The 2024 AAIWG meeting will be with the World Congress of Philosophy 1-8 August 2024 in Rome.
Tentative Program of Presentations
Updates forthcoming
Organized by
Cristina D’Ancona, Università di Pisa & Luis X. López-Farjeat, Universidad Panamericana, Mexico City (Webpage by R. Taylor Marquette U & KULeuven)
for the Aquinas and the Arabs International Working Group (AAIWG)
Section 3: al-Ghazālī and Averroes
Chair: Luis Xavier López Farjeat (Universidad Panamericana, Mexico City)
Edward Moad (Qatar University)
Time and possible worlds in the Incoherence of the Philosophers
Abstract: In the Incoherence of the Philosophers, al-Ghazali (d. 1111) grapples with an innovative proof for cosmic pre-eternity deployed by Ibn Sina (d. 1037) based on his theory of time as the measure of possible motion. We will examine this proof, Ghazali’s objection, and the response Ibn Rushd (d. 1198) made to Ghazali on this in his Incoherence of the Incoherence. I will argue that Ghazali’s objection is ultimately unsatisfying and propose an alternative response he could have made by drawing more fully on the ramifications of the notion of spatiotemporally self-enclosed possible worlds implicit in Ibn Sina’s proof.
Karen Taliaferro (Arizona State University)
Ibn Rushd on human and divine knowledge: a window into his Islamic writings.
Abstract: Ibn Rushd begins his trilogy including the Decisive Treatise with a brief Epistle Dedicatory (“Appendix,” ḍamīma) on the problem of God’s knowledge of particulars by positing that God’s knowledge brings about existence. However, this position is more closely linked to neo-Platonist emanationist conceptions of God than Aristotelian metaphysics. Is this, then, Ibn Rushd’s sincere view? Some dismiss it as exemplary of his theological or popular (ḍahirī) works rather than his philosophical (burhān) commentaries. Curiously, though, Ibn Rushd reiterates it in his long commentary on Metaphysics book Lām (Tafsīr mā baʿd al-Ṭabīʿa), using language suggesting that he is setting forward his own view. This paper addresses Ibn Rushd’s position on divine causal knowledge, arguing that it supplements our understanding of his corpus on religion, reason and Aristotelian philosophy.
Ayşe Sıdıka Oktay (University/Institution: Suleyman Demirel University Isparta / Turkey)
Ibn Rushd’s Argument of Providence and its Relationship with The Only Truth Thought
Abstract: Ibn Rushd states that the best way to prove the existence of God is through the arguments from providence (ʿInāya) and creation (Ikhtira). However, before presenting his evidence, he criticizes different arguments and tries to show why they are insufficient. This paper will first examine Ibn Rushd’s criticisms of these other arguments and his justifications for relying on evidence provided by theologians and Sufis. It will attempt to make clear the main features which he believed this evidence must have if one is to rely on it to prove. It will subsequently outline his views on why the argument from providence is the most appropriate one. The difference of this argument from classical arguments will be questioned. In addition, Ibn Sina, who developed the argument of providence before him, and his views will be compared, and the differences between the two philosophers will be emphasized. Examining the reasons for his use of this evidence, should further clarify the relationship which he took to pertain between religion and philosophy: Both are rooted in the idea that truth is one.
Section 4: Arabic Philosophy and Thomas Aquinas and ‘the Arabs’
Chair: Elisa Coda (CNRS, Paris)
Luis Xavier López-Farjeat (Universidad Panamericana, Mexico City)
Ibn Bājja on Imagination
Abstract: In his De anima, Ibn Bājja describes the role of imagination in human cognition in Aristotelian terms: the imagination ‘picks up’ the ‘traces’ of sensible data retained by the common sense once the sensible objects are no longer present. Although the contents of the imagination depend on the data provided by the external senses and common sense, Ibn Bājja considers the imagination as a superior faculty to sensation because its images are preparatory for intellection. In other works, such as The Rule of the Solitary, the Letter of Farewell, and On the Conjoining of the Intellect with Human Beings, Ibn Bājja holds that although imagination is necessary for intellection, it is still at a lower cognitive level. The ultimate end of human cognition, i.e., ultimate happiness, consists in the conjunction (ittiṣāl) of the material intellect with the active or agent intellect. However, some pieces are missing in Ibn Bājja’s explanation of the relationship between imagination and material intellect. Indeed, in Ibn Bājja’s De anima as we know it the explanation of the material intellect is incomplete. Nevertheless, in his Long Commentary on Aristotle’s De anima, Averroes provides some clues concerning how Ibn Bājja understood the relation between imagination and the material intellect. This presentation aims to clarify, as far as possible, the role of imagination in Ibn Bājja’s theory of cognition identifying some similitudes with two of his most influential sources, namely, Alexander of Aphrodisias and al-Fārābī.
Brett Yardley (DeSales University)
A Brief History of Instrumental Causality: From Aristotle to Aquinas.
Abstract: Important Christian doctrines such as the sacraments are explained using instrumental causality—the theory of causal motion where the power of a principal agent works hiddenly through a lower cause to achieve an end beyond the lower cause’s natural powers. Instrumental causality is frequently cited as originating in Aristotle, however, like other medieval doctrines instrumental causality is not found explicitly in his works. Even the implicit notions of the theory in Aristotle would be insufficient to support the complex movements required by later thinkers. In this presentation I explore the philosophical notions of instrumental causality and the metaphysics of primary and secondary causality. I will briefly show how the theory progressed from propositions in Proclus’s Element of Theology to the Arabic Kalam fi mahd al-khair (“The Discourse on the Pure Good”) and translated into the Liber de Causis (“The Book of Causes”) which influenced Thomas Aquinas. My aim is to show that the philosophical concept did not pass unchanged from Aristotle to the later Scholastics in a faithful chain of transmission. Instead, as recent scholarship from Richard Taylor and Christina D’Ancona have shown that works such as Kalam fi mahd al-khair did not merely translate Proclus into Arabic, the theory of instrumental causality evolved to fit the needs of subsequent generations of scholars.
