Arabic philosophy

petty kingdoms, as described by Ibn S.

¯a‘id, lasted during that of the

Almoravids in spite of the opposition of the preeminent scholars of

religious law (fiqh).

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Philosophy in Andalusia 157

Information about Ibn B¯ajja’s philosophical background is found

in an elaborate study of Ibn B¯ajja’s writings by the late Jam¯ al ad-

D¯ın al-‘Alaw¯ı,5 who tries to establish their chronology and, on this

basis, a developmental account of his thought. Al-‘Alaw¯ı takes into

consideration a letter Ibn Ba¯ jja sent to his friend Abu¯ Ja‘far Yu¯ suf ibn

H.

asday inwhich he explained that he first learned the mathematical

sciences, music, and astronomy. He went on to the study of logic

using the books of al-F ¯ar¯ab¯ı and finally devoted himself to physics,

the philosophy of nature. On the basis of his order of learning, al-

‘Alaw¯ı divides Ibn B¯ajja’s writings into three stages. His writings

on music, astronomy, and logic belong to the first stage; those on

natural philosophy to the second; and those most representative of

his thinking – the Rule of the Solitary,6 the Epistle of Conjunction,7

and the Farewell Message8 – to the third and last stage.

Philosophy and the classification of sciences

We may accept al-‘Alaw¯ı’s thesis for the purpose of analyzing Ibn

B¯ajja’s thought. Ibn B¯ajja followed other Andalusians in turning to

al-F ¯ar¯ab¯ı for logic, writing commentaries on his works without pretending

to be an independent logician. There are extant annotations

on the Categories, De Interpretatione, and both Analytics, and also

on the Introduction (a summary of Porphyry’s Isagoge) and the Five

Sections, two short texts of al-F ¯ar¯ab¯ı.9

Porphyry’s Isagoge was translated into Arabic by Abu¯ ‘Uthma¯n

Ya‘qu¯ b al-Dimashqı¯ and his translation was used by al-Fa¯ ra¯bı¯

in his Kit ¯ ab ¯Isa¯ ghu¯ jı¯, which he also calls Kita¯b al-madkhal

(Introduction).10 Ibn B¯ajja links the book to another by al-F ¯ar¯ab¯ı,

his Classification of the Sciences.11 In his Isagoge, Porphyry had

established five universal “meanings” or “sounds” – genus, species,

differentia, property, and accident – as the foundations of logic, the

highest development of which is the syllogism. Ibn B¯ajja goes in

another direction. He is more concerned with the arts that employ

syllogisms, and places his own classification of the sciences before

the exposition of the five universals: “it is in the nature of the syllogistic

arts to employ the syllogism once they are assembled and

completed, and not to have an action as their end.”12 The syllogistic

sciences are five, the first and most important ofwhich is philosophy,

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158 josef puig montada

since it embraces all beings “insofar as it knows them with certain

science.” Thus two requirements are to be followed: certainty of

knowledge and universality of scope, and these requirements hold

for the five divisions of philosophy: metaphysics, physics, practical

philosophy, mathematics, and logic.

Metaphysics aims at those beings that are the ultimate causes;

they are neither a body nor in a body. Physics or natural science

aims at the natural bodies, the existence of which does not depend

on human will at all. Practical philosophy – which Ibn B¯ajja calls

“voluntary science” – aims at beings produced by the humanwill and

choice. Mathematics deals with beings abstract from their matters

and is divided into arithmetic, geometry, optics, astronomy, music,

the science of weights, and engineering, the “science of devices,”

which studies:

how to bring into existence many of the things proved theoretically in

mathematics, where the worth of the device consists in removing the hindrances

that perhaps hindered their existence. There are numerical devices

(like algebra), geometrical ones (like those for measuring the surface of bodies

impossible to access), astronomical devices, optical devices (like the art

of mirrors), musical and mechanical devices.13

Logic is the fifth and last division of philosophy and focuses on the

properties that beings acquire in the human mind; “because of such

properties and their knowledge [logic] becomes an instrument for

apprehending the right and the truth in beings.”14 Ibn B¯ajja remarks

that for this reason some people consider logic to be only an instrument

and not a part of philosophy, but insofar as these properties

have real existence, logic can be integrated into philosophy. He concludes

that logic is both part and instrument of philosophy.

