Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• S. Mahdi Emamijomeh
• Vahideh Hadad

Titel

An Analysis of the Agency and Providence in Platonic, Aristotelian and Avicennan Metaphysics

Ist Teil von

• Ilāhīyāt-i taṭbīqī, 2014-01, Vol.1 (10), p.29-40

Ort / Verlag

University of Isfahan

Erscheinungsjahr

2014

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

EZB Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The questions as to whether the cosmic order of this world is based on action/agent or not? And if an agent is involved and the world and what it contains have to be seen as action, could we declare the cosmic order a providential order? are among the problems which have always occupied the mind of philosophers. Reading through Platonic corpse leads us to the conclusion that he has founded his metaphysics upon the very idea of world of ideas. According to his works and words, Plato is a proponent of the theory of ideas. As a matter of fact, Plato's metaphysics lies in the theory of ideas. Plato illustrates the general makeup of the world of ideas and the way sensible objects stand in relation with the beings dwelling in the latter world by the well-known cave allegory in the seventh book of Republic. In his view, whatever we find around ourselves not only are not authentic realities but rather they are merely shadows of the truth. Every phenomenon has an essence or reality which is known as its form. The idea of Good overshadows the other ideas insofar as these latter ideas or forms are seen as the effects of the former. It seems we can take God, the One, Absolute Good, Absolute Beauty and Good in itself as expressions of the same reality which Plato has used in different contexts through his works. Along these terms some other notions have also been brought up like intellect, divine intellect, Demiurge, ideas and the particulars of material world. By explaining Plato's taking of these notions and terms, we believe, one can discover Platonic ontological system. In Republic, Plato argues that God is the creator of ideal bed and all other things, and he is the creator of intelligible entities (ideas). The One or reality as a whole not only contains ideas but the spirit too. The One is the final principle and the source of ideas and is beyond all human attributes. Having said these, it is not clear how reason gets itself related to the One neither in Plato's own words nor in his commentators' exegeses. Moreover, Demiurge's state of agency in relation to particulars on the one hand, and the quality of the relationship of ideas with material objects on the other, are covered up by ambiguity and such analogies as participation and imitation do not help much to tackle this ambiguity around. In Parmenides, this ambiguity as to the quality of procession of particulars from the ideas has been noted and no slight beam of light ever been shed on it. Browsing through Aristotelian corpse one would approve the fact that Stagrite's metaphysics could be epitomized in the theory of unmoved mover. Since Aristotle was also a biologist, by studying the movement of heavens he came to the conclusion that celestial spheres are ceaselessly moving around a circle like orbit and whereas every movement needs power to get started (every departure from potentiality toward actuality requires an agent) and celestial movement is eternal then it is needless to say that it could not have been occasioned by a corporeal power as corporeality implies limitation and there have to be some non-corporeal entities to take on this movement. Aristotle christens these entities as "intellect" which are purely incorporeal. Aristotelian intellects are thus related to the celestial spheres. Aristotle believed in 55 celestial spheres and 55 correspondent intellects whom he called unmoved movers. Since in Aristotle's view first heaven should be eternal what moves it must be eternal too. Thus Aristotle reached the First Intellect or the Unmoved Mover. (Upon the annulment of circular and infinite regress) one can see that the dilemmas which Aristotle was grappling with in physics led him to the domain of metaphysics. Reading through the works of Avicenna one could find that his core idea as regards to the problem of agency is the very effective and practical theory of "providence". This theory was mooted as a practical theory in Islamic world and contributed much to the debacle of many dilemmas. Divine providence which is the very state of being the origin and agent for the rest has fundamental difference as compared to the other kinds of causes. Some causes make one thing to change into other thing or two things to come together to bring about the third thing but existentiating agency causes things to spring into existence ex nihilo. Avicenna founded his philosophical system upon the renowned principle reading "every contingent being is a compound pair composed of existence and essence" which sounds the fundamental distinction between existence and essence, however, he divided existence into contingent and necessary based on his general perspective of existence and doing so he applied the early mentioned fundamental distinction to the domain of beings and made the existence the principal part and the cause of essence. In The Book of Disputations, Avicenna provides a well-arranged critical exposition of the distinction between existence and essence in beings and the pair's sameness in Divine Essence and one can say that he has built ontology into great heights through both theological and cosmological debates. According to Avicenna, existence/essence distinction is the very foundation of theology and cosmology. As already mentioned, every contingent being is a compound pair consisted of existence and essence and its dependency is far clear: "existentially contingent entities are of two kinds either they have equal share of existence and non-existence like temporal things or they just always exist like eternal objects as they are created and contingent but they have no background of non-existence". Then eternal entities are still in need of some cause to existentiate them despite their eternity. These three philosophical systems require to be studied in an analytic and comparative fashion. All three systems have interpreted the cosmic order in action-agent terms. Generally speaking, Aristotle did not believe in a providential order but Plato despite having attributed will and providence to God do not believe in divine existential agency; while in Islamic world Avicenna paired believing in a providential order with the belief in divine exsitentiating agency. This essay has the assessment of these differences as its subject-matter. The final conclusion of the essay is that Avicenna's differences with Plato and Aristotle lies in his ontology the very thing that makes his philosophical agenda brilliant as compared to two Greek counterparts.