info@woodslane.com.au
Contact us on (02) 8445 2300
For all customer service and order enquiries

WOODSLANE

Popular Subjects

Woodslane Online Catalogues

9781666904482 Add to Cart Academic Inspection Copy

Avicenna on the Necessity of the Actual

His Interpretation of Four Aristotelian Arguments
Description
Author
Biography
Table of
Contents
Google
Preview
According to Avicenna, whatever exists, while it exists, exists of necessity. Not all beings, however, exist with the same kind of necessity. Instead, they exist either necessarily per se or necessarily per aliud. Avicenna on the Necessity of the Actual: His Interpretation of Four Aristotelian Arguments explains how Avicenna uses these modal claims to show that God is the efficient as well as the final cause of an eternally existing cosmos. In particular, Celia Kathryn Hatherly shows how Avicenna uses four Aristotelian arguments to prove this very un-Aristotelian conclusion. These arguments include Aristotle's