Scuola Normale Superiore
Classe di Lettere e Filosofia
Sorbonne Université – Faculté des Lettres
École doctorale V: Concepts et Langages
Centre Léon Robin (UMR 8061)
Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā)
Book of the Cure, Categories (al-Maqūlāt)
Part I: Introduction and Translation
by
Niccolò Caminada
Supervisors:
Prof. A
MOSB
ERTOLACCI(IMT Lucca / SNS)
Prof. M
ARWANR
ASHED(Sorbonne Université)
Πολλοὶ πολλὰς κατεβάλοντο φροντίδας εἰς τὸ τῶν Κατηγοριῶν τοῦ Ἀριστοτέλους βιβλίον, οὐ µόνον ὅτι προοίµιόν ἐστι τῆς ὅλης φιλοσοφίας [...] ἀλλὰ καὶ ὅτι τρόπον τινὰ περὶ ἀρχῶν ἐστι τῶν πρώτων [...]. Many people wrote several commentaries on Aristotle’s book of the Categories, not only because it is a proem to all philosophy [...], but also because, in a certain way, it deals with the first principles.
Simplicius, In Aristotelis Categorias, 1.3-7
Der Anfang des Kategorienproblems ist nicht identisch mit dem Anfang der Philosophie. The beginning of the problem of the categories is not identical with the beginning of philosophy.
Klaus Oehler, Aristoteles. Kategorien, Einleitung, p. 37
لوﻗأ
ﻻوأ
ﮫﻧإ
ﺎﻣﺑر
بﺟوأ
ءﺎﺻﻘﺗﺳا
رظﻧﻟا
ﻻودﻋ
نﻋ
روﮭﺷﻣﻟا
.First of all, I say that attaining the utmost in theoretical speculation could make it necessary to turn away from what is commonly accepted.
Ibn Sīnā, al-Šifāʾ, al-Maqūlāt, 18.4
PART I
SUMMARY
INTRODUCTION ... IX 1. PREMISE. STATE OF THE ART ... XII 2. AVICENNA’S RECEPTION OF ARISTOTLE’S CATEGORIES ... XVI
2.1 The Previous Arabic Tradition: Translation and Exegesis ... xvi
2.1.1 Bio-bibliographical Sources ... xvi
2.1.2 Translations ... xvii
2.1.3 Greek Commentaries ... xviii
2.1.4 Arabic Commentaries ... xix
2.2 Categories and Categories in the Avicennan corpus ... xxiii
2.2.1 Between Logic and Metaphysics ... xxiii
2.2.2 Classifications of Sciences ... xxiii
2.2.3 Summae ... xxiv
2.2.4 Other Works ... xxvii
2.2.5 Summary ... xxix
2.3 The Maqūlāt of the Kitāb al-Šifāʾ ... xxxi
2.3.1 Composition and Structure ... xxxi
2.3.2 Style ... xxxv
2.3.3 Sources ... xxxv
2.3.4 Aftermath ... xxxviii
3 AVICENNA’S INTERPRETATION OF ARISTOTLE’S CATEGORIES ... XL 3.1 The subject-matter of the Categories: a non-scientific ontology of quiddity ... xli 3.1.1 The Greek Tradition. Porphyry’s Semantics ... xli 3.1.2 The Arabic Tradition ... xlii 3.1.3 Avicenna’s Ontological Reading ... xlv 3.1.4 Categories and Metaphysics ... xlviii 3.1.5 Avicenna’s Attitude towards Aristotle. ... l 3.2 Substance and accident: against “Porphyrian” onto-relativism ... lii 3.2.1 The Problem with Constitutive Properties ... lii 3.2.2 Maqūlāt I.3-5: the Distinction between accident and accidental, and the status of form ... liv 3.2.3 Maqūlāt I.6 and the short treatise Fī ḫaṭaʾ ... lvii 3.3 The Synonymy of Substance ... lxiii 3.3.1 The problem ... lxiii 3.3.2 Avicenna’s Arabic predecessors ... lxviii 3.3.3 Avicenna on the synonymy of substance: Maqūlāt II.4 and III.1 ... lxxi 3.4 Quantity ... lxxviii 3.4.1 Substantial and quantitative bodies ... lxxviii 3.4.2 Physical continua: place and time ... lxxix 3.4.3 Speech ... lxxxii 3.5 Relatives ... lxxxv 3.5.1 Aristotle’s four definitions of relatives ... lxxxv 3.5.2 Avicenna’s exegesis of Cat. 7 ... lxxxvii 3.6 Quality ... xcii 3.6.1 Defining and dividing quality ... xcii 3.6.2 Active capacities ... xcv 3.6.3 Categorial complexes: figures, angles, external forms ... xcviii 4. THE TRANSLATION: INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ... CI APPENDIX ... CV BIBLIOGRAPHY ... CXIII TRANSLATION ... 2
FIRST TREATISE ... 4 [I.1]
On the goal of the Categories ... 6 [I.2]
On the utterances of homonyms, synonyms, heteronyms, paronyms, and the like ... 11 [I.3]
On the explanation of the meaning of what is said of a subject or is not said [of a subject], and [what] exists in a subject or does not exist [in a subject] ... 19 [I.4]
On explaining the definition of the accident, that is “existent in a subject” ... 28 [I.5]
On the combinations occurring between “to say of” and “to exist in”, and what they lead to ... 37 [I.6]
On destroying the claim of those who said that one thing may be an accident and a substance in two respects ... 44
SECOND TREATISE ... 49 [II.1]
On the state of the relation of genera and their divisive and constitutive differentiae; on making known these ten highest genera, and the state of the relation of “existent” with them; [on] beginning the treatment of the fact that they are ten, they do not fall under a genus, none of them belongs to any other, and there is no genus outside them. ... 50 [II.2]
On the fact that accident is not a genus for the nine [accidental categories], and the examination of what was said about this ... 57 [II.3]
On investigating what was said by those who required that the [categories] be less, or more ... 61 [II.4]
On mentioning realities that made [people] suspect them either to be common to some of the ten [categories] as a genus, or to fall outside the ten [categories]; [on] completing the discussion of this [topic]. ... 65 [II.5]
On notifying the state of the number of the categories ... 76
THIRD TREATISE ... 82 [III.1]
On primary, secondary and tertiary substances; in general, on the state of the ranks of universal and particular substances with regard to substantiality. ... 83 [III.2]
On primary, secondary and tertiary substance. ... 88 [III.3]
On the descriptions of substance, and its properties. ... 95 [III.4]
On beginning the treatment of quantity. ... 105
FOURTH TREATISE ... 119 [IV.1]
On the clarification of the second division of quantity, and the clarification of quantity by accident ... 120 [IV.2]
On the properties of quantity ... 128 [IV.3]
On beginning the treatment of the relative, notifying its former definition and explaining that definition; on the general indication of the types of relative. ... 137 [IV.4]
[IV.5]
On verifying the relative that is a category; on the difference between what is relative by itself and what has relation by accident, or as a necessary concomitant; on the properties of the relative that is a category. ... 151
FIFTH TREATISE ... 161 [V.1]
On notifying quality and its primary subdivisions ... 162 [V.2]
On the investigation of the ways according to which a group of people divided quality into its four species ... 169 [V.3]
On notifying the essence of every two species of quality, namely state and habit and capacity and incapacity ... 176 [V.4]
On mentioning doubts about the species related to capacity and incapacity ... 181 [V.5]
On affective qualities and affections ... 187 [V.6]
On solving the remaining doubts ... 192
SIXTH TREATISE ... 196 [VI.1]
On mentioning the species of the fourth genus of quality ... 197 [VI.2]
On notifying the state of the angle, and the way in which it falls under quantity, or quality, or position and others; the notification of the state of countenance, and how it may become a species despite its composite nature; the remaining doubts concerning this genus of the four genera. ... 204 [VI.3]
On notifying the difference between quality and qualified, and the states which subsist in between them; on the accidents of quality, and its properties ... 209 [VI.4]
On solving a doubt which depends on the intrusion of certain species of quality and other categories in certain species of the relative ... 214 [VI.5]
On where and when ... 219 [VI.6]
On the rest of the ten categories ... 224
SEVENTH TREATISE ... 229 [VII.1]
On opposites ... 230 [VII.2]
On doubts attached to what was said about opposition ... 238 [VII.3]
On interpreting rules and properties regarding contraries ... 247 [VII.4]
Bibliographic conventions
Throughout the Introduction, all passages from the Cairo edition of Avicenna’s Maqūlāt are simply referred to by chapter number and structural unit, occasionally also by page and line numbers (e.g. VII.3 [§2]; VI.4 [§5.2.3], 67.9-10); Avicenna’s works are simply referred to by abridged title of the work, chapter and page number (e.g. Ilāhiyyāt III.1, 94.1-4); other primary sources, Aristotle included, are referred to by author’s name, abridged title of the work and page number (e.g. Arist. Cat. 5 a1-9); secondary literature is referred to by author’s surname and year of publication (e.g. VAN ESS 1986).
1.PREMISE.STATE OF THE ART
Scholarly interest in Avicenna’s Maqūlāt has been increasing ever since 1988, when Dimitri Gutas underscored the interest and novelty of Avicenna’s interpretation of Aristotle’s Categories in the first edition of his book Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition. In the chapter devoted to Avicenna’s “major points of conflict with the Aristotelian tradition” Gutas presented an English translation of some passages of Maqūlāt I.1, where the philosopher – against the totality of his “Peripatetic” forerunners – explicitly argues for the uselessness of categories in the domain of logic1. The same issue was later tackled by Richard Bodéüs in a dedicated article appeared in 1993, where he argued for the necessity of doing further research in this field2.
After the pioneering studies of Gutas and Bodéüs, the Avicennan scholarship has made great progress in understanding the difficulties and problems posed by Avicenna’s reading of the Categories. Studies on Arabic and Avicennan logic in general have certainly flourished in the last few decades, but also specific studies on the Maqūlāt have been growing exponentially in recent times.
The section of Avicenna’s Maqūlāt that has drawn so far most attention is the first treatise, which contains the gist of Avicenna’s analysis of Cat. 1-3. Allan Bäck has devoted two interesting studies to some of these pages, both in a theoretical and historical perspective. In 1999, he has provided an analysis of the five-fold classification of “attributes” found at Maqūlāt I.3; in 2008, he has made an extensive appraisal of Avicenna’s account of homonymy, synonymy and paronymy as it is expounded in Maqūlāt I.2 (which he has used as a basis for providing more general remarks on Avicenna’s exegetic technique)3. Avicenna’s discussion of homonyms has also been the subject of a 2010 contribution by Alexander Treiger, who studied the important notion of taškīk, employed by Avicenna in Maqūlāt I.2 to describe the way that “existence” is predicated of existent things4. Moreover, taškīk has also been taken into account by Amos Bertolacci in 2011, in a contribution about the phenomenon that he has dubbed “ontologization of logic” (i.e. the penetration of ontological issues in the Logic of Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Šifāʾ) – alongside a short passage from chapter I.65.
In limited measure, I have personally contributed to this recent wave of new studies on Avicenna’s Antepraedicamenta. In an article appeared in 2016, I have analysed a literal quotation of an anonymous commentator presented by Avicenna at Maqūlāt I.3. Given the striking resemblance that it bears with a passage of Porphyry’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories, I have argued that it comes either from an Arabic translation of that commentary or from a reworking paraphrase of it6. I also have insisted on the doctrinal contents of that
1 G
UTAS 1988, pp. 265-267. This section is entirely reprised in the second edition of the work, with an updated 2 B ODÉÜS 1993. 3B ÄCK 1999; 2008. 4TREIGER 2010. 5 Cf. B
ERTOLACCI 2011, pp. 35-37 (for the translation and discussion of Maqūlāt I.6, 46.4-7); 41-49 (for an English translation and analysis of Maqūlāt I.2, 10.4 – 11.7).
6 C
passage, particularly on the main philosophical implications of Avicenna’s criticism of Porphyry – which concerns both philosophers’ understanding of Aristotle’s predication “of a subject” (καθ᾽ὑποκειµένου)7. In the same volume an article by Silvia Di Vincenzo appeared,
which inspected the development of the same doctrinal issue in Avicenna’s paraphrase of Porphyry’s Isagoge (Madḫal)8. In 2017, Fedor Benevich has published an article about Avicenna’s distinction of accidents and substances, and the related issue of constitutive properties, as it is tackled by Avicenna at Maqūlāt I.69.
Other parts of the Maqūlāt have so long attracted the attention of scholars: most notably, treatise II (devoted essentially to Aristotle’s list of the categories at Cat. 4), chapters III.1-3 (devoted to the category of substance) and the discussion of relatives carried out in chapters IV.3-5, and VI.4. Hatem Zghal has devoted a deep and lengthy article (appeared in 2006) to the difficulties of Avicenna’s doctrine of relations, which presented extensive French translations of Maqūlāt IV.5 and VI.410. In 2012, Amos Bertolacci has translated and analysed an important passage of Maqūlāt II.1 where it is possible to read a very clear formulation of the essence-existence distinction11. Furthermore, Jules Janssens has provided in 2013 an analysis of Maqūlāt III.2, the important chapter where Avicenna deals with the distinction between primary and secondary substances. Eventually, in 2015 Paul Thom has studied Avicenna’s different divisions of categories, as they are presented at Maqūlāt II.5 and in his Persian summa, the Dānešnāme12.
Treatises I-III also constitute, in part, the focus of a section of a monograph by Tiana Koutzarova on Avicenna’s doctrine of transcendentals (2009). The section in question contains partial German translations, accompanied by extensive philosophical analyses, of chapters I.2, II.1 and III.113.
Other recent contributions do not focus specifically on the Maqūlāt of the Šifāʾ, but tackle other Avicennan texts that prove all the same very helpful for our understanding of Avicenna’s doctrine of categories. In 2012, Alexander Kalbarczyk has published a critical edition of the Kitāb al-maqūlāt (book of the Categories) contained in a minor logical work, the Muḫtaṣar al-awsaṭ fī l-manṭiq; whereas in 2013 Heidrun Eichner has devoted a specific contribution to the possibility of identifying a “developmental” account in Avicenna’s interpretation of the Categories14.
As regards the aftermath of Avicenna’s Maqūlāt, much work is still to be done: no specific contribution has yet been devoted, for instance, to the Islamic reception of this section of the Šifāʾ (except for some chapters of a recent book by Kalbarczyk, of which I will speak in more detail below). As for the Latin fortune, in an article appeared in 1972 Mario Grignaschi made the hypothesis that Albert the Great knew a Latin version of Avicenna’s Maqūlāt (to this date, neither extant nor attested), on the basis of some
7 C
AMINADA 2016,esp. pp. 222-231. See also below, 3.2.2.
8D
I VINCENZO 2016. 9 B
ENEVICH 2017. 10 Z
GHAL 2006. The translated passages are found at pages 239-243 259-260; 267; 272-273 (IV.5); pp. 276-278 (VI.4). 11 See B ERTOLACCI 2012b, esp. pp. 284-286. 12 J ANSSENS 2013b;THOM 2015. 13 K
OUTZAROVA 2009, pp. 213-230 (on ch. I.2); 230-258 (on ch. II.1); 259-277 (on ch. III.1). 14 See for instance K
quotations of Avicenna found in Albert’s De praedicamentis15. Jules Janssens, who firstly reassessed Grignaschi’s dossier in an contribution appeared in 2013, has come to the conclusion that this hypothesis is very unlikely; in a subsequent reappraisal (2017) of Grignaschi’s and Janssens’ work I have substantially confirmed Janssens’ counter-hypothesis16.
