| Title | The Medieval Posterity of Simplicius’ Commentary on the Categories: Thomas Aquinas and al-Fārābī |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2008 |
| Published in | Medieval Commentaries on Aristotle's Categories |
| Pages | 9-29 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Chase, Michael |
| Editor(s) | Newton, Lloyd A. |
| Translator(s) |
| The particular parallels we have noted between Thomas and al-Fārābī may be indicative of a deeper similarity, which Simplicius’ commentaries, including that on the Categories, may help to explain. In a reversal of traditional viewpoints, recent commentators have argued that the philosophies of both Thomas Aquinas and al-Fārābī, usually considered as followers of the Peripatetic school, are in fact basically Platonist. Paradoxically, however, the same scholars have also argued that neither of these philosophers had actually read Plato. This odd situation can be explained by the nature of the sources of both Thomas and al-Fārābī, which present definite similarities. Neither had access to complete translations of the works of Plato. Both were consequently forced to rely on the works of Aristotle, but this was an Aristotelian corpus quite unlike the one studied in the West today. It included works—the Liber de Causis was most influential in Thomas’ case, while the Theology of Aristotle may have played an analogous role in the case of al-Fārābī—which we now know to be apocryphal compilations of Neoplatonic texts deriving from Proclus, Plotinus, and possibly Porphyry. Equally importantly, however, it included Neoplatonic commentaries on the genuine works of Aristotle, including those by Simplicius. As we have glimpsed, the philosophy of both al-Fārābī and Thomas Aquinas is profoundly influenced by the kind of Neoplatonizing interpretation of Aristotle that fills the commentaries of Simplicius, Ammonius, Themistius, and other late antique professors of philosophy. These commentaries are the source of most of the common elements in their thought, the most crucial of which is no doubt the idea of the ultimate reconcilability of Plato and Aristotle. According to both Thomas and al-Fārābī, both Plato and Aristotle teach that there is a single divine cause that perpetually distributes being to all entities in a continuous, graded hierarchy. There are, of course, also profound differences in the ways Thomas and al-Fārābī interpreted and utilized the doctrines they both received from the Alexandrian commentators. For Thomas, who (certainly indirectly) follows Iamblichus in this regard, philosophy occupies a subordinate position within theology, while for al-Fārābī, whatever his genuine religious beliefs may have been, philosophy remains the nec plus ultra, capable of providing ultimate happiness through conjunction with the Agent Intellect. The contrasting attitudes of Thomas and al-Fārābī may, in turn, be traceable to a similar contrast within late antique Neoplatonism. Porphyry of Tyre was considered by his successors to have held that philosophy alone was sufficient for salvation, consisting in the soul’s definitive return to the intelligible world whence it came, while Iamblichus placed the emphasis on the need for religion, in the form of theurgical operations and prayers, and the grace of the gods. What seems to have been at stake in the arguments between the two was ultimately no less than the nature of philosophy: is it the ultimate discipline, sufficient for happiness, as Porphyry held, or is it merely an ancilla theologiae, as was the view of Iamblichus? Thomas and al-Fārābī, who had at least some knowledge of these debates through the intermediary of such sources as Simplicius’ commentary on the Categories, seem to have prolonged this controversy, Thomas siding with Iamblichus and al-Fārābī with Porphyry. Wayne Hankey has written: "Not only for both [Iamblichus and Aquinas] is philosophy contained within theology, and theology contained within religion, but also, for both, centuries its great teachers are priests and saints. In order to be doing philosophy as spiritual exercise belonging to a way of life, we need not engage directly in self-knowledge." Such ideas were anathema to Porphyry, the other great Neoplatonist whose ideas were transmitted to posterity by, among other sources, Simplicius’ commentary on the Categories. For the Tyrian thinker, as for al-Fārābī writing some six centuries after him, philosophy is not subordinate to religion, nor are its teachers priests or saints, but it is autonomous and capable, all by itself, of ensuring human felicity both in this life and the next. Philosophy for Porphyry was indeed a way of life, an important part of which was reading and commenting on the philosophical texts of the ancient Masters. For Porphyry, however, who wrote a treatise On the “Know thyself”, as for the entire ancient tradition which, as Pierre Hadot has shown, considered philosophy to be a way of life, self-knowledge was the indispensable starting-point for all philosophy. Indeed, one may question whether this was not the case for Iamblichus as well: it was he, after all, who established the First Alcibiades as the first Platonic dialogue to be read and studied in the Neoplatonic curriculum; but the skopos or goal of this dialogue, for Iamblichus, was none other than self-knowledge. Whatever may have been Iamblichus’ particular view, the Hellenic tradition on the whole was unanimous on the crucial importance of self-knowledge as the starting-point for philosophical education. When in 946 the traveler al-Mas‘ūdī visited Harrān in Mesopotamia, center of the