Annuario di storia della metafisica Annuaire d’histoire de la métaphysique Jahrbuch für die Geschichte der Metaphysik
© 2015, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium © 2015, Pagina soc. coop., Bari, Italy
Questo volume è stampato con contributi parziali del Consiglio di Amministrazione
dell’Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro e del Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici dell’Università del Salento.
La pubblicazione rientra nel progetto scientifico Universality and its Limits: Strategies of Inclusion and Exclusion in the History of Philosophy and Contemporary Philosophical Debates (PRIN 2012).
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher. ISBN 978-2-503-56596-5
edited by/a cura di
Pasquale Porro & Loris Sturlese
The Pleasure of Knowledge
Il piacere della conoscenza
Q
DirezioneCostantino Esposito (Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro)
Pasquale Porro (Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro / Université Paris-Sorbonne) Comitato Scientifico / Comité Scientifique /
Wissenschaftlicher Beirat / Advisory Board
Jean-Robert Armogathe (École Pratique des Hautes Études - Paris) • Werner Beierwaltes (München) • Giulia Belgioioso (Università del Salento - Lecce) • Enrico Berti (Padova) • Olivier Boulnois (École Pratique des Hautes Études - Paris) • Mario Caimi (Buenos Aires) • Vincent Carraud (Paris-Sorbonne) • Mário Santiago de Carvalho (Coimbra) • Jean-François Courtine (Paris-Sorbonne) • Alain de Libera (Collège de France, Paris) • Giulio d’Onofrio (Salerno) •
Kent Emery, Jr. (Notre Dame) • Jorge Gracia (State University of New York - Buffalo) • Miguel Angel Granada (Barcelona) • Dimitri Gutas (Yale) • Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg i.Br.) • Norbert Hinske (Trier) • Maarten J.F.M. Hoenen (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg i.Br. / Universität Basel) • Ruedi Imbach (Fribourg) • Alexei N. Krouglov (Russian State University for the Humanities - Moscow) • Jean-Luc Marion (Divinity School, University of Chicago) • Jean-Marc Narbonne (Laval) • Dominik Perler (Humboldt-Universität - Berlin / Princeton) • Gregorio Piaia (Padova) • Stefano Poggi (Firenze) • Paolo Ponzio (Bari Aldo Moro) • Riccardo Pozzo (CNR Roma) • Jacob Schmutz (Université Paris-Sorbonne) • William Shea (Padova) • Andreas Speer (Köln) • Carlos Steel (Leuven) • Giusi Strummiello (Bari Aldo Moro) • Loris Sturlese (Università del Salento - Lecce)
Redazione
Marienza Benedetto • Annalisa Cappiello • A. Federica D’Ercole • Marco Lamanna • Francesco Marrone • Evelina Miteva • Michele Trizio
Quaestio is a peer-reviewed journal, open to unsolicited contributions.
The articles sent to the Editors are normally assessed by a member of the Advisory Board and another specialist chosen by the Board, or by two external specialists. The Editors will maintain records of the reviewers, though their identity will not be made public.
Contributi e volumi per recensione vanno inviati alla Direzione di «Quaestio» / Please send contri-butions and review-copies to:
Costantino Esposito • Pasquale Porro Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici (DISUM) Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro
Palazzo Ateneo - Piazza Umberto I, I-70121 - Bari (Italia) e-mail: costantino.esposito@uniba.it • pasquale.porro@uniba.it Abbonamenti / Abonnements / Subscriptions
Brepols Publishers, Begijnhof 67 - B-2300 Turnhout (Belgium), tel. +32 14 44 80 20 - fax +32 14 42 89 19
Contents / Indice
Pasquale Porro / loris sturlese
Foreword / Premessa xi
Plenary sessions
thomas ricklin
« Filosofia non è altro che amistanza a sapienza » 3 nadja Germann
Logic as the Path to Happiness: Al-Fa-ra-bı- and the Divisions of the Sciences 15 david luscombe
Otto of Freising and Historical Knowledge 31
irene caiazzo
Nature et découverte de la nature au XIIe siècle : nouvelles perspectives 47
luisa valente
Happiness, Contemplative Life, and the tria genera hominum
in Twelfth-Century Philosophy: Peter Abelard and John of Salisbury 73 manuel lázaro Pulido
¡Sapere gaude! La fuente bonaventuriana de la literatura mística del saber 99 catherine köniG-PralonG
Omnes homines natura scire desiderant.
Anthropologie philosophique et distinction sociale 121 roberto hofmeister Pich
Infinite Creator 139
alessandra beccarisi
vi Contents / Indice
The Byzantine and Georgian World
serGei mariev
Theoretical eudaimonia in Michael of Ephesus 185
stamatios GeroGiorGakis
Taking Pleasure in Knowing according to the Greek Commentaries
of the Nicomachean Ethics after the 11th Century 193
tenGiz iremadze
Die erkennende Seele des Menschen und ihre Funktion
im Porklos-Kommentar von Joane Petrizi 201
GeorGe arabatzis
Daniel Furlanus on Michael of Ephesus
and the Pleasure of Biological Knowledge 211
The Arabic-Islamic World
mokdad arfa mensia
La connaissance vraie comme cause possible
de souffrance perpétuelle chez al-Fa-ra-bı- 223 miklós maróth
Delight of Knowledge in al-Ma-wardı-’s View 235
francisco o’reilly
La metafísica como perfección del deseo humano.
