On the arabic translations of Aristotle's metaphysics

Arabic Sciences and Philosophy

Volumn 15, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 241-275

  Bertolacci, Amos ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 60950335150     PISSN: 09574239     EISSN: 14740524     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0957423905000196     Document Type: Review

References (60)

1. Valuable comprehensive surveys have been later provided by F. E. Peters, Aristoteles Arabus. The Oriental Translations and Commentaries on the Aristotelian Corpus (Leiden, 1968), pp. 49-52 (reviewed by H. Daiber, in Gnomon, 42 [1970]: 538-47)
2. Genequand, Ibn Rushd's Metaphysics. A Translation with Introduction of Ibn Rushd's Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics, Book Lam (Leiden, 1984), pp. 5-11 ("The Metaphysics in Arabic: Translation and Commentaries")
3. C. D'Ancona Costa, La casa della sapienza. La trasmissione della metafisica greca e la formazione della filosofia araba (Milano, 1996), pp. 57-65
4. ead., "Le traduzioni di opere greche e la formazione del corpus filosofico arabo", in C. D'Ancona Costa (ed.), Storia della Filosofia nell'Islam Medievale (Torino, 2004), vol. I, pp. 180-258
5. See P. Thillet, "Remarques et notes critiques sur les traductions arabes du livre Lambda de la Métaphysique d'Aristote", in Association Guillaume Budé. Congrès de Lyon, 18-23 Sept. 1958. Actes du Congrès (Paris, 1960), pp. 114-25
6. R. Walzer, "On the Arabic versions of Books A, α and Λ of Aristotle's Metaphysics", in id., Greek into Arabic: Essays on Islamic Philosophy (Oxford, 1962), pp. 114-28
7. R. Walzer, "New light on the Arabic translations of Aristotle", Oriens, 6 (1953),p. 92, in id., Greek into Arabic: Essays on Islamic Philosophy, p. 61
8. A. Badawi, La transmission de la philosophie grecque au monde arabe (Paris, 1968), pp. 82-3
9. A. Neuwirth, 'Abd al-Lat{dot below}īf al-Baġdādī's Bearbeitung von Buch Lambda der aristotelischen Metaphysik (Wiesbaden, 1976), pp. 166-77
10. ead., "Neue Materialien zur arabischen Tradition der beiden ersten Metaphysik-Bücher", Welt des Islam, 18 (1977-78): 84-100
11. A. Bertolacci, "Metafisica A, 5, 986 a 22-26 nell'Ilā hiyyāt del Kitāb al-Šfā di Ibn Sīnā", Documenti e Studi sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale, 10 (1999): 205-31
12. P. Thillet, "Remarques sur le livre Lambda de la 'Métaphysique'", Recherches de théologie et philosophie médiévales, 70 (2003): 361-400
13. Geoffroy, "Remarques sur la traduction Ust{dot below}āt{line below} du livre Lambda de la Métaphysique, chapitre 6", Recherches de théologie et philosophie médiévales, 70 (2003): 417-36
14. R. Wisnovsky, Avicenna's Metaphysics in Context (Ithaca [New York], 2003), pp. 99-112 ("Greek into Arabic: The Greco-Arabic Translations and the Early Arabic Philosophers"), pp. 269-75 ("Appendix I: Tables of Greco-Arabic Translation")
