetry. Avicenna devoted special attention to defintion, the logic
of representation, as he styles it, and also to the classification of sciences.
Philosophy, he says, which is the general name for scientific knowledge,
includes speculative and practical philosophy. Speculative philosophy is
divided into the inferior science (physics), and middle science (mathematics),
and the superior science (metaphysics including theology). Practical philosophy
is divided into ethics (which considers man as an individual); economics
(which considers man as a member of domestic society); and politics (which
considers man as a member of civil society). These divisions are important
on account of their influence on the arrangement of sciences in the schools
where the philosophy of Avicenna preceded the introduction of Aristotle's
works.
A favourite principle of Avicenna, which is quoted not
only by Averroes but also by the Schoolmen, and especially by St. Albert
the Great, was intellectus in formis agit universalitatem, that
is, the universality of our ideas is the result of the activity of the
mind itself. The principle, however, is to be understood in the realistic,
not in the nominalistic sense. Avicenna's meaning is that, while there
are differences and resemblances among things independently of the mind,
the formal constitution of things in the category of individuality, generic
universality, specific universality, and so forth, is the work of the mind.
Avicenna's physical doctrines show him in the light of a faithful follower
of Aristotle,
who has nothing of his own to add to the teaching of his master. Similarly,
in psychology, he reproduces Aristotle's
doctrines, borrowing occasionally an explanation, or an illustration, from
Alfarabi. On one point, however, he is at pains to set the true meaning,
as he understands it, of Aristotle,
above all the exposition and elaboration of the Commentators. That point
is the question of the Active and Passive Intellect. (See ARABIAN SCHOOL
OF PHILOSOPHY). He teaches that the latter is the individual mind in the
state of potency with regard to knowledge, and that the former is the impersonal
mind in the state of actual and perennial thought. In order that the mind
acquire ideas, the Passive Intellect must come into contact with the Active
Intellect. Avicenna, however, insists most emphatically that a contact
of that kind does not interfere with the independent substantiality of
the Passive Intellect, and does not imply that it is merged with the Active
Intellect. He explicitly maintains that the indivdual mind retains its
individuality and that, because it is spiritual and immaterial, it is endowed
with personal immortality. At the same time, he is enough of a mystic to
maintain that certain choice souls are capable of arriving at a very special
kind of union with the Universal, Active, Intellect, and of attaining thereby
the gift of prophecy.
Metaphysics he defines as the science of supernatural
(ultra-physical) being and of God.
It is, as Aristotle
says, the theological science. It treats of the existence
of God, which is proved from the necessity of a First Cause; it treats
of the Providence
of God, which, as all the Arabians taught, is restricted to the universal
laws of nature, the Divine Agency being too exalted to deal with singular
and contingent events; it treats of the hierarchy of mediators between
God and material
things, all of which emanated from God,
the Source of all sources, the Principle of all principles. The first emanation
from God is the
world of ideas. This is made up of pure forms, free from change, composition,
or imperfection; it is akin to the Intelligible world of Plato, and is,
in fact, a Platonic concept. Next to the world of ideas is the world of
souls, made up of forms which are, indeed, intelligible, but not entirely
separated from matter. It is these souls that animate and energize the
heavenly spheres. Next to the world of souls is the world of physical forces,
which are more or less completely embedded in terrestrial matter and obey
its laws; they are, however, to some extent amenable to the power of intelligence
in so far as they may be influenced by magic art. Lastly comes the world
of corporeal matter; this, according to the neo-Platonic conception which
dominates Avicenna's thought in this theory of emanation, is of itself
wholly inert, not capable of acting but merely of being acted upon (Occasionalism).
In this hierarchical arrangement of beings, the Active Intellect, which,
as was pointed out above, plays a necessary role in the genesis of human
knowledge, belongs to the world of Ideas, and is of the same nature as
the spirits which animate the heavenly spheres.
From all this it is apparent that Avicenna is no exception
to the general description of the Arabian Aristoteleans
as neo-Platonic interpreters of Aristotle.
There remain two other doctrines of general metaphysical nature which exhibit
him in the character of an original, or rather an Arabian, and not a neo-Platonic
interpreter. The first is his division of being into three classes: (a)
what is merely possible, including all sublunary things; (b) what is itself
merely possible but endowed by the First Cause with necessity; such are
the ideas that rule the heavenly spheres; (c) what is of its own nature
necessary, namely, the First Cause. This classification is mentioned and
refuted by Averroes. The second doctrine, to which also Averroes alludes,
is a fairly outspoken system of pantheism which Avicenna is said to have
elaborated in a work, now lost, entitled "Philosophia Orientalis". The
Scholastics, apparently, know nothing of the special work on pantheism;
they were, however, aware of the pantheistic tendencies of Avicenna's other
works on philosophy, and were, accordingly, reluctant to trust in his exposition
of Aristotle.
