Abstract
Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor have provided a service to students and researchers in Arabic Philosophy with the publication of this collection of essays in Cambridge’s prestigious Companion series. The collection contains nineteen chapters, including the Introduction, which are written by an international group of scholars who are well established in the discipline. Apart from the Introduction, the next ten chapters, chapters 2–11, consist in the study of the history of Arabic philosophy; chapter 2 begins with a study of “Greek into Arabic” and the rest of the chapters focus on individuals (al-Kindī, al-Fārābī, etc.) or movements (Ismā‘īlīs, Illuminationism in Suhrawardī, etc.). The remaining eight chapters, chapters 12–19, address topics pertaining to Arabic Philosophy (logic, political philosophy, metaphysics, etc.) that may not have been adequately covered in the historical chapters. I not only refer to the Companion frequently in my own work, but on a regular basis I send students needing an introduction to a thinker or a topic to the Companion because it has the intention of being both accurate scholarship and understandable to the commonly accepted opinions of the public. The Companion has a useful chronological list of Arabic Philosophers on pages xv–xviii. The editing is well done with the exception of the use of two diacritical marks for ‘ayn (see p. 73 for example).
In a collection such as this, the selection of authors and topics tells a story, that is, it presents the materials in a way that causes us to understand both the whole and the parts in relation to the whole. This arrangement is in part done for historical reasons, but it also presents the main lines of achievement in Arabic Philosophy such that the reader is encouraged to examine a particular author or topic to appreciate the strengths and nature of the philosophical reflection. The editors do not present the selections of individuals and topics as perfected, but modern scholars and issues are current and they represent the sine qua non for any who would wish to read further. The formulations of critical judgments regarding the nature and achievement of individual authors and of the whole tradition should be set forth with as much force and substance as possible, and the contributors have done so. At the same time, the enduring strength of a certain set of critical judgments also emerges in genuine dialectic with other formulations, with establishing genuine aporiae, perplexities, which become the incentive for further inquiry. So what are the forceful critical judgments made in the Companion and what dialectical conversations are present?
The critical judgment of the most important individual in Arabic Philosophy is articulated early in the Introduction. Adamson and Taylor write: “But the formative period involves more than just the continuation of the Greek philosophical tradition. Most important for the later Islamic tradition was the towering achievement of Avicenna. He was one of many thinkers to grapple with the ideas put forward by the tradition of theology in Islam (‘ilm al-kalām). Post-classical philosophy in Arabic would in turn be dominated by the need to respond both to Avicenna and to the kalām tradition. While Averroes’ project of explicating and exploiting the works of Aristotle continued in Latin and Hebrew, other concerns drove the development of post-classical philosophical inquiry” (pp. 2–3). The editors acknowledge the presence of another, primarily Aristotelian, account of philosophy in the classical period of Arabic Philosophy in the school of thought of Abū Bishr Mattā and al-Fārābī, which reaches its apex in Averroes in Andalusia. Yet, these Peripatetic philosophers were also influenced by Neoplatonism, that is, the Greek curriculum inherited by Arabic Philosophy that was an “artifact of Neoplatonism” (p. 5). Thus, along with the factor of the kalām, Adamson and Taylor reaffirm that Ibn Sīnā is the most important Arabic philosopher: “All these factors are important for understanding the most important achievement of the classical period: the self-consciously original system of Avicenna, the greatest philosopher in this tradition” (p. 5). For this reason, the editors decided to devote a double-length chapter to his thought (chapter 6) and to ask one of the finest scholars on Avicenna, Robert Wisnovsky, to write the chapter.
