“The whole philosophy of the Arabians was only a form of Aristotelianism, tempered more or less with Neo-Platonic conceptions. The medical and physical science of the Greeks and Greek philosophy became known to the Arabs especially under the rule of the Abassidæ (from A.D. 750 on), when medical, and afterwards (from the time of the reign of Almamun, in the first half of the ninth century) philosophical works were translated from Greek into Syriac and Arabic by Syriac Christians. The tradition of Greek philosophy was associated with that combination of Platonism and Aristotelianism which prevailed among the last philosophers of antiquity, and with the study by Christian theologians of the Aristotelian logic as a formal organon of dogmatics; but in view of the rigid monotheism of the Mohammedan religion, it was necessary that the Aristotelian metaphysics, and especially the Aristotelian theology, should be more fully adopted among the Arabs than among the Neo-Platonists and Christians, and that in consequence of the union among the former of philosophical with medical studies, the works of Aristotle on natural science should be studied by them with especial zeal.
“Of the Arabian philosophers in the East, the most important were Alkendi (al-Kindī), who was still more renowned as a mathematician and astrologer; Alfarabi (al-Fārābī), who adopted the Neo-Platonic doctrine of emanation; Avicenna (Abū Sīnā), the representative of a purer Aristotelianism and a man who for centuries, even among the Christian scholars of the later mediæval centuries, stood in the highest consideration as a philosopher, and, still more, as a teacher of medicine; and, finally, Algazel (al-G͟hazzālī), who maintained a philosophical skepticism in the interest of theological orthodoxy.
“The most important Arabian philosophers in the West were Avempace (Ibn Badja), Abubacer (Abū Bakr Ibn T̤ufail), and Averroës (Ibn Rashīd). Avempace and Abubacer dwell in their works on the idea of the independent and gradual development of man. Abubacer (in his ‘Natural Man’) develops this idea in a spirit of opposition to positive religion, although he affirms that positive religion and philosophical doctrine pursue the same end, namely, the union of the human intellect with the divine. Averroës, the celebrated commentator of Aristotle, interprets the doctrine of the latter respecting the active and the passive intellect in a sense which is nearly pantheistic and which excludes the idea of individual immortality. He admits the existence of only one active intellect, and affirms that this belongs in common to the whole human race, that it becomes temporarily particularized in individuals, but that each of its emanations becomes finally reabsorbed in the original whole, in which alone, therefore, they possess immortality.
“The acquaintance of the Mohammedan Arabs with the writings of Aristotle was brought about through the agency of Syrian Christians. Before the time of Mohammed, many Nestorian Syrians lived among the Arabs as physicians. Mohammed also had intercourse with Nestorian monks. Hareth Ibn Calda, the friend and physician of the Prophet, was a Nestorian. It was not, however, until after the extension of the Mohammedan rule over Syria and Persia, and chiefly after the Abassidæ had commenced to reign (A.D. 750), that foreign learning, especially in medicine and philosophy, became generally known among the Arabs. Philosophy had already been cultivated in those countries during the last days of Neo-Platonism, by David the Armenian (about 500 A.D.; his Prolog. to Philos. and to the Isagoge, and his commentary on the Categ, in Brandis’ Collection of Scholia to Arist.; his works, Venice, 1823; on him cf. C. F. Neumann, Paris, 1829) and afterwards by the Syrians, especially Christian Syrians, translated Greek authors, particularly medical, but afterward philosophical authors also, first into Syriac, and then from Syriac into Arabic (or they, perhaps, made use also of earlier Syriac translations some of which are to-day extant).
“During the reign and at the instance of Almamun (A.D. 813–833), the first translations of works of Aristotle into Arabic were made, under the direction of Johannes Ibn-al-Batrik (i.e. the son of the Patriarch, who, according to Renan [l.l., p. 57], is to be distinguished from Johannes Mesue, the physician), these translations, in part still extant, were regarded (according to Abulfaragius, Histor. Dynast., p. 153 et al.) as faithful but inelegant.