As I started working on this English translation and commentary, no complete or extensive translation of Avicenna’s Maqūlāt existed in print, and no book-long study of issues related to Avicenna’s reading of the Categories had yet been published. Nonetheless, two comprehensive works on the Maqūlāt came out in the last few years. In 2016, Allan Bäck published a complete English translation of the Avicennan treatise17, being the second integral version of this treatise in a Western language – after the Russian translation published in 2010 by T.N. Mardoni and N.B. Nazaryev18. In 2018, Alexander Kalbarczyk published Predication and Ontology, a substantive monograph focusing on some crucial aspects of Avicenna’s interpretation of the Categories, which also presents English translations of extensive passages19.
Although Bäck’s work certainly is a commendable achievement, his translation presents flaws and inaccuracies that have discouraged me from using it as a term of comparison. As a matter of fact, Bäck appears not to have revised the Cairo text – often unreliable and faulty – on the basis of manuscripts; furthermore, his translation sometimes is too heavily interpretative, and his explicative notes are rather scarce, especially when they are most needed (e.g. in some particularly difficult chapters). On the whole, I have preferred not to consult other translations systematically, in order not to be excessively influenced by the choices of other translators. I have done so only when confronted with particularly difficult passages.
On the contrary, the English translations found in Kalbarczyk’s book are much more reliable, being based on an accurate revision of the Arabic text. Furthermore, the clarity and depth of the author’s historical-philosophical analysis are undisputable. Unfortunately the book came out too late, and I could not avoid some thematic overlaps, most notably with regard to the issue of the subject-matter of the Categories and the idea of a ‘developmental’ account of Avicenna’s understanding of the Categories (tackled by Kalbarczyk in chapter 1, by myself in pars. 2.2 and 3.1 of this INTRODUCTION)20; and the synonymy of substance, i.e. the question whether substance is a genus (taken up by Kalbarczyk in chapter 3, by myself in paragraph 3.3 of this INTRODUCTION)21. The reader will certainly benefit from comparing my interpretation of these problems, which I have presented in the rather synthetic fashion appropriate for an Introduction, with Kalbarczyk’s more in-depth analyses: this is particularly useful, for instance, in the case of Avicenna’s analysis of predication de subiecto,
15 G
RIGNASCHI 1972,pp. 69-73.
16Cf. J
ANSSENS 2013a, pp. 256-257; CAMINADA 2017. 17 B
ÄCK 2016. Bäck’s translation of the Maqūlāt follows his English version of another Avicennan paraphrase,
al-ʿIbāra, which deals with Aristotle’s De Interpretatione (BÄCK 2013). 18 M
ARDONI,NAZARYEV 2010.Unfortunately I could not consult this translation; I am grateful to Teymur
Malikov for the reference.
19 K
ALBARCZYK 2018. Throughout his work Kalbarczyk presents integral English translations of chapters I.3
(pp. 126-139) and I.4 (pp. 238-252), II.2 (pp. 253-258), II.5 (pp. 191-200), III.1-3 (pp. 261-293).
20 K
ALBARCZYK 2018, esp. pp. 11-31. 21 K
which I have quickly dealt with in the Introduction and Commentary, and to which Kalbarczyk has devoted a lengthy and masterful discussion22. In some other cases my approach and interpretation differ from Kalbarczyk’s, for instance as regards Avicenna’s changing attitude towards the scope of the Categories: whereas Kalbarczyk has taken a more limited number of works into account (Muḫtaṣar al-awsaṭ fī l-manṭiq, Maqūlāt, Taʿlīqāt, Išārāt), I have tried – especially in chapter 2.2 of the INTRODUCTION – to reconstruct as broad a picture as possible, by inspecting the doctrine of categories in all of Avicenna’s most important works. As concerns the synonymy of substance, instead, I have tried to provide a wider overview of the debate in the late ancient and Arabic sources, and given a more detailed evaluation of Fārābī’s position (which Kalbarczyk deduces from his extant commentaries on the Categories, without taking other sources, such as the Kitāb al-Ḥurūf, into account)23.
Against this background, my ambition is to present here – after the first complete English translation (Bäck) and the first thematic study based on a partial English translation of the revised Arabic text (Kalbarczyk) – the first complete English translation, based on a systematic revision of the Arabic text and accompanied by a commentary, of the Maqūlāt of Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Šifāʾ. Both my revision of the Arabic text and Kalbarczyk’s are based on sixteen direct witnesses: among Kalbarczyk’s manuscripts, six were also used by Cairo editors, whereas among my codices ten were already employed in the making of the Cairo edition24.
In the subsequent chapters of this Introduction I shall deal firstly with the Arabic reception of Aristotle’s Categories and the penetration of the doctrine of categories in Avicenna’s corpus (ch. 2). Secondly, I will point out the major interesting aspects of Avicenna’s interpretation of the Categories, with a special focus on the categories of substance, quantity, quality and relation (ch. 3). Eventually I will make some short general remarks about the Arabic text and my English translation (ch. 4).
22 K
ALBARCZYK 2018, pp. 57-140. 23 K
ALBARCZYK 2018, pp. 226-227.
24 For the direct and indirect sources used by the author, see K
ALBARCZYK 2018, pp. 309-313. For a list of my sixteen manuscripts, see below, ch. 4 of the INTRODUCTION.
2.AVICENNA’S RECEPTION OF ARISTOTLE’S CATEGORIES
2.1 The Previous Arabic Tradition: Translation and Exegesis
2.1.1 Bio-bibliographical Sources
There exists nowadays an extensive literature about the great movement of translations from Greek, Syriac and Persian into Arabic that accompanied the development of classical Islamic science and philosophy25. I am not going to recall here all the stages of this important historical process: in this first section I will limit myself to collecting, in short, all the available information about the Arabic reception and circulation of Aristotle’s Categories in the period that precedes Avicenna’s philosophical activity (7th-10th century a.D.)26.
A classic starting point for reconstructing the Arabic, pre-Avicennan tradition of the Categories is Ibn al-Nadīm’s Kitāb al-Fihrist (“Index”, “Book of the Index”), a work of fundamental importance for our knowledge of Arabic-Islamic culture in the first centuries of its development. In the seventh book of the Fihrist, in the section devoted to Aristotle’s life and works, Ibn al-Nadīm writes the following lines about the work named Categories (Qāṭīġūryās)27:
Discourse concerning the Categories, translated by Ḥunayn Ibn Isḥāq. Among those who explained it and commented upon it there are Porphyry, Stephanus of Alexandria, Illīnūs, John the Grammarian, Ammonius, Themistius, Theophrastus, Simplicius; [it has been explained] also by a man known as Theon, in Syriac and Arabic28. From Simplicius’ commentary there is an addition up to the [category] of relative29. Among the foreign commentaries30, a part is attributed to Iamblichus. The šayḫ Abū Zakariyyā’ said: «It is doubtful whether it is to be ascribed to Iamblichus, for I could see, in between the lines, “Alexander said”». The šayḫ Abū Sulaymān said that he asked the šayḫ Abū Zakariyyā’ for a translation of this book, along with the commentary by Alexander of Aphrodisias (around three hundred folia). Among those who commented (fassara) upon this book
25
Just to mention a few studies: G. Endress’ long monographic article devoted to Arabic scientific literature and its developments, forms and literary genres, contained in the Grundriss der Arabischen Philologie (ENDRESS 1987, 1992); D. Gutas’ work on the origin, causes and social function of the translation movement (GUTAS 1998); C. D’Ancona’s synthetic account of the translation of philosophical works (D’ANCONA 2005). 26 For other detailed accounts of the Arabic reception of the Categories, see H
EIN 1985 (pp. 247-251),
ELAMRANI-JAMAL 1988 and FERRARI 2006 (pp. 12-14).
27 Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 248.20-28. For other English translations of this passage, see P
ETERS 1968 (p. 7) and
DODGE 1970 (pp. 598-599).
28 Given the reference to Syriac and Arabic, Dodge thinks that translations are at stake here (“A man known as
Theon has made both Syriac and Arabic [translations]”); however, I believe - following Peters – that al-Nadīm is rather speaking about commentaries, since Theon is mentioned after a long list of commentators.