pagan Sābians, he saw, inscribed on the door-knocker of the central temple, an inscription in Syriac reading “He who knows his nature becomes god,” which is, as Tardieu was the first to recognize, a reference to Plato’s Alcibiades 133 C. When we recall that, according to some of his biographers, al-Fārābī went to Harrān at about the time of al-Mas‘ūdī’s visit to complete his studies of the Aristotelian Organon, one is not surprised to find that self-knowledge is as essential for al-Fārābī as it was for Porphyry, with several of whose works the Second Master seems to have been familiar. In al-Fārābī’s noetics, the potential intellect (al-‘aql bi’l-quwwah) becomes an intellect in act (al-‘aql bi’l-fi‘l) when, by abstracting the forms in matter from their material accompanying circumstances, it receives these disembodied forms within itself. Unlike the forms stamped in wax, however, which affect only the surface of the receptive matter, these forms penetrate the potential intellect so thoroughly that it becomes identical with the forms it has intelligized. Once it has intelligized all such intelligible forms, the intellect becomes, in act, the totality of intelligibles. The human intellect has thus become an intelligible, and when it intelligizes itself, it becomes an intelligible in act. Thus, for the soul, or rather the soul’s intellect, to know itself is to become, quite literally, identical with its essence, and it can henceforth intelligize all other separate intelligibles—that is, those that have never been in conjunction with matter—in the same way as it knows its own essence. This occurs at the third of al-Fārābī’s four levels or kinds of intellection, the intellectus adeptus (al-‘aql al-mustafād). Thus, for al-Fārābī, self-knowledge plays a crucial role both at the beginning and at a fairly advanced stage of philosophical progress. At the outset, the student must, with the help of an experienced professor, look within himself to find the first intelligibles innate within him which, once elaborated, clarified, and classified, will serve as the premises of the syllogisms he will use as the starting-point of his logical deductions. At a later stage, when through abstraction he has accumulated a sufficient number of intelligibles, he will know his own intellect, and therefore himself, thoroughly. This in turn is the precondition for being able to know the intelligible Forms and separate intelligences which, unlike the material forms incorporated in the sensible world, have never been in conjunction with matter. The way is henceforth open for the permanent conjunction with the Agent Intellect which, according to al-Fārābī, constitutes felicity: that felicity which, for al-Fārābī as for Simplicius, is the only goal and justification for doing philosophy. [conclusion p. 25-29] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/yzntZRUqTC8wnrp |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"609","_score":null,"_source":{"id":609,"authors_free":[{"id":860,"entry_id":609,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":25,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Chase, Michael","free_first_name":"Michael","free_last_name":"Chase","norm_person":{"id":25,"first_name":"Michael ","last_name":"Chase","full_name":"Chase, Michael ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1031917152","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":861,"entry_id":609,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":26,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Newton, Lloyd A. ","free_first_name":"Lloyd A. ","free_last_name":"Newton","norm_person":{"id":26,"first_name":"Lloyd A. ","last_name":"Newton","full_name":"Newton, Lloyd A. ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/137965583","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"The Medieval Posterity of Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on the Categories: Thomas Aquinas and al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b","main_title":{"title":"The Medieval Posterity of Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on the Categories: Thomas Aquinas and al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b"},"abstract":"The particular parallels we have noted between Thomas and al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b may be indicative of a deeper similarity, which Simplicius\u2019 commentaries, including that on the Categories, may help to explain.\r\n\r\nIn a reversal of traditional viewpoints, recent commentators have argued that the philosophies of both Thomas Aquinas and al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b, usually considered as followers of the Peripatetic school, are in fact basically Platonist. Paradoxically, however, the same scholars have also argued that neither of these philosophers had actually read Plato. This odd situation can be explained by the nature of the sources of both Thomas and al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b, which present definite similarities. Neither had access to complete translations of the works of Plato. Both were consequently forced to rely on the works of Aristotle, but this was an Aristotelian corpus quite unlike the one studied in the West today.\r\n\r\nIt included works\u2014the Liber de Causis was most influential in Thomas\u2019 case, while the Theology of Aristotle may have played an analogous role in the case of al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b\u2014which we now know to be apocryphal compilations of Neoplatonic texts deriving from Proclus, Plotinus, and possibly Porphyry. Equally importantly, however, it included Neoplatonic commentaries on the genuine works of Aristotle, including those by Simplicius.