Avicenna’s “reform” of Aristotle’s Metaphysics in the Ilahiyyat aims primarily at providing the discipline expounded in this work with a new “form”, i.e. a proper scientific status. The epistemological profile of metaphysics that emerges from the Metaphysics is regarded as imperfect by Avicenna, who—the heir, in this, of a long tradition—endeavours to transform this discipline into a fully accomplished science. The changes that Avicenna introduces in his reworking of the Metaphysics in order to fulfill this task are profound. ...
Avicenna’s scientific reshaping of Aristotle’s Metaphysics regards four main areas. First, Avicenna clarifies what metaphysics is about, namely whether it deals primarily with God (as in al-Kindi), or rather with “existent” (i.e. “being”) as such and its various features (as in al-Farabi); in other words, he faces the issue whether metaphysics is a philosophical theology, namely a rational investigation of God, or rather an ontology, i.e. a study of “existent qua existent” and its different aspects. Avicenna’s solution is a synthesis between these two perspectives: metaphysics is both an ontology, in so far as “existent qua existent” is its subject-matter, and a theology, since its goal is the knowledge of God (Chapter 4). Second, Avicenna recasts the structure of metaphysics in a systematic way, by dismissing the rather inconsequential order of books of the Metaphysics, and arranging this discipline according to a precise epistemological pattern (given by the species, properties and principles of “existent”), only adumbrated in Aristotle (Chapter 5). Third, he refines the method of metaphysics, by enhancing its use of demonstrations and terminological distinctions, introducing new methods of argumentation (like proofs by division and classifications), and reducing the role of procedures (like the criticism of previous philosophers’ opinions, and the discussion of aporias) cognate with dialectic (Chapter 6). Finally, Avicenna elucidates the relationship of metaphysics with the other philosophical disciplines, namely logic (the instrument of all knowledge), natural philosophy and mathematics (the other two branches of theoretical philosophy), and practical philosophy (with which he deals briefly at the end of the Ilahiyyat): metaphysics results to be a science higher than all these disciplines and encharged with providing their epistemological foundation (Chapter 7).
The four aforementioned areas of Avicenna’s intervention are reflected in the themes discussed in the Prolegomena of the Ilahiyyat, namely in the first four chapters of this work (I, 1–4). [s. 108-9]
Avicennovo "zvědečťování" (ve smyslu: Druhých Analytik) Aristotelovy Metafyziky čerpá ze čtyř zdrojů (vlastní zvýraznění):
The scientific profile of the Metaphysics is reshaped by Avicenna in the light of four main sources. First and foremost among them are Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, the work of Aristotle’s logic deputed to establish the features that a discipline must possess in order to be a science. The link between the Ilahiyyat and the Posterior Analytics is attested by the many quotations of the Burhan in the Ilahiyyat, especially in the Prolegomena ... . The second source is book Gamma of the Metaphysics, where Aristotle himself tentatively applies to metaphysics the epistemology of the Posterior Analytics, even though the program of “scientification” of metaphysics hinted at in Gamma is not realized in the rest of the work ... . In the historical route leading from Aristotle to Avicenna a significant role is played by Alexander of Aphrodisias, who picks up Aristotle’s unaccomplished plan of a “scientific” metaphysics and—with express and constant reference to the Posterior Analytics and special regard to book Gamma—substantiates it in his commentary on the Metaphysics. Al-Farabi, finally, resumes in the Arab world the tradition of the Greek commentators on the Metaphysics (Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius and Ammonius/Asclepius), and outlines a scientific configuration of metaphysics which Avicenna will receive and, with significant modifications and refinements, apply in the Ilahiyyat. [s. 109-110]
Bertolacciho studii jsem zatím jen prolistoval, důkladnost zpracování je vskutku podivuhodná. Závěrečnou pasáž je proto třeba vzít vážně (vlastní zvýraznění):
In sum: In the history of the transmission, interpretation and elaboration of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Avicenna deserves a place of eminence: he has been the first to fully clarify the epistemological status of the discipline expounded in this work (its “form”), and, at the same time, to remould the doctrine of this writing (its “content”) according to the established scientific profile. In both respects, he provides a prime example of “Peripatetic” interpretation of the Metaphysics, i.e. an interpretation of this work that takes into account, together with the original text, also the other writings of the Aristotelian corpus, the subsequent Aristotelian tradition (both Greek and Arabic), cognate types of metaphysical speculation (the Neoplatonic pseudo-Aristotelian works on metaphysics) and the cultural tendencies of his own environment (Islamic theology). Seen from all these perspectives, Avicenna’s Ilahiyyat represents an unparalleled peak in the history of the reception of the Metaphysics. If, in the Arab world, al-Farabi is rightly called the “second Teacher”, i.e. the second Aristotle, Avicenna deserves, perhaps, the appellative of “second Andronicus”: on account of his profound reworking of the epistemology and of the doctrine of the Metaphysics—as this book has tried to document—it is not far-fetched to compare the Ilahiyyat with Andronicus of Rhodes’ editorial work, and to regard this Avicennian writing as a sort of second “edition” of the Metaphysics, or second “beginning” of the Western metaphysical speculation.
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- BERTOLACCI, Amos. The reception of Aristotle’s Metaphysics in Avicenna’s Kitab al-S’ifa: a milestone of Western metaphysical thought. Leiden: Brill, 2005 ISBN-13: 978-90-04-14899-4
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