AL-MAQŪLĀT COMMENTARY ON ARISTOTLE'S CATEGORIES

Translating Author Allan Bäck, a professor of philosophy at Kutztown University, has written many articles and books on a variety of topics in the history and philosophy of logic, including ancient and Islamic philosophy. He has been awarded a Forschungspreis from the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung (Senior Humboldt Research Prize) as well as an American Philosophical Association Fellowship for the Institute for Advanced Studies at Edinburgh University in recognition of his scholarly work. He has won the Wiesenberger award for teaching and the Chambliss prize for research at Kutztown University. Also in Liber Conversus Avicenna / Ibn Sīnā AL-‘IBĀRĀ Avicenna’s Commentary on Aristotle’s de Interpretatione Part One and Part Two Translated by Allan Bäck Francisco Suarez Selections from de Anima On the Nature of the Soul in General On the Immateriality and Immortality of the Rational Soul Translated by John Kronen and Jeremiah Reedy

Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā) was and remains the preeminent Islamic philosopher. His works on science, metaphysics and medicine have had great influence on Islamic culture as well as on the West. However, although often mentioned in his metaphysics, his logical works have had less influence in the West are, as only his treatise on Porphyry’s Isagoge was translated into Latin. A translation of Avicenna’s “commentary” on Aristotle’s Categories, Al-Maqūlāt (Part One, Volume Two of Aš-Šhifāʼ), is given here with explanatory notes. Avicenna does not paraphrase the text. Rather, as he states, he comments upon what the correct doctrines are. He offers original doctrines on such topics as paronymy, the ontological square in Categories 2, predication, the antepredicamental rule, the number of the categories, distinction of primary and first substance, an account of relation, as opposed to relationship, the ontology of mathematical objects, and the predication of contraries. Avicenna uses and refers to these doctrines in his scientific works, particularly in his metaphysics. Translating Author Allan Bäck, a professor of philosophy at Kutztown University, has written many articles and books on a variety of topics in the history and philosophy of logic, including ancient and Islamic philosophy. He has been awarded a Forschungspreis from the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung (Senior Humboldt Research Prize) as well as an American Philosophical Association Fellowship for the Institute for Advanced Studies at Edinburgh University in recognition of his scholarly work. He has won the Wiesenberger award for teaching and the Chambliss prize for research at Kutztown University.

Table of Contents_________________________


Introduction IX

Part One _____________________________ 29
Chapter One 29 The Aim of the CATEGORIES
Chapter Two 41
Synonymy, Homonymy, Paronymy
Chapter Three 57
Being ‘Said Of’ and Being ‘In’
Chapter Four 73
The Definition of Accident
Chapter Five 87
Connections Between Being ‘Said of’ and ‘Being in’
Chapter Six 97
Do Substance and Accident Have Modes?

Part Two_______________________105

Chapter One 105
The Categories
Chapter Two 116
Is Accident a Category?
Chapter Three 121
Views on the Number of the Categories
Chapter Four 126
The Adequacy of the Categories
Chapter Five 141
The State of the Number of the Categories


Part Three _____________________________151
Chapter One 151
Substance - First, Second, and Third
Chapter Two 157
First and Second and Third Substance
Chapter Three 166
The Descriptions of Substance and its Propria
Chapter Four 179
The Beginning of the Account about Quantity

Part Four_______________________ 197

Chapter One 197
The Other Division for the Quantum, and the
Quantum Per Accidens
Chapter Two 206
The Propria of the Quantum
Chapter Three 219
The Divisions of the Relatum
Chapter Four 229
The Propria of the Relatum
Chapter Five 236
The Category of the Relatum

Part Five_______________________________249

Chapter One 249 The [Definitional] Characterization of Quality and
its Primary Divisions
Chapter Two 258
The Four Species of Quality
Chapter Three 267
States and Powers
Chapter Four 273
Objections about Species Having a Relationship to
Power and Impotence
Chapter Five 280
Passive Qualities and Passions
Chapter Six 286
The Solution of the Remaining Objections

Part Six________________________________293

Chapter One 293
The Species of the Fourth Genus of Quality
Chapter Two 302
Objections Concerning the Fourth Genus of Quality
Chapter Three 309
Quale and Quality
Chapter Four 316
Quale and Relatum
Chapter Five 323 The “Where” [Place] and the “When” [Time]
Chapter Six 329
The Rest of the Ten Categories




Part Seven____________________________335

Chapter One 335
[Mutual] Opposites
Chapter Two 346 Objections Concerning Opposition
Chapter Three 359 Judgments and Propria in [Mutual] Contraries
Chapter Four 366 The Prior and the Posterior


Index 377