\r\n\r\nAs we have glimpsed, the philosophy of both al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b and Thomas Aquinas is profoundly influenced by the kind of Neoplatonizing interpretation of Aristotle that fills the commentaries of Simplicius, Ammonius, Themistius, and other late antique professors of philosophy. These commentaries are the source of most of the common elements in their thought, the most crucial of which is no doubt the idea of the ultimate reconcilability of Plato and Aristotle. According to both Thomas and al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b, both Plato and Aristotle teach that there is a single divine cause that perpetually distributes being to all entities in a continuous, graded hierarchy.\r\n\r\nThere are, of course, also profound differences in the ways Thomas and al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b interpreted and utilized the doctrines they both received from the Alexandrian commentators. For Thomas, who (certainly indirectly) follows Iamblichus in this regard, philosophy occupies a subordinate position within theology, while for al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b, whatever his genuine religious beliefs may have been, philosophy remains the nec plus ultra, capable of providing ultimate happiness through conjunction with the Agent Intellect.\r\n\r\nThe contrasting attitudes of Thomas and al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b may, in turn, be traceable to a similar contrast within late antique Neoplatonism. Porphyry of Tyre was considered by his successors to have held that philosophy alone was sufficient for salvation, consisting in the soul\u2019s definitive return to the intelligible world whence it came, while Iamblichus placed the emphasis on the need for religion, in the form of theurgical operations and prayers, and the grace of the gods.\r\n\r\nWhat seems to have been at stake in the arguments between the two was ultimately no less than the nature of philosophy: is it the ultimate discipline, sufficient for happiness, as Porphyry held, or is it merely an ancilla theologiae, as was the view of Iamblichus? Thomas and al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b, who had at least some knowledge of these debates through the intermediary of such sources as Simplicius\u2019 commentary on the Categories, seem to have prolonged this controversy, Thomas siding with Iamblichus and al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b with Porphyry.\r\n\r\nWayne Hankey has written:\r\n\r\n \"Not only for both [Iamblichus and Aquinas] is philosophy contained within theology, and theology contained within religion, but also, for both, centuries its great teachers are priests and saints. In order to be doing philosophy as spiritual exercise belonging to a way of life, we need not engage directly in self-knowledge.\"\r\n\r\nSuch ideas were anathema to Porphyry, the other great Neoplatonist whose ideas were transmitted to posterity by, among other sources, Simplicius\u2019 commentary on the Categories. For the Tyrian thinker, as for al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b writing some six centuries after him, philosophy is not subordinate to religion, nor are its teachers priests or saints, but it is autonomous and capable, all by itself, of ensuring human felicity both in this life and the next.\r\n\r\nPhilosophy for Porphyry was indeed a way of life, an important part of which was reading and commenting on the philosophical texts of the ancient Masters. For Porphyry, however, who wrote a treatise On the \u201cKnow thyself\u201d, as for the entire ancient tradition which, as Pierre Hadot has shown, considered philosophy to be a way of life, self-knowledge was the indispensable starting-point for all philosophy.\r\n\r\nIndeed, one may question whether this was not the case for Iamblichus as well: it was he, after all, who established the First Alcibiades as the first Platonic dialogue to be read and studied in the Neoplatonic curriculum; but the skopos or goal of this dialogue, for Iamblichus, was none other than self-knowledge.\r\n\r\nWhatever may have been Iamblichus\u2019 particular view, the Hellenic tradition on the whole was unanimous on the crucial importance of self-knowledge as the starting-point for philosophical education.\r\n\r\nWhen in 946 the traveler al-Mas\u2018\u016bd\u012b visited Harr\u0101n in Mesopotamia, center of the pagan S\u0101bians, he saw, inscribed on the door-knocker of the central temple, an inscription in Syriac reading \u201cHe who knows his nature becomes god,\u201d which is, as Tardieu was the first to recognize, a reference to Plato\u2019s Alcibiades 133 C.\r\n\r\nWhen we recall that, according to some of his biographers, al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b went to Harr\u0101n at about the time of al-Mas\u2018\u016bd\u012b\u2019s visit to complete his studies of the Aristotelian Organon, one is not surprised to find that self-knowledge is as essential for al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b as it was for Porphyry, with several of whose works the Second Master seems to have been familiar.\r\n\r\nIn al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b\u2019s noetics, the potential intellect (al-\u2018aql bi\u2019l-quwwah) becomes an intellect in act (al-\u2018aql bi\u2019l-fi\u2018l) when, by abstracting the forms in matter from their material accompanying circumstances, it receives these disembodied forms within itself.