The argument for the centrality of Ibn Sīnā, however, is not limited to the Introduction and Wisnovsky’s contribution. Tony Street states the following of Arabic logic: “First and foremost, Aristotle ceases by the end of the twelfth century to be a significant coordinate for logicians writing in Arabic – that place is filled with Avicenna” (p. 248); and later: “Avicenna’s work marks the watershed for any helpful periodization” (p. 249). Street’s chapter, however, reflects a dialectic between the positions of al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā because he states that: “The leaders of this Heroic Age of Arabic logic, al-Fārābī and Avicenna, dealt with the books of the Organon one by one” (p. 251). Yet he concludes that it is Ibn Sīnā’s work that sets the pattern for subsequent logical work. Street agrees with Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406) that the discipline of logic changed after al-Rāzī and al-Kātibī, as Ibn Khaldūn states that it changed from “ranging over all the subjects covered by the Organon to concentrating on narrowly formal questions” (p. 252). Street concludes: “later Arabic logic is Avicennian,” “the base system taken as the object of debate and repair is Avicennian,” “it is Avicennian in its attitude to past authority,” and subsequent logicians “did not share in the interest in the work of the First Teacher [Aristotle]” (pp. 261–262). Thérèse-Anne Druart’s chapter on metaphysics also continues the dialectical exploration of the respective merits and influences of al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā. Her chapter is her typical even-handed account of various philosophers, though she says it is Ibn Sīnā who “reaches a full integration [of various trends in Aristotle’s Metaphysics] by rethinking all the issues and also borrowing a new notion, this time from kalām, ‘thing’” (p. 346). There are other authors in the Companion who affirm these critical judgments in favour of the centrality of Ibn Sīnā.
Two other chapters in particular are germane to this inquiry regarding Ibn Sīnā, Charles E. Butterworth’s chapter on “Ethical and Political Philosophy” and Richard C. Taylor’s chapter on Averroes. Both chapters are written dialectically in that they examine a range of opinions, and it is not certain in either chapter that the main figure in Arabic Philosophy is Ibn Sīnā – perhaps Taylor is most deeply dialectical between his Introduction and his chapter on Averroes. Charles E. Butterworth’s chapter on “Ethical and Political Philosophy” raises key issues: in regard to al-Rāzī’s view of Socrates’ asceticism, he writes: “Still, the issue cannot be ignored, for it points to the broader question of whether the pursuit of philosophy must be so single-minded that it takes no account of the needs of men or, differently stated, whether the proper focus of philosophy is nature and the universe or human or political things” (p. 273); and later: “What al-Rāzī needed to do was show that Socrates’ early asceticism kept him from pursuing philosophy fully insofar as it prevented him from paying attention to the questions related to human conduct” (p. 273). The centerpiece of Butterworth’s chapter is the five pages on al-Fārābī, for it is he who says that it is human things, political things, that must occupy the philosopher’s attention and therefore that all of philosophy, including the study of physics and metaphysics, needs to be reformulated in the mode of Human Philosophy or Political Philosophy. Butterworth argues that Ibn Sīnā follows in al-Fārābī’s footsteps “to some extent” (used twice on p. 283) and Ibn Rushd concurs with al-Fārābī (p. 283). Butterworth says al-Fārābī collapses, overlooks or obfuscates the distinctions scholars make between Plato and Aristotle because they differ only in what paths they take toward citizen virtue and the education of the ruler who is the ruler in truth, but the aim of both is political philosophy (p. 283).
Nor does Taylor’s chapter on Ibn Rushd unequivocally place Ibn Sīnā at the center of Arabic Philosophy inasmuch as Taylor argues that Ibn Rushd rejects many doctrines of Ibn Sīnā. Near the conclusion of his chapter, Taylor identifies at least three major objections Ibn Rushd makes to Ibn Sīnā’s thought (p. 196). Taylor does nothing other than express these objections; he does not offer a critical judgment as to whether these objections should lead to a revision of the hypothesis that Ibn Sīnā is the “most important.” He concludes only by noting the respect Ibn Rushd received from his successors, Moses Maimonides, Ibn Khaldūn, and Latin Christians, some of whom were critical of Ibn Sīnā, and by noting the various opinions regarding Ibn Rushd’s religious views. Regarding this latter matter, Taylor states that we ought to have a “sympathetic understanding of Averroes as a devotee of the most sophisticated and dominant religion of his historical culture, Islam” (p. 197). Taylor is silent regarding whether Ibn Sīnā offers a more adequate account of the relation between religion and philosophy, and we are therefore left with the sense that Ibn Sīnā may not be the only alternative. Given Taylor’s dialectical – or equivocal – presentation, if this is a genuine aporia for Taylor, we might wonder why Muhsin Mahdi and Charles Butterworth are singled out for special distinction in not sharing the editors’ views regarding the foundational nature of metaphysical and epistemological principles for ethical and political ideas (note 7 on pp. 8–9). On the other hand, perhaps metaphysics is completed and we can use it as a basis for virtuous opinion and virtuous action.