Al-Farabi (d. 950 CE)
Dr. Herbert A. Davidson writes:
“The universe envisioned by al-Farabi is fashioned of Aristotelian bricks and of mortar borrowed from Neoplatonic philosophy. Aristotle, who of course had no notion of centripetal or centrifugal force, had pictured a universe in which the heavenly bodies are continually borne around a stationary earth by rotating spheres. And he had concluded that the unceasing movements of the celestial spheres must depend on an inexhaustible source of power, and hence upon an incorporeal mover, that in fact each distinct circular movement distinguishable or inferable in the heavens must be due to a distinct sphere with its own incorporeal mover.
As al-Farabi and Avicenna were to understand Aristotle, each celestial sphere also has a rational soul, and the continual motion proper to each sphere is an expression of the desire that the sphere’s soul has to emulate the perfection of the incorporeal mover. The incorporeal mover was thus deemed the mover of the sphere in the sense that it maintains the sphere in motion as an object of desire. Since the movements of all the heavenly bodies indicated a total of fifty-five primary and subordinate spheres, Aristotle wrote that the total number of incorporeal movers is ‘in all probability also fifty-five.’
The version of the scheme presupposed by al-Farabi gave its attention to the primary celestial spheres and ignored the subordinate spheres — in late Greek and medieval astronomy, although not yet in Aristotle, these were epicyclical or eccentric spheres — that had to be posited in order to explain the full complexity of celestial motion. Al-Farabi assumed nine primary spheres and nine incorporeal movers, or intelligences, as they are called in the Middle Ages, which govern them. A slightly different reduction is known from Alexander.
The nine main spheres are: an outer, diurnal sphere, which rotates around the earth once every twenty-four hours and imparts its daily motion to the spheres nested inside it — an inversion of what modern astronomy sees as the rotation of the earth on its axis; the sphere of the fixed stars, which is carried around the earth once every twenty-four hours by the diurnal sphere and in addition performs its own infinitesimal rotation, a rotation giving rise to the phenomenon that astronomers call the precession of the equinoxes; and the seven spheres carrying the five planets known at the time as well as the sun and the moon. Each of the seven inner spheres participates in the daily motion imparted by the diurnal sphere and in addition performs a rotation peculiar to itself, thereby giving rise to the apparent periodic movements of the sun, moon, and planets around the earth.
Within the translunar region, Aristotle recognized no causal relationship in what we may call the vertical plane; he did not recognize a causality that runs down through the series of incorporeal movers. And in the horizontal plane, that is, from each intelligence to the corresponding sphere, he recognized causality only in respect to motion, not in respect to existence.
As the Aristotelian scheme of the universe reappears in al-Farabi, the causal connections not acknowledged by Aristotle are added through a succession of Neoplatonic emanations. An incorporeal First Cause, the deity, stands at the head of the universe and above the movers of the spheres. From the First Cause, a first incorporeal intelligence emanates eternally. The first intelligence has two thoughts, a thought of the First Cause and a thought of its own essence. By virtue of the former thought, the existence of a second intelligence proceeds necessarily, and by virtue of the latter, the existence of the first sphere proceeds necessarily. The second intelligence similarly has a thought of the First Cause of the universe and of its own essence. It thereby eternally brings forth the existence of the third intelligence and of the second sphere, and the process continues down to the ninth intelligence, from which emanates the ninth sphere, the sphere of the moon.
The Neoplatonic inspiration goes beyond causality through emanation. Plotinus’ single, grand emanation scheme of (a) the One, (b) Intellect (nous), (c) Soul, (d) material universe is replicated on a smaller scale at every stage of the process. For (a) the deity, called by al-Farabi ‘the First’, eternally emanates (b1) the first intelligence (aql = nous) and the latter in turn eternally emanates (c1) what al-Farabi calls both the ‘soul’, and the ‘intellect’, of the first sphere, and also (d1) the body of the first sphere. The first intelligence initiates a similar subseries by eternally emanating (b2) the second intelligence, which emanates (c2) the soul and (d2) the body of the second sphere. And so forth.
