Scientific methodologies in medieval Islam

Journal of the History of Philosophy

Volumn 41, Issue 3, 2003, Pages 307-327

  Mcginnis, Jon ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI ST LOUIS   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 60949366705     PISSN: 00225053     EISSN: 15384586     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/hph.2003.0033     Document Type: Article

References (33)

1. Marie-Thérèse D'Alverny observes that only II.7 of al-Burhân was translated into Latin, perhaps by Dominique Gundisalvi (Avicenna Latinus: Codices [Louvain-la-Neuve: E. Peeters, 1994], 5).
2. Several articles, however, have touched on the subject matter of this treatise in varying degrees. Some of the more helpful include F. Jabre's two articles: "Le sense de l'abstraction chez Avicenne," Mélanges de l'Université St. Joseph de Beyrouth 50 (84): 281-310,
3. and "al-'aql al-fa"âl 'inda Ibn Sînâ," Millénaire d'Avicenne (Beirut: Naufal Group, 1981): 13-40.
4. "The Fortuna of the Posterior Analytics in the Arabic Middle Ages," in Knowledge and the Sciences in Medieval Philosophy, vol. 1, M. Asztalso, J. Murdoch, and J. Miiniluoto, eds. (Helsinki, 1990): 89-98, esp. sect. III;
5. and "Ghazâlî and Demonstrative Science," Journal of the History of Philosophy 3 (1965): 183-204.
6. For a summary of Stoic critiques of induction, see R. J. Hankinson, Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 234-6.
7. See J. R. Weinberg, Abstraction, Relation, and Induction: Three Essays in the History of Thought (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1965), 133-4;
8. and H. Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes on Intellect: Their Cosmologies, Theories of the Active Intellect and Theories of Human Intellect (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 88.
9. See H. Davidson, op. cit., 83-94 for the traditional interpretation of the relation between the active and human intellect and the acquisition of knowledge.
10. Also, see the section "l'Interprétation Avicennienne de l'acombining comma aboveφαίρεσι ς d'Aristote" in Jabre's article "Le Sens de l'Abstraction chez Avicenne," 297-304 for a discussion of the limited role sense perception of the particulars plays in Ibn Sînâ's noetics. Dag Hasse, on the other hand, has argued in a recent article ("Avicenna on Abstraction," in Aspects of Avicenna, R. Wisnovsky, ed. [Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2001], 39-72) that for Ibn Sînâ the human intellect plays a more active role in the acquisition of knowledge.
11. The technical term ma'ana, like its Greek equivalent logos, has a complex of meanings in Arabic philosophy and theology. Consequently, it is difficult to find one word that covers its varieties of and nuances in meaning. Ibn Sînâ seems to be using it here to indicate a defining element of a thing, such as "rational" and "animal" said of human. See R. Frank, "Al-Ma'ana: Some reflections on the Technical Meanings of the Term in the Kalâm and Its Use in the Physics of Mu'ammar," Journal of the American Oriental Society 87 (1967): 248-59;
12. also see D. Black, "Estimation (Wahm) in Avicenna: The Logical and Psychological Dimensions," Dialogue 32 (1993): 219-58 for a discussion of ma'ana as the proper object of the estimative faculty.
13. D. W. Hamlyn, "Aristotelian Epagoge," Phronesis 21 (1976): 167-84;
14. T. Engberg-Pedersen, "More on Aristotelian Epagoge," Phronesis 24 (1979): 301-19;
15. and to a lesser extent Richard McKirahan, Jr., "Aristotelian Epagoge in Prior Analytics 2.21 and Posterior Analytics 1.1," Journal of the History of Philosophy 21 (1983): 1-13 (esp. 11-2).
16. Thomas Upton, "A Note on Aristotelian Epagôgê," Phronesis 226 (1981): 172-6;
17. Jaakko Hintikka, "Aristotelian Induction," Revue Internationale de Philosophie 34 (1980): 422-39;
18. Simo Knuuttila, "Remarks on Induction in Aristotle's Dialectic and Rhetoric," Revue Internationale de Philosophie 47 (1993): 78-88.
19. Greg Bayer in his article "Coming to Know Principles in Posterior Analytics II 19," Apeiron 30 (1997): 109-42 provides an excellent interpretation of Aristotle's account of epagôgê, which does justice to both of the intuitions motivating these two camps' readings of Aristotle, while avoiding many of their pitfalls.
20. Cf. Aristotle, Physics II 5; Metaphysics E (VI) 2, 1026b27-1027a28.