Avicenna
Peripatetici...Opera
(Venice, 1495); MUNK in Dict. des sciences phil. (Paris,1844-52),
art. Ibn-Sina; CARRA DE VAUX, Avicenne (Paris, 1900); UEBERWEG-HEINZE,
Gesch. der Phil., 9th ed. (Berlin, 1905), II,247, 248; tr. MORRIS
(New York, 1890), 412, 413; STOCKL, Lehrb. der Gesch. der Phil.
(Mainz, 1888), I, 329 sqq., tr. FINLAY (Dublin, 1903) 293 sqq.; TURNER,
Hist. of Phil. (Boston, 1903), 312, 313.
WILLIAM
TURNER
Transcribed by Geoffrey K. Mondello, Amy M. Mondello,
and Stephen St. Damian Mondello
Arabian
philosopher, astronomer, and writer on jurisprudence; born at Cordova,
1126; died at Morocco, 1198. Ibn Roschd, or Averroes, as he was called
by the Latins, was educated in his native city, where his father and grandfather
had held the office of cadi (judge in civil affairs) and had played an
important part in the political history of Andalusia. He devoted himself
to jurisprudence, medicine, and mathematics, as well as to philosophy and
theology. Under the Califs Abu Jacub Jusuf and his son, Jacub Al Mansur,
he enjoyed extraordinary favor at court and was entrusted with several
important civil offices at Morocco, Seville, and Cordova. Later he fell
into disfavor and was banished with other representatives of learning.
Shortly before his death, the edict against philosophers was recalled.
Many of his works in logic and metaphysics had, however, been consigned
to the flames, so that he left no school, and the end of the dominion of
the Moors in Spain, which occurred shortly afterwards, turned the current
of Averoism completely into Hebrew and Latin channels, through which it
influenced the thought of Christian Europe down to the dawn of the modern
era. Averoes' great medical work, "Culliyyat" (of which the Latin title
"Colliget" is a corruption) was published as the tenth volume in the Latin
edition of Aristotle's
works, Venice, 1527. His "Commentaries" on Aristotle,
his original philosophical works, and his treatises on theology have come
down to us either in Latin or Hebrew translations. His "Commentaries",
which earned for him the title of the "Commentator", were of three kinds:
a short paraphrase or analysis, a brief exposition of the text, and a more
extended exposition. These are known as the Minor, the Middle, and the
Major Commentary, respectively. None of them is of any value for the textual
criticisms of Aristotle,
since Averroes, being unacquainted with Greek and Syriac, based his exposition
on a very imperfect Arabic translation of the Syriac version of the Greek
text. They were, however, of great influence in determining the philosophical
and scientific interpretation of Aristotle.
His original philosophical treatises include: a work entitled "Tehafot
al Tchafot", or "Destructio Destructiones" (a refutation of Algazel's "Destructio
Philosophorum") published in the Latin edition, Venice 1497 and 1527, two
treatises on the union of the Active and Passive intellects, also published
in latin in the Venice edition; logical treatises on the different parts
of the "Organon", published in the Venice edition under the title "Quaesita
in Libros Logicae Aristotelis"; physical treatises based on Aristotle's
"Physics" (also in the Venice edition); a treatise in refutation of Avicenna,
and another on the agreement between philosophy and theology. Of the last
two, only Hebrew and Arabic texts exist.
Averroes
professed the greatest esteem for Aristotle.
The word of the Stagirite
was for him the highest expression of truth in matters of science and philosophy.
In this exaggerated veneration for the philosopher he went farther than
any of the Schoolmen. Indeed, in the later stages of Scholastic philosophy
it was the Averroists and not the followers of Aquinas and Scotus who,
when accused of subservience to the authority of a master, gloried in the
title of "Aristotle's
monkey". Averroes advocated the principle of twofold truth, maintaining
that religion has one sphere and philosophy another. Religion, he said,
is for the unlettered multitude; philosophy for the chosen few. Religion
teaches by signs and symbols; philosophy presents the truth itself. In
the mind, therefore, of the truly enlightened, philosophy supersedes religion.