\r\n\r\nUnlike the forms stamped in wax, however, which affect only the surface of the receptive matter, these forms penetrate the potential intellect so thoroughly that it becomes identical with the forms it has intelligized. Once it has intelligized all such intelligible forms, the intellect becomes, in act, the totality of intelligibles.\r\n\r\nThe human intellect has thus become an intelligible, and when it intelligizes itself, it becomes an intelligible in act. Thus, for the soul, or rather the soul\u2019s intellect, to know itself is to become, quite literally, identical with its essence, and it can henceforth intelligize all other separate intelligibles\u2014that is, those that have never been in conjunction with matter\u2014in the same way as it knows its own essence.\r\n\r\nThis occurs at the third of al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b\u2019s four levels or kinds of intellection, the intellectus adeptus (al-\u2018aql al-mustaf\u0101d).\r\n\r\nThus, for al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b, self-knowledge plays a crucial role both at the beginning and at a fairly advanced stage of philosophical progress. At the outset, the student must, with the help of an experienced professor, look within himself to find the first intelligibles innate within him which, once elaborated, clarified, and classified, will serve as the premises of the syllogisms he will use as the starting-point of his logical deductions.\r\n\r\nAt a later stage, when through abstraction he has accumulated a sufficient number of intelligibles, he will know his own intellect, and therefore himself, thoroughly. This in turn is the precondition for being able to know the intelligible Forms and separate intelligences which, unlike the material forms incorporated in the sensible world, have never been in conjunction with matter.\r\n\r\nThe way is henceforth open for the permanent conjunction with the Agent Intellect which, according to al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b, constitutes felicity: that felicity which, for al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b as for Simplicius, is the only goal and justification for doing philosophy. [conclusion p. 25-29]","btype":2,"date":"2008","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/yzntZRUqTC8wnrp","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":25,"full_name":"Chase, Michael ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":26,"full_name":"Newton, Lloyd A. ","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":609,"section_of":275,"pages":"9-29","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":275,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"en","title":"Medieval Commentaries on Aristotle's Categories","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Newton2008","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"2008","edition_no":null,"free_date":"2008","abstract":"Medieval commentary writing has often been described as a way of \"doing philosophy,\" and not without reason. The various commentaries on Aristotle's Categories we have from this period did not simply elaborate a dialectical exercise for training students; rather, they provided their authors with an unparalleled opportunity to work through crucial philosophical problems, many of which remain with us today. As such, this unique commentary tradition is important not only in its own right, but also to the history and development of philosophy as a whole. The contributors to this volume take a fresh look at it, examining a wide range of medieval commentators, from Simplicius to John Wyclif, and discussing such issues as the compatibility of Platonism with Aristotelianism; the influence of Avicenna; the relationship between grammar, logic, and metaphysics; the number of the categories; the status of the categories as a science realism vs. nominalism; and the relationship between categories.","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/ouJZQT7V8FBvg8Y","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":275,"pubplace":"Leiden","publisher":"Brill","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[2008]}
| Title | Medieval Commentaries on Aristotle's Categories |
| Type | Edited Book |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2008 |
| Publication Place | Leiden |
| Publisher | Brill |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | |
| Editor(s) | Newton, Lloyd A. |
| Translator(s) |
| Medieval commentary writing has often been described as a way of "doing philosophy," and not without reason. The various commentaries on Aristotle's Categories we have from this period did not simply elaborate a dialectical exercise for training students; rather, they provided their authors with an unparalleled opportunity to work through crucial philosophical problems, many of which remain with us today. As such, this unique commentary tradition is important not only in its own right, but also to the history and development of philosophy as a whole. The contributors to this volume take a fresh look at it, examining a wide range of medieval commentators, from Simplicius to John Wyclif, and discussing such issues as the compatibility of Platonism with Aristotelianism; the influence of Avicenna; the relationship between grammar, logic, and metaphysics; the number of the categories; the status of the categories as a science realism vs. nominalism; and the relationship between categories. |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/ouJZQT7V8FBvg8Y |