Comentario a Philosophia Prima (IX, 7) del Avicenna Latinus 245 yassine amari
Analysis of Pleasure in Ibn Sı-na- 255
olGa lizzini
Avicenna: the Pleasure of Knowledge and the Quietude of the Soul 265 terence j. kleven
Ibn Ba-gˇgˇa’s Commentaries on al-Fa-ra-bı-’s Letter and The Five Aphorisms 275 francesca forte
Averroes’s Aesthetics. The Pleasure of Philosophy and the Pleasure of Poetry 287
The Jewish World
edward c. halPer
Contents / Indice vii
yehuda halPer
Abraham Bibago on Intellectual Conjunction and Human Happiness.
Faith and Metaphysics according to a 15th Century Jewish Averroist 309
The Latin-Christian World from Boethius to the 12
thCentury
taki suto
From Analysis of Words to Metaphysical Appreciation of the World:
the Platonism of Boethius 321
renatode filiPPis
Die Freude (an) der Rhetorik in Anselm von Besates Rhetorimachia 333 thomas hanke
Lust an der rectitudo. Erkenntnis, praktische Vernunft
und Emotionen bei Anselm von Canterbury 343
chunG-mi hwanGbo
Zur Teilhabe der Empfindung der Seele an der Gotteserkenntnis
in Anselms Monologion und Proslogion 353 Guy hamelin
Volonté et habitus chez Pierre Abélard: un double héritage 363 Giacinta sPinosa
Plaisir de la connaissance comme émotion intellectuelle
chez Hugues de Saint-Victor 373
hideki nakamura
Spiritualium gaudiorum plenitudo
in der Erkenntnislehre Richards von St. Viktor 383
GeorGina rabassó
In caelesti gaudio. Hildegard of Bingen’s
Auditory Contemplation of the Universe 393
The Latin-Christian World in the 13
thCentury
briGitte saouma
L’ignorance des cathares d’après Izarn 405
aafke m.i. van oPPenraay
Michael Scot’s Translation of Aristotle’s Books on Animals
and the Pleasures of Knowledge 413
katrin fischer
viii Contents / Indice
isabelle moulin
Les deux sources du bonheur humain :
contemplation intellective et vision de Dieu. Avicenne, Albert le Grand 433 eileen c. sweeney
Roger Bacon and Albert the Great on Aristotle’s Notion of Science 447 henryk anzulewicz
Albertus Magnus über die felicitas contemplativa
als die Erfüllung eines natürlichen Strebens nach Wissen 457 maria burGer
Gotteserkenntnis im Aufstieg bei Albertus Magnus 467 Graziano Perillo
La contemplazione, principale caratteristica dell’Evangelista Giovanni
secondo Alberto Magno 477
andrea colli
From sapientia honorabilissima to nobilitas animae.
A Note on the Concept of “Nobility” in Ulrich of Strasbourg’s De summo bono 487 jörn müller
Memory as an Internal Sense: Avicenna and the Reception
of His Psychology by Thomas Aquinas 497
Gerald cresta
Bonaventure: Intellectual Contemplation, Sapiential Contemplation and beatitudo 507 tomásˇ machula
Per intellectum ad beatitudinem. Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure
on the Role of Prudence in Human Life 517
alessandro Ghisalberti
Il compimento della felicità in Tommaso d’Aquino 531 daniel de haan
Delectatio, gaudium, fruitio. Three Kinds of Pleasure
for Three Kinds of Knowledge in Thomas Aquinas 543
Pascale bermon
Plaisir et coordination sensorielle des animaux chez Aristote et Thomas d’Aquin 553 oleG e. dushin
Morality as Knowledge in Ethical Theory of Thomas Aquinas 563 carlos arthur ribeirodo nascimento
Renversant la hiérarchie 571
andrey ivanov
Contents / Indice ix
ercole erculei
The Soul’s Misery in the Fire according to Thomas Aquinas and Siger of Brabant 597 silvia neGri
Veritatem humiliter investigare. Sul ruolo dell’umiltà in Enrico di Gand 607 Giulia sossi
Il De laudibus divinae sapientiae di Egidio Romano
e la possibilità per l’uomo di conoscere Dio 619
delPhine carron-faivre
La République romaine comme modèle de la felicitas civilis
chez Ptolémée de Lucques (v. 1240-1327) 629
hans kraml
Cognitio substantiarum separatarum:
Genitivus subiectivus oder Genitivus obiectivus? 639
The Latin-Christian World in the 14
thCentury
Maria manuela brito-martins
La béatitude et le désir chez Duns Scot: beatitudo est frui summo bono 649 thomas marschler
Frui essentia non fruendo persona. Die Lehre des Johannes Duns Scotus
über die Trennbarkeit von Wesenheit und Personen in der Gottesschau
und ihre Kritik bei Wilhelm von Ockham 665
francesco fiorentino
The Desire for Knowledge in Early Scotist Debate:
William of Alnwick and John of Reading 675
john t. slotemaker
Walter Chatton and Adam Wodeham on Divine Simplicity
and Trinitarian Relations 689
vesa hirvonen
William Ockham on the Psychology of Christ 699
rodriGo Guerizoli
Pleasure and Knowledge in John Buridan’s Solution
to the Debate over the Extension of the Aristotelian Supreme Good 711 amos corbini
Fruitio et beatitudo entre volonté et intellect selon Pierre de Ceffons 721 cal ledsham
The Latin-Christian World from the 15
thCentury
to Early Modern Scholasticism
ueli zahnd
Utilitas als anti-spekulatives Motiv.