But, though the philosopher sees that what is true in theology is false
in philosophy, he should not on that account condemn religious instruction,
because he would thereby deprive the multitude of the only means which
it has of attaining a (symbolic) knowledge of the truth. Averroe's philosophy,
like that of all other Arabians, is
Aristoteleanism
tinged with neo-Platonism. In it we find the doctrine of the eternity of
matter as a positive principle of being; the concept of a multitude of
spirits ranged hierarchically between God
and matter and mediating between them; the denial of Providence in the
commonly accepted sense; the doctrine that each of the heavenly spheres
is animated; the notion of emanation or extraction, as a substitute for
creation; and, finally, the glorification of (rational) mystical knowledge
as the ultimate aspiration of the human soul -- in a word, all the distinctively
neo-Platonic elements which Arabians added to pure Aristoteleanism.
What
is peculiar in Averroes' interpretation of Aristotle
is the meaning he gives to the Aristotelean
doctrine of the Active and Passive Intellect. His predecessor, Avicenna,
taught that, while the Active Intellect is universal and separate, the
Passive Intellect is individual and inherent in the soul. Averroes holds
that both the Active and the Passive Intellect are separate from the individual
soul and are universal, that is, one in all men. He thinks that Alexander
of Aphrodisias was wrong in reducing the Passive Intellect to a mere disposition,
and that the "other Commentators" (perhaps Themistius and Theophrastus)
were wrong in describing it as an individual substance endowed with a disposition;
he maintains that it is, rather, a disposition in us, but belonging to
an intellect outside us. The terms Passive, Possible, Material are
successively used by Averroes to designate this species of intellect, which,
in ultimate analysis, if we prescind from the dispositions of which he
speaks, is the Active Intellect itself. In other words, the same intellect
which, when in the act of actually abstracting intelligible species is
called active, is called passive, possible or material so far as it is
acted upon, is potential, and furnishes that out of which ideas are fabricated.
Besides, Averroes speaks of the Acquired Intellect (intellectus acquisitus,
adeptus), by which he means the individual mind in communication with
the Active Intellect. Thus, while the Active Intellect is numerically one,
there are as many acquired intellects as there are individual souls with
which the Active Intellect has come in contact. (The Scholastics speak
of continuatio of the universal with the individual mind, translating
literally the Arabic word which here means contiguity rather than union.)
The sun, for instance, while it is and remains one source of light, may
be said to be multiplied and to become many sources of light, in so far
as it illuminates many bodies from which its light is distributed; so it
is with the universal mind and the individual minds which come in contact
with it.
The weakness
of this doctrine, as a psychological explanation of the origin of knowledge,
is its failure to take account of the facts of consciousness, which, as
the Scholastics were not slow to point out, indicate that not merely an
individual disposition but an active individual principle enters into the
action which ones expresses by the words "I think". Another weakness of
the doctrine of monopsychism, or the doctrine that there is but one mind,
a weakness at least in the eyes of the Scholastics, is that it leaves unanswered
the question of the immortality of the individual soul.. Indeed, Averroes
openly admitted his inability to hold on philosophic grounds the doctrine
of individual immortality, being content to maintain it as a religious
tenet. Averroes' greatest influence was as a commentator. His doctrines
had a varying fortune in Christian schools. At first they secured a certain
amount of adherence, then, gradually, their incompatibility with Christian
teaching became apparent, and finally, owing to the revolt of the Renaissance
from everything Scholastic, they secured once more a temporary hearing.
His commentaries, however, had immediate and lasting success. St. Thomas
Aquinas used the "Grand Commentary" of Averroes as his model, being, apparently,
the first Scholastic to adopt that style of exposition; and though he refuted
the errors of Averroes, and devoted special treatises to that purpose,
he always spoke of the Arabian commentator as one who had, indeed, perverted
the Peripatetic tradition, but whose words, nevertheless, should be treated
with respect and consideration. The same may be said of Dante's references
to him. It was after the time of St. Thomas and Dante that Averroes came
to be represented as "the arch-enemy of the faith".
AVERROES'
works in the Venice edition, 1497, 1527, and, in part, in MUNK'S Melanges
&c. (Paris, 18569); MUNK, in Dict. des sciences philosophiques
(Paris, 1844-52), art. Ibn Roschd; RENAN, Averroes et l'Averroisme
(Paris, 9th ed., 1882); MANDONNET, Siger de Brabant et l'Averroisme
latin au XIII siecle (Fribourg, 1899); EUBERWEG-HEINZE, Gesch. der
Phil., (9th ed., Berlin, 1905), VI 250 sqq. (tr. I); TURNER, Hist.
of Phil. (Boston, 1903), 313 sqq.; STOCKL, Gesch. der Phil. des
Mittelalters, (Mainz, 1865), II.