Since a distinguishing feature of philosophy is the use of the apodictic

syllogism (burha¯n), the only one that yields certain knowledge,

not all syllogistic sciences can be considered parts of philosophy. Ibn

B¯ajja enumerates four such non-philosophical arts. Dialectic relies

only on opinion, and negates or asserts something through methods

of general acceptance. Sophistry aims at beings insofar as itmisrepresents

them and deceives us: itmakes the false look true, and the true,

false. And following the tradition initiated by the Greek commentators

on Aristotle, Ibn B¯ajja includes the Rhetoric and the Poetics in

the logic.15

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Philosophy in Andalusia 159

Nevertheless the classification of the sciences is not complete

because the aforementioned arts are all theoretical and arts like

medicine or agriculture were not considered. Ibn B¯ajja does not

admit these practical arts as syllogistic sciences: although they

make use of syllogisms, they employ them only “for the purpose

of certain activities [or tasks]” and neither medicine nor agriculture,

in their final shape, can be built on syllogisms. By contrast,

Ibn B¯ajja insists, the rules of optics or mechanics can be organized

by means of syllogisms. To sum up, according to Ibn B¯ajja, sciences

are first divided into those built on syllogisms and those

organized without syllogisms. Syllogistic sciences divide into philosophy,

dialectic, sophistic, rhetoric, and poetics. Philosophy subdivides

into demonstrative logic (the Prior and Posterior Analytics),

mathematics, natural philosophy, metaphysics, and practical

philosophy.

For Ibn B¯ajja the main purpose of the Isagoge is to explain the

concepts that underlie the ten Aristotelian categories, so that the

essence of the Kita¯b al-madkhal must be a theory of the individual

and the universal, which develops into an analysis of simple

and composite universal meanings, or intelligibles. Ibn B¯ajja shows

that the five predicables are not primitive concepts, but constitute

correlations between two universals falling within the rules of individuals

and classes. He says: “Genus, species, property, and accident

are correlates (ida¯ fa) which are inherent to the intelligibles regarding

the quantity of their subjects.”16 Genus, species, and property

are essences (ma¯hiyya¯ t) inhering in a shared subject; by contrast, the

accident is not an essence and exists outside the subject. The specific

difference is related only to the individual and may be grasped

without reference to the universal.

Ibn Ba¯ jja’s annotations to al-Fa¯ ra¯bı¯’s Kita¯b al-madkhal are more

innovative than they might seem at first. He is concerned to point

out that the Isagoge should not be limited to the exposition of the five

“sounds” – maybe six, if the individual is added17 – and that a science

is needed to lay the foundations for the Organon. He conceives this

science as a formal theory of individuals and classes, integrated into

the Porphyrian division and the principles of definition and description,

and thinks that this science should establish the ten categories.

Unfortunately he did not carry out his ideas and his words are only

a sketch of the theory.

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Philosophy of nature

Among Ibn B¯ajja’s contributions to the philosophy of nature, those

concerning movement are of great import; they are found mainly in

his Commentary on the Physics. Shlomo Pines introduced the term

“dynamics”18 to define his views, which no doubt were influenced

by the tradition linked to John Philoponus (d. ca. 566).19 Commenting

on Aristotle’s Physics, book VII, Ibn B¯ajja considers the claim that

everything is moved by something else, and says:

It is evident that the rest of the whole because of the rest of one of its parts,

takes place insofar as the movable is other than the mover, and when the

influence of the latter ends, it comes to rest. Its influence ends because the

mover ceases to act either on its own or because something else exerts resistance

on it. Whenever the mover ceases to act on its own, this happens due

either to its destruction, or to exhaustion (kala¯ l) of the power of the mover,

or because the cause disappears, or because the movement is complete, since

the movable has reached the end toward which it was moving.

The movements involved here are so-called “violent” movements,

as opposed to “natural” ones, discussed below. Ibn B¯ajja sketches a

theory of dynamics based on a notion of “power” different from the

Aristotelian notion of dunamis: they are mechanical forces which

can join another force or counteract it by offering resistance. There

is a minimum amount of moving power for each movable.20 For

instance, to move a boat a minimum of power is needed, otherwise

“one grain of sand could move the boat.” When two opposing

powers are equal, there is no movement, but when one power

“overcomes” the other, the body moves until it suffers “exhaustion”

(kala¯ l), because any bodymoved “violently” creates a contrary power

stronger than the one imposed by the mover, and also because the

imposed force becomes “exhausted.” The moving power is also subject

to time and distance factors and the mobile can offer almost no

resistance, so that absolute terms of proportionality do not apply.

Ibn B¯ajja analyzes “natural” movements too, such as a stone’s

falling through air and water. These movables need a moving power

capable not only of moving them but also of displacing the medium

they pass through. Dust particles stay suspended in the air because,

although they possess enough power to go down, the power is insufficient

to displace the air. Ibn B¯ajja differs here from Aristotle, who

thought the medium to be necessary for any natural movement, and

expresses the view that the medium is not a necessary condition,

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Philosophy in Andalusia 161

but only provides resistance. The different velocity with which the

stone passes through the air or the water is only caused by the different

density of the medium, it is not connatural to the medium. As a

proof that movement without any medium, namely, through a void,

is possible, Ibn B¯ajja adduces the movement of the spheres:

There [in the heavens] there are no elements of violent movement,

because nothing bends their movement, the place of the sphere remains the

same and no new place is taken by it. Therefore circular movement should

be instantaneous [if it were determined by the medium through which it

moved]. But we observe that some spheres move slowly – such as the sphere

of fixed stars – and others fast – the daily movement – and that there isneither

violence nor resistance among them. The cause for the different velocities

is the difference in nobility (sharf) between mover and movable.21

The role of the medium is not essential, but is only a kind of resistance,

and thus movement in the void is both theoretically possible

and confirmed by the observation of the spheres. Ibn B¯ajja contradicts

Aristotle and advances a doctrine that Galileo will prove to be

right.22 Once again he gives us only an outline, without undertaking

a deeper inquiry.

His theory of movement is the backbone of his philosophy of

nature, and has a further projection into metaphysics. In his epistle

On the Mobile,23 Ibn B¯ajja refers to his commentary on Aristotle’s

Physics where it has been proved that there is a First Mover causing

the eternal movement as well as numerous intermediate movers.

The souls of living beings count among those movers. But man’s soul

is characterized by the “deliberative movement” which is possible

because he is rational, and thus deliberates in order to achieve an

end. For the righteous soul this end is “absolute goodness” (al-khayr

‘al ¯ a al-it.

la¯q), andman is able to know the good abstract frommatter,

not only the good embedded in matter. While the soul is in a body,

the body is the instrument in which he moves toward this end, but

movement ceases once the soul has left the body and has become

identical with the pure forms: a process that we will examine in the

next section.

The metaphysics of forms

Ibn B¯ajja wrote several independent treatises on metaphysics, but

no commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics is extant, a fact already

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noted by his disciple ‘Al¯ı ibn al-Im¯am. Ibn B¯ajja’s treatise on the

Union of the Intellect withMan begins with an annotation on Metaphysics,

V.6, on the meaning of “one” or unity,24 but nothing else,

and we may raise the question why he did not write a full commentary

on the Metaphysics, given its importance. One reason could be

that the Aristotelian work does not fit well into the Neoplatonic

conception of philosophy, and of metaphysics as a means of ascent

to the highest principle and human happiness. Al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı had taught

that there is a descending procession from the One, and a corresponding

ascent available to the philosopher, while Avicenna linked

philosophy to the transcendent when he asserted that philosophy

has to achieve direct intellectual vision of the Necessary Being and

the forms that emanate from him.

Ibn B¯ajja takes up Aristotle’s theory of form but gives it a new

meaning, which is central to his system. Like his predecessors al-

F¯ar¯ab¯ı and Avicenna, he believes in an emanationist system inwhich

there is a First Being from whom the heavenly intelligences emanate

as far as the last one, the Active Intellect, which endows material

bodies with their forms. The most simple bodies are the four elements:

fire, air, water, and earth. Their forms are only pairs of the

opposite qualities hot–cold, moist–dry: for instance, water is cold

and moist. For Ibn B¯ajja these qualities are essentially powers, powers

that can cause motion.25 From these simple elements all natural

beings are generated and they receive more and more elaborate forms,

the most complex being souls. The simplest of souls is the nutritive

soul, the perfection of the body of a plant; it is followed by the sensitive

soul, belonging to animals, by the imaginative soul, which is

a perfection of men and animals that can make images out of earlier

sensations,26 and finally, by the rational soul. All are active forms,

i.e., powers and faculties, but only the rational soul goes beyond the

limits of the corporeal.

