Classical Arabic Philosophy
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Classical Arabic Philosophy An Anthology of Sources E1 CCAP_PR.inddAP_PR.indd i 55/29/2007/29/2007 55:39:13:39:13 PPMM E1 CCAP_PR.inddAP_PR.indd iiii 55/29/2007/29/2007 55:39:14:39:14 PPMM Classical Arabic Philosophy An Anthology of Sources Translated with Introduction, Notes, and Glossary by Jon McGinnis and David C. Reisman Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Indianapolis/Cambridge E1 CCAP_PR.inddAP_PR.indd iiiiii 55/29/2007/29/2007 55:39:14:39:14 PPMM Copyright © 2007 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 13 12 11 10 09 08 1 2 3 4 5 6 For further information, please address: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. P.O. Box 44937 Indianapolis, IN 46244-0937 www.hackettpublishing.com Cover design by •• Text design by •• Printed at •• Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Classical Arabic philosophy : an anthology of sources / translated with introduction, notes, and glossary by Jon McGinnis and David C. Reisman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-87220-871-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-87220-872-8 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Philosophy, Islamic. I. McGinnis, Jon. II. Reisman, David C. B741.C52 2007 181′.92–dc22 2007018579 The paper in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984 E1 CCAP_PR.inddAP_PR.indd iivv 55/29/2007/29/2007 55:39:14:39:14 PPMM To our sons Lorcan, Morgan, and Gage E1 CCAP_PR.inddAP_PR.indd v 55/29/2007/29/2007 55:39:14:39:14 PPMM E1 CCAP_PR.inddAP_PR.indd vvii 55/29/2007/29/2007 55:39:14:39:14 PPMM Contents Preface xi Introduction xvii I. Falsafa and the Arabic Translation Movement xvii II. The Intellectual World of the Ancient and Medieval Mediterranean xix III. The Physical Theory and Cosmology of Islamic Speculative Theology (Kala¯m) xxviii AL-KINDI¯ 1 I. The Explanation of the Proximate Effi cient Cause for Generation and Corruption 1 II. On the Intellect 16 III. On Divine Unity and the Finitude of the World’s Body 18 IV. The One True and Complete Agent and the Incomplete Metaphorical “Agent” 22 V. On the Means of Dispelling Sorrows 23 AR-RA¯ZI¯ 36 I. The Philosopher’s Way of Life 36 II. On the Five Eternals 44 III. Selections from Doubts against Galen 49 AL-FA¯RA¯BI¯ 54 I. The Eisago¯ge¯—The Introduction 55 II. Selections from Book of Demonstration 63 III. On the Intellect 68 IV. The Aims of Aristotle’s Metaphysics 78 E1 vii CCAP_PR.inddAP_PR.indd vviiii 55/29/2007/29/2007 55:39:14:39:14 PPMM viii Contents V. The Principles of Existing Things 81 VI. Directing Attention to the Way to Happiness 104 BAGHDAD PERIPATETICS 121 I. Abu¯ Bishr Mattá: Selections from Abu¯ Bishr Mattá’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, II 7–9 122 II. Yah.yá ibn Adı¯: Selection from Establishing the Nature of the Possible 128 III. Abu¯ Sulayma¯n as-Sijista¯nı¯: Selection from On the Proper Perfection of the Human Species 139 IBN SI¯NA¯ 146 I. The Cure, “Book of Demonstration,” I.9 147 II. The Cure, “Book of Demonstration,” III.5 152 III. The Cure, “Physics,” I.2 156 IV. Selections on Atomism from The Cure, “Physics” 164 V. Selections on “Inclination” (mayl) and Projectile Motion 171 VI. Selections on Psychology from The Cure, “The Soul” 175 VII. The Salvation, “Metaphysics,” I.12 209 VIII. The Salvation, “Metaphysics,” II.1–5 211 IX. The Salvation, “Metaphysics,” II.12–13 214 X. The Salvation, “Metaphysics,” II.18–19 216 XI. The Cure, “Metaphysics,” IV.2 219 XII. On Governance 224 AL-GHAZA¯LI¯ 238 I. Concerning That on Which True Demonstration Is Based 239 II. The Incoherence of the Philosophers, “The First Discussion,” On Refuting Their Claim of the World’s Eternity 241 III. On Power 254 E1 CCAP_PR.inddAP_PR.indd vviiiiii 55/29/2007/29/2007 55:39:14:39:14 PPMM Contents ix IBN BAJJA¯ 266 I. Selection from Commentary on Aristotle’s “Physics” 267 II. Conjunction of the Intellect with Man 269 IBN T. UFAYL 284 Selections from H. ayy ibn Yaqz.a¯n 284 IBN RUSHD 294 I. Selections from The Incoherence of the Incoherence, “First Discussion” 295 II. The Decisive Treatise 309 III. Commentary on Metaphysics, Zeta 9 330 IV. Selections from the Long Commentary on the Soul 335 V. Commentary on Metaphysics, Delta 7 360 AS-SUHRAWARDI¯ 367 Selections from The Philosophy of Illumination 368 Glossary Terms, Arabic to English 380 Glossary Terms, English to Arabic 387 Textual Notes 394 Bibliography 408 Glossary-Index 417 E1 CCAP_PR.inddAP_PR.indd iixx 55/29/2007/29/2007 55:39:14:39:14 PPMM E1 CCAP_PR.inddAP_PR.indd x 55/29/2007/29/2007 55:39:14:39:14 PPMM Preface Any translator, but particularly a translator