29 The Arabic reads: wa-yuḍāfu min tafsīri Sinblīqūs ilā l-muḍāfi. Dodge reads “there is an addition to the
supplement”, which seems more faithful to the original; Peters renders differently (“part of the interpretation of Simplicius is attributed to someone else”). I translate “relative”, in agreement with KALBARCZYK 2018, p. 316.
30 Ar. min ġarībi l-tafāsīri. Dodge: “among the odd commentaries”; Peters: “among the less common
there are Abū Nasr al-Fārābī and Abū Bišr Mattā; of this book there are also compendia (muḫtaṣar) and epitomai (ğawāmi‘), comprising diagrams or not31, authored by all the following [scholars]: Ibn al-Muqaffa‘, Ibn Bahrīz, Al-Kindī, Isḥāq Ibn Ḥunayn, Aḥmad Ibn al-Ṭayyib, Al-Razī.
This short passage from the Fihrist, reprised almost literally by the later bibliographer Ibn al-Qifṭī in his Taʾrīḫ al-ḥukamāʾ32, attests to (1) the existence of one or more Arabic translation of the Categories; (2) the knowledge, by name or by translation, of commentaries written by late ancient Greek authors; (3) a conspicous exegetical activity on the part of Arabic-speaking scholars and philosophers. Each of these three points needs now to be discussed in more detail.
2.1.2 Translations
The Arabic version of the Categories known to us, that the Fihrist ascribes to the physician and translator Ḥunayn Ibn Isḥāq (d. 260/873, especially known for his Arabic version of Galenus), must very likely be attributed to his son Isḥāq Ibn Ḥunayn (d. 289/910-911). Our main available source for this translation is the famous Parisian codex BnF ar. 2346, containing a complete Arabic “edition” of Aristotle’s Organon (preceded by Porphyry’s Isagoge and followed by the Poetics and the Rhetoric). The marginal glosses to the text of the Categories attribute the paternity of the translation to Isḥāq33, and signal the existence of a Syriac translation, authored by Ḥunayn34, which Isḥāq himself might have used as a base for his own Arabic version. To this date, there exist four modern editions of Isḥāq’s translation: the oldest one was published in 1846 by J.T. Zenker35, whereas there are more recent edition by M. Bouyges36, K. Georr37 and ʿA. Badawī38. The Fihrist also notifies the possible existence of another translation of the Categories, commissioned by Abū Sulaymān al-Siğistānī to the Christian philosopher Abū Zakariyyā’ (Yaḥyā Ibn ‘Adī); besides Ibn al-Nadīm’s testimony, however, we dispose of no other information about this second Arabic version. Moreover, Ibn al-Qifṭī reports a different version of the same story, according to which Yaḥyā did not execute the translation personally, but only commissioned it39.
31 Literally: mušağğara wa-lā mušağğara, “containing tree-shaped diagrams and not”. Cf also Dodge’s note (p.
599 n107). Peters: “ordered and disordered”; Kalbarczyk:
32 Ibn al-Qifṭī, Ta’rīḫ al-ḥukamā’, p. 35.1-15. 33 Cf. G
EORR 1948, p. 386.7, where Isḥāq is said to be “the translator of this book” (nāqil hādā l-kitāb). 34
Ibid. p. 380.12.
35
Aristotelis Categoriae graece cum versione arabica Isaaci Honeini filii et variis lectionibus textus graeci e versione arabica ductis. Edidit Iulius Theodorus Zenker, Dr., Lipsia 1846.
36The Arabic text of the Categories is printed below Bouyges’ edition of Averroes’ Middle Commentary on
the Categories (Averroes, Talḫīṣ al-maqūlāt).
37 G
EORR 1948.
38
Manṭiq Arīsṭū.
39 Cf. Ibn al-Qifṭī, Taʾrīḫ al-ḥukamāʾ 35. see also K
2.1.3 Greek Commentaries
Many of the late ancient commentators mentioned by al-Nadīm are well-known to us, notably Alexander of Aphrodisias, Porphyry, Ammonius, Themistius, Theophrastus, Simplicius and “John the Grammarian” (ar. Yaḥyā al-naḥwī, i.e. John Philoponus). The others are either unknown authors, or known authors that we do not know as commentators of the Categories. We do not know anything, for instance, about the commentary on the Categories by Stephanus of Alexandria (6th – 7th century a.D.), whereas we may read his commentary on the De interpretatione. The same can be said about “the man known as Theon”, about whose identity only conjectures can be made40; and about Illīnūs, whose identity is disputed by scholars41. Unluckily, al-Nadīm’s account of the Arabic reception of the late ancient exegesis is too synthetic to provide precise information regarding the circulation of these works: the only Arabic translation of a commentary that is explicitly mentioned in the Fihrist is that, commissioned to Yaḥyā Ibn ‘Adī, of Alexander’s commentary42. We certainly know some Arabic fragments of Porphyry’s commentary per interrogationem et responsionem, one of which is possibly preserved in Avicenna’s Maqūlāt43; but we also know fragments of an Arabic translation of Simplicius’ commentary, preserved in Ibn Suwār’s glosses on the Parisian Organon and – again – in Avicenna’s Maqūlāt44.
On the other hand, in the Arabic sources known to us it is obviously possible to detect the presence of authors that Ibn al-Nadīm does not mention: for example, C. Ferrari has well shown the possible dependence of Ibn al-Ṭayyib’s Tafsīr al-maqūlāt on Elias/David’s commentaries, whereas M. Rashed has proven its direct or indirect dependence on the byzantine scholia authored by Arethas of Caesarea45.
Only further research on the sources of extant Arabic commentaries will maybe shed some light upon this issue, although the fragmentary or indirect attestations of these works make it very likely that they were not transmitted indepedently, but rather in manuals or anthologies, and that they were mostly employed as school material46.
40 P
ETERS 1968 (pp. 7-11) does not even take him into account.
41 “Illīnūs” has been identified in past studies with Apollonius of Alexandria (R
OSENTHAL 1972), with Elias, a
commentator of Olympiodorus’ school (GYEKYE 1975), with the title of a Syriac manual of Greek logic (ZIMMERMANN 1981, pp. XCVII-XCVIII) or with the commentator David (M.RASHED 2004); Rashed later
revised his interpretation (M. RASHED 2016, pp. 837-839). For the discussion of Allīnūs’ identity, see
ELAMRANI-JAMAL 1989; M.RASHED 2016, pp. 830-839.
42 The account provided by Ibn al-Qifṭī is slightly different:
43 For an analysis of the possible fragment found in Maqūlāt, and an overview of the Arabic tradition of
Porphyry’s commentary on the Categories, see CAMINADA 2016, pp. 208-222; On Porphyry’s Arabic tradition
in general, see WALZER 1965, D’ANCONA 2011, HUGONNARD-ROCHE 2012. 44 Cf. G
EORR 1948, pp. 168-169 (Arabic text at pp. 376-377); I have translated and analysed this fragment in CAMINADA 2016, pp. 217-222. For the other possible fragment, see below, V.1 [§7.1] and the COMMENTARY
ad loc. More in general on Simplicius’ Arabic tradition, see GÄTJE 1982;CODA 2016.
45 Cf. F
ERRARI 2006, pp. 92-94; M.RASHED 2016, pp. 825-830. On Ibn al-Ṭayyib see right below, 2.1.4. 46 P. Vallat even makes the hypothesis that the manuscripts of these works “were never copied or ceased to be
2.1.4 Arabic Commentaries
In his short account of the Arabic exegesis, Ibn al-Nadīm seems to present a distinction between authors of compendia and authors of systematic commentaries: this difference is suggested by the distinct use of the term fassara (whose verbal name, tafsīr, normally refers to systematic or lemmatic commentaries) and the words muḫtaṣar e ğawāmiʿ, which refer instead to compendia and epitomes47. When examining summarily the tradition, in the following pages, I will indicatively maintain this preliminary division.