Zur Rezeption eines Gerson’schen Anliegens im ausgehenden Mittelalter 741 alessandra saccon
Die natürliche Gotteserkenntnis in den Schriften
der Kölner Albertisten des 15. Jahrhunderts 751
mario meliadò
De religiosa solitudine. Eimerico di Campo
e una controversia tardo-medievale sulla clausura 761 isabelle mandrella
Gaudium intellectuale: Die intellektuelle Freude bei Nicolaus Cusanus 773 ma socorro fernández-García
El deseo intelectual como constitutivo formal de la mente en Nicolás de Cusa 783 francesco marrone
Le désir de connaître et la démonstration de la primauté
de la philosophie première chez Dominique de Flandre 795 christian trottmann
Science, sagesse et jouissance, d’Augustin à Charles de Bovelles 805 mariada conceição camPs
“The Pleasures of seeing” according to Manuel
de Gois’ Coimbra Jesuit Commentary on De Anima (1598) 817 lidia lanza
La beatitudo nei commenti cinquecentini di Salamanca
alla Summa theologiae (Ia-IIae, q. 3, artt. 1-2) 827
ánGel Poncela-González
La teoría islámica del conocimiento profético
y la concepción suareciana del intelecto 837
alfredo culleton
La economía y el precio justo en la segunda escolástica 847
Index of Names / Indice dei nomi 857
Index of Manuscripts / Indice dei manoscritti 874
Quaestio, 15 (2015), xi-xii•10.1484/j.quaestio.5.108585
Foreword / Premessa
This volume of Quaestio includes a selection of the contributions presented at
the 13th International Congress of the Société Internationale pour l’Étude de
la Philosophie Médiévale (SIEPM), held in Freising from August 20 to August 25, 2012. It would be inappropriate, in this case, to speak of ‘Proceedings’: as a matter of fact, only 72 of the 261 papers originally listed in the program of the Congress are published here. This discrepancy is due to the fact that some of the participants preferred to publish their papers elsewhere, whereas some contributions were not accepted for publication after the peer-review process – a process which has been in this case particularly complex, given the number of contributions, and has involved all the members of the SIEPM Bureau as well as external referees.
For the very same reasons, the structure of the volume does not correspond to that of the Congress. The different sessions of the Congress were organised on the basis of a thematic division; in this volume, all the contributions accepted
for the publication have been distributed in eight different sessions: (i) Plenary
sessions (five contributions originally listed in the program of the Congress are
not published in this volume); (ii) The Byzantine and Georgian World; (iii) The
Arabic-Islamic World; (iv) The Jewish World; (v) The Latin-Christian World from
Boethius to the 12th Century; (vi) The Latin-Christian World in the 13th Century;
(vii) The Latin-Christian World in the 14th Century; (viii) The Latin-Christian
World from the 15th Century to Early Modern Scholasticism.
This division is not only more fitting to the structure of an academic journal and to a redefinition of the original topic, but also allows the reader to grasp the distribution and evolution of different trends and interests in the current state of studies in medieval philosophy, thus preserving the documentary and
histo-riographical function of a world Congress1. Even taking into consideration the
1 Cf. f. schmiGa / P. Porro, Transformations in the Study of Medieval Philosophy Documented by the
Proceedings of the SIEPM Congresses: A Quantitative Analysis, in Bulletin de Philosophie Médiévale, 55
xii Foreword / Premessa
statistical distortion caused by the selection of contributions, it is for example interesting to register the increasing attention paid to Arabic-Islamic philosophy and to Late Scholasticism, in contrast to the emphasis on the philosophy and
theology of the Latin 13th century, which was predominant a few decades ago.
As editors of this volume, we would like to express our gratitude to the chief co-editor of Quaestio, Costantino Esposito, and the two chief organisers of the
13th Congress of the SIEPM, namely Marc-Aeilko Aris and Thomas Ricklin: it
was especially Thomas Ricklin who elaborated the topic and the structure of the Congress. The first article of this volume basically reproduces Ricklin’s inaugu-ral speech at the Congress, and his illustration of the theme. We would also like to thank the General Secretary, Maarten J.F.M. Hoenen, and all the members of the Bureau of the SIEPM. Many young colleagues have made possible the
publi-cation of this volume: our warmest thanks go in particular to Marienza
Benedet-to, Annalisa Cappiello, Angela Federica D’Ercole, Marco Lamanna, Francesco
Marrone, Evelina Miteva, andMichele Trizio, who collaborated in the editing of
the contributions and prepared the final indices. Moreover, Marienza Benedetto took care of the final proof-reading of the entire volume.