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| Title | Medieval Commentaries on Aristotle's Categories |
| Type | Edited Book |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2008 |
| Publication Place | Leiden |
| Publisher | Brill |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | |
| Editor(s) | Newton, Lloyd A. |
| Translator(s) |
Medieval commentary writing has often been described as a way of "doing philosophy," and not without reason. The various commentaries on Aristotle's Categories we have from this period did not simply elaborate a dialectical exercise for training students; rather, they provided their authors with an unparalleled opportunity to work through crucial philosophical problems, many of which remain with us today. As such, this unique commentary tradition is important not only in its own right, but also to the history and development of philosophy as a whole. The contributors to this volume take a fresh look at it, examining a wide range of medieval commentators, from Simplicius to John Wyclif, and discussing such issues as the compatibility of Platonism with Aristotelianism; the influence of Avicenna; the relationship between grammar, logic, and metaphysics; the number of the categories; the status of the categories as a science realism vs. nominalism; and the relationship between categories. |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/ouJZQT7V8FBvg8Y |
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| Title | The Medieval Posterity of Simplicius’ Commentary on the Categories: Thomas Aquinas and al-Fārābī |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 2008 |
| Published in | Medieval Commentaries on Aristotle's Categories |
| Pages | 9-29 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Chase, Michael |
| Editor(s) | Newton, Lloyd A. |
| Translator(s) |
The particular parallels we have noted between Thomas and al-Fārābī may be indicative of a deeper similarity, which Simplicius’ commentaries, including that on the Categories, may help to explain.
In a reversal of traditional viewpoints, recent commentators have argued that the philosophies of both Thomas Aquinas and al-Fārābī, usually considered as followers of the Peripatetic school, are in fact basically Platonist. Paradoxically, however, the same scholars have also argued that neither of these philosophers had actually read Plato. This odd situation can be explained by the nature of the sources of both Thomas and al-Fārābī, which present definite similarities. Neither had access to complete translations of the works of Plato. Both were consequently forced to rely on the works of Aristotle, but this was an Aristotelian corpus quite unlike the one studied in the West today.
It included works—the Liber de Causis was most influential in Thomas’ case, while the Theology of Aristotle may have played an analogous role in the case of al-Fārābī—which we now know to be apocryphal compilations of Neoplatonic texts deriving from Proclus, Plotinus, and possibly Porphyry. Equally importantly, however, it included Neoplatonic commentaries on the genuine works of Aristotle, including those by Simplicius.
As we have glimpsed, the philosophy of both al-Fārābī and Thomas Aquinas is profoundly influenced by the kind of Neoplatonizing interpretation of Aristotle that fills the commentaries of Simplicius, Ammonius, Themistius, and other late antique professors of philosophy. These commentaries are the source of most of the common elements in their thought, the most crucial of which is no doubt the idea of the ultimate reconcilability of Plato and Aristotle. According to both Thomas and al-Fārābī, both Plato and Aristotle teach that there is a single divine cause that perpetually distributes being to all entities in a continuous, graded hierarchy.
There are, of course, also profound differences in the ways Thomas and al-Fārābī interpreted and utilized the doctrines they both received from the Alexandrian commentators. For Thomas, who (certainly indirectly) follows Iamblichus in this regard, philosophy occupies a subordinate position within theology, while for al-Fārābī, whatever his genuine religious beliefs may have been, philosophy remains the nec plus ultra, capable of providing ultimate happiness through conjunction with the Agent Intellect.
The contrasting attitudes of Thomas and al-Fārābī may, in turn, be traceable to a similar contrast within late antique Neoplatonism. Porphyry of Tyre was considered by his successors to have held that philosophy alone was sufficient for salvation, consisting in the soul’s definitive return to the intelligible world whence it came, while Iamblichus placed the emphasis on the need for religion, in the form of theurgical operations and prayers, and the grace of the gods.
What seems to have been at stake in the arguments between the two was ultimately no less than the nature of philosophy: is it the ultimate discipline, sufficient for happiness, as Porphyry held, or is it merely an ancilla theologiae, as was the view of Iamblichus? Thomas and al-Fārābī, who had at least some knowledge of these debates through the intermediary of such sources as Simplicius’ commentary on the Categories, seem to have prolonged this controversy, Thomas siding with Iamblichus and al-Fārābī with Porphyry.
Wayne Hankey has written:
"Not only for both [Iamblichus and Aquinas] is philosophy contained within theology, and theology contained within religion, but also, for both, centuries its great teachers are priests and saints. In order to be doing philosophy as spiritual exercise belonging to a way of life, we need not engage directly in self-knowledge."