Among the authors of epitomes, the earliest one is certainly Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, to which a compendium of the first four books of the Organon is ascribed that in some codices is trasmitted as a “translation” of Aristotle’s works48. The identity of Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ is debated: some manuscripts attribute the work to Abū Muḥammad ‘Abdallāh (d. 137-139/755-756), of Persian origins, working as a secretary for members of the ʿabbasid family and author of translations from middle Persian (most notably, of the celebrated Kalīla wa-Dimna)49; others ascribe it to his son Muḥammad Ibn ʿAbdallāh, a secretary to caliph al-Manṣūr. It is also debated whether the compendium should be considered a translation from Persian (executed more probably, in that case, by Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ senior) or from another language, for instance Syriac50. Be as it may, the compendium contains a synthesis of the Categories, comprising also some explicative tables, which seems to take into account some aporiae raised in the Greek exegetical tradition.
Ḥabīb Ibn Bahrīz (2nd-3rd/8th-9th c.), known especially as a translator of Nicomachus’ Arithmetica for al-Kindī’s circle, is mentioned in the Fihrist right after Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ as an epitomist of the Categories. His work on the Categories is unfortunately lost: we only have a short manual of definitions relative to logic, where terms related to Aristotle’s work appear, but no independent exegetical work is extant51.
Ibn al-Nadīm mentions, in the third place, al-Kindī (d. 247-252/861-866), the first great Arabic philosopher, as the author of an epitome of the Categories. The inventory of Kindī’s works contained in the Fihrist numbers, among his philosophical texts, a Book on the Intent of Aristotle in the Categories (Kitāb fī qaṣd Arisṭā[ṭā]līs fī l-maqūlāt) and, among his logical works, an Epistle on the ten categories (Risāla fī l-maqūlāt al-ašara)52. Neither of these
works came down to us; we dispose, nonetheless, of a brief discussion of the Categories contained in Kindī’s Epistle on the quantity of Aristotle’s books, and what is needed for the acquisition of philosophy (Risāla fī kammiyyati kutub Arisṭāṭālīs wa-mā yuḥtağu ilayhi fī taḥṣīli l-falsafati)53, and of some definitions related to the Categories in the Epistle on the
definitions and descriptions of things (Risāla fī ḥudūd al-ašyā’ wa-rusūmi-hā), whose attribution to Kindī is however disputed.
47 On the genres of Arabic scientific and philosophical literature, see E
NDRESS 1987,pp. 460-473.
48Extant and edited by M.T. Danišpažūh (Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ Manṭiq). 49 Cf. G
ABRIELI 1971, p. 883.
50 For a more detailed discussion of problems related with Ibn al-Muqaffa‘’s figure, see H
EIN 1985, pp. 41-46; cf. also GUTAS 2012, pp. 72-74. For a more recent reappraisal of this work, see HERMANS 2018.
51 Extant and edited by Danišpažūh (Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ Manṭiq, pp. 97-126); Cf. G
UTAS 2012, p. 78; ADAMSON,
ENDRESS 2012, p. 101.
52
Fihrist 256.1-2; 13.
53 Edited and translated into Italian by M. Guidi and R. Walzer (al-Kindī, Risāla fī l-kammiyya); into English
The last names cited by Ibn al-Nadīm are that of Aḥmad Ibn al-Ṭayyib al-Saraḫsī (d. 286/899), a pupil of al-Kindī, author of a Compendium of the book of the Categories (Muḫtaṣar kitāb Qaṭīġūryās) of which only an unpublished fragment is extant (preserved in a Turkish manuscript)54; Abū Bakr al-Razī (d. 313/925), well known as a physician and philosopher, who wrote a - nowadays lost - Epitome of the Categories (Ǧumal ma‘ānī Qāṭīġūryās); Isḥāq Ibn Ḥunayn, who might have completed his Arabic translation with a synthesis or a paraphrase. Among the epitomists we may also list Ṯābit Ibn Qurra (d. 209-288/824-901), who wrote – according to Ibn al-Qifṭī – a “compendium of the Categories” (Iḫtiṣār Qaṭāġūryās), along with epitomai of other logical works by Aristotle (De interpretatione, Prior Analytics)55. This compendium is unfortunately lost, but – as I will argue below – Avicenna himself might have been acquainted with it56.
As to the systematic commentaries, Ibn al-Nadīm only mentions two names: that of Abū Naṣr Muḥammad al-Fārābī (d. 339/950-951) and that of Abū Bišr Mattā Ibn Yūnus (d. 328/940). Al-Fārābī apparently wrote at least two works on Aristotle’s Categories: an extant short paraphrase, which better fits the genre of muḫtaṣar or epitome57; a long and systematic commentary, unfortunately lost and preserved in scattered fragments, that might have been structured like the Šarḥ of the De interpretatione58. Abū Bišr Mattā, instead, the founder and most illustrious member of the so-called School of Baghdad59, wrote another lost commentary on the Categories, some fragments of which are preserved in Al-Ḏahabī’s Kettenkommentar60.
Other works of other authors are extant, besides Ibn al-Nadīm’s account. It is necessary to recall, within the Baghdad School, the works of Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī (d. 363/974), whom Ibn al-Nadīm mentions only by his kunya (as “šayḫ Abū Zakariyyā’”). As far as we know, Yaḥyā did not write integral commentaries on the Categories; nonetheless, we may read some exegetical fragments of his in Ibn Suwār’s glosses61, as well as short notes preserved in a collection of Ta‘ālīq62. On the contrary, a number of short writings of his are attested and preserved, which deal with specific exegetical issues associated with the Categories. In his first inventory of Ibn ʿAdī’s works, G. Endress listed seven texts63: a treatise on the
sufficientia praedicamentorum (Maqāla fī anna l-maqūlāt ʿašr lā aqall wa-lā akṯar)64, one on the distinction between substance and accident (Maqāla fī ibānat anna ḥarārat an-nār
54 Preserved in Istanbul, in the manuscript Ayasofya 4855; cf. R
OSENTHAL 1943, p. 54.
55Taʾrīḫ al-ḥukamāʾ 118.7; 120.7. 56 Cf. below, 3.6.3; VI.1 [§6.3-4] and the C
OMMENTARY ad loc. 57 Edited once by D
UNLOP 1958-1959(with an English translation); more recently by ʿAǧam (Al-manṭiq ʿinda
l-Fārābī).
58 Some of these fragments are preserved in Al-Wāhibī’s Kettenkommentar, some others in a 15th-century
Hebrew commentary of Averroes’ Middle Commentary on the Categories, written by Yehuda b. Yiṣḥaq b. Mošeh Kohen. These latter Hebrew fragments are edited and translated into English in ZONTA 2006.
59 For a general introduction to the school’s activity, and its main exponents, see F
ERRARI 2005.
60 See T
ÜRKER 1965, pp. 109.4-12; 110.4-6; 110.12-15; 111.6-9; 112.11-14; 119.12-120.3; 120.9-121.8; 122.1-5.
61Yaḥyā is mentioned as a commentator at pp. 371.16 and 379.15.
62 A collections of possible school notes, edited by Sh. Khalifat (Ibn ʿAdī, Taʿālīq). For a list of these notes,
twenty-two of which are devoted to the Categories, see ENDRESS 1977b pp. 87-96.
63 Cf. E
NDRESS 1977b, nn. 3.31-37, pp. 48-51;WISNOVSKY 2012, pp. 307-326. 64 Preserved in the manuscript Madrasa-yi Marwī 19, ff. 52 a19 – 53b18; cf. W
laysat ǧawharan li-n-nār)65, a polemical treatise written against his brother Ibrāhīm on the substancehood of body66, a treatise tackling the question whether accident is a genus for the nine accidental categories (Maqāla fī anna l-ʿaraḍ laysa huwa ǧinsan li-l-tisʿ maqūlāt al-ʿaraḍiyya)67, a work on the six minor categories (Maqāla fī qismat al-sitt al-maqūlāt allatī lam yaqsimhā Arisṭūṭālīs ilā l-aǧnās wa-l-anwāʿ allatī taḥtahā)68, a treatise devoted to the properties of quantity (Maqāla fī anna l-kam laysa fīhi taḍādd)69 and a treatise devoted to relatives and numbers (Kitāb fī tabyīn anna li-ʿadad wa-iḍāfa ḏātayn mawǧūdatayn fī l-aʿdād). All of these works are edited and extant in manuscripts except for the last one (which is only attested).
