The Elements of Avicenna's Physics: Greek Sources and Arabic Innovations by Andreas Lammer (review)

Bilal Ibrahim

Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 58, Number 1, January 2020, pp. 168-170 (Review)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/hph.2020.0009

For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/746647

[ This content has been declared free to read by the pubisher during the COVID-19 pandemic. ] 168 journal of the history of philosophy 58:1 january 2020 suffice to know that bodies are continuous quantities extended in three dimensions? I could not decide what Pfeiffer’s answer to this question is. Nevertheless, Pfeiffer convincingly reconstructs Aristotle’s theory of body in chapter 6, which comprises over a third of the book. The chapter (1) identifies some of the properties of bodies insofar as they are bodies of physical substances, and (2) explains what boundaries and extensions are. For (1), studying bodies qua physical bodies provides a route to explaining Aristotle’s claim that bodies are complete/perfect by virtue of having three dimensions. The discussion of the properties of bodies qua physical bodies continues in chapter 7, a valuable contribution on Aristotle’s use of continuity in Physics V.3, to explain the unity of a physical substance. For (2), Pfeiffer argues that Aristotelian bodies are closed ones, where ‘closed’ means that they contain their boundaries. But this does not make boundaries parts of the bodies that contain them. Boundaries, which Pfeiffer argues are dependent particulars, are the forms of (topological) bodies. On the one hand, the form of a body makes it the type of body it is; for instance, a spherical shape makes a sphere the type of body it is. The matter of a body, on the other hand, is its extension, which Pfeiffer persuasively shows is a feature of the relevant substance’s matter. Thus, the matter of the spherical body possessed by a bronze sphere is not the bronze but the volume of the bronze. Anyone interested in Aristotle’s natural philosophy and metaphysics should read this book. Scott O’Connor New Jersey City University

Andreas Lammer. The Elements of Avicenna’s Physics: Greek Sources and Arabic Innovations. Scientia Graeco-Arabica, 20. De Gruyter, 2018. Pp. xx + 594. Cloth, $149.99.

In this timely and outstanding contribution, Andreas Lammer tackles central concepts and problems in Avicenna’s Physics of the Healing. The analysis provides a wide-ranging but cohesive study of Avicenna’s approach and ideas. The philological and philosophical analysis of the historical context of Avicenna’s arguments pays dividends. Avicenna’s—often radical—reworking of Aristotle’s approach in the Physics critically engages a long tradition of Peripatetic and Neoplatonic philosophy in Greek and Arabic. Lammer’s contribution, based on his doctoral dissertation, lays fertile ground for future work. Given the limitations of this review, I focus in the following on the results and fruitful questions raised by chapters 2, 3, and 4. Despite their importance, I set aside chapter 5, which treats Avicenna’s defense of Aristotle view of place, and chapter 6, which deals with his attempt to unify Aristotle’s reductive view of time with a Platonist view of it as a stable magnitude. Chapter 1 assesses the translation history of Aristotle’s Physics and the status of related commentarial material. Lammer sets the boundaries of what we presently know about Avicenna’s sources, which is rather little in terms of direct evidence. Subsequent chapters proceed by piecing together the larger context of ideas that Avicenna would have engaged. In chapter 2, Lammer assesses Avicenna’s method in the exposition of concepts in his Physics, I.1. The central argument of the chapter is a significant one: Avicenna does not set out a method of inquiry into the principles of natural things, which is the dominant understanding of Aristotle’s Physics I.1 among ancients and moderns. Rather, Avicenna adopts a mode of instruction. Aristotle begins I.1 with the advice that we start from what is “more knowable and clear to us” and proceed to what is more knowable by nature (which corresponds to the instruction of Posterior Analytics I.2). However, he also states in I.1 that we proceed from the universals (καθόλου) to the particulars. The ancient Greek commentators resolve this tension by reading καθόλου not as natural-kinds universals but as “indiscriminate particulars.” Here, Avicenna conspicuously departs. He offers a more “literal” reading of Aristotle, in which ‘universal’ means what is most “common” in nature and better known to book reviews 169 the intellect. Notably, Avicenna’s use of “common things” (al-umu¯r al-‘a¯mma) corresponds to generic universals, which are better known to the intellect but are not better known “by nature” (a complication of Aristotle’s two-part view). Lammer convincingly concludes that Avicenna does not describe a method of scientific research here. However, it remains unclear what mode of instruction means and how it relates to demonstrative proof qua proof. Just as interpreters have attenuated the stronger claim suggested by Barnes that demonstrative method is a purely didactic tool, the above will raise fruitful questions regarding instruction, proof, and the acquisition of first principles in Avicenna. Is the problem one of method versus instruction, or is it one that turns on the status of the acquisition of first principles vis-à-vis the methods of demonstrative science? In chapter 3, Lammer turns to the subject-matter and principles of physics as discussed in I.2. In contrast to Aristotle, Avicenna does not think we begin with an inquiry into change to arrive at an account of the principles. Rather, he “sets out” or posits form, matter, and privation as the principles of natural things. In fact, Avicenna “decouples” the analysis of body and its essential constituents, as that which undergoes change, from the external or accidental items in virtue of which the body undergoes change (e.g. privation). All this confirms Lammer’s point, mentioned above, that Avicenna does not employ a method of discovery of principles. Here, Lammer offers two important revisions that should be highlighted. Regarding the nature of body, Lammer argues against the predominant reading of Avicenna, in which corporeality is viewed as no more than a “predisposition” to become tridimensional or determinately extended — in other words, corporeality is unextended (122–32). By contrast, Lammer argues that corporeality according to Avicenna is indeterminate extension. The textual analysis is convincing but raises philosophical questions regarding the definition and the relation of indeterminate extension to (indeterminate) tridimensionality, as Avicenna considers the latter an accident in the category of quality. Lammer’s semantic analysis of fard (as “to determine”) suggests the determinability of tridimensionality in some unbounded,˙ qualityless extension. This pushes the question back to what, precisely, is the determinability of indeterminate tridimensionality. Moreover, what is unbounded extension if not indeterminate tridimensionality? As Lammer notes, finitude is not essential to the definition of body. Here, Avicenna does not seem to have in mind solelyindividuating properties or dimensions, which is the focus of Lammer’s analysis of determinability, as Avicenna maintains a strict distinction between indeterminate tridimensionality as quantity and unbounded extension as substance. Avicenna’s definition seems to mean that the absolute body is (somehow) the ontological ground for such quantitative properties as indeterminate tridimensionality and mathematical bodies, which moves us back towards the traditional reading. Second, Lammer argues against the “multiplicity of forms” thesis widely attributed to Avicenna. According to Lammer, Avicenna views natural substance as constituted of one species form and (prime) matter; texts that suggest otherwise are “loose locutions” (166–79). Again, though convincing, Lammer’s argument raises further questions regarding the nature of intermediary matter and its preparation, especially for higher-order compounds like plants and animals. How is the ordered complexity of forms to be accounted for without any material differentiation? What destroys the elemental forms in such processes? One point that emerges in chapter 3 is Avicenna’s commitment to a rather extreme substance occasionalism, where even material division entails a kind of substantial generation. All this raises important problems not just in Avicenna but also for the postclassical tradition. In chapter 4, Lammer assesses Avicenna’s view of nature, which is “as new and unprecedented as a Peripatetic account” of nature could be. Avicenna attacks the predominant conception of nature in antiquity as an independent or soul-like power that permeates bodies. Though he offers a “deflationary” account, Avicenna views nature as an “active principle,” in contrast to the passive sense given it by Aristotle in Physics II.1. Avicenna’s fourfold classification of natural powers is remarkably elegant and effective in fending off the entitative view of nature. However, Avicenna points to a “universal nature” in Ila¯hiyya¯t VI.4 as a singular “governing” entity, which does not seem to be addressed by 170 journal of the history of philosophy 58:1 january 2020 Lammer. One wonders whether Avicenna reserves the kind of nature misleadingly defined by others in physics for metaphysics. This question, as the questions raised above, far from a detraction, only attests to the rich and productive nature of Lammer’s work. Bilal Ibrahim Brooklyn College