Such ideas were anathema to Porphyry, the other great Neoplatonist whose ideas were transmitted to posterity by, among other sources, Simplicius’ commentary on the Categories. For the Tyrian thinker, as for al-Fārābī writing some six centuries after him, philosophy is not subordinate to religion, nor are its teachers priests or saints, but it is autonomous and capable, all by itself, of ensuring human felicity both in this life and the next.
Philosophy for Porphyry was indeed a way of life, an important part of which was reading and commenting on the philosophical texts of the ancient Masters. For Porphyry, however, who wrote a treatise On the “Know thyself”, as for the entire ancient tradition which, as Pierre Hadot has shown, considered philosophy to be a way of life, self-knowledge was the indispensable starting-point for all philosophy.
Indeed, one may question whether this was not the case for Iamblichus as well: it was he, after all, who established the First Alcibiades as the first Platonic dialogue to be read and studied in the Neoplatonic curriculum; but the skopos or goal of this dialogue, for Iamblichus, was none other than self-knowledge.
Whatever may have been Iamblichus’ particular view, the Hellenic tradition on the whole was unanimous on the crucial importance of self-knowledge as the starting-point for philosophical education.
When in 946 the traveler al-Mas‘ūdī visited Harrān in Mesopotamia, center of the pagan Sābians, he saw, inscribed on the door-knocker of the central temple, an inscription in Syriac reading “He who knows his nature becomes god,” which is, as Tardieu was the first to recognize, a reference to Plato’s Alcibiades 133 C.
When we recall that, according to some of his biographers, al-Fārābī went to Harrān at about the time of al-Mas‘ūdī’s visit to complete his studies of the Aristotelian Organon, one is not surprised to find that self-knowledge is as essential for al-Fārābī as it was for Porphyry, with several of whose works the Second Master seems to have been familiar.
In al-Fārābī’s noetics, the potential intellect (al-‘aql bi’l-quwwah) becomes an intellect in act (al-‘aql bi’l-fi‘l) when, by abstracting the forms in matter from their material accompanying circumstances, it receives these disembodied forms within itself.
Unlike the forms stamped in wax, however, which affect only the surface of the receptive matter, these forms penetrate the potential intellect so thoroughly that it becomes identical with the forms it has intelligized. Once it has intelligized all such intelligible forms, the intellect becomes, in act, the totality of intelligibles.
The human intellect has thus become an intelligible, and when it intelligizes itself, it becomes an intelligible in act. Thus, for the soul, or rather the soul’s intellect, to know itself is to become, quite literally, identical with its essence, and it can henceforth intelligize all other separate intelligibles—that is, those that have never been in conjunction with matter—in the same way as it knows its own essence.
This occurs at the third of al-Fārābī’s four levels or kinds of intellection, the intellectus adeptus (al-‘aql al-mustafād).
Thus, for al-Fārābī, self-knowledge plays a crucial role both at the beginning and at a fairly advanced stage of philosophical progress. At the outset, the student must, with the help of an experienced professor, look within himself to find the first intelligibles innate within him which, once elaborated, clarified, and classified, will serve as the premises of the syllogisms he will use as the starting-point of his logical deductions.
At a later stage, when through abstraction he has accumulated a sufficient number of intelligibles, he will know his own intellect, and therefore himself, thoroughly. This in turn is the precondition for being able to know the intelligible Forms and separate intelligences which, unlike the material forms incorporated in the sensible world, have never been in conjunction with matter.