15. Bauloye, "La traduction arabe de la Métaphysique et l'établissement du texte grec", in A. Motte and J. Denooz (eds.), Aristotelica Secunda. Mélanges offerts à Christian Rutten (Liège, 1996), pp. 281-9, underscores the importance of the earliest Arabic translation of the Metaphysics (by Ust{dot below}āt{line below}) for choosing among the variants of the Greek manuscripts (the examples that Bauloye provides are limited to books B and Z). Ust{dot below}āt{line below}'s translation has been studied by G. Endress in the context of the translations from Greek accomplished by the group of scholars to which he belonged ("The circle of al-Kindī. Early Arabic translations from the Greek and the rise of Islamic philosophy", in G. Endress and R. Kruk [eds.], The Ancient Tradition in Christian and Islamic Hellenism [Leiden, 1997], pp. 43-76)
16. vol. III (Supplement), cur. W. Fischer (1992), pp. 3-152
17. Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture. The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early 'Abbāsid Society (2nd-4th / 8th-10th centuries) (London and New York, 1998)
18. 2, vol. X, fasc. 167-168, pp. 225b-231a
19. See also L. E. Goodman, "The translation of Greek materials into Arabic", in M. J. L. Young et al. (eds.), Religion, Learning and Science in the 'Abbasid Period (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 477-97
20. See Endress "The circle of al-Kindī", pp. 52-3
21. See G. Endress, The Works of Yah{dot below}yā ibn 'Adī. An Analytical Inventory (Wiesbaden, 1977), pp. 27-8
22. See below, n. 55
23. See the survey by Martini, "La tradizione araba", pp. 80-97
24. "The Arabic version", pp. 181-3
25. On the translations of the Metaphysics used by Avicenna in the Ilāhiyyāt, see A. Bertolacci, The Reception of Aristotle's Metaphysics in Avicenna's Kitāb al-Šifā': Textual and Doctrinal Analysis, Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale University, May 2005, Chapter 8
26. Text in Bouyges, Notice, pp. lvi (= Annotation 2); cp. p. cxviii
27. Bouyges, Notice, pp. cxxii, lvi; Endress, "Die wissenschaftliche Literatur", in Grundriss der Arabischen Philologie, vol. II, p. 443, n. 103
28. J. L. Kraemer, Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam, 2nd ed. (Leiden, 1992), pp. 132-4
29. Gutas, Greek Thought, p. 151, n. 1
30. Tafsīr, vol. I, p. 50, 5-6
31. Tafsīr, vol. I, p. 50, 1 (bottom of page)
32. Tafsīr, vol. I, p. 3, 1 (bottom of page), p. 49, 1, n. 1 (bottom of page)
33. also in Maqālāt Yah{dot below}yā Ibn 'Adī al-falsafiyya, ed. S. H{caron below}ulayfāt (Amman, 1988), pp. 220-62, and Arist{dot below}āt{dot below}ālīs-i h{dot below}akīm, Nah{caron below}ustīn maqāla-i Mā ba'd al-t{dot below}abī'a mawsūm bi-maqālat al-Alif al-s{dot below}uġrā tarǧama-i Ish{dot below}āq ibn H{dot below}unayn bā Yah{dot below}yā b. 'Adī wa Tafsīr-i Ibn-i Rušd, bā tas{dot below}h{dot below}īh{dot below} wa muqaddima wa tarǧama-i fārsī bi-qalam-i Muh{dot below}ammad-i Miškāt (Tehran, 1346 H.). Cp. J. Kraemer, Philosophy in the Renaissance of Islam. Abū Sulaymān al-Sijistānī and his Circle (Leiden 1986), p. 210 and n. 169
34. Martini, "Un commento ad Alpha Elatton 'sicut litterae sonant' nella Baġdād del X secolo", Medioevo, 28 (2003): 69-96
35. ead., "Yah{dot below}yā Ibn 'Adī, Commentary on the Metaphysics (Book α): method and style of composition", in A. Hasnawi (ed.), Sciences et philosophie arabes: méthodes, problèmes, cas (Carthage, forthcoming). Martini ("La tradizione araba", pp. 98-9 and n. 64; "Un commento ad Alpha Elatton", p. 71, n. 9) shows that Ish{dot below}āq's translation of α is preserved more fully in Yah{dot below}yā's commentary than in Averroes' Tafsīr. She also points out ("Un commento ad Alpha Elatton", p. 91) that Yah{dot below}yā had at his disposal Arabic translation(s) of α other than Ish{dot below}āq's (see also ed. Badaw̄, p. 202, 9-11; ed. H{caron below}ulayfāt, p. 262, 7-9)