In his Treatise on the Spiritual Souls,27 which is the final section

of his book Rule of the Solitary, Ibn B¯ajja enumerates those forms

that are free of matter, in descending order:

The spiritual forms are of various kinds: the first kind are the forms of

the circular [i.e., heavenly] bodies, the second are the active intellect and

the acquired intellect, the third are the material intelligibles (ma‘qu¯ la¯ t), the

fourth are the intentions (ma‘a¯nı¯) existent in the faculties of the soul, i.e.,

existent in common sense, in the imaginative faculty, and in the memory.28

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“Spiritual” therefore applies broadly to every form that is not joined

to matter and is not separable from individual substance; the terminology

and doctrine echo those of Alexander of Aphrodisias. Spiritual

forms divide into universal and particular forms: particular forms

are found in the common sense, and are thus in a sense corporeal,

whereas universal forms are found only in the Active Intellect. Particular

spiritual forms may be true or false instantiations; they are

true only if their predicates exist in corporeal forms of individuals.

Forms thus have three degrees of existence: universal spiritual, particular

spiritual, and particular embodied forms.

Spiritual forms may produce a “state” (h.

a¯ l) in the soul, either a

state of perfection, as is produced by beauty, the fine arts, or noble

ascent, or of imperfection, produced by the opposite vices. Spiritual

forms, therefore, play a role in every aspect of human activity. Even

the inspiration received by the prophets belongs to the category of

particular spiritual forms, which do not pass through the common

sense, but are received directly from the Active Intellect. As for the

S.

u¯ fı¯s, their experiences belong to the level of the particular spiritual

forms, where common sense, imagination and memory are active.

But they mistake them for universal spiritual forms, and wrongly

believe that the coincidence of the three faculties is the source of

supreme happiness.29

Man has to organize his various faculties – from the rational down

to the nutritive – and there are categories of men according to the

prevalence of each of the three faculties. In some of them, corporeality

prevails, in a select few, spirituality does – Ibn B¯ajja counts

some ascetics and S.

u¯ fı¯s among the latter – but for most the situation

is mixed. Man is moved by spiritual forms that may be as basic

as clothing, housing, or food, but clothing, for instance, acts on two

levels, the protective and the ornamental. Virtues are attached to the

spiritual forms found in the imaginative faculty, because the purpose

of virtuous actions is generating positive feelings and admiration in

the souls of those who see them. The spirituality of most men is,

however, limited to particular forms, and only philosophers attain

the highest degree of spirituality, the immaterial and universal intelligibles

(akhlas. al-ru¯ h. a¯niyya¯ t). Although philosophers have to take

due care of the corporeal and particular spiritual forms, in order to

live, and live honorably, their main concern is the universal separated

forms:

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Spiritual acts render him more noble, and the intellectual acts render him

divine and virtuous. The man of wisdom is therefore necessarily a man who

is divine and virtuous. Of every kind of activity, he takes up the best only . . .

when he achieves the highest end – that is, when he apprehends the simple

substantial intelligences (‘uqu¯ l) that are mentioned in the Metaphysics, On

the Soul, and On Sense and the Sensible – he then becomes one of these

intelligences. It would be right to call him simply divine, and he will be

free from the mortal sensible qualities, as well from the [particular] spiritual

qualities.30

“Divine” here does not mean identicalwith God, but having Godlike

qualities, although his enemies could interpret such words as being

heretical. The philosopher has reached the highest point of human

wisdom, where it continues into the divine world.

Political philosophy

If we now contrast Ibn B¯ajjawith his master al-F ¯ar¯ab¯ı, we realize that

the philosopher has attained this degree of perfection while solitary,

without living in the virtuous city. At the beginning of The Rule of

the Solitary, Ibn B¯ajja explains the meaning of “rule” (tadb¯ır) as the

organization of actions toward an end; the proper “rule” is political,

an organization of the lives of the citizens in order to help them

to their perfection. Al-F¯ar¯ab¯ı, following Plato, had distinguished

four kinds of defective or sick cities or societies: the ignorant, the

wicked, the weakened, and the miscarried, as opposed to the perfect

city, whose success requires philosophers.31 Following him, Ibn B¯ajja

defines the virtuous city as one where its inhabitants do not need

physicians and judges: “love being the strongest bond between them,

there is no contention at all.”32 In the virtuous city all actions are

right: people avoid harmful foods and excessive drink, take physical

exercise, and always act honestly. The imperfect cities, however, do

need doctors, judges, and also “weeds” (nawa¯bit). “Weeds” are men

whose views are not the views of the majority; their idiosyncratic

opinions may be true or false, and those whose opinions are correct

are the cause for the coming-to-be of the perfect city in which there

is no disagreement. The solitary “weed” is the agent whose “rule” is

discussed by Ibn B¯ajja, who realized that the cities or societies of his

time belonged to the corrupted types and could not be rehabilitated.

He abandoned al-F ¯ar¯ab¯ı at this point and, as Steven Harvey puts it,