The way is henceforth open for the permanent conjunction with the Agent Intellect which, according to al-Fārābī, constitutes felicity: that felicity which, for al-Fārābī as for Simplicius, is the only goal and justification for doing philosophy. [conclusion p. 25-29] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/yzntZRUqTC8wnrp |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"609","_score":null,"_source":{"id":609,"authors_free":[{"id":860,"entry_id":609,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":25,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Chase, Michael","free_first_name":"Michael","free_last_name":"Chase","norm_person":{"id":25,"first_name":"Michael ","last_name":"Chase","full_name":"Chase, Michael ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1031917152","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":861,"entry_id":609,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":26,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Newton, Lloyd A. ","free_first_name":"Lloyd A. ","free_last_name":"Newton","norm_person":{"id":26,"first_name":"Lloyd A. ","last_name":"Newton","full_name":"Newton, Lloyd A. ","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/137965583","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"The Medieval Posterity of Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on the Categories: Thomas Aquinas and al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b","main_title":{"title":"The Medieval Posterity of Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on the Categories: Thomas Aquinas and al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b"},"abstract":"The particular parallels we have noted between Thomas and al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b may be indicative of a deeper similarity, which Simplicius\u2019 commentaries, including that on the Categories, may help to explain.\r\n\r\nIn a reversal of traditional viewpoints, recent commentators have argued that the philosophies of both Thomas Aquinas and al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b, usually considered as followers of the Peripatetic school, are in fact basically Platonist. Paradoxically, however, the same scholars have also argued that neither of these philosophers had actually read Plato. This odd situation can be explained by the nature of the sources of both Thomas and al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b, which present definite similarities. Neither had access to complete translations of the works of Plato. Both were consequently forced to rely on the works of Aristotle, but this was an Aristotelian corpus quite unlike the one studied in the West today.\r\n\r\nIt included works\u2014the Liber de Causis was most influential in Thomas\u2019 case, while the Theology of Aristotle may have played an analogous role in the case of al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b\u2014which we now know to be apocryphal compilations of Neoplatonic texts deriving from Proclus, Plotinus, and possibly Porphyry. Equally importantly, however, it included Neoplatonic commentaries on the genuine works of Aristotle, including those by Simplicius.\r\n\r\nAs we have glimpsed, the philosophy of both al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b and Thomas Aquinas is profoundly influenced by the kind of Neoplatonizing interpretation of Aristotle that fills the commentaries of Simplicius, Ammonius, Themistius, and other late antique professors of philosophy. These commentaries are the source of most of the common elements in their thought, the most crucial of which is no doubt the idea of the ultimate reconcilability of Plato and Aristotle. According to both Thomas and al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b, both Plato and Aristotle teach that there is a single divine cause that perpetually distributes being to all entities in a continuous, graded hierarchy.\r\n\r\nThere are, of course, also profound differences in the ways Thomas and al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b interpreted and utilized the doctrines they both received from the Alexandrian commentators. For Thomas, who (certainly indirectly) follows Iamblichus in this regard, philosophy occupies a subordinate position within theology, while for al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b, whatever his genuine religious beliefs may have been, philosophy remains the nec plus ultra, capable of providing ultimate happiness through conjunction with the Agent Intellect.\r\n\r\nThe contrasting attitudes of Thomas and al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b may, in turn, be traceable to a similar contrast within late antique Neoplatonism. Porphyry of Tyre was considered by his successors to have held that philosophy alone was sufficient for salvation, consisting in the soul\u2019s definitive return to the intelligible world whence it came, while Iamblichus placed the emphasis on the need for religion, in the form of theurgical operations and prayers, and the grace of the gods.\r\n\r\nWhat seems to have been at stake in the arguments between the two was ultimately no less than the nature of philosophy: is it the ultimate discipline, sufficient for happiness, as Porphyry held, or is it merely an ancilla theologiae, as was the view of Iamblichus? Thomas and al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b, who had at least some knowledge of these debates through the intermediary of such sources as Simplicius\u2019 commentary on the Categories, seem to have prolonged this controversy, Thomas siding with Iamblichus and al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b with Porphyry.\r\n\r\nWayne Hankey has written:\r\n\r\n \"Not only for both [Iamblichus and Aquinas] is philosophy contained within theology, and theology contained within religion, but also, for both, centuries its great teachers are priests and saints. In order to be doing philosophy as spiritual exercise belonging to a way of life, we need not engage directly in self-knowledge.\"\r\n\r\nSuch ideas were anathema to Porphyry, the other great Neoplatonist whose ideas were transmitted to posterity by, among other sources, Simplicius\u2019 commentary on the Categories. For the Tyrian thinker, as for al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b writing some six centuries after him, philosophy is not subordinate to religion, nor are its teachers priests or saints, but it is autonomous and capable, all by itself, of ensuring human felicity both in this life and the next.