Avicenna and Aquinas on the Soul - Lecture 3

This lecture will look at how Avicenna discusses our process of cognition, especially that which involves the intellect. 1. Avicenna (ibn Sn; before 980 1037) Born nr. Bukhr (Eastern extremity of Islam) Philosophy for cArd (al-Hikma al- cArdya) The Healing (al-Shif) The Salvation (al-Najt) Philosophy for cAl al-Dawla (Dneshnme-ye cAl) Pointers and Reminders (al-Ishrt wa-l-Tanbht) Re-formulator of Aristotelian logic: importance of modal logic (cf. Paul Thom) Metaphysics and Frb: (cf. Gutas) Avicenna strongly influenced by a short piece by Frb, because of difference in goal of metaphysics from that set out by Kind. abstractionism and universals: the end of the Alexandrian tradition? cf. below (De Libera) things necessary through themselves/ through another (Wisnovsky) essence and existence Intellectual knowledge in Avicenna 2. Avicennas standard account. The soul engages in intellectual thought only by means of joining with the Active Intellect and receiving an intelligible form from it - it does not do its own intellectual thinking. The soul as it exists in a new-born baby is what Avicenna calls material intellect: it is pure potentiality. From the Active Intellect it acquires, first of all, the primary notions. The structure of these notions give it the basic tools for logical thinking. The complex and difficult process of human cogitation, putting thoughts together and framing syllogisms, is a physical process in the brain and involves finding appropriate images: it serves to prepare the human intellect to conjoin with the Active Intellect and actually think a thought. Through this pattern of cogitation and conjunction, the soul becomes more and more able to conjoin with the Active Intellect. Avicenna denies that there is any memory for thoughts, and he insists that humans can only think that one thought at a time. But a human intellect does not need to go through the process of cogitation again in order to think a thought it has previously thought: it can simply conjoin at will with the Active Intellect to think this thought. Eventually, as the intellect gains this capacity with regard to more and more thoughts, it becomes like an

eye which has been restored to health: it can see whenever it wishes, although that does not mean that it is always seeing. For some people, however, the lengthy process of cogitation can be avoided. They have the gift of intuition (hads), which enables them to establish conjunction with the Active Intellect without preparation and find the middle terms and conclusions of syllogisms effortlessly and without the possibility of error. Avicenna and intuition. His autobiography. One puzzle which al-Najat may help to unravel is how the state of the person with intuition differs from that of others. Does the person with intuition just reach his cognitive destination more quickly, or does he understand more and in a different way? 3. The account in al-Najat * (p. 27) The practical intellect and theoretical intellect are only homonymously intellects. Awkwardness of practical intellect in Avicennas scheme. * (p. 29) Potentiality -> actuality as being by degrees. (cf. Aristotles first actuality, second actuality). Avicenna. (1) The infant. (2) The boy ready to start writing. (3) The person who knows how to write. Stages. [1] Material intellect (pll. prime matter) [2] First principles (a priori truths): habitual intellect [3] the forms have been in it and it can reason about them whenever is wanted without having to reacquire them; it is as though they are stored in it: actual intellect (but also, in another sense, potential). [4] Acquired intellect: cf. bottom of p. 30. Characteristics. The intelligible form is present in it, self-consciousness, form from outside, due to an intellect that is always actual. What is the connection between (3) and (4)? *(p. 31) Intuition. Syllogisms and middle terms. Very rare, but seems to be having automatically the habitual intellect - i.e. Stage 2. But (p.32) this holy intellect is equated with the acquired intellect i.e. Stage 4. Is the explanation that ordinary habitual intellect leads to [3], but intuition leads to [4]? Note here: emphasis on imprinting. Overflow into imagination and theory of prophecy. *(p.33) Sensation, representation, estimation, intellect. Degrees of abstraction. sensation coupled with matter and so cannot exist without the matter representation more abstract i.e. inner sense images, memory estimation - (need to explain behaviour of non-human animals) more abstract still Bottom of p.35 As for the faculty this must be intellect problem of retained. --- Avicennas theory of universals and common natures. Cf. (Healing Metaphysics V.12) is Universals, which are one and many, exist only as concepts - this does not prevent there from being real common natures of things. We can consider something, John Marenbon, for instance, just from the point of view of its nature his being a human. In doing so, we must not, add anything external which would make our consideration two-

fold.Avicenna means that we should not be considering whether this nature is universal or singular The universal is one thing qua universal, and another thing qua thing to which universality attaches. The definition of, for instance, horseness, is not the same as and does not include universality in it, although the concept of horse can indeed be predicated of many. If we ask about this common nature, horseness, we should deny that it is either one or many, and that it either exists only in the mind or as a concrete thing. Why this not a contradiction? Avicenna holds that the disjunctions one or many and in the mind or as a concrete thing are each equivalent to A or not-A: they are exhaustive of everything: how, then, can the these disjuncts be denied of horseness and other common natures? Avicenna answers: He is not asserting Horseness qua horseness is not A or not-A but rather Qua horseness, horseness is not A or anything else. Horseness qua horseness might be taken as a referring expression, picking out some particular sort of object, B, and that, if this were the case, it would be a matter of logic that B is A or not-A. In fact, however, the referring expression is horseness, and the qua horseness indicates the aspect under which alone it is to be considered: that of its being horseness. Considered under this aspect, any affirmation about horseness other than that it is horseness is false (compare: qua author of this book, the author of this book is not male or female.) cf. passage on p.34 which bears this out But what about the Active Intellect? Three ideas: imprinter/ sun - illumination of imaginary forms it is intelligible itself 3. How does the al-Najat account fit with the Standard Account? At first it seems as though there is a stark contrast between (SA): physical processes go on and prepare humans for contact with the Active Intellect, from which they receive the forms that allow them to engage in thinking and (al-N): the Active Intellect is like a light which abstracts the universal forms from the imaginative representations, and thereby enables thought to take place. In fact, the difference is less stark. Only through finding appropriate images a physical process are we able to think, and that thinking is carried out in conjunction with the Active Intellect. The standard account tends to stress the jump between the ordinary processes of our inner senses and the process of thinking, whereas al-Najt focuses on the process of illumination which connects the two. But al-Najt also suggests a different route, that of the person of intuition. It seems that when he talks here of acquired Intellect or Holy Intellect he is referring to a different and fuller sort of conjunction with the Active Intellect than in ordinary acts of thinking. (The comparison between acquired intellect and habitual intellect is appropriate, because for most people the only direct infusion is of first principles.)

Some reading Translation Medieval Islamic Philosophical Writings, ed. M.A. Khalidi, Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 2005, 27-58

De Libera, A. (2002) LArt des gnralits. Thories de labstraction, Paris; Aubier Gutas, D. (1988) Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition, Leiden; Brill Sebti, M. (2000) Avicenne: lame humaine, Paris ; Presses Universitaires de France Wisnovsky, R. (2003) Avicennas Metaphysics in Context, Ithaca; Cornell University Press