(Footnote: Avicenna will distinguish three separate aspects in the thought of each intelligence, in order to explain the intelligence’s emanation of three things—the soul and body of the corresponding sphere and the next intelligence in the series. Al-Farabi does not yet have that point.)” [1]
Avicenna (d. 1037 CE)
Dr. Herbert A. Davidson writes:
“Like al-Farabi, Avicenna envisions a translunar region comprising nine primary spheres: an outermost, diurnal sphere, the sphere of the fixed stars, and the seven spheres that contain the planets, the sun, and the moon.
(Footnote: Avicenna recognizes secondary spheres and does not reject out of hand the possibility that each secondary sphere has its own intelligence. On such a hypothesis, ‘the first teacher’s [Aristotle’s] position’ that there are ‘approximately fifty’ intelligences may be correct. But, Avicenna adds, the active intellect will in any event be ‘the last’ in the series.)
Each sphere is again accompanied by an incorporeal intelligence, which is its mover, and Avicenna again knits intelligences and spheres together through a series of emanations. He, however, offers his version of the emanation scheme as an explicit solution to a philosophic problem, and his version includes a nuance not found in al-Farabi. The philosophic problem is encapsulated in the terse formula that ‘from the one, insofar as it is one, only one can come into existence .’ «لایوجد عن الواحد الاّ واحد»
(Footnote: The problem of explaining how a plural universe can derive from a wholly unitary first cause was posed by Plotinus and reappears in one of the Arabic paraphrases of Plotinus. But I have not been able to find the formula that “from one only one proceeds” before Avicenna. See Plotinus, Enneads 5.1.6, 5.2.1, 5.3.15.)
In Avicenna, the scheme of successive emanations is expressly designed to explain how, given that principle, a plural universe can derive from the wholly unitary First Cause: Plurality enters because the incorporeal beings subsequent to the First Cause have plural thoughts.
Avicenna still locates the ultimate, First Cause of the universe beyond the intelligences that move the celestial spheres. And the First Cause, through its eternal thought of itself, still eternally and continually emanates the first intelligence, which is the mover of the outermost sphere. Al-Farabi had differentiated between two aspects in the thought of each incorporeal intelligence, and each intelligence, in his scheme, eternally emanates the next intelligence in the series by virtue of one of the two aspects, while by virtue of the other it emanates a celestial sphere.
(Footnote: Al-Farabi does write that the soul of each of the spheres has three objects of thought: itself, the incorporeal intelligence that is its cause, and the First Cause.)
Avicenna brings to bear a proposition from his metaphysics to the effect that the incorporeal intelligences are possibly existent by reason of themselves, necessarily existent by reason of their cause.
The distinction allows him to differentiate between three, and not just two, aspects in the thought of each intelligence; and the addition of the third aspect enables him to account for the presence of both a soul and a body in the celestial sphere emanated by the intelligence.
The first intelligence, in Avicenna’s scheme, has the First Cause as the object of its thought, and a second intelligence thereby ‘necessarily proceeds from it.’ It has itself, insofar as it is a being existing necessarily by reason of the First Cause, as a second object of thought, and it thereby emanates the soul of the outermost sphere. And it has itself insofar as it is possibly existent by reason of itself as a third object of thought, and it thereby emanates the body of the outermost sphere. Or, in a more careful formulation, it has a thought of itself which includes both its being necessarily existent by reason of the First Cause and its being possibly existent by reason of itself, and it thereby emanates the outermost sphere, which is composed of both a soul and a body.
The second intelligence similarly has as objects of its thought: the First Cause, itself as a being necessarily existent by reason of its cause, and itself as a possible being. Through those three thoughts, or aspects of its thought, it emanates the third intelligence, the body of the second sphere, which is the sphere of the fixed stars, and the soul of the second sphere. And so on.
(Footnote: The Isharat distinguishes two aspects in the thought of the intelligence, its thought of the First Cause and its thought of itself, and then adds that the second thought is divided in two. Ghazali distinguishes only two aspects in each intelligence.)
The final link in the chain of incorporeal intelligences is the ‘active intellect governing our souls’, that is to say, the active intellect implied in Aristotle’s De anima.