Finally we are grateful to the Board of Directors of the Aldo Moro University
of Bari, which also in this case gave its support to the project of Quaestio2.
Bari-Lecce, August 2015
Pasquale Porro and Loris Sturlese
2 The publication of this volume of Quaestio falls within the project “Universality and its Limits:
«Quaestio», 15 (2015), 265-273 •10.1484/j.quaestio.5.110306
e dei saper che tutti hanno diletto / quanto la sua veduta si profonda / nel vero in che si queta ogne
in-telletto. / Quinci si può veder come si fonda / l’esser
beato ne l’atto che vede, / non in quel ch’ama, che poscia seconda; / e del vedere è misura mercede, / che grazia partorisce e buona voglia: / così di grado in grado si procede (Par., XXVIII 106-114).
Important elements for understanding how Avicenna defines the pleasure of knowledge are to be found in the seventh chapter of the eighth book of his Meta- physics: in defining the Necessary First Principle as “the best object of enjoy-ment” (or pleasure or delight: ladda), Avicenna briefly explains what intellectual pleasure is. The enjoyment of a faculty consists in the realization of its own perfection: for the rational soul this is the becoming of an intellectual world in
actuality1. As Avicenna himself ensures2, the meaning of this locution becomes
clear further on in the text. In fact, the principal discussion of intellectual pleas-ure is to be found in the seventh chapter of the ninth book, the subject-matter of which is not knowledge and its attendant pleasure, but the destiny that awaits the human soul after its separation from the body. I cannot at present, for rea-sons of space, consider the whole of Avicenna’s discussion, which is, however, very interesting indeed. I will start my analysis from the implicit conclusion of Avicenna’s discussion: true intellectual pleasure is not to be had in this life but belongs to the heavenly dimension. True intellectual pleasure is in fact so perfect and intense (and also eternal) that we cannot experience it during our sublunary lives. We can be convinced of its reality, but we cannot feel it. We are like the deaf who are not able to imagine the delights of music but can be convinced of them: we imagine or, more precisely, posit the existence of delights of the
intellect from the little tastes we experience in our lives3. Intellectual pleasure
1 ibn sīnā, Ila-h., VIII, 7, ed. Mousa / Dunya / Zayed, pp. 369, 4-10; 369, 17 - 370, 7. 2 ibn sīnā, Ila-h., VIII, 7, ed. Mousa / Dunya / Zayed, p. 370, 3-4.
3 ibn sīnā, Ila-h., IX, 7, ed. Mousa / Dunya / Zayed, pp. 424, 13 - 425, 2; avicenna, The Metaphysics of
“The Healing”, ed. Marmura, p. 349. A slightly different interpretation is to be found in avicenna, Le cose
Olga Lizzini
266 Yehuda Halper
is therefore not an available condition for the human soul, but a prospect (as, indeed, the separation of the human soul from its body is a prospect and not a condition). Moreover, since the desire for intellectual enjoyment depends on the perception that the soul has of that enjoyment, Avicenna also implicitly establishes a certain elitism: the desire to know is not a natural attribute of the human soul, but depends on the perception of the pleasure of knowledge that the soul manages to attain during its earthly life. In fact “not all men by nature desire to know”. One could summarize Avicenna’s position about knowledge by
paraphrasing – in negative terms – the famous incipit of Aristotle’s Metaphysics4:
knowledge is a perfection for the human soul – and more precisely its own proper perfection – but it is a possibility not everyone has and is not one’s own by nature.
In short, knowledge as a perfection appertains to those who desire5 and are ready
to become perfect, i.e. philosophers6. The key element of intellectual happiness
for people who want it and decide to pursue it, (in contradistinction to the misery experienced by those who cannot pursue the perfection of the soul), is in fact the awareness the soul attains of its ability to perceive the quiddity of the whole (ma-hiyyat al-kull), acquiring – according to the method of logic – a knowledge
of what is unknown from what is known and achieving its perfection in act7. This
awareness – we should still bear in mind – belongs to the soul not because of
its own first nature (bi-l-t.ib‘ al-awwal), but by virtue of some specific causes8.
In fact, the awareness of its own perfection dawns on the soul only when it has received a demonstration that there are things that it acquires by virtue of middle terms. This awareness or perception – as Avicenna declares in
Meta-divine, ed. Bertolacci, p. 777. Avicenna’s discourse continuously refers to the shortcomings and disorders
of the sublunary life (see e.g. ibn sīnā, Ila-h., IX, 7, ed. Mousa / Dunya / Zayed, pp. 424, 13 - 425, 7); at the same time, sublunary life allows us to imagine celestial pleasure or posit its existence by analogy; like the deaf, as mentioned above, who have never heard music (especially if we are immersed in sublunary pleasures); nevertheless, something in our sublunary life (for example finding the solution to a difficult theoretical problem) allows us to imagine how perfect intellectual pleasure might be (even ordinary souls can have this intuition; ibn sīnā, Ila-h., IX, 7, ed. Mousa / Dunya / Zayed, pp. 426, 13 - 427, 11). This raises the question of the definition of pleasure itself as an analogical concept: like ‘life’, ‘pleasure’ is a concept related to the physical realm which must explain a purely intellectual context.