Two other important commentaries must be mentioned. Firstly, the marginal glosses to the Parisian codex ar. 2346, authored by the philosopher al-Ḥasan Ibn Suwār (d. after 407/1017). Despite being incomplete and limited to the first four chapters of the Categories, these notes contain extremely interesting material, from both a historical and a philosophical point of view: most notably references to various Greek and Arabic commentators, and an extensive quotation of Simplicius’ commentary. The second commentary, dated from around the fist half of the 11th century and dubbed Kettenkommentar or Kommentar-Katene by G. Endress70, collects and compares a number of quotations taken from various Greek and Arabic exegetes of the Categories. The probable author of this text is a certain ‘Abdallāh al-Ḏahabī, physician and philosopher (d. 448/1056 in Valencia). Among the exegetes quoted71 by the author of this commentary there are Greek (Plato, Herminus, Alexander, Plotinus, Porphyry, Themistius and Simplicius) and Arabic philosophers, like Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm Quwayrā72, Abū Bišr Mattā, Al-Fārābī, Isḥāq Ibn Ḥunayn, Abū Sulaymān al-Siğistānī (d. 374/985)73 and Abū l-Ḥasan al-‘Āmirī (d. 381/992) and the mathematician Abū Ǧa‘far al-Ḫāzin (d. 350-360/961-971).
This much can be said, as far as Avicenna’s predecessors are concerned. Eventually, I have to recall a contemporary of Avicenna, Abū l-Farağ ‘Abdallāh Ibn al-Ṭayyib (d. 435/1043), physician an philosopher, who wrote a lengthy lemmatic commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge74 and one on the Categories, recently edited by C. Ferrari with an
introductory study75.
This overview has shown how important the Categories has been in the golden age of Islamic Philosophy, even before the great development of logical studies that took place in
65 Forthcoming, in a critical edition (with an English translation) by R. Hansberger and R. Wisnovsky. 66Recently edited by S. Menn and R. Wisnovsky (M
ENN,WISNOVSKY 2017). 67 Edited by Sh. Khalifat (Ibn ʿAdī, Maqāla fī anna l-ʿaraḍ).
68 Preserved in the manuscript Madrasa-yi Marwī 19, ff. 64b22–65a33; cf. W
ISNOVSKY 2012, pp. 314-315. 69 Preserved in the manuscript Madrasa-yi Marwī 19, ff. 32b34–33a29; cf. W
ISNOVSKY 2012, p. 315. 70 Cf. E
NDRESS 1987, p 462. The name comes from the Catenae, collections of excerpts from the Bible, used
in theology schools from the 6th century onwards. This text, preserved in the Istanbul manuscript Ayasofya 2483, has been so far only partially edited, with a Turkish translation, by M. Türker (TÜRKER 1965).
71 See the complete list in T
ÜRKER 1965, pp. 73-74/85.
72 Mentioned in the Fihrist as a teacher of Abū Bišr Mattā; according to Ibn al-Nadīm, he wrote a
“commentary on the Categories with explicative graphs” (tafsīr Qāṭīġūriyās mušağğar): cf. Ibn al-Nadīm,
Fihrist 262.25.
73 A contemporary and a student of Yaḥyā Ibn ‘Adī, whose nickname was al-Manṭiqī (the logician). Cf.
ENDRESS 2012, pp. 198-209.
74 Edited and translated into English by K. Gyekye (Ibn al-Ṭayyib, Tafsīr Isāġūǧī). 75 F
Baghdad during the 10th century. The short Aristotelian treatise raised the greatest interest among philosophers from all schools, and triggered doctrinal debates whose echo certainly came down to Avicenna, and influenced his complex interpretation of this work.
2.2 Categories and Categories in the Avicennan corpus
2.2.1 Between Logic and Metaphysics
In the works of Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, d. 428/1037) the study of the doctrine of categories notoriously oscillates between the domain of logic and that of metaphysics: that is not surprising, given the intrinsic ambiguity of the subject-matter of Aristotle’s Categories, its traditional position at the principle of logic and Avicenna’s ontological interpretation of the treatise. Before taking up in more detail the philosophical issue of the goal of the Categories (on which I will focus below, 3.1), in the following pages I will limit myself to presenting a recognition – as exhaustive as possible – of all the Avicennan works where the Categories or the doctrine of categories are at stake, to the aim of better contextualizing the Maqūlāt of the Šifāʾ in the whole corpus. In the end, I will briefly discuss the possibility of a tentative “developmental” reconstruction of Avicenna’s attitude towards the doctrine of categories, already proposed by H. Eichner and A. Kalbarczyk.
2.2.2 Classifications of Sciences
Avicenna’s ambivalent attitude towards the Categories is clearly attested by two works that present a division of sciences, i.e. the juvenile Compendium on the Soul (Maqāla fī l-nafs ‘alā sunnat al-iḫtiṣār) and the Epistle on the subdivisions of intellectual sciences (Risāla fī aqsām al-ʿulūm al-ʿaqliyya)76.
As is known, the Compendium on the Soul contains a brief classification of sciences according to the traditional order, presented in the eighth chapter as a list of the intelligible forms that the rational soul can acquire by means of demonstrative knowledge77. Here, Avicenna expressly excludes the discussion of categories from logical matters: as the soul undertakes the conceptualization of “logical truths” (al-ḥaqāʾiq al-manṭiqiyya), it moves directly from the knowledge of the predicables, which are dealt with in Porphyry’s Isagoge, to that of “simple and complex utterances, alongside the different kinds of composition” (al-alfāẓ al-mufrada wa-l-murakkaba bi-l-ḍurūb al-muḫtalifa min al-tarkīb), which refers presumably to the classification of statements found in Aristotle’s De Interpretatione78. However, Avicenna later mentions “substance and accident” (al-ǧawhar wa-l-ʿaraḍ) among the “divine realities” (al-umūr al-ilāhiyya) that the soul moves on to conceptualize after natural science and mathematics, most notably among the “attributes” (lawāḥiq) of the “absolute existent, in so far as it is existent” (al-mawǧūd al-muṭlaq min ḥayṯu huwa mawǧūd)79; a characterization which is certainly reminiscent of al-Fārābī’s description of the
76 On the Compendium (edited by S. Landauer, Maqāla fī l-nafs) and its very early date of composition, see
GUTAS 2014, pp. 80-86; on the Aqsām al-ʿulūm see GUTAS 2014, p. 416 and LIZZINI 2006. Gutas argues for an
early date of composition also in the case of the Aqsām, but does not provide compelling arguments for that.
77
Maqāla fī l-nafs (translated into English in GUTAS 2014, pp. 5-8). 78
Maqāla fī l-nafs 361.14-16.
79
categories as “species” of the absolute existence, in his work Fī aġrāḍ (On the Goals of Aristotle’s Metaphysics)80.
If we turn to the Aqsām al-ʿulūm, instead, we find that the list of “notions common to all existents” (al-maʿānī l-ʿāmma li-ǧamīʿ al-mawǧūdāt) that constitute the first subdivision of metaphysics comprises most items found in the list of lawāḥiq of the Compendium, except for substance and accidents81. However, in the chapter devoted to the subdivisions of logic there is a second subdivision, which explains
[...] the number of the simple essential notions that embrace the whole of existents, in respect of what those notions are, without [considering] the condition of their being realized in existence or their subsistence in the intellect. This is included in the book of Aristotle known as Qāṭīġūryās, i.e. the categories82.
Thus, according to the Aqsām al-ʿulūm the doctrine of categories belongs to logic – inasmuch as the ten categories are understood as mere quiddities, and independently of the way that they exist in reality: a position that – as we shall see below – resembles the characterization of the scope of the Categories provided by Avicenna in the Maqūlāt of the Šifāʾ83.