of philosophical texts, faces the Scylla and Charybdis of translating a text in either an excessively literal or excessively literary way. If the text is translated too literally, there is the danger that the translation and its philosophical content will be inaccessible to those reading it in the target language. If the text is translated in a style that is too literary, there is the danger that the translation will refl ect more the translator’s own, perhaps idiosyncratic, understanding of the text rather than the original author’s intent. As a general rule, where the arguments and thought of a given thinker are ambiguous or crabbed in the original Arabic, we have tried to retain that ambiguity rather than overinterpret the text in our translation, whereas when the intent of the text is relatively clear, we have felt free to render it in more accessible and idiomatic English. The same also holds for certain individual words. For instance, the Arabic verb aqala, yaqilu, aql (and the Latin counterpart intellego, intellegere, intellexi, intellectum), at least in philosophical parlance, refers to the identifying activity of the intellect. Since the precise meaning of this verb is of considerable importance to philosophical psychology and this activity might be understood differently by different thinkers, we have followed the translation found in much of the secondary literature and chosen the cumbersome, but literal, verb “to intellect.” In this same vein, we have sometimes also preferred the literal translation of a term rather than some technical expression, even though the technical term may have become standard in the secondary literature or other transla- tions. For example the Arabic fa¯d.a, yafı¯d.u, fayad.¯na is commonly translated in the technical vocabulary of the Neoplatonists as “to emanate” or “emanation,” whereas we have translated it in the more literal sense of “to fl ow” or “to pour forth.” Conversely, in other cases we have preferred to translate a word or phrase in a technical sense even though the literal translation may be more common in the secondary literature or in other translations. For example ru¯h.¯nıa ¯, which literally means “spiritual,” is frequently contrasted with ma¯ddı¯ (“material” or “corporeal”) in such a way that the two terms are clearly meant to be exclusive of one another. Thus, to bring out the contrary nature of these two terms we have in certain cases translated ru¯h.¯nıa ¯ as “immaterial” or “incorporeal.” The term maná brings with it a whole set of issues and problems, as any one who has read medieval philosophy written in Arabic can testify. Literally it means “sense,” “meaning,” “account,” or “intention”; however, its semantic range in philosophical writings came to cover a whole gamut of notions that are not strictly conceptual. Included within its semantic range are such meanings as “(an existentially thin) thing,” and so even “nonexistence” might be thought of as a maná, as in the sentence “non existence is a diffi cult thing to understand.” maná also can have a much more E1 xi CCAP_PR.inddAP_PR.indd xxii 55/29/2007/29/2007 55:39:14:39:14 PPMM xii Preface (existentially) robust sense and may be translated as “explanatory account” or even “form”; in this respect maná does not merely signify some concept in the mind, but the very object in the world that the concept refl ects. The diffi culty is that virtually every author included in this anthology goes back and forth between using maná in a nontechnical sense and in a technical sense, and it is not always obvious when one sense is being used as opposed to another. The problem is compounded by the fact that maná is such a common expression in Arabic philosophical prose that it virtually precludes our noting every single occurrence. Consequently, we have only indicated those cases where maná is in the underlying Arabic, and we have not translated it by one of its literal translations, namely, “sense,” “meaning,” or “account.” As for the structure of this collection of texts, we have tried to provide a broad sam- pling from each of the philosophers represented here and to cover most of the major areas of philosophical study. These areas include logic or propaedeutica, natural philoso- phy or physics, philosophical psychology, that is, theories of the soul, metaphysics, and cosmology, as well as value theory, that is, ethics and politics (although admittedly our anthology has disproportionally fewer texts in this last area, primarily because a very good source of such works is already available in Lerner and Mahdi’s Medieval Political Philosophy).1 It has not always been possible to fulfi ll this ambition completely.