\r\n\r\nPhilosophy for Porphyry was indeed a way of life, an important part of which was reading and commenting on the philosophical texts of the ancient Masters. For Porphyry, however, who wrote a treatise On the \u201cKnow thyself\u201d, as for the entire ancient tradition which, as Pierre Hadot has shown, considered philosophy to be a way of life, self-knowledge was the indispensable starting-point for all philosophy.\r\n\r\nIndeed, one may question whether this was not the case for Iamblichus as well: it was he, after all, who established the First Alcibiades as the first Platonic dialogue to be read and studied in the Neoplatonic curriculum; but the skopos or goal of this dialogue, for Iamblichus, was none other than self-knowledge.\r\n\r\nWhatever may have been Iamblichus\u2019 particular view, the Hellenic tradition on the whole was unanimous on the crucial importance of self-knowledge as the starting-point for philosophical education.\r\n\r\nWhen in 946 the traveler al-Mas\u2018\u016bd\u012b visited Harr\u0101n in Mesopotamia, center of the pagan S\u0101bians, he saw, inscribed on the door-knocker of the central temple, an inscription in Syriac reading \u201cHe who knows his nature becomes god,\u201d which is, as Tardieu was the first to recognize, a reference to Plato\u2019s Alcibiades 133 C.\r\n\r\nWhen we recall that, according to some of his biographers, al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b went to Harr\u0101n at about the time of al-Mas\u2018\u016bd\u012b\u2019s visit to complete his studies of the Aristotelian Organon, one is not surprised to find that self-knowledge is as essential for al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b as it was for Porphyry, with several of whose works the Second Master seems to have been familiar.\r\n\r\nIn al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b\u2019s noetics, the potential intellect (al-\u2018aql bi\u2019l-quwwah) becomes an intellect in act (al-\u2018aql bi\u2019l-fi\u2018l) when, by abstracting the forms in matter from their material accompanying circumstances, it receives these disembodied forms within itself.\r\n\r\nUnlike the forms stamped in wax, however, which affect only the surface of the receptive matter, these forms penetrate the potential intellect so thoroughly that it becomes identical with the forms it has intelligized. Once it has intelligized all such intelligible forms, the intellect becomes, in act, the totality of intelligibles.\r\n\r\nThe human intellect has thus become an intelligible, and when it intelligizes itself, it becomes an intelligible in act. Thus, for the soul, or rather the soul\u2019s intellect, to know itself is to become, quite literally, identical with its essence, and it can henceforth intelligize all other separate intelligibles\u2014that is, those that have never been in conjunction with matter\u2014in the same way as it knows its own essence.\r\n\r\nThis occurs at the third of al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b\u2019s four levels or kinds of intellection, the intellectus adeptus (al-\u2018aql al-mustaf\u0101d).\r\n\r\nThus, for al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b, self-knowledge plays a crucial role both at the beginning and at a fairly advanced stage of philosophical progress. At the outset, the student must, with the help of an experienced professor, look within himself to find the first intelligibles innate within him which, once elaborated, clarified, and classified, will serve as the premises of the syllogisms he will use as the starting-point of his logical deductions.\r\n\r\nAt a later stage, when through abstraction he has accumulated a sufficient number of intelligibles, he will know his own intellect, and therefore himself, thoroughly. This in turn is the precondition for being able to know the intelligible Forms and separate intelligences which, unlike the material forms incorporated in the sensible world, have never been in conjunction with matter.\r\n\r\nThe way is henceforth open for the permanent conjunction with the Agent Intellect which, according to al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b, constitutes felicity: that felicity which, for al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b as for Simplicius, is the only goal and justification for doing philosophy. [conclusion p. 25-29]","btype":2,"date":"2008","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/yzntZRUqTC8wnrp","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":25,"full_name":"Chase, Michael ","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":26,"full_name":"Newton, Lloyd A. ","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":609,"section_of":275,"pages":"9-29","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":275,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"en","title":"Medieval Commentaries on Aristotle's Categories","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Newton2008","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"2008","edition_no":null,"free_date":"2008","abstract":"Medieval commentary writing has often been described as a way of \"doing philosophy,\" and not without reason. The various commentaries on Aristotle's Categories we have from this period did not simply elaborate a dialectical exercise for training students; rather, they provided their authors with an unparalleled opportunity to work through crucial philosophical problems, many of which remain with us today. As such, this unique commentary tradition is important not only in its own right, but also to the history and development of philosophy as a whole. The contributors to this volume take a fresh look at it, examining a wide range of medieval commentators, from Simplicius to John Wyclif, and discussing such issues as the compatibility of Platonism with Aristotelianism; the influence of Avicenna; the relationship between grammar, logic, and metaphysics; the number of the categories; the status of the categories as a science realism vs. nominalism; and the relationship between categories.","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/ouJZQT7V8FBvg8Y","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":275,"pubplace":"Leiden","publisher":"Brill","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["The Medieval Posterity of Simplicius\u2019 Commentary on the Categories: Thomas Aquinas and al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b"]}