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The Categories Argument For The Real Distinction Between Being And Essence: Avicenna, Aquinas, And Their Greek Sources, Nathaniel Taylor

Dissertations (1934 -)

There is a distinctively Avicennian way of understanding the categories to be found in the works of Thomas Aquinas that vindicates Aquinas’s early argument for the distinction between being and essence. Two of the most important and influential Aquinas scholars in the twentieth century recognized the roots of this Avicennian way in Aquinas, but neither Etienne Gilson and Cornelio Fabro made good on their insights. In this dissertation, I trace this Avicennian way through its sources in the Greek commentators and demonstrate how it provides the necessary insight into the structure and nature of the categories that render Aquinas’s Genus …

Necessary Existent Theology, Rosabel Ansari, Billy Dunaway, Jon Mcginnis

Philosophy Faculty Works

A meta-theology makes claims about the structure of theological claims: it identifies a single, fundamental claim about God, and shows how other theological claims are derivable from the fundamental claim. In his book Depicting Deity and other articles, Jon Kvanvig has identified three distinct meta-theologies: Creator Theology, Perfect Being Theology, and Worship-worthiness Theology. In this article, we argue that the medieval Islamic philosopher Avicenna's views about God have the structure of a meta-theology, and that it is distinct from the three projects Kvanvig identifies. This view is Necessary Existent Theology.

Avicenna's Doctrine Of Emanation And The Sphere Of The Heavens, Brian C. Manere

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Avicenna argues that the celestial spheres each have a soul, termed the motive soul, which is emanated by the first celestial intellect––a body of knowledge which knows itself. Despite outlining the powers of the motive soul, Avicenna does not formally investigate the psychology of the spheres nor their volition. Rather, he presents their volition as a mystery and leaves it to posterity to solve. In an attempt to resolve this mystery, I will argue that it is a direct result of Avicenna having purposefully written a repeated gap into his account of emanation such that there is no clear account …

Simple Is As Simple Does: Plantinga And Ghazālī On Divine Simplicity, Jon Mcginnis

Philosophy Faculty Works

This study considers the notion of divine simplicity, the idea that God is not a composite of more basic features, and the criticisms by al-Ghazālī (d. 1111) and Alvin Plantinga of that doctrine. What is shown is that most of the argumentation against divine simplicity frequently credited to Plantinga had been nearly perfectly anticipated by al-Ghazālī. Moreover, in responding to a stronger form of divine simplicity, which Avicenna (d. 1037) had presented, than the Thomistic version that Plantinga attacks, Ghazālī develops ‘new’ arguments and moves that are still valuable and informative to the discussion of divine simplicity today.

Verification And Utility In The Arabic Commentaries On The Canon Of Medicine: Examples From The Works Of Fakhr Al-Dīn Al-Rāzī (D. 1210) And Ibn Al-Nafīs (D. 1288), Nahyan Fancy

History Faculty publications

Although over two dozen Arabic commentaries on the Canon of Medicine were composed between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, historians of medicine have paid scant attention to them. Instead, these commentaries have often been dismissed as being uncritical expositions that further entrenched the dogma of Galenic/Avicennan medical theory. In this article, I shall show that in fact the opposite was the case for at least a subset of the Canon commentaries from this period. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī developed a new style of verification commentary across his philosophical corpus that he also deployed in his Canon commentary. Even though Fakhr al-Dīn …

Two Paths To Illumination In Islamic Mysticism: Self-Annihilation Versus Higher Self, Mahdieh Mirmohammadi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Abstract

Islamic mysticism has been the main focus of many Muslim philosophers and theologians. Great philosophers such as Avicenna and al-Ghazālī have dedicated part of their works to Islamic mysticism. They strove to clarify the meaning, goals and framework of Islamic mysticism. Avicenna presents Islamic mysticism as an intellectual journey that begins with the human and advances toward the Truth. The Truth for Avicenna is absolute being (wujūd muțlaq), which is equivalent with his philosophical definition of the Truth. This philosophical-mystical journey is a kind of psychological-mental journey. By psychological-mental I mean that the journey takes part and …

Contextualizing Aquinas's Ontology Of Soul: An Analysis Of His Arabic And Neoplatonic Sources, Nathan Mclain Blackerby

Dissertations (1934 -)

Contemporary scholarship has generally focused on two major influences that have shaped Thomas Aquinas’ account of the soul. The first set of scholarship focuses on how doctrinal concerns and the Augustinian and Scholastic traditions defined the central issue that Aquinas faced, viz., explaining how the soul can be treated as an individual substance that has an essential relationship to a body. The second set of scholarship focuses on Aquinas’s employment of Aristotle’s works in his attempt to resolve the issue. Contemporary assessments of Aquinas’s theory of the soul-body relation therefore take Aquinas to be offering a solution that follows directly …

Willful Understanding: Avicenna’S Philosophy Of Action And Theory Of The Will, Jon Mcginnis, Anthony Ruffus