Paul-Hervé Quesnel (Marquette University)
Aquinas and Avicenna on Education as Reditus and Teaching Connaturality to One’s Children.
Abstract: Thomas Aquinas did not leave behind anything that we might properly call a “philosophy of education”, though he mentions this subject in passing several times throughout his works. In fact, he touches upon it in a rather unexpected place, namely in Summa Contra Gentiles III.122, a question on the liceity of matrimony and the sinfulness of fornication. There, he asserts that one of the conditions for the lawful emission of semen is the ordering thereof towards the education of offspring. I claim that when seen in a Neoplatonic light, this connection bears much fruit for our conception of education. Drawing from both Aquinas and Avicenna, I will consider side by side the ideas of creation as ontological dependence, the exitus-reditus movement in creation, connatural knowledge, and the distinction between secondary and primary causality to show the numerous ways in which parents are to their children as God is to the created order. I will briefly connect these insights to the role of parents as primary educators of their offspring.
Section5: Avicenna in the Latin West
Chair: Brett Yardley (DeSales University)
Jonathan Greig (KU Leuven)
Avicennian essence-existence in Late Byzantium
Abstract: Gregorios Scholarios on the essence-existence distinction between Avicenna, Thomas Aquinas, and the Byzantine tradition. Abstract:There has been growing interest in the 15th-cent. Byzantine figure, Gregorios Scholarios, particularly his reception of Aristotle, Byzantine Neoplatonism, and esp. Latin scholastics like Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Francis Meyronnes, et al. One topic of recent interest is Scholarios’ use and transformation of the essence-existence distinction, mainly in his engagement with Aquinas (e.g. his commentary on the De ente et essentia), but also, at least indirectly, with Avicenna. This paper would look at Scholarios’ understanding and use of the distinction, between his reading of Avicenna, as mediated through Aquinas, and the Byzantine philosophical/theological tradition.
Seth Kreeger (Marquette University)
Creation in William of Auvergne’s Avicennian Christian Platonism.
Abstract: William of Auvergne, the 13th century Master of Theology and Bishop of Paris, used Avicenna and the Liber De Causis to develop a philosophical account of creation that strongly anticipates that of Aquinas. William used Avicenna’s essence-existence distinction and dialectic of the necessary and the possible to argue that there is one Per Se Necessary Being without which all things that are merely possible would “sink into non-being.” Nevertheless, while rejecting Avicenna’s mediated account of creation, William used the Liber De Causis to develop an understanding of God as Pure Light and Pure Goodness, who alone is the immediate creator of all things and is intimately present to all things as causing the esse of all. William then goes on to conceives of creation as a free “outpouring” and “overflowing” from the source of all being, with God himself being the “intelligible world” and exemplar of all things.
Marina Novina (University of Zagreb)
Physicians Philosophers on Mental Illnesses and their Treatment.
Abstract: Psychiatry is a relatively modern branch of medicine, and it seems that mental illnesses were only recognized in modern times. But that is not the case. Mental illnesses were already recognized in the era of the development of medicine. All the great physicians’ philosophers, Hippocrates, Galen, and Avicenna, as well as many other ancient and medieval authors, noticed the existence of mental illnesses. The goal of this research is to (a) highlight the mental illnesses that were known by Hippocrates, the father of medicine, Galen and Avicenna, the father of modern medicine, and (b) to present the ways in which Hippocrates’s, Galen’s and Avicenna’s concepts of mental illnesses and treatment of mental illness differed, and (c) to see whether we can recognize in those understandings of mental illnesses some elements of their modern understanding and of modern ideas of their treatment.
Additional presenter:
Mauricio Lecón (Universidad Panamericana, Mexico City)
“Betting against happiness. Why is gambling different and opposite to playing?”
Based on the discussions in books 4 and 10 of the Commentary on Ethics and in question 168 of the Secunda Secundae of the Summa Theologiae, it can be said that, according to Thomas Aquinas, the human being is a homo ludens, as play (ludus) is a necessary good for the personal and social life of individuals. This is evident by the existence of a virtue (eutrapelia) related to healthy entertainment, which means some kind of play that aligns with reason and does not corrupt our minds.
At the same time, in the question 118 of the Secunda Secundae, Aquinas strongly condemns gamblers (aleatores), likening them to thieves and those who plunder the dead. This way of characterizing gamblers dates back to Aristotle’s in his Nicomachean Ethics, and it was also repeated in Ibn Sina’s ShifāʾIlahīyāt. However, while Avicenna condemns betting on civil grounds for considering it a way of appropriating other people’s goods without any effort, Aquinas’ concern with gamblers is mainly moral since gamblers behave contrary to virtue. But what distinguishes gambling from other games? Why cannot there be a virtuous way of gambling? In this talk I will give some hints on why Thomas considers gambling to be not only a category distinct from all other forms of entertainment (operationes ludicrae), but also a sinful activity contrary to human happiness.
World Congress Links
Main page: https://wcprome2024.com/
Proposals and papers: https://wcprome2024,com/paper/
Registration: https://wcprome2024.com/registration/https://wcprome2024.com/registration/