Table Of ContentThe Arabic, Hebrew and Latin Reception
of Avicenna’s Physics and Cosmology
Scientia Graeco-Arabica
herausgegeben von
Marwan Rashed
Band 23
De Gruyter
The Arabic, Hebrew
and Latin Reception
of Avicenna’s Physics and
Cosmology
edited by
Dag Nikolaus Hasse and Amos Bertolacci
De Gruyter
Gedruckt mit freundlicher Unterstützung der VolkswagenStiftung.
ISBN 978-1-61451-774-0
e-ISBN (PDF) 978-1-61451-697-2
e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-1-61451-935-5
ISSN 1868-7172
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018949693
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Preface
The studies of this volume are based on papers presented at a colloquium
hosted by the Villa Vigoni in Menaggio, Italy, in 2013. We are grateful to the
participants and chairs who do not contribute to this volume: Charles Burnett,
Alnoor Dhanani, Silvia Donati, Heidrun Eichner, Lukas Mühlethaler and Ulrich
Rudolph. This was the second colloquium on Avicenna’s influence in Arabic,
Hebrew and Latin. The results of the first Villa Vigoni conference on meta-
physics were published in 2012 in the same series as the present volume. We
would like to thank warmly Max Kinninger and, in particular, Katrin Fischer,
who prepared the articles for copy-editing, and Jon Bornholdt, who revised
the texts of those contributors who are not native speakers of English. We are
very grateful for the funding of the colloquium and of the publication by the
VolkswagenFoundation, as part of the Lichtenberg professorship grant to Dag
Nikolaus Hasse. A final expression of gratitude goes to the staff of the Villa
Vigoni, who created a most pleasant atmosphere and thus helped to foster an
intense research discussion about Avicenna and his influence in physics and
cosmology.
Dag Nikolaus Hasse Amos Bertolacci
Julius-Maximilians-Universität Scuola Normale Superiore
Würzburg Pisa
IMT School for Advanced Studies
Lucca
https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516972-201
Contents
Preface ........................................................................................................ V
Introduction ................................................................................................ 1
Jon McGinnis
Changing Motion: The Place (and Misplace) of Avicenna’s Theory
of Motion in the Post-Classical Islamic World .......................................... 7
Dimitri Gutas
Avicenna’s al-ḥikma al-mutaʿāliya. Meaning and Early Reception .......... 25
Jules Janssens
Avicennian Elements in Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Discussion of Place,
Void and Directions in the al-Mabāḥiṯ al-mašriqiyya ............................... 43
Peter Adamson
The Existence of Time in Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya ....... 65
Andreas Lammer
Time and Mind-Dependence in Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī’s Abkār al-afkār ... 101
Cristina Cerami
A Map of Averroes’ Criticism against Avicenna: Physics, De caelo,
De generatione et corruptione and Meteorology ....................................... 163
Resianne Fontaine
Avicennian Sources in Abraham Ibn Daud’s Natural Philosophy? ............ 241
Gad Freudenthal
The Medieval Hebrew Reception of Avicenna’s Account
of the Formation and Perseverance of Dry Land: Between Bold
Naturalism and Fideist Literalism .............................................................. 269
Dag Nikolaus Hasse and Andreas Büttner
Notes on Anonymous Twelfth-Century Translations of Philosophical
Texts from Arabic into Latin on the Iberian Peninsula .............................. 313
VIII Contents
Katrin Fischer
Avicenna’s Influence on William of Auvergne’s
Theory of Efficient Causes ........................................................................ 371
Amos Bertolacci
‘Averroes ubique Avicennam persequitur’: Albert the Great’s Approach
to the Physics of the Šifāʾ in the Light of Averroes’ Criticisms ................. 397
Cecilia Trifogli
Avicenna’s Physics in Roger Bacon’s Communia naturalium ................... 433
Jean-Marc Mandosio
Follower or Opponent of Aristotle? The Critical Reception
of Avicenna’s Meteorology in the Latin World and the Legacy
of Alfred the Englishman ........................................................................... 459
Index of Avicenna’s Works with Passages Cited ....................................... 535
Index of Names .......................................................................................... 543
Introduction
Avicenna discusses physical and cosmological issues in many of his writings,
and most pertinently in all of his great summae. The most comprehensive treat-
ment can be found in the section on natural philosophy of the summa al-Šifāʾ
(The Cure), which contains treatises on physics, on the heavens and the world,
on coming to be and passing away, on actions and passions of elementary qual-
ities, and on minerals and lofty impressions, i.e., on meteorology (besides psy-
chology, botany, and zoology). Research on the influence of these sections and
of the other summae is only at its beginning. The present study does not aim at
providing a complete overview, but is meant to stimulate the field by presenting
papers on current research on Avicenna’s influence on key figures or topics of
the Arabic, Hebrew and Latin philosophical traditions. It combines philological
studies on the transmission of Avicenna’s works with historical and philosoph-
ical interpretations of texts and authors influenced by Avicenna.