“A man more worthy of mention is Honein Ibn Ishak (Johannitius), a Nestorian, who flourished under Motewakkel, and died in 876. Acquainted with the Syriac, Arabic, and Greek languages, he was at the head of a school of interpreters at Bagdad, to which his son Ishak Ben Honein and his nephew Hobeisch-el-Asam also belonged. The works not only of Aristotle himself, but also of several ancient Aristotelians (Alexander Aphrodisiensis, Themistius, and also Neo-Platonic exegetes, such as Porphyry and Ammonius), and of Galenus and others, were translated into (Syriac and) Arabic. Of these translations, also, some of those in Arabic are still existing, but the Syriac translations are all lost. (Honein’s Arabic translation of the Categories has been edited by Jul. Theod. Zenker, Leips. 1846.) In the tenth century new translations, not only of the works of Aristotle, but also of Theophrastus, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Theomistius, Syrianus, Ammonius, etc., were produced by Syrian Christians, of whom the most important were the Nestorians, Abu Baschar Mata and Jahja ben Adi, the Tagritan, as also Isa Ben Zaraa. The Syriac translations (or revisions of earlier translations) by these men have been lost, but the Arabic translations were widely circulated and have in large measure been preserved; they were used by Alfarabi, Avicenna, Averroës, and the other Arabian philosophers. The Republic, Timæus, and Laws of Plato, were also translated into Arabic. Averroës (in Spain, about 1150) possessed and paraphrased the Rep., but he did not the Politics of Aristotle; the book existing in MS. at Paris, entitled Siaset (Siyāsah), i.e. Politica, is the spurious work De Regimine Principum s. Secretum Secretorum; the Politics of Aristotle is not known to exist in Arabic. Farther, extracts from the Neo-Platonists, especially from Proclus, were translated into Arabic. The Syrians were led, especially in consequence of their contact with the Arabs, to extend their studies beyond the Organon; they began to cultivate in the Arabic language all the branches of philosophy on the basis of Aristotle’s works, and in this they were afterwards followed by the Arabs themselves, who soon surpassed their Syrian teachers. Alfarabi and Avicenna were the scholars of Syrian and Christian physicians. The later Syrian philosophy bears the type of the Arabian philosophy. The most important representative of the former was Gregorius Barhebræus or Abulfaragius, the Jacobite, who lived in the thirteenth century, and was descended from Jewish parents, and whose compendium of the Peripatetic philosophy (Butyrum Sapientiæ) is still of great authority among the Syrians.
“Alkendi (Abu Jusuf Jacub Ibn Eshak al Kendi, i.e. the father of Joseph, Jacob, son of Isaac, the Kendæan, of the district of Kendah) was born at Busra on the Persian Gulf, where later, in the tenth century, the ‘Brothers of Purity’ or the ‘Sincere Brethren,’ who collected in an Encyclopedia the learning then acceptable to the Arabians, were located. He lived during and after the first half of the ninth century, dying about 870. He was renowned as a mathematician, astrologer, physician, and philosopher. He composed commentaries on the logical writings of Aristotle, and wrote also on metaphysical problems. In theology he was a rationalist. His astrology was founded on the hypothesis that all things are so bound together by harmonious causal relations, that each, when completely conceived, must represent as in a mirror the whole universe.
“Alfarabi (Abu Nasr Mohammed ben Mohammed ben Tarkhan of Farab), born near the end of the ninth century, received his philosophical training mainly at Bagdad, where he also began to teach. Attached to the mystical sect of the Sûfi, which Said Abul Chair had founded about A.D. 820 (under the unmistakable influence of Buddhism, although Tholuck [“Ssufismus.” Berlin, 1821, and Blüthensammlung aus der Morgenländ. Mystik, Berlin, 1825] assigns to it a purely Mohammedan origin), Alfarabi went at a later epoch to Aleppo and Damascus, where he died A.D. 950. In logic Alfarabi follows Aristotle almost without exception. Whether logic is to be regarded as a part of philosophy or not, depends, according to Alfarabi, on the greater or less extension given to the conception of philosophy, and is therefore a useless question. Argumentation is the instrument by which to develop the unknown from the known; it is employed by the utens logicus; logica docens is the theory which relates to this instrument, argumentation, or which treats of it as its subject (subjectum). Yet logic also treats of single concepts (incomplexa) as elements of judgments and argumentations (according