Roberto Pinzani. The Problem of Universals from Boethius to John of Salisbury. Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History, 282. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Pp. vi + 312. $109.00.

Roberto Pinzani has written a closely-argued, highly original, valuable but difficult book. The Problem of Universals, indeed, is—and has been for nearly two centuries—the most frequently treated topic in medieval philosophy, and solutions to it proposed by two of the philosophers discussed here, Boethius and Abelard, have been examined countless times. But no one has before tried to cover the whole period, from circa 500 to circa 1150, looking in detail at a whole variety of writers. Moreover, what Pinzani has to say even about Boethius and Abelard is new. After a chapter setting out the problem, as he understands it, and looking especially at predication in Aristotle, Pinzani goes on to Boethius and then the ninth-century thinker John Scottus (Eriugena). The next chapter is mainly about the realist theories of Abelard’s teacher, William of Champeaux, and others, as presented, mainly, in Abelard’s discussions. Then Pinzani considers the anti-realist views from circa 1100. The next two chapters discuss a pair of sophisticated twelfth-century realist theories: the view that the individual and universal are identical, linked to Walter of Mortagne, and the theory that universals are collections, which Pinzani attributes to Joscelin of Soissons. There follow chapters on Abelard, Gilbert of Poitiers, and John of Salisbury. Although Pinzani’s range seems wide—and he is one of the first to investigate John of Salisbury’s own views on the subject rather than his reports of others, there is a great deal of recently discovered twelfth-century material that he neglects, such as the texts related to William of Champeaux in the Notae Dunelmenses and the Priscian Glosule, investigated by Irène Rosier-Catach, and the many unpublished twelfth-century Isagoge commentaries, made available in transcription by Yukio Iwakuma. Pinzani indeed makes it clear that he is not interested in historical detail, such as matters of attribution. Nonetheless, he is usually a careful scholar, although his bibliography of primary sources goes disastrously wrong, with anonymous twelfth-century treatises being attributed to Boethius and Eriugena. He writes correct but sometimes rather odd English (see the passage quoted below), which sometimes makes him difficult to understand. His method is that of close textual analysis. He looks at the details of the arguments, explaining them, putting them into diagrams and frequently translating passages—almost always accurately, although sometimes he diverges too far from a literal version. There is a great deal to learn from these analyses, which use the tools of contemporary philosophy to elicit exactly what each passage is arguing and where the arguments go wrong. But many readers may feel a sense of disorientation or alienation, and, apart from the passages translated, find it difficult to recognize in Pinzani’s analyses the early medieval discussions with which they are familiar, and impossible to discern which of the differing interpretations put forward by recent scholars of, for instance, Boethius or Abelard on universals, Pinzani prefers (a difficulty exacerbated by the fact that, although he refers to much of the relevant secondary literature, he almost never engages with it explicitly). Pinzani tends to see the Problem of Universals as being really just a problem about predication. But predication is an issue within semantics, whereas many consider that the Problem of Universals, if such a Problem can be isolated, has a metaphysical dimension too. Are there are any universal things? That question is not totally absent from Pinzani’s discussion, but it is almost never its focal point.