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    Avicenna's conception of being, used to establish the Nec... — Carmelics
    Home/Natural Theology
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Avicenna's conception of being, used to establish the Necessary Existent, is spurious

    Natural Theology
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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

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    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Avicenna's distinction between essence and existence treats existence as an accident added to quiddity, which Aquinas and later scholastics recognized as generating infinite regress problems.
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    • 2.If existence were genuinely accidental to essence, then the existence of existence would itself require grounding, collapsing the Necessary Existent argument into vicious circularity.
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    • 3.Aristotle's Categories and Metaphysics Gamma treat 'being' as said in many ways but never as a property superadded to a subject, making Avicenna's univocal existential operator a post-Aristotelian importation.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Avicenna's concept of the Necessary Existent depends on possibility and necessity being genuine metaphysical features of essences considered in themselves, but Kant's critique shows modal properties cannot be read off from mere conceptual analysis of essences.
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    • 2.The inference from 'possible being requires an external cause' to 'there must be a being whose essence is identical to its existence' smuggles in a substantive ontological assumption that possibility and necessity are intrinsic rather than relational properties.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.Avicenna proceeds from a conception of being alien to Aristotle rather than from analyses of motion and moved objects
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    • 2.Averroes dismisses this conception as spurious
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    • 3.Albalag, following Averroes, identifies errors and absurd implications in metaphysics that follow from this conception
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    Topics

    Natural TheologyAgainst an attribute of God

    Notable Defenders

    Al-GhazalimedievalTahāfut al-Falāsifah, third discussion: 135
    Avicennamedievalal-Shifāʾ [Metaphysics]: 326–334; al-Najāt: 649–657
    medievalTiqqun n.23: 24
    al-GhazalimedievalMaqāṣid: 157

    Related

    Albalag, following Averroes, identifies errors and absurd implications in metaph...Aristotle's Categories and Metaphysics Gamma treat 'being' as said in many ways ...Averroes dismisses this conception as spuriousAvicenna proceeds from a conception of being alien to Aristotle rather than from...
    +4 moreShow less
    Avicenna's concept of the Necessary Existent depends on possibility and necessit...Avicenna's distinction between essence and existence treats existence as an acci...

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: albalag
    View source passageHide passage
    Secondly, Avicenna breaks away from Aristotle in that he proceeds in establishing the existence of the First Principle from analyses of the conception of being rather than motion and moved objects (for Aristotle’s argument see Physics 7 & 8). In order to establish the Necessary Existent, Avicenna proceeds from a conception of being that Albalag, following Averroes, dismisses as spurious (for Averroes see al-kashf: 14). His discomfort with this conception has to do primarily with the fact tha
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    If existence were genuinely accidental to essence, then the existence of existen...
    The inference from 'possible being requires an external cause' to 'there must be...

    Similar

    There is no basis for claiming that the idea of God implies God's actu...81%Averroes dismisses this conception as spurious80%There is no basis for claiming that God must be the source of our idea...80%Oderberg is mistaken when he tries to establish the uniqueness of the ...76%
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit