Some Class Notes

P6640 27 Sept 2012 Notes

(1) Is imagination the key? Yes because it is in between sensation and intellection.

But is this not the case for all our thinkers seen thus far?

What is distinctive and key in Averroes’s account if imagination is generally a key for all our thinkers?

(2) The meaning of the Theoretical Intellect

We discussed this in class. I called special attention to the use of the word “in” and remarked that it has special meanings when used in the context of immateriality.

The connection with the Commentary on the Parva Naturalia and its epistemology may be quite relevant, but that is never fully explained in the De anima commentaries. I have begun to explore it in my paper on Prophecy in Averroes. 

Here is a portion of that paper:

3.2. The Commentary on the Parva naturalia

The Commentary on the Parva naturalia is a rather odd text because it is based on the corrupt version of the Aristotelian text that circulated in Arabic. For information on that, I refer you to the work of Rotraud Hansberger. By my estimation and that of others, it is an early work, perhaps written in the 1160s around the time of the Short Commentary on the De Anima. For present purposes, our focus is on Averroes’ discussion of prophecy in the section corresponding to Aristotle On Dreams. For Averroes dreams may be true or false but either way they relate to the imagination (al-mutakhayyala) and people believe that prophecy is from God (ya‘taqidūna fī al-wahyi anna-hu min Allāh). It seems particularly to involve matters of knowledge relevant to the attainment of happiness according to them (‘inda-hum).  (Ar. 67, tr. 40) But it comes about in us in the same way as the primary principles of understanding, that is, the way the agent intellect bestows those primary principles which can be helpful in the forming of new knowledge. (Ar. 73; tr. 42) What is most mysterious, however, is that the intelligences, this includes the agent intellect as well as God properly speaking, themselves cannot comprehend particulars since they have no matter and so only know universals. Regarding this Averroes expresses amazement over two issues. First, how can the human imagination get particulars of dreams from a universal immaterial nature which is an intellect? Second, how does the separate intellect (e.g., the agent intellect or even God) single out the particular recipient for the particular content with the particular dream if that intellect only knows universals? (Ar. 74-75; tr. 43-44) With no lack of boldness, Averroes then writes, “Now the discussion concerning these matters, even though it be very difficult for human comprehension, must nevertheless be undertaken to the limit of one's natural capacity for comprehension,

for the essence of happiness is nothing more than this very thing.” (Ar. 75; tr. 44)

We can see here that the first is metaphysically problematic. But Averroes handles it in a way similar to what he does in the Short Commentary on the De Anima and similar to what can be found in Ibn Bajja. Since universals from the agent intellect cannot be received as such in the particular human imagination belonging to the particular human knower, then the universals are received into the imagination as particulars. In the Short Commentary this means involves that the material intellect is a disposition of the forms in the particular human imagination. Perhaps we can describe this by saying that the particular in the imagination comes to have a qualification relating to universality such that the particular can be seen in the light of or under a mode or consideration of universality, though Averroes does not spell all this out here or in the Short Commentary. What is in the imagination then can in some way stand for the universal though the universal as such cannot be received into a particular human imagination without being particularized and no longer being universal. Universals then are received as particulars and are received into the particular imagination and its particular circumstances. What is received is received in the mode of the recipient. So what the individual receives is an individual spiritual (ruḥānī) form that is similar to the intelligible (Ar. 81; tr. 47) which, it seems, must function as a representation of the intelligible while also bearing some content similarity to what is in the intelligible. (Also see Ar. 82; tr. 48.)

The second is religiously problematic if, as people of religion commonly believe, prophecy is from God and directed to particulars. The implication here is that with prophetic dreams God is providing particular intentional willed providential assistance to a particular individual. This would mean, for example, that God chose this particular man Muḥammad to be his prophet through whom God revealed the particular words of the Qur’an by the command to recite made to this man Muḥammad. Averroes does not deal with this issue in this work, so indeed it must remain as remarkable and challenging as his exclamation indicated. That is not surprising, however, since to assert such a philosophical teaching would involve contradicting the philosophical view that God only thinks himself and has no primary intention toward anything other than himself.  This is a matter perhaps for further discussion. (For a discussion of providence in Averroes, see my forthcoming article at https://academic.mu.edu/taylorr/Research_&_Teaching/Papers_8__Providence_in_Averroes.html.)

However, what is notable in regard to the Commentary on the Parva naturalia is that Averroes, perhaps following al-Fārābī in part, I might speculate, found it suitable to follow the approaches of al-Fārābī and Avicenna and to explain prophecy in connection with human psychology and natural epistemology.

(3) For levels of kinds of actuality in Aristotle, reread De Anima 2, particularly its opening chapters.

4. (4)Next semester the course in Leuven will continue with alternate week meetings for the study of the disputed question, On the union of the Incarnate Word. Prof. López-Farjeat and I will attend from Mexico City and Milwaukee respectively. If you are interested in attending, contact me about it.
   

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20 September 2012

(1) I mentioned that McGinnis’s translation of ma‘nà (معنى) as “connotational attribute” is not always accurate since ma‘nà can also mean form, notion, meaning and more. You might notice in his translation that sometimes these other meanings are more suitable in context. The term for estimative power or estimatio is wahm (وهم) which itself in other contexts may simply mean opinion.

(2) I explained that “acquired intellect” or intellectus adeptus (العقم المستفاد) means different things in al-Farabi (the stage of becoming separated from body), Ibn Sīnā / Avicenna (the stage of being now immediately engaged in knowing an intelligible) and Averroes (the stage of having apprehended the intelligible and being able to do so again easily; this is also the theoretical intellect for Averroes and the intellectus in habitu (العقل بالملكة). Other terms are also sometimes bearing diverse meanings for different thinkers.

(3) The passage brought to our attention by Prof. Robiglio at Avicenna reading, p.179 has

“If you want a thorough account, the correct thing to do would be to make the vegetative soul a genus of the animal, and the animal a genus of the human, using the more general in the definition of the more specific; but if you consider the souls in terms of the faculties peculiar to them as animal and human [souls], you may be satisfied with what we have mentioned.”

This corresponds to Aristotle’s De Anima 2.3, 414b20-415a13. The issue there is that the human soul or life principle does not fit under a genus of soul common with other animals simply because humans have a part of soul which is not in body, namely intellect or reason. So the attempt at a simple genus & species classification, though preferable, fails for Aristotle. 414b20-28. So he takes up another way of defining it or locating the human being in terms of powers commonly held. 414b28-415a13. This is exactly what Avicenna is talking about.

(4) Please keep in mind that “abstract” should be considered and may be better thought of as “separate.” But the English is ambiguous. A think can be separate since it has been separated or it can be separate because it was always separate. The same ambiguities are present in the Arabic mujarradah (مجردة). So when Avicenna speaks of an abstraction resulting from separations or abstractions by sense, common sense and other internal senses, it refers to something from the world of experience that has been separated. However, he can use the same language when speaking of abstractions coming from the Agent Intellect where the intelligibles have always been abstract or separate from matter. Hence, to say the last step of intellectual abstraction is abstraction based on preparation of the human rational soul by lower abstractions makes sense even if he says that the abstraction or abstract thing comes from the Agent Intellect.

(5) For a discussion of Descartes’s scepticism and methodical doubt and a possible connection with the Arabic tradition, see the article by Ignacio Götz, “The Quest for Certainty: al-Ghazali and Descartes,” Journal of Philosophical Research 28 (2003) 1-22.

(6) Don’t forget that Aristotle holds that there is no human thinking without an image. This is a bit problematic for rational souls separate from bodies since they no longer (should) have the bodily power of imagination.  But on this issue in Avicenna, see the article by Michael Marmura, “Avicenna and Traditional Islamic Belief,” in The Judeo-Christian-Islamic Heritage. Philosophical and Theological Perspectives, Richard C. Taylor and Irfan Omar, eds. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2012, pp. 173-192.