WILLIAM
TURNER
Transcribed by Geoffrey K. Mondello
Through
the "Guide of the Perplexed" and the philosophical introductions to sections
of his commentaries on the Mishna, Maimonides exerted a very important
influence on the Scholastic philosophers, especially on Albert the Great,
St. Thomas, and Duns Scotus. He was himself a Jewish Scholastic. Educated
more by reading the works of the Arabian philosophers than by personal
contact with Arabian teachers, he acquired through the abundant philosophical
literature in the Arabic language an intimate acquaintance with the doctrines
of Aristotle,
and strove earnestly to reconcile the philosophy of the Stagirite
with the teachings of the Bible. The principle which inspired all his philosophical
activity was identical with the fundamental tenet of Scholasticism: there
can be no contradiction between the truths which God
has revealed and the findings of the human mind in science and philosophy.
Moreover, by science and philosophy he understood the science and philosophy
of Aristotle.
In some important points, however, he departed from the teaching of the
Aristotelean text,
holding, for instance, that the world is not eternal, as Aristotle
taught, but was created ex nihilo, as is taught explicitly in the
Bible. Again, he rejected the Aristotelean
doctrine that God's
provident care extends only to humanity, and not to the individual.
But, while in these important points, Maimonides forestalled the Scholastics
and undoubtedly influenced them, he was led by his admiration for the neo-Platonic
commentators and by the bent of his own mind, which was essentially Jewish,
to maintain many doctrines which the Scholastics could not accept. For
instance, he pushed too far the principle of negative predication in regard
to God. The Scholastics
agreed with him that no predicate is adequate to express the nature
of God, but they did not go so far as to say that no term can be applied
to God in the
affirmative sense. They admitted that while "eternal", "omnipotent", etc.,
as we apply them to God,
are inadequate, at the same time we may say "God
is eternal" etc., and need not stop, as Moses did, with the negative "God
is not not-eternal", etc.
The most
characteristic of all his philosophical doctrines is that of acquired immortality.
He distinguishes two kinds of intelligence in man, the one material
in the sense of being dependent on, and influenced by, the body, and the
other immaterial, that is, independent of the bodily organism. The
latter is a direct emanation from the universal active intellect (this
is his interpretation of the noûs poietikós of Aristotelean
philosophy), and is acquired as the result of the efforts of the soul to
attain a knowledge of the absolute, pure intelligence of God.
The knowledge of God
is, therefore, the knowledge which, so to speak, develops in us the immaterial
intelligence, and thus confers on man an immaterial or spiritual nature.
This immateriality not only confers on the soul that perfection in which
human happiness consists, but also endows the soul with immortality. He
who has attained a knowledge of God
has reached a condition of existence which renders him immune from all
the accidents of fortune, from all the allurements of sin, and even from
death itself. Man, therefore, since he has it in his power to attain this
salutary knowledge, is in a position not only to work out his own salvation,
but also to work out his own immortality. The resemblance between this
doctrine and Spinoza's doctrine of immortality is so striking as to warrant
the hypothesis that there is a casual dependence of the later on the earlier
doctrine. The difference between the two Jewish thinkers is, however, as
remarkable as the resemblance. While Spinoza teaches that the way to attain
the knowledge which confers immortality is the progress from sense-knowledge
through scientific knowledge to philosophical intuition of all things sub
specie æternitatis, Moses holds that the road to perfection and
immortality is the path of duty as described in the Law
of God.
Among
the theological questions which Moses discussed were the nature of prophecy
and the reconciliation of evil with the goodness of God.
He agrees with "the philosophers" in teaching that, man's intelligence
being one in the series of intelligences emanating from God,
the prophet must, by study and meditation, lift himself up to the degree
of perfection required in the prophetic state. But here he invokes the
authority of "the Law", which teaches that, after that perfection is reached,
there is required the free act of God
before the man actually becomes the prophet. In his solution of the problem
of evil, he follows the neoPlatonists in laying stress on matter as
the source of all evil and imperfection.
GUTTMANN,
Verhältniss des Thomas v. Aquin zum Judentum (Breslau, 1891);
BEER, Leben u. Werken des Maimonides (Prague, 1850); GEIGER, Moses
ben Maimon (Breslau, 1850); BARUCH, Two lectures on Maimonides
(London, 1847); Jewish Encyclopedia, s. v. Moses Ben Maimon;
GUTTMANN, Die Scholastik in ihrer Bez. zum Judentum (Brfeslau, 1902);
STÖCKL, Gesch. der Phil. des Mittelalters, II (Mainz, 1865),
265 sqq.; TURNER, History of Philosophy (Boston, 1903), 316 ff.
WILLIAM
TURNER
Transcribed by WGKofron
With thanks to St. Mary's Church, Akron, Ohio
The
Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume II
Copyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton Company
Online Edition Copyright © 1999 by Kevin Knight