36. See D. Gutas, "Notes and texts from Cairo manuscripts, II: Texts from Avicenna's library in a copy by 'Abd-ar-Razzāq as{dot below}-S{dot below}iġnāh{caron below}ī", Manuscripts of the Middle East, 2 (1987): 8-17, p. 13b-14a, #11. Gutas maintains that this abridgement "contains a number of readings better than those in the Leiden Averroes manuscript used by Bouyges, and it should be consulted in a future edition"
37. This is Bouyges' view (Notice, p. cxxix)
38. (repr. in The Collected Works of Shlomo Pines, vol. III: Studies in the History of Arabic Philosophy [Jerusalem, 1996], pp. 267-94), p. 191
39. e s.: la Majmû'a Hüseyin Çelebi 1194 de Brousse", Bulletin de philosophie médiévale, 33 (1991): 121-9. The critical edition and French translation of Avicenna's commentary is being prepared by M. Geoffroy, J. Janssens and M. Sebti
40. See J. Janssens, Avicenne et sa 'paraphrase-commentaire' du livre Lambda ('Kitāb al-Ins{dot below}āf')", Recherches de théologie et philosophie médiévales, 70 (2003): 401-16
41. Geoffroy, "Remarques"
42. The complete list is provided by Bouyges in Tafsīr, vol. III, pp. [70]-[77]
43. Tafsīr, vol. III, p. 1463, 3-8
44. (see Bouyges, Notice, p. cxxxi)
45. Tafsīr, vol. III, p. 1456, 5-7 (bottom of page)
46. See Endress, The Works of Yah{dot below}yā ibn 'Adī, p. 28
47. See Gutas, "Notes and texts", p. 13b, #8. The editions are: Abū al-'Alā 'Afīfī, "Tarǧama 'arabiyya qadīma li-maqālat al-Lām min Kitāb Mā ba'da l-t{dot below}abī'a li-Arist{dot below}ū", Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Egypt, 5 (1937): 89-138
48. Badawī, Arist{dot below}ū, pp. 1-11
49. See below, n. 76
50. A list of the most significant omissions is provided by P. Thillet, "Remarques et notes critiques", p. 120, n. 2
51. The example provided by S. Pines ("Un texte inconnu d'Aristote en version arabe", Archives d'histoire doctrinale et litteraire du Moyen Âge, 23 [1956]: 5-43
52. Œuvres philosophiques et scientifiques d'al-Kindī. Volume II: Métaphysique et cosmologie, par R. Rashed et J. Jolivet (Leiden-Boston-Koln 1998), pp. 1-117
53. Ivry, Al-Kindī's Metaphysics, pp. 121-2, 122-3; at p. 134, Ivry states: "It is likely that he [i.e. al-Kindī] was helped to this eclectic approach by some commentary to one or more of these books [i.e. Posterior Analytics, Physics, De Anima and Metaphysics A], rather than by direct familiarity with them all"
54. integral French translation in Th.-A. Druart, "Le traité d'al-Fārābī sur les buts de la Métaphysique d'Aristote", Bulletin de philosophie médiévale, 24 (1982): 38-43 (Druart takes into account Dieterici, Hyderabad and two other MSS)
55. integral Spanish translation in R. Ramón Guerrero, "Al-Fārābī y la 'Metafisica' de Aristóteles", La Ciudad de Dios, 196 (1983): 211-40
56. Ed. Badawī, p. 202, 11-12; ed. H{caron below}ulayfāt, p. 262, 9-10
57. Ilāhiyyāt III, 6, p. 128, 12-16
58. See Bertolacci, "Metafisica A, 5, 986 a 22-26"
59. See Šahrastānī, Livre des religions et des sectes, pp. 229-30, n. 34
60. Al-Šahrastānī, Kitāb al-Milal, p. 79, 5-12