2.2.3 Summae
If we turn to Avicenna’s summae, i.e. the comprehensive works on philosophy that constitute the bulk of the philosopher’s writings, we may remark some major oscillations of the categorial doctrine from one sector of philosophy to the other. In the following pages, I will briefly indicate how and to what extent categories are dealt with in each Avicennan summa.
[1] The first summa to be taken into account is Avicenna’s earliest comprehensive work,
the Philosophy for al-Arūḍī (Ḥikma ‘Arūdiyya)84. The text of this summa is preserved in a single known manuscript, and is rather fragmentary and incomplete85. In the manuscript, a
partial discussion of categories is found right in the beginning, after a short introduction on the utility of the science of logic and right before a passage dealing with ontological themes (potency, act, necessity, possibility, perfection, priority and posteriority), which in turn gives way again to a logical discussion on propositions86. The context makes it quite clear that this section belongs to a metaphysical enquiry about the “existent” in general and its attributes: moreover, part of this metaphysical excursus (including the fragment on categories) is
80 Fārābī, Fī aġrāḍ 36.12-13. the text is translated into English in B
ERTOLACCI 2006, pp. 65-103 and in German in KOUTZAROVA 2009, pp. 17-38.
81Aqsām al-ʿulūm 112.13-15. For a comparison between the structure of metaphysics in the Compendium on
the Soul and that of the Ilāhiyyāt of the Šifāʾ see BERTOLACCI 2006, pp. 160-161. 82
Aqsām al-ʿulūm 113.13-16.
83 See below, 3.1.3-4. 84 On which see A
NAWATI 1957;GUTAS 2014, pp. 86-93.
85 The codex in question is manuscript Uppsala, Universiteitsbibliotek 364; a critical edition of the Arabic text
based on this manuscript was published in 2007 by M. Sāliḥ (Ḥikma ‘Arūdiyya).
86 Cf. Ḥikma ‘Arūdiyya 31-32.5 (introduction); 32.6 – 39.4 (metaphysical digression); 41 ff. (logical
identical with part of the metaphysical section of the Naǧāt (cf. below, [5])87. This prompted Gutas to make the hypothesis that this section on categories was originally found in a metaphysical section of the summa, and it ended up in logic because of a binding mistake. This hypothesis is also supported by the fact that in the misplaced folia a clear reference to “Logic” is found, as a preceding section of the work88. Therefore, although in the Ḥikma ‘Arūdiyya as we know it from the codex unicus the categories appear in logic, they were probably discussed in the metaphysical section; however, even if Gutas’s hypothesis is true there remains the possibility that a specific chapter on categories existed also in the original logical section of the summa (highly incomplete in our manuscript, where the whole sections on the Isagoge and the Prior Analytics, as well as substantial parts of the chapters on the De interpretatione and the Posterior Analytics, are missing).
[2] The work known by the title ‘Uyūn al-ḥikma (“Sources of knowledge” or “Elements
of Philosophy”)89 is probably not an original summa entirely planned and written by Avicenna, but a patchwork that some scholar produced by joining together an independent work on Logic (the Small Epitome on Logic, al-Muğāz al-ṣaġīr fī l-manṭiq) and a short Avicennan summa on Physics and Metaphysics, which he dictated to his disciple Bahmanyār90. Now, the logical section of the summa (and the Muğāz) contains a brief enumeration of the ten categories. Here, after having dealt with the properties of simple utterances, the definitions of “universal”, “particular”, “essential”, “accidental” and the five predicables, in the second chapter of this first section Avicenna lists the ten categories with examples, to the aim of indicating all the kinds of existents (mawğūdāt) that simple utterances can signify91. The chapter that follows immediately, right before tackling the distinction (found in the De interpretatione) between ism (name, ὄνοµα) e kalima (“word” or verb, ῥῆµα), makes a distinction between synonyms and homonyms that reprises Aristotle’s classification of homonyms at Cat. 192. In the metaphysical section of this summa, Avicenna begins by explaining the attributes of the existent in so far as it is existent: however, he limits himself to presenting a distinction between accident and substance – on which I will return below93 - and a classification of substances, but no detailed discussion of
the ten categories94.
[3] In the Book of Guidance (Kitāb al-Hidāya) Avicenna devotes to the categories the
whole second chapter (faṣl) of the first part (bāb), focusing on the discipline of logic95. The exposition here is very schematic: a first hint at the distinction of homonyms, synonyms and “ambiguous” (mušakkika)96 names is followed by a simple enumeration of the ten categories,
87 Cf. for instance Ḥikma ‘Arūdiyya 32.6 – 34.4 = Naǧāt 513.2 – 515.15; Ḥikma ‘Arūdiyya 34.6-19 = Naǧāt
524.8 – 525.13 For a systematic comparison between the two texts see EICHNER 2013, pp. 72-79. 88
Ḥikma ‘Arūdiyya 33.16-17 (= Naǧāt 515.3); GUTAS 2014, p. 90.
89 Edited by ‘A. Badawī (ʿUyūn al-ḥikma). 90 Cf. G
UTAS 2014, pp. 417-419. According to Gutas, the only differences between the logical section of the
ʿUyūn and the Muğāz consist in minor stylistic variations, and in the fact that some sections absent from the Muğāz are found in theʿUyūn.
91‘Uyūn al-ḥikma 45.1-11. 92 ‘Uyūn al-ḥikma 46 ff. 93 Cf. below, 3.2. 94 ‘Uyūn al-ḥikma 85.14 ff. 95 Hidāya I.2, pp. 71-76.
96 On “ambiguous” names see below, I.2 [§3.2] and the C
each of which is accompanied by a short description and an example. In the first chapter of the third part, corresponding with metaphysics, Avicenna divides the existent (al-mawğūd) into substance and accidents, saying that these latter are nine; however, he goes on immediately to dividing substance without taking them into account singularly97. Hence, the metaphysics of the Hidāya presents only a cursory mention, but not a systematic treatment of the categories.
[4] The logical section of the Book of the Cure (Kitāb al-Šifā’), Avicenna’s most
extended summa, contains the deepest and longest treatment of categories in the Avicennan corpus: al-Maqūlāt, the treatise we are dealing with here, which I will present in more detail in section 2.3. Nonetheless, categories are also discussed in the metaphysical section, most notably in the second and third treatise of the Ilāhiyyāt, where Avicenna commits himself to, respectively, establishing the distinction between substance and accidents (II) and proving the accidentality of the three main accidental categories, i.e. quantity, quality and relation (III). The Šifā’ is probably (alongside the Nağāt) the only summa where the categories are dealt with extensively both in logic and metaphysics98.
[5] In the Book of Salvation (Kitāb al-Nağāt)99, slightly posterior to the Šifā’ according to D. Gutas’s relative chronology, Avicenna removes the discussion of categories from the place they traditionally occupy in the order of logical writings. In the logical part of the summa, the discussion moves directly from the chapter devoted to common accident (Fī l-ʿaraḍ), closing the section corresponding to the Isagoge, to the chapter on the relation between concrete beings, notions and utterances (Fī l-aʿyān awhām alfāẓ wa-l-kitābāt) that inaugurates the section corresponding to the De interpretatione. However, a long chapter devoted to the “ten genera” is found within the section related with the Posterior Analytics, right after the chapters devoted to the theory of definition100. This
variation is certainly not casual, for it perfectly suits what Avicenna says at Maqūlāt I.1 about the only possible benefit that a logician can take from the doctrine of categories: they are helpful, somehow, when it comes to formulating definitions101. In this chapter Avicenna lists the ten categories, and discusses their descriptions and properties: he focuses, in particular, on the characters and species of quantity and quality. Like the Šifāʾ, the Nağāt also presents a long discussion of categories in the first chapters of the metaphysical section, many passages of which are taken from the “metaphysics” of the Philosophy for al-ʿArūḍī.