4 It is difficult to prove the existence of a translation of all of Metaphysics Book A, as opposed to the
circulation of some doxographical or biographical text; see bertolacci 2005, pp. 257-269 and 268-269
in particular.
5 Supreme intellectual pleasure is not desired because one has a full awareness and experience of it
(after all, if one knew it completely – if one already possessed it – one could no longer be in the position of desiring it and literally of being a “philosopher”; cf. hadot 2004, pp. 39-51.
6 Cf. ibn sīnā, Ila-h., IX, 6, ed. Mousa / Dunya / Zayed, p. 417, 12-13: being ignorant of philosophy (or
geometry) indicates the lack of a secondary perfection, something which is unrelated to nature. Does this provide a further reason to prefer the reading la- s.ala-h.a to al-is.la-h.? (Cf. avicenna, Metafisica, ed. Lizzini,
n. 276, p. 1251; avicenna, Le cose divine, ed. Bertolacci, p. 127 e p. 764); avicenna, The Metaphysics of
“The Healing”, ed. Marmura, p. 341 does not suggest that there is any problem here.
Avicenna: the Pleasure of Knowledge and the Quietude of the Soul 267
physics IX, which is the textual basis of my analysis here9 –belongs to the soul
only because the soul has a certain vision (ra’y) that gives rise to the desire (šawq, tašawwuq) to know. But what does the term ‘vision’ mean? It means – we might say – almost the same thing as ‘conceptual representation’ (tas.awwur), and the desire (tasˇawwuq) to know is the desire to acquire another conceptual representation, which is not primary (awwalı-) and is therefore not part of the natural background of the human psyche, but is acquired (muktasab):
“The desire for their perfection [... comes to human beings] when it is demonstrated to them that it is a function of the soul to apprehend the quiddity of the whole by acquiring knowledge of the unknown from what is known and to become perfect in act. For this is not in it [as] a first nature, nor [is it] in the rest of the faculties. Rather, the awareness of most of the faculties of their perfections arises after [the occurrences of certain] causes. As regards the purely simple souls and faculties, they are as though they were prime matter posited as a subject that had not acquired this desire at all. [This is] because this desire comes into existence as [a new] event and [becomes] imprinted in the substance of the soul only if it is demonstrated to the psychological faculty that there are things here the knowledge of which is acquired through middle terms, as you have learned. Before this, however, it does not come about, because this desire is consequent on a vision (since every desire is conse-quent on a vision), and this vision does not belong to the soul as a primary vision but as an acquired vision”10.
Now – as one naturally feels prompted to ask – what is this vision i.e. this
representation, or, rather, how many representations does it include?11 Avicenna
admits to not being able to give more than a vague answer to this question. At the same time, he lists the conceptual representations that are absolutely necessary for developing the soul’s desire to attain perfection and hence complete intel-lectual pleasure: the existence of the separate principles should be the subject of a representation to which one must give an assent dictated by demonstration; further subjects of conceptual representation are perforce the final causes of things that dwell in universal movement – and not those dwelling in particular movement (which, in fact, are infinite and indeterminable) – the arrangement of the whole and the relationship of the parts of the whole to one another, and the order in which each – so to speak – appears, starting from the First Principle,
9 Relevant passages for a further investigation can be found in ibn sīnā, Ila-h., VIII, 7 and for exemple
in K. al-Nagˇa-t, K. al-mabda-’ wa-l-ma‘a-d, R. al-ad.h.awiyya, K. al-Iša-ra-t wa-l-tanbı-ha-t.
10 ibn sīnā, Ila-h., IX, 7, ed. Mousa / Dunya / Zayed, p. 428, 14-18; avicenna, The Metaphysics of
“The Healing”, ed. Marmura, pp. 352-353 (slightly modified). Avicenna is explaining why misery in the
afterlife affects only those souls who were aware of the truth but did not follow it. In my reading, ra’y (which can also translate the Greek θεωρία) corresponds here to the more technical tas.awwur; the same is the case in I, I, p. 4, 2; on ra’y as a technical term in jurisprudence, see wakin / zysow 2004, pp. 687-690.
268 Olga Lizzini
down to the lowest of existing things, each in its proper place. Moreover, the human soul must have a representation of the ways of providence and of the existence and unity which are ascribed to the Essence which is anterior to the whole; thus the soul comes to understand how the essence of the First Principle has knowledge, so that It does not undergo any multiplication or any change, in any respect; the soul will also understand how the relationship that existents
establish with the Principle finds its own rank12.
This, then, is the extent of the knowledge one must acquire if one is to at-tain the perfection – and the pleasure – of the soul. That is to say, this is what is required in order to, as Avicenna says, become an intellectual world. In his conclusion, Avicenna emphasizes that the souls who acquire it are destined to be united with their essential perfection, to immerse themselves in real pleas-ure, and to rid themselves entirely of their focus on what will by then be behind them: both the sublunary realm to which they once belonged and their own
bodies13.