to Alfarabi, as reported by Albertus M., De Prædicabil. i. 2 seq., cf. Prantl, Gesch. der Log., ii. p. 302 seq.). Alfarabi defines the universal (see Alb. M., De Praed., ii. 5) as the unum de multis et in multis, which definition is followed immediately by the inference that the universal has no existence apart from the individual (non habet esse separatum a multis). It is worthy of notice that Alfarabi does not admit in its absolute sense the aphorism: singulare sentitur, universale intelligitur, but teaches that the singular, although in its material aspect an object of sensible perception, exists in its formal aspect in the intellect, and, on the other hand, that the universal, although as such belonging to the intellect, exists also in sensu, in so far as it exists blended with the individual (Alb., An. post. i. l, 3). Among the contents of the Metaphysics of Alfarabi, mention should be made of his proof of the existence of God, which was employed by Albertus Magnus and later philosophers. This proof is founded on Plat., Tim., p. 28: τῷ γενομένῳ φαμὲν ὑπ’ αἰτίου τινὸς ἀνάγκην εἶναι γενέσθαι, and Arist., Metaph., xii. 7: ἐστι τοίνυν τι καὶ ὁ κινεῖ, etc., or on the principle that all change and all development must have a cause. Alfarabi distinguishes (Fontes Quæstionum, ch. 3 seq., in Schmölders’ Doc. Phil. Ar., p. 44), between that which has a possible and that which has a necessary existence, just as Plato and Aristotle distinguish between the changeable and the eternal. If the possible is to exist in reality, a cause is necessary thereto. The world is composite, hence it had a beginning or was caused (ch. 2). But the series of causes and effects can neither recede in infinitum, nor return like a circle into itself: it must, therefore, depend upon some necessary link, and this link is the first being (ens primum). This first being exists necessarily; the supposition of its non-existence involves a contradiction. It is uncaused, and needs in order to its existence no cause external to itself. It is the cause of all that exists. Its eternity implies its perfection. It is free from all accidents. It is simple and unchangeable. As the absolutely Good it is at once absolute thought, absolute object of thought, and absolute thinking being (intelligentia, intelligible, intelligens). It has wisdom, life, insight, might, and will, beauty, excellence, brightness; it enjoys the highest happiness, is the first willing being and the first object of will (desire). In the knowledge of this being, Alfarabi (De rebus studio Arist. phil. præmitt. Comm., ch. 4, ap. Schmölders, Doc. ph. Arab., p. 22), sees the end of philosophy, and he defines the practical duty of man as consisting in rising, so far as human force permits it, into likeness with God. In his teachings respecting that which is caused by or derived from God (Fontes Quæst., ch. 6 seq.), Alfarabi follows the Neo-Platonists. His fundamental conception is expressed by the word emanation. The first created thing was the Intellect, which came forth from the first being (the Νοῦς of Plotinus; this doctrine was logically consistent only for Plotinus, not for Alfarabi, since the former represented his One as superior to all predicates, while Alfarabi, in agreement with Aristotle and with religious dogmatics, recognized in his first being intelligence). From this intellect flowed forth, as a new emanation, the Cosmical Soul, in the complication and combination of whose ideas the basis of corporeality is to be found. Emanation proceeds from the higher or outer spheres to the lower or inner ones. In bodies, matter and form are necessarily combined with each other. Terrestrial bodies are composed of the four elements. The lower physical powers, up to the potential intellect, are dependent on matter. The potential intellect, through the operation (in-beaming) of the active divine intellect, is made actual (intellectus in actu or in effectu), and this actual intellect, as resulting from development, may be called acquired intellect (intellectus acquisitus, after the doctrine of Alexander of Aphrodisias, concerning the νοῦς ἐπίκτητος). The actual human intellect is free from matter, and is a simple substance, which alone survives the death of the body and remains indestructible. Evil is a necessary condition of good in a finite world. All things are under divine guidance and are good, since all was created by God. Between the human understanding and the things which it seeks to know there exists (as Alfarabi teaches, De Intellecto et Intellectu, p. 48 seq.) a similarity of form, which arises from their having both been formed by the same first being, and which makes knowledge possible.