[6] In the Book of Science for ‘Alā al-Dawlā (Dānešnāme-ye ‘Alā’ī)102, dated approximately around the same time as the Nağāt, an extended treatment of categories is carried out in the metaphysical section. In the Dānešnāme, following the same order adopted in the Ilāhiyyāt of the Šifāʾ (treatises II and III), after subdividing being into substance and accidents and the analysis of corporeal substance, Avicenna focuses on accidents (to which he devotes three short chapters). In the first one, related to accident in general, he presents a short “deduction” of accidental categories; in the second one, he demonstrates the
97
Hidāya III.1, pp. 232-233. See also the Italian translation in LIZZINI 1995, pp. 367-424; p. 391. 98 In particular Ilāhiyyāt II.1; III.3-5, 7-8, 10.
99Edited by M. Danišpazūh (Nağāt).
100Nağāt 153.10 – 157.2; see also the English translation in A
HMED 2011, pp. 120-123. 101 See below, Maqūlāt I.1, 6.1-4 and the C
OMMENTARY ad loc.
102 A summa that Avicenna wrote in Persian at the request of his protector, the Amir ‘Alā al-Dawlā: see G UTAS
accidentality of quantity and quality; in the third one, eventually, he discusses the categorial status of being103.
[7] The Logic of the Easterners (Manṭiq al-Mašriqiyyīn), dated by Gutas before 1030,
contains neither a chapter specifically devoted to the Categories, nor a short enumeration of the ten genera in other contexts. On the contrary, in the end of the chapter devoted to the subject-matter of logic Avicenna argues once again that logic enquires about notions inasmuch as they can be composed in a certain way, not inasmuch as they exist as substances, quantities, qualites, and so forth: thus, the categories are taken into account by logicians only inasmuch as they may take part in a definition (qawl šāriḥ) or a proof (ḥuǧǧa)104. The absence of the Metaphysics of this summa, which unfortunately went lost, prevents us from checking for the existence a metaphysical treatment of categories.
[8] The Book of Pointers and Reminders (Kitāb al-Išārāt wa-l-Tanbīhāt), whose date of
composition is disputed105, does not deal with the categories in metaphysics. In the logical section, on the contrary, in the second chapter or “directive” (nahğ), Avicenna argues that the problem of categories is irrelevant with respect to the enquiries of logicians, who must content themselves just with knowing that there exist “genera of genera” (ağnās al-ağnās) without committing themselves to inspecting their number and nature106.
2.2.4 Other Works
Among the non-encyclopedic works devoted to categories, the most important and extended is probably the Book of Categories (Kitāb al-maqūlāt) contained in the Middle compendium on Logic (Muḫtasar al-awsaṭ fī l-manṭiq), dated by the editor A. Kalbarczyk around 1013/1014 (namely to the period of transition between the composition of the first works and the redaction of Šifā’ and Hidāya)107. This work is structured as a paraphrase of Aristotle’s Categories, which follows quite closely the ordering and structure of the Aristotelian text: subdivided into seventeen chapters, after a first section devoted to the Antepraedicamenta (1-4) it focuses on each of the ten categories: substance (5), quantity (6), relation (7), quality (8), where (9), when (10), position (11), having (12), acting and undergoing (13). The last three chapters take into account the issues that Aristotle tackles in the Postpraedicamenta (14-17).
Other minor works introducing to logic contain brief expositions of the doctrine of categories: the Epitome on the principles of logic (Risāla l-muğāza fī uṣūl al-manṭiq)108 and
103
Dānešnāme, Elāhiyyāt 28.5 – 39.7 (tr. ACHENA-MASSÉ 1958, vol. I, pp. 108-116). 104
Manṭiq al-Mašriqiyyīn 10.15-20: “The subject-matter [of logic] is concepts, in so far as they are subject to
the composition by means of which they lead [us] to acquire something, in our minds, that is not in our minds; not in so far as they are things that exist among concrete beings (like substances, quantities, qualities, and so forth) [...]”.
105 D. Gutas dates the Išārāt to the second half of Avicenna’s period in Isfahan, i.e. to the years 1030-34
(GUTAS 2014, pp. 155-157); D. Reisman, basing on his study of the text of the Mubāḥatāt, argues for the earlier dates 1027-1030 (REISMAN 2002, pp. 221-223). Y. Michot firstly proposed a very early date of composition, i.e. around 406/1016 (MICHOT 1997), but later changed his mind and argued for a later date, in
agreement with Reisman’s conjecture (MICHOT 106
Išārāt, Manṭiq 236.13-15 (The passage is cited and discussed in KALBARCZYK 2018, pp. 30-31). 107 K
ALBARCZYK 2012, pp. 309-312.
108 Unedited, and preserved in four known manuscripts: cf. G
the Minor Epitome on Logic, which – as has been said – constitutes the logical section of the ʿUyūn ḥikma. A Treatise on indicating the Science of Logic (Maqāla fī išāra ilā ‘ilm al-manṭiq), a juvenile work according to Gutas, deals with the usefulness of logic and, in particular, of categories109. A small number of verses of the Poem on Logic (Qaṣīda muzdawiğa fī l-manṭiq), a poetic divertissement, are also devoted to the Categories110.
Many passages of the so-called Ta‘līqāt (“Annotations”), a collection of paragraphs focusing on various issues, tackle a number of questions related with the categories. Among others, it is possible to read in ‘A. Badawī’s critical edition a short passage on the categories of position, where and when111, and a long section on the categories of quantity and relatives112, that J. Janssens identified as possible Avicennan “metacommentaries” on chapters III.4 – IV.5 of the Maqūlāt of the Šifā’113. Moreover, A. Kalbarczyk has highlighted and first translated into English a passage of the Taʿlīqāt where the subject-matter of the Categories is at stake. No explicit reference to the Categories, or to related doctrines, appears instead in the known redactions of the Mubāḥaṯāt.
It is also necessary to mention here some short treatises focusing on Categories-related issues, which are listed in the Inventories of Avicenna’s works. Among these there is for instance a certain Treatise on the goal of the Categories (Maqāla fī ġarad Qāṭīġūryās), which is not found in any known manuscript and which might be – according to Gutas – a version of Maqūlāt I.1 circulating as an independent work114. Eventually, four short treatises are attested and extant, which focus on the issue of onto-relativism (on which I will return below in par. 3.2):
(1) The Error of those who said that quantity is substantial, and of those who said that a single thing can be a substance and an accident simultaneously (Ḫaṭāʾ man qāla inna l-kammiyya ǧawhariyya wa-man qāla inna šayʾan huwa ǧawhar wa-ʿaraḍ maʿan), preserved in six codices, which I have here edited and translated into English115;
(2) The Difference between Intrinsic and Extrinsic Heat (Afarq bayna ḥarāra l-ġariziyya wa-l-ġarība), preserved in nine manuscripts and unedited116;
(3) On the fact that Quantity, Coldness and Hotness are not a Substance (Fī anna l-kammiyya wa-l-burūda wa-l-ḥarāra laysat bi-ǧawhar), preserved in three known manuscripts and still unedited117;
(4) Replies to questions (Al-aǧwiba ʿan al-masāʾil), also known as The Substancehood of Fire (Ǧawhariyyat al-nār), preserved in twelve known manuscripts and still unedited118.
109 Unedited, and preserved in four known manuscripts (cf. G
UTAS 2014,p. 436).
110
Manṭiq al-mašriqiyyīn, pp. 6-7. An English translation of this section of the Poem is found in GUTAS 1993, p. 64. 111 Taʿlīqāt, 43.6 – 44.2. 112Taʿlīqāt, 88.15 – 96.6. 113 J ANSSENS 2012, p. 202. 114 G UTAS 2014, p. 437-438. 115A
NAWATI 1950, pp. 130-131; MAHDAVI 1954, p. 98; GUTAS 2014, p. 438. For the critical edition, see the
APPENDIX below; for the synopsis, see below, 3.2.3. 116 A
NAWATI 1950, p. 135; MAHDAVI 1954, p. 186. 117 A
NAWATI 1950, pp. 136; MAHDAVI 1954, p. 97-98; GUTAS 2014, p. 438. 118 A