Various observations may be made. First, one cannot help but notice that the limit of knowledge – i.e. that which is known and which establishes the boundary between what does not and what on the contrary does allow the soul to have access to supreme pleasure – corresponds exactly to the knowledge that is expressed and contained by Avicenna’s system. The lines in which Avicenna explains what the soul should know might be considered a summary of the es-sential elements of his metaphysics: the First Principle, the separate substances, the final ultimate causes of the universal motions, and then the ordered concat-enation of the whole and the direct knowledge of this arrangement, which must be ascribed to the First Principle, independently of the multiplicity of reality. Nevertheless, if these elements basically express the contents of Avicenna’s metaphysics, it is because they are demonstrated by logic.
And this element leads us to a second observation. The mechanism that explains the origin of the desire for knowledge and the pursuit of pleasure that is linked to it – which means the mechanism that regulates the continuous suc-cession of desire and satisfaction of desire in knowing – is described by Avi-cenna in terms of logic. In fact, AviAvi-cenna here explicitly refers to conceptual
representation or conceptualization (tas.awwur) and assent (tas.dı-q)14. The former
corresponds to mere conception, the act of the soul by which we represent and signify things in our minds (or intellects or estimative faculties). Assent, on the
12 For this crucial passage see ibn sīnā, Ila-h., IX, 7, ed. Mousa / Dunya / Zayed, p. 429, 6-13. This
relationship explains the divine attributes; see ibn sīnā, Ila-h., VIII, 7. On human and divine self-intel-lection, see adamson 2011.
13 ibn sīnā, Ila-h., IX, 7, ed. Mousa / Dunya / Zayed, p. 429, 13-15.
Avicenna: the Pleasure of Knowledge and the Quietude of the Soul 269
contrary, actually impinges on reality: indeed, assent is either given or denied in a judgment, precisely because of the connection which links our conceptual representation to reality. Thus assent is a sort of verification (which is, in fact, one of the translations of tas.dı-q) of the representations or concepts that it itself
entails15. Now, what seems particularly significant here is the connection and
then the necessary concatenation Avicenna establishes between conceptualiza-tion and assent and therefore between a conceptualizaconceptualiza-tion and the ‘desire’ for a new conceptualization. Logic proceeds from the known to the unknown syllogis-tically, and not only does this require a starting point (and therefore the premier position of the first principles of knowledge), but it also establishes, on the one hand, the necessity of a continuous concatenation between what is known and what is unknown (every bit of knowledge implies a question), and, on the other,
the necessity of a final aim (and end)16. Every constituent element of knowledge
implies the lack of another element and then the desire (šawq) for it. As Avicen-na declares in his discussion of Meno’s paradox, undertaking research means that there is something one already knows (a rough conceptual representation “exists” or “is realized” in the soul) and means, at the same time, that there is
something one does not know (so that one cannot achieve assent)17. In fact, what
one seeks to know is the truth of a predicate that is related to a conceptualization and therefore to the validity of an assent. In this sense, any conceptualization implies the search for assent: this is what Avicenna means by saying that every
vision or representation (ra’y) implies a desire18.
Representation and assent form knowledge, in fact, in a complementary man-ner. The former is what allows one to build a vision of things, a theory (and this could explain the use in this context of the term ra’y for what is usually called tas.awwur), the latter is what makes it possible to be convinced of this vision or believe in it. The kind of knowledge that is related to assent is obtained through syllogism (qiya-s) and, from a linguistic point of view, corresponds not only to the meaning of the term, but also to its outside referent and hence to the proposition. Assent is actually the act by which the soul recognizes the subject predicate composition which is true or which corresponds to reality. It concerns the con-ceptual content in its correspondence to reality, it refers to the composition of a
15 Avicenna makes the distinction by developing a traditional theme; a critical examination of it and
of the related literature is to be found in lameer 2006, pp. 3-35.
16 The principles of knowledge are the starting point of knowledge; in so far as they imply the
non-in-finity of knowledge they can be regarded as like the Prime Mover; however, this comparison could be applied, perhaps more appropriately, to the ultimate knowledge of the afterlife which is the final end and aim of human knowledge.
17 marmura 2009, pp. 47-62.
18 ibn sīnā, Ila-h., IX, 7, ed. Mousa / Dunya / Zayed, p. 428, 16: kullu šawqin yatba’u ra’yan: literally:
270 Olga Lizzini
subject and a predicate and to the truth value that it expresses: thus, in a sense, it implies or even encompasses the concept, calming the soul by satisfying the desire that led to the quest; in another sense, it goes beyond the concept, opening the way to a new question and the desire to know more.
Knowledge is a chain, just as reality is. Indeed, acquiring knowledge reflects the hierarchical reality expressed by emanation, but by retracing its path in re-verse: every conceptual representation ends with an assent and leads to another representation, so that the process of knowledge – just like reality – needs both a final cause and an end. The pleasure of knowing experienced by the intellect coincides with a feeling of quietude (it involves not only conceptual
representa-tions but also a definitive assent to reality)19 . Thus only something absolute can
warrant the absence of a quest and therefore of desire, and the perception of pleasure that, since it is supreme, leads to no further desire. And this absolute thing can be found only in the heavenly afterlife.
