ARISTOTLE AND THE ARABIC TRADITION This volume of essays by scholars in ancient Greek, medieval, and Arabic philosophy examines the full range of Aristotle’s influence upon the Arabic tradition. It explores central themes from Aristotle’s corpus,includinglogic,rhetoric andpoetics,physicsand meteorology, psychology, metaphysics, ethics, and politics, and examines how these themes are investigated and developed by Arabic philosophers including al-Kindī, al-Fārābī, Avicenna, al-Ghazālī,IbnBājja,andAverroes.Thevolumealsoincludesessays that explicitly focus upon the historical reception of Aristotle, from the time of the Greek and Syriac transmission of his texts into the Islamicworld,totheperiodoftheirintegrationandassimilationinto Arabicphilosophy.Thisrichandwide-rangingcollectionwillappeal to all those who are interested in the themes, development, and contextofAristotle’senduringlegacywithintheArabictradition. ahmed alwishah is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pitzer College, Claremont. He has translated the Arabic testimonia of ThalesjointlywithRichardMcKirahaninThales(2014). josh hayes is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Alvernia University, Pennsylvania. His research focuses upon Aristotle and thehistoryofAristoteliancommentary. ARISTOTLE AND THE ARABIC TRADITION edited by AHMED ALWISHAH JOSH HAYES UniversityPrintingHouse,CambridgeCB28BS,UnitedKingdom CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge. ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof education,learningandresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence. www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781107101739 ©CambridgeUniversityPress2015 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished2015 AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary LibraryofCongressCataloguinginPublicationdata AristotleandtheArabictradition/editedbyAhmedAlwishah,JoshHayes. pages cm Includesbibliographicalreferences. isbn978-1-107-10173-9 1. Philosophy,Arab. 2. Islamicphilosophy. 3. Aristotle–Influence. I. Alwishah, Ahmed,editor. B741.A737 2015 181′.92–dc23 2015008924 isbn978-1-107-10173-9Hardback CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracy ofURLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication, anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain, accurateorappropriate. Contents Listoffigures pagevii Notesoncontributors viii Acknowledgments x Introduction 1 AhmedAlwishahandJoshHayes 1 “Arisṭūʿindal-ʿArab,”andbeyond 11 ChristinaD’Ancona 2 ThedivisionofthecategoriesaccordingtoAvicenna 30 PaulThom 3 Whatifthat(is)why?Avicenna’staxonomyofscientific inquiries 50 RiccardoStrobino 4 TheRhetoricandPoeticsintheIslamicworld 76 UweVagelpohl 5 Al-FārābīandtheDidascalia 92 FrédériqueWoerther 6 Aristotle’s‘physical’worksandtheArabictradition 105 PaulLettinck 7 Definingnature:fromAristotletoPhiloponustoAvicenna 121 AndreasLammer 8 Avicennaonself-cognitionandself-awareness 143 AhmedAlwishah 9 Averroesonintentionalityandthehumanexperience ofthenaturalworld 164 YehudaHalper v vi Contents 10 MetaphysicsintheorbitofIslam 177 CalvinNormore 11 TheArabicreceptionoftheNicomacheanEthics 200 JoshHayes 12 Theshiningandthehidden:notesonpoliticsandsolitude fromthe“GreekProphets”toal-Fārābī 214 ClaudiaBaracchi References 234 Index 261 Figures 2.1 Thecategoriesaccordingtoal-Kindī 31 2.2 ThecategoriesaccordingtoOlympiodorusandElias 32 2.3 Thecategoriesaccordingtothe‘widelyaccepted’division (Avicenna,al-Shifāʾ) 36 2.4 Avicenna’selaborationofthe‘widelyaccepted’division 41 2.5 ThecategoriesaccordingtoAvicenna(Dānishnāmeh) 45 vii Notes on contributors ahmed alwishah is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pitzer College. He is co-editor of Ibn Kammuna’s Refinement and Commentary on Suhrawardī’sIntimations(2002). claudia baracchi is Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy. She is the author of Aristotle’s Ethics as First Philosophy(2008). christinad’anconaisProfessorofPhilosophyattheUniversityofPisa, Italy.SheistheauthorofRecherchessurle‘LiberdeCausis’(1995). yehuda halper is Professor of Practice of Jewish Studies at Tulane University,NewOrleans,LA. josh hayes is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Alvernia University, Reading,PA. andreaslammerisadoctoralcandidateinLehrstuhlvifürspätantikeund arabischePhilosophie,Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität,Münich. paullettinckisProfessorintheDepartmentofScienceandTechnology StudiesattheUniversityofMalaya,KualaLumpur.Heistheauthorof Aristotle’s Meteorology and Its Reception in the Arabic World (1999) and Aristotle’sPhysicsandItsReceptionintheArabicWorld(1994). calvin normore is Professor of Philosophy at University of California, Los Angeles and Honorary Professor of Philosophy at Queensland University,Australia. riccardostrobinoisMellonBridgeAssistantProfessorinGreek,Latin, andArabictraditionsatTuftsUniversity. paul thom is Honorary Visiting Professor in the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry at the University of Sydney, viii Notesoncontributors ix Australia. He is the author of The Logic of the Trinity: Augustine to Ockham (2012). uwe vagelpohl is Senior ResearchFellow at the University of Warwick, UK. He is the author of Aristotle’s Rhetoric in the East: The Syriac and Arabictranslationandcommentarytradition(2008). fre´de´riquewoertherisResearchFellowattheFrenchNationalCentre for Scientific Research. She is the editor of Fragments of Apollodorus of Pergamon and Theodore of Gadara (2013) and Fragments of Hermagoras (2012).