Some findings of the present book concern the Arabic transmission of
Avicenna’s works in the Islamic East. It is well known that Avicenna’s late
work al-Išārāt wa-l-tanbīhāt (Pointers and Reminders) had a broad manuscript
transmission and a rich commentary tradition in Arabic; recent scholarship
is progressively showing that the same applies to Avicenna’s earlier al-Šifāʾ,
which is likewise transmitted in hundreds of manuscripts, although the massive
bulk of this work prevented its commentary tradition, until the Safavid epoch,
to pass from the form of glosses to the form of independent commentaries. The
reception history of the Išārāt is visible also in terminology. An example of this
is Avicenna’s phrase ḥikma mutaʿāliya, ‘philosophy of the supernal world’, or
simply ‘cosmology’, which from the thirteenth century onwards received a tran-
scendent interpretation meaning ‘exalted philosophy’ (see the article by Gutas).
Given the well-documented influence of the Išārāt, but also the attested use of
the Šifāʾ by commentators on the Išārāt as a reference work for the clarifica-
tion of doubtful or controversial issues, it is not too surprising that Faḫr al-Dīn
al-Rāzī in the sections on place and directions of his Mabāḥiṯ al-mašriqiyya
relies much more heavily on the Šifāʾ than on the Išārāt. Rāzī’s sections are a
patchwork of silent quotations from Avicenna’s Šifāʾ, Naǧāt, Dānešnāme and
Ḥudūd, while the influence of the Išārāt is limited to a single chapter. This wide
recourse by Rāzī to works of Avicenna other than the Išārāt is remarkable, and
shows the full-fledged acquaintance with the Avicennian corpus by a prime
exponent of post-Avicennian philosophy and theology, especially since Rāzī,
as a commentator on the Išārāt, knows this text very well (see the article by
Janssens).
https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516972-001
2 Introduction
In Andalusia and the Maghreb, Avicenna’s philosophy was mainly known
via the Šifāʾ, as is confirmed by the sources on which Averroes drew when
attacking Avicenna. There are indications that Averroes was also acquainted
with the Naǧāt, for instance with the passage on the doctrine of a celestial cold
emanating from the stars (see the article by Cerami). The Andalusian philoso-
pher Ibn Daud may have been acquainted with the physics part of the Naǧāt too,
but his main sources in physics were clearly Avicenna’s al-Šifāʾ and al-Ġazālī’s
Avicennian Maqāṣid al-falāsifa (Intentions of the Philosophers) (see the article
by Fontaine). The broad reception of the various parts of Avicenna’s al-Šifāʾ
in Andalusia is reflected also in the many Latin translations from al-Šifāʾ that
were produced on the Iberian peninsula. While a good number of al-Šifāʾ trans-
lations carry the name of the translator, three of them are anonymous. Stylistic
analysis shows that the Physics I–III and Isagoge sections of al-Šifāʾ were, in
fact, translated by Dominicus Gundisalvi in the later twelfth century, while ‘On
Floods’ (De diluviis), i.e., chapter II.6 of the meteorological part of al-Šifāʾ,
was translated, in all likelihood, by Michael Scot in the early thirteenth century
(see the article by Hasse and Büttner).
As to Avicenna’s transmission in the Latin West, it is well known that the
high point of Avicenna’s influence in psychology was reached in the middle of
the thirteenth century and that his authority in this field decreased afterwards.
It is noteworthy that changing attitudes towards Avicenna can be observed also
in physics, as a comparative analysis of Albertus Magnus’ commentaries on the
Physics and the Metaphysics shows, which date from ca. 1250 and ca. 1264
respectively. In the commentary on the Physics, Albertus defends Avicenna
openly against the criticisms of Averroes, whom he accuses of aggressiveness
towards Avicenna. In the later commentary on the Metaphysics, Albertus now
silently follows Averroes on many issues debated between Avicenna and Aver-
roes. Albertus’ respect for Avicenna is still high, which is why he does not
criticize him directly and tries to explain and excuse Avicenna’s opinions when
they diverge from Averroes’, who seems to have replaced Avicenna as the main
doctrinal authority after Aristotle (see the article by Bertolacci).
The Latin reception of Avicenna’s meteorology, in turn, differed much from
other areas of Avicennian philosophy. Only sections from Avicenna’s meteo-
rology of al-Šifāʾ were translated early enough to influence the scholastic dis-
cussion: ‘On Minerals’ and the above-mentioned ‘On Floods’. The translator
of ‘On Minerals’, Alfred of Shareshill, inserted the text at the end of Aristotle’s
Meteorologica, with the effect that Avicenna’s standpoint was not known pri-
marily through his own meteorology, which traveled under the name of Aristo-
tle, but through other sources and mainly via Averroes’ attacks on Avicennian
doctrines. The full Latin translation of Avicenna’s meteorology by the Burgos
translators in 1274–80 apparently came too late and received hardly any diffu-
sion (see the article by Mandosio).