Thus it seems that we can understand the ultimate meaning of Avicenna’s locution when he says that the human soul can become an intellectual world: the greatest pleasure corresponds to the knowledge of the whole, which is the only kind of knowledge that leads to no further desire. In other words, the heavenly dimension that Avicenna includes in his discussion has no other point than that of being the conclusion, and in a sense the very legitimation, of the relative kind of knowledge we have access to in the sublunary world.
Although Avicenna’s concept could be open to an interpretation of the notion of visio beatifica, his aim is to establish the possibility that the blissful soul can have knowledge of the First Principle, because this allows him to establish that the blissful soul may have knowledge of the whole, which consequently allows him to legitimate the partial and relative knowledge, with its attendant pleasure
(and desire), available to us in this sublunary life20. Therefore the absoluteness
of the celestial pleasure of the hereafter has the function of legitimating human knowledge in its relative and sublunary dimension.
We might then modify the implicit conclusion mentioned at the outset: true intellectual pleasure is not to be had in this life and belongs to the heavenly
19 One could say like the feeling of which Aristotle seems to be speaking in his De Int., 3 16b 20-21
when he writes of the verb that “it is substantival and has significance”, for whoever uses such expres-sions “arrests the hearer’s mind, and fixes his attention” or “gives him peace” ([...] ἵστησι γὰρ ὁ λέγων τὴν διάνοιαν, καὶ ὁ ἀκούσας ἠρέμησεν); in the Arabic translation (K. al-‘Iba-ra, ed. Badawi, p. 102: al-qa-’il
la-ha- yaqifu bi-dihni-hi ‘alay-hi wa-ida- sami‘a-hu min-hu al-sa-mi‘ qani‘a bi-hi)”. Conceptual representation
and assent as a quietude of the soul seem to be what Avicenna is referring to also in ibn sīnā, Ila-h., X, 2, ed. Mousa / Dunya / Zayed, p. 443, 6-7: the prophet should speak “in a manner that [people] can conceive (yatas.awwaru-na) and in which their souls find rest (taskunu ilay-hi nufu-su-hum)”. For a relationship between the quietude of the soul and the activity of thought in Aristotle, see Problemata, 956 b 39 and ff.
20 This is the drift of Maróth’s interpretation (maróth 2008, p. 143). On the Islamic visio beatifica,
Avicenna: the Pleasure of Knowledge and the Quietude of the Soul 271
eschatological dimension21, but it also explains knowing and pleasure in life.
In other words, it is from man’s – and particularly the philosopher’s – point of view – and in consideration of the pleasure connected to the knowledge he has – that, according to Avicenna, the question of the pleasure of knowing has a meaning that cannot be restricted to human life and its attendant pleasures, but must be directly connected not only to the question of ethics – specifically
the relationship between the soul and the body22 – but also to that of the eternal
destiny of the human soul. Intellectual pleasure belongs to the human being not as regards individuals, but as regards the species (or the individuum vagum). This makes Avicenna’s elitism more comprehensible: the aim of human beings, which is knowledge, is realized by man to the extent that it is realized by some men. It is also – as we have noted – more a prospect than a current reality, also in the absolutely deductive character knowledge should always have. As is evi-dent, in the background there are at least two great subjects, richly developed by recent medieval historiography: ‘intellectual’ or ‘mental felicity’ and knowledge
as conjunction with the agent intellect23.
Bibliography Sources
[aristoteles], K. al-‘Iba-ra, ed. A. Badawi, Da-ral-kutub al-Miṣriyya, Cairo 1948 [Beirut
1980].
avicenna, Epistola sulla vita futura, ed. F. Lucchetta, Antenore, Padova 1969.
avicenna, Libro della guarigione. Le cose divine, ed. A. Bertolacci, Utet, Torino 2007.
avicenna, Metafisica. “La scienza delle cose divine”. Dal “Libro della guarigione” [Kita-b
al-Sˇifa-’], testo arabo a fronte, testo latino in nota, a cura di O. Lizzini, prefazione e
cura editoriale di P. Porro, Bompiani, Milano 20062.
avicenna, The Metaphysics of “The Healing”, ed. M.E. Marmura, Brigham Young
Univer-sity Press, Provo (UT) 2005.
ibn sīnā, K. al-Ila-hiyya-t, t. i, traités i-v, [sous la direction de] G.C. Qanawa-tı- [Anawati],
S. Za-yid [Zayed], [revu et introduit par] I. Madkour; t. ii, traités vi-x, [sous la direction
de] M.Y. Mousa, S. Dunya, S. Zayed, [revu et introduit par] I. Madkour, à l’occasion du millénaire d’Avicenne, Ministère de la Culture et de l’Orientation, Le Caire 1960.
21 On Avicenna’s eschatology, see, for a start, avicenna, Epistola sulla vita futura, ed. Lucchetta; cf.
blumberG 1979; michot 1986; schwarz 1995; stroumsa 1998.
22 In his discussion of the issue of pleasure and happiness in the afterlife, Avicenna discusses the
role of the practical intellect, which must be reformed in order to attain theoretical felicity. In this context, Avicenna discusses virtues and ethics. See lizzini 2009.
23 For a critical evaluation and a first assessment of the subject of intellectual felicity, see fioravanti
2005 and bianchi 2005. Essential references to the question of conjunction (and then emanation vs.