“Avicenna (Abu Ali Al Hosain Abdallah Ibn Sina) was born at Afsenna, in the province of Bokhara, in the year 980. His mind was early developed by the study of theology, philosophy, and medicine, and in his youth he had already written a scientific encyclopedia. He taught medicine and philosophy in Ispahan. He died at Hamadan in the fifty-eighth year of his life. His medical Canon was employed for centuries as the basis of instruction. In philosophy he set out from the doctrines of Alfarabi, but modified them by omitting many Neo-Platonic theorems and approximating more nearly to the real doctrine of Aristotle. The principle on which his logic was founded, and which Averroës adopted and Albertus Magnus often cites, was destined to exert a great influence. It was worded thus: Intellectus in formis agit universalitatem (Alb., De Prædicab., ii. 3 and 6). The genus, as also the species, the differentia, the accidens, and the proprium, are in themselves neither universal nor singular. But the thinking mind, by comparing the similar forms, forms the genus logicum, which answers to the definition of the genus, viz.: that it is predicated of many objects specifically different, and answers the question, ‘What is it?’ (tells the quidditas). It is the genus naturale which furnishes the basis of comparison. When the mind adds to the generic and specific the individual accidents, the singular is formed (Avic., Log., Venice edition, 1508, f. 12, ap. Prantl, Geschichte der Logik, ii. 347 seq.). Only figuratively, according to Avicenna, can the genus be called matter and the specific difference form; such phraseology (frequent in Aristotle) is not strictly correct. Avicenna distinguishes several modes of generic existence, viz.: ante res, in rebus, and post res. Genera are ante res in the mind of God; for all that exists is related to God as a work of art is related to an artist; it existed in his wisdom and will before its entrance into the world of manifold existence; in this sense, and only in this sense, is the universal before the individual. Realized with its accidents in matter, the genus constitutes the natural thing, res naturalis, in which the universal essence is immanent. The third mode of the existence of the genus is that which it has in being conceived by the human intellect; when the latter abstracts the form and then compares it again with the individual objects to which by one and the same definition it belongs, in this comparison (respectus) is contained the universal (Avic., Log., f. 12; Metaph., v. 1, 2, f. 87, in Prantl, ii. p. 349). Our thought, which is directed to things, contains nevertheless dispositions which are peculiar to itself; when things are thought, there is added in thought something which does not exist outside of thought. Thus universality as such, the generic concept and the specific difference, the subject and predicate, and other similar elements, belong only to thought. Now it is possible to direct the attention, not merely to things, but also to the dispositions which are peculiar to thought, and this takes place in logic (Metaph., i. 2; iii. 10, in Prantl, ii. p. 320 seq.). On this is based the distinction of ‘first’ and ‘second intentions.’ The direction of attention to things is the first intention (intentio prima); the second intention (intentio secunda) is directed to the dispositions which are peculiar to our thinking concerning things. Since the universal as such belongs not to things, but to thought, it belongs to the second intention. The principle of individual plurality, according to Avicenna, is matter, which he regards, not with Alfarabi as an emanation from the Cosmical Soul, but with Aristotle as eternal and uncreated; all potentiality is grounded in it, as actuality is in God. Nothing changeable can come forth directly from the unchangeable first cause. His first and only direct product is the intelligentia prima (the νοῦς of Plotinus, as with Alfarabi); from it the chain of emanations extends through the various celestial spheres down to our earth. But the issuing of the lower from the higher is to be conceived, not as a single, temporal act, but as an eternal act, in which cause and effect are synchronous. The cause which gave to things their existence must continually maintain them in existence; it is an error to imagine that things once brought into existence continue therein of themselves. Notwithstanding its dependence on God, the world has existed from eternity. Time and motion always were (Avic. Metaph., vi. 2, et al.; cf. the account in the Tractatus de Erroribus, ap. Hauréau, Ph. Sc., i. p. 368). Avicenna distinguishes a two-fold development of our potential understanding into actuality, the one common, depending on instruction, the other rare, and dependent on immediate divine illumination. According to a report transmitted to us by Averroës, Avicenna, in his Philosophia Orientalis, which has not come down to us, contradicted his Aristotelian principles, and conceived God as a heavenly body.
“Algazel (Abu Hamed Mohammed Ibn Achmed Al-Ghazzâli), born A.D. 1059 at Ghazzâlah in Khorasan, taught first at Bagdad, and afterwards, having become a Sûfi, resided in Syria. He died A.D. 1111 at Tus. He was a sceptic in philosophy, but only that his faith might be all the stronger in the doctrines of theology. His course in this respect marked a reaction of the exclusively religious principle of Mohammedanism against philosophical speculation—which in spite of all accommodation had not made itself fully orthodox—and particularly against Aristotelianism; between the mysticism of the Neo-Platonists, on the contrary, and the Sûfism of Algazel, there existed an essential affinity. In his Makacid al filasifa (Maqāṣidu ʾl-Falāsifah), ‘The Aims of the Philosophers,’ Algazel sets forth the doctrines of philosophy following essentially Alfarabi and particularly Avicenna. These doctrines are then subjected by him to a hostile criticism in his Tehafot al filasifa (Tahāfutu ʾl-Falāsifah), ‘Against the Philosophers,’ while in his ‘Fundamental Principles of Faith,’ he presents positively his own views. Averroës wrote by way of rejoinder his Destructio Destructionis Philosophorum. Algazel exerted himself especially to excite a fear of the chastisements of God, since in his opinion the men of his times were living in too great assurance. Against the philosophers he defended particularly the religious dogmas of the creation of the world in time and out of nothing, the reality of the divine attributes, and the resurrection of the body, as also the power of God to work miracles, in opposition to the supposed law of cause and effect. In the Middle Ages, his exposition of logic, metaphysics, and physics, as given in the Makacid, was much read.