Avicenna feels called on to explain why the process stops at the active intellect and does ‘not continue . . . ad infinitum.’ He writes: While it is true that the ‘necessary proceeding . . . of a multiplicity [of beings] from an [incorporeal] intelligence’ implies a multiplicity of aspects in the emanating intelligence, the proposition is ‘not convertible’ and not all intelligences containing the same kind of aspects will bring forth the same kind of effects.
What an intelligence emanates depends on its nature and power. As intelligences succeed one another, their power diminishes, and because the active intellect stands low in the hierarchy its power is no longer sufficient to emanate eternal beings like those emanated by the intelligences above it.
Avicenna nevertheless ascribes to the active intellect a set of functions that lend his scheme a symmetry missing in al-Farabi. While the active intellect cannot fully imitate the intelligences above it and eternally emanate the body of a celestial sphere, the soul of a celestial sphere, and an additional incorporeal intelligence, it does emanate lesser analogues.
The active intellect is (1) the emanating cause of the matter of the sublunar world, (2) the emanating cause of natural forms appearing in matter, including the souls of plants, animals, and man, and (3) the cause of the actualization of the human intellect. Even these lesser analogues are not the work of the active intellect alone, for in each instance an auxiliary factor participates.” [2]
Mulla Sadra (d. 1641 CE)
While in Europe, Copernicus (d. 1543 CE) had revolutionized astronomy by proposing a heliocentric model a century before Mulla Sadra, he had no knowledge of this development and he still believed in a stationary earth model, and associated rational minds with planets, which are nothing but rocks and gases as proven by his contemporary Galileo Galilei (d. 1642 CE). Mulla Sadra had no idea about gravity or its relation to spacetime either. He says:
«أن محرك السماء لا يجوز أن يكون عقلا محضا لا تقبل التغير كما لا يجوز أن يكون طبعا محضا لأن الثابت على حالة واحدة لا يصدر منه إلا ثابت على حالة واحدة فيجوز مثلا أن يكون سكون الأرض مثلا عن علة ثابتة لأنه دائمة على حالة واحدة.» [3]
Translation: “The mover of the heavens cannot be a pure intellect that does not accept change, just as it cannot be purely material, because something that is constant in one state only emanates something that is constant in its state. For example, it is possible that Earth is stationary because of a static cause, because it always remains still, in one state.”
Ironically, Mulla Sadra is very rude and arrogant towards the theologians of his time who disagreed with him on the question of bodily resurrection. He ridicules them ad hominem for not knowing enough physics and mathematics. He says:
«و هم بالحقيقة أهل البدع و الضلال. و قدوة الجهلة و الأرذال شرهم كلهم على أهل الدين و الورع و ضرهم على العلماء. و أشدهم عداوة للذين آمنوا من الحكماء و الربانيين هذه الطائفة المجادلة المخاصمة. الذين يخوضون في المعقولات و هم لا يعرفون المحسوسات و يتعاطون البراهين و القياسات و هم لا يحسنون الرياضيات و يتكلمون في الإلهيات و هم يجهلون الطبيعيات.» [4]
Translation: “Indeed, these people are heretics and perversive, the leaders of the ignorant and the vile. All their wickedness is reserved only for the people of religion and piety and their hostility is directed at the scholars only, and their fiercest enmity is against the believers among the sages and the divine saints.
This polemicist and the litigant group delve into the intelligible while they do not know the nature of physical things. They want to practise reasoning and inference even though they haven’t learned mathematics yet. They like to discuss theology while they are ignorant of physics.”
See also: Mulla Sadra’s philosophy is a dead horse
References:
1. Herbert A. Davidson, “Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes on Intellect”, pp. 44 — 46, Oxford University Press, 1992.
2. Herbert A. Davidson, “Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes on Intellect”, pp. 74 — 76, Oxford University Press, 1992.
3. Mulla Sadra, “al mabda wal-ma’ad”, p. 278, ed. Sayyed Jalal-ed-Din Ashtiani, third edition, 2001.
4. Mulla Sadra, “al-hikma al-muta’aliya fil-asfar al-‘aqliyya al-arba’a”, vol. 1, page 363, dar ihya’ al-turath al-’arabi, Beirut, 1981.
See also: The seduction of philosophers and mystics – Grand Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi Golpayegani