272 Olga Lizzini
Studies
adamson 2011 = P. adamson, Avicenna and his Commentators on Human and Divine
Self-Intellection, in A. bertolacci / d.n. hasse (eds.), The Arabic, Hebrew and Latin
Reception of Avicenna’s Metaphysics, De Gruyter, Berlin 2011, pp. 97-122.
bertolacci 2005 = a. bertolacci, On the Arabic Translations of Aristotle’s Metaphysics,
in Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 15 (2005), pp. 241-275.
bianchi 2005 = L. bianchi, Felicità intellettuale,‘ascetismo’ e ‘arabismo’: nota sul ‘De
summo bono’ di Boezio di Dacia, in M. bettetini / f.d. PaParella (a cura di), Le
feli-cità nel Medioevo. Atti del Convegno della Società Italiana per lo Studio del Pensiero
Medievale (S.I.S.P.M.), Milan, 12-13 Settembre 2003, Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Etudes Médiévales, Louvain-La-Neuve 2005, pp. 13-34.
blumberG 1979 = H. blumberG, The Problem of Immortality in Avicenna, Maimonides
and St. Thomas Aquinas, in J.I. dienstaG (ed.), Eschatology in Maimonidean Thought:
Messianism, Resurrection, and the World to Come, Ktav, New York 1979, pp. 76-96.
fioravanti 2005 = G. fioravanti, La felicità intellettuale: storiografia e precisazioni, in
M. bettetini / f.d. PaParella (a cura di), Le felicità nel Medioevo, Atti del
Conve-gno della Società Italiana per lo Studio del Pensiero Medievale (S.I.S.P.M.), Milano, 12-13 Settembre 2003, Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Etudes Médiévales, Louvain-La-Neuve 2005, pp. 1-12.
Gimaret 1995 = D. Gimaret, ru’yat Alla-h, in E.I., VIII (1995), p. 649.
Gutas 2012 = d. Gutas, The Empiricism of Avicenna, in Oriens, 40/2 (2012), pp. 391-436.
hadot 2004 = P. hadot, The Definition of ‘Philosopher’ in Plato’s Symposium, in P.
hadot, What is Ancient Philosophy?, transl. M. Chase, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge (MA.)-London 2004, pp. 39-51.
lameer 2006 = J. lameer, Conception and Belief in Sadr al-Din Shirazi (ca. 1571-1635),
Iranian Institute of Philosophy, Teheran 2006.
lizzini 2009 = o. lizzini, Vie active, vie contemplative et philosophie chez Avicenne, in
Ch. trottmann (éd.), Vie active et vie contemplative au Moyen Âge et au seuil de la
Renaissance, École Française de Rome, Rome 2009, pp. 207-239.
lizzini 2012 = o. lizzini, Avicenna, Carocci, Roma 2012.
marmura 2009 = M.E. marmura, Avicenna on Meno’s Paradox, in Medieval Studies, 71
(2009), pp. 47-62.
maróth 2008 = M. maróth, Paradise and Hell in Muslim Philosophy, in The Arabist,
28-29 (2008), pp. 137-145 (Proceedings of the Colloquium on “Paradise and Hell in Islam”, Keszthely, 7-14 July, 2002, Part I).
michot 1986 = j.r. michot, La destinée de l’homme selon Avicenne. Le retour à Dieu
(maca-d) et l’imagination, Peeters, Louvain 1986.
schwarz 1995 = D. schwarz, Avicenna and Maimonides on Immortality. A Comparative
Study, in R.L. nettler (ed.), Medieval and Modern Perceptions on Jewish-Muslim
Relations, Harvood, Luxembourg-Oxford 1995, pp. 185-197.
stroumsa 1998 = s. stroumsa, ‘True Felicity’: Paradise in the Thought of Avicenna and
Maimonides, in Medieval Encounters, 4 (1998), pp. 51-77.
treiGer 2012 = A. treiGer, Inspired Knowledge in Islamic Thought: Al-Ghazâlî’s Theory of
Mystical Cognition and Its Avicennian Foundation, Routledge, London-New York 2012.
wakin / zysow 2004 = J. wakin / a. zysow, ra’y, in E.I., XII, Supplement (2004), pp.
Avicenna: the Pleasure of Knowledge and the Quietude of the Soul 273
Abstract: In his Metaphysics of the Healing (IX, 7), Avicenna presents his ideas about the destiny of the human soul in the afterlife. Considered philosophically, the afterlife is intel-lectual (bodily afterlife is explained by religious law). The human soul achieves perfection by becoming an intellectual world in which the whole of reality may be reflected. Analysing the meaning of this statement helps to elucidate not only how Avicenna conceives intellec-tual pleasure in the afterlife, but also how he characterizes the very process of knowledge. Intertwined therewith are at least two important subjects, richly illuminated by recent medieval historiographical research: ‘intellectual’ or ‘mental felicity’ and knowledge as conjunction with the agent intellect.
Key words: Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā); Representation and Assent in Logic; Theory of Know-ledge; Intellectual Pleasure; Metaphysics.
Olga lizzini
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen De Boelelaan 1105