Jon McGinnis

In this study, we look at two interpretive puzzles associated with the thought of Avicenna that are still of intrinsic philosophical interest today. The first concerns to what extent, if at all, Avicenna’s deity can be said to act freely. The second concerns to what extent, if at all, humans within Avicenna’s philosophical system can be said to act freely. It is our contention that only through a careful analysis of Avicenna’s theory of action can one begin to assess his position concerning the status of the will and so provide a satisfactory response to these two interpretative issues. We …

A Small Discovery: Avicenna's Theory Of Minima Naturalia, Jon Mcginnis

Jon McGinnis

There has been a long-held misconception among historians of philosophy and science that apart from brief comments in Aristotle and Averroes, the theory of minima naturalia had to await Latin Schoolmen for its full articulation. Recently scholars have shown that far from sporadic comments on minima naturalia, Averroes in fact had a fully developed and well-integrated theory of them. In this study, I complement these scholars’ important work by considering Avicenna’s place in the history and development of the doctrine of the minima naturalia. There is no study to date that mentions Avicenna in connection with this doctrine despite the …

Willful Understanding: Avicenna’S Philosophy Of Action And Theory Of The Will, Jon Mcginnis, Anthony Ruffus

Philosophy Faculty Works

In this study, we look at two interpretive puzzles associated with the thought of Avicenna that are still of intrinsic philosophical interest today. The first concerns to what extent, if at all, Avicenna’s deity can be said to act freely. The second concerns to what extent, if at all, humans within Avicenna’s philosophical system can be said to act freely. It is our contention that only through a careful analysis of Avicenna’s theory of action can one begin to assess his position concerning the status of the will and so provide a satisfactory response to these two interpretative issues. We …

A Small Discovery: Avicenna's Theory Of Minima Naturalia, Jon Mcginnis

Philosophy Faculty Works

There has been a long-held misconception among historians of philosophy and science that apart from brief comments in Aristotle and Averroes, the theory of minima naturalia had to await Latin Schoolmen for its full articulation. Recently scholars have shown that far from sporadic comments on minima naturalia, Averroes in fact had a fully developed and well-integrated theory of them. In this study, I complement these scholars’ important work by considering Avicenna’s place in the history and development of the doctrine of the minima naturalia. There is no study to date that mentions Avicenna in connection with this doctrine despite the …

Commentary On "Contrasting Models Of The God-World Relation: Avicenna, Maimonides And Al-Shahrastani", Matthew Williams

Puget Sound Undergraduate Philosophy Conference

In his paper “Contrasting Models of the God-World Relationship: Avicenna, Maimonides and Al-Shahrasānī,” Harrington Critchley makes a very cogent argument for the superior adaptability of Avicenna’s model for the necessary existence of God, as compared to Maimonides’ and Al-Shahrasānī’s own. Though there are certainly problems to be found in Avicenna’s model, I would prefer to take this opportunity to admire rather than critique it.

Contrasting Models Of The God-World Relation: Avicenna, Maimonides And Al-Shahrastani", Harrington Critchley

Puget Sound Undergraduate Philosophy Conference

This essay considers Avicenna’s conception of God as the ‘Necessary Existent’ and the subsequent uses of this designation in the thinking of Moses Maimonides and Muhammad Al-Shahrastānī. Specifically, it considers how this term affects each thinker’s understanding of God’s being ‘above perfection,’ as suggested by their respective intimations regarding what they take to be His most prominent attribute. In turn, these distinct understandings influence their contrasting models of the relationship between God and the created order. I demonstrate how Avicenna employs his modal categories in order to determine God’s attributes, pinpointing ‘necessity’ as the attribute that he highlights as best …

The Metaphysics Of Causation In The Creation Accounts Of Avicenna And Aquinas, Julie Ann Swanstrom

Open Access Dissertations

The medieval conception of monotheistic creation is this: God voluntarily creates the universe from nothing. Endorsed by medieval philosophers, this conception of creation is in tension with their understanding of causation more generally. Each theory of causation available--Aristotelian efficient causation in which an agent acts upon a patient, and Neoplatonic emanation in which beings are produced through a series of emanations--have attractive explanatory features, but neither theory aligns perfectly with divine creation. Since God acts to create, efficient causation seems to include creating; yet, efficient causation is not causation ex nihilo. Since emanation accounts for producing being ex nihilo, it …

Arabic Influences In Aquinas's Doctrine Of Intelligible Species, Max Herrera

Dissertations (1934 -)

In contemporary literature, one can find much information concerning Thomas Aquinas's doctrine of intelligible species. However, none of the literature takes into account how and why Aquinas developed his doctrine of intelligible species. Often, it is purported that Aquinas is just following Aristotle. However, this is not the case. There are aporiae in the Aristotelian corpus, and those who followed Aristotle tried to resolve the intellection and hylomorphism aporia, an aporia that arose as a result of denying Platonic forms and affirming hylomorphism. Among those who attempted to resolve this aporia were Avicenna and Averroes from whom Aquinas drew and …