21. Also compare Galen, Outline of Empiricism, II ("Subfiguratio empirics" in Die griechische Empirikerschule, K. Deichgräber, ed. [Berlin: Weidmann, 1930], 44-6;
22. an English translation is available in Galen: Three Treatises on the Nature of Science, M. Frede, ed., R. Walzer and M. Frede, trans. [Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1985]).
23. Concerning chance and necessity, see Aristotle's Posterior Analytics I 30 and Physics II 5, 196b10-3.
24. Sari Nuseibeh argues in his article, "al-'aql al-Qudsî: Avicenna's Subjective Theory of Knowledge," Studia Islamica 69 (1989): 39-54, that Ibn Sînâ conceives of knowledge as fundamentally "subjective and unverifiable" (39). Nuseibeh's argument is based upon a string of passages drawn from the metaphysical and psychological sections of the Shifâ'. Such a thesis, I believe, simply cannot stand up in view of our passage here. Moreover, Nuseibeh's position adopts the traditional conception of Ibn Sînâ's psychology as its starting point, a position which Dag Hasse (op. cit.) has successfully challenged.
25. For a discussion of the phrase in Aristotle, see M. Mignuccis, "'Ως εcombining comma aboveπὶ τὸ πολύ et nécessaire dans la conception aristotélicienne de la science," in Aristotle on Science: The Posterior Analytics, E. Berti, ed. (Padua: Editrice Antenore, 1981), 173-203.
26. 1-2 (1981): 9 -20; however, I am skeptical about Nuseibeh's further claim that Ibn Sînâ was a "rational skeptic."
27. Cf. Aristotle's Posterior Analytics II 1-2.
28. Galen relates in On Medical Experience, VI (in Galen on Medical Experience, R. Walzer, ed. [London: Oxford University Press, 1944], 9-11)
29. See M. Marmura's "The Metaphysics of Efficient Causality in Avicenna (Ibn Sînâ)" and "Ghazâlî and Demonstrative Science." Similarly, I have not mentioned al-Fârâbî, who was chronologically before Ibn Sînâ and who argued that the acquisition of first principles is due to an emanation from the Active Intellect. Consequently, the question of how one acquires the first principles of a science was for al-Fârâbî a metaphysical issue and not merely one of possessing a proper method of scientific discovery. Also, al-Fârâbî marks a difference in his Kitâb al-Burhân between induction and experimentation that is an inchoate version of Ibn Sînâ's distinction (al-Fârâbî, Kitâb al-Burhân, al-Mantcombining dot belowiq 'ind al-Fârâbî, M. Fakhry, ed. [Beirut: Dâr al-Mashriq, 1987], 24);
30. am grateful to Deborah Black and Thérèse-Anne Druart for pointing out to me the parallels between Ibn Sînâ and al-Fârâbî. For the metaphysical underpinnings of al-Fârâbî's thought see al-Fârâbî's Mabâdi' ârâ' ahl al-madîna al-fâdcombining dot belowila (Principles of the Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Virtuous City), R. Walzer, ed. and trans. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), ch. 13;
31. also see Thérèse-Anne Druart, "A- Fârâ bî, Ethics, and First Intelligibles," Documenti e Studi Sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale 8 (1997): 403-23. Ibn Sînâ would certainly agree that the acquisition of the first principles of a science does require an emanation from the Active Intellect or some sort of intuition (hcombining dot belowads). Still, since this metaphysical issue has been the topic of several studies, while the empirical and methodological element of Ibn Sînâ's theory has received far less attention, I have limited myself to these later components.
32. Cf. Robert Grosseteste, Commentarius in Posteriorum Analyticorum Libros (Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 1981), I 14, 251-91.
33. See A. C. Crombie, Robert Grosseteste and the Origins of Experimental Science, 1100-1700 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953), 79-81 for Ibn Sînâ's influence on Grosseteste. Aso, if I might hazard a guess, it is possible that some of the content of our text, even if not the text itself, was known to Grosseteste. Such a suggestion would explain certain structural similarities between the Burhân text and Grosseteste's commentary on the corresponding passages of the Posterior Analytics (ad I 18). Even if the content of our text was not available, many of the same points, especially concerning the rules for correct observation, would have been available in Latin via the Latin translation of Ibn Sînâ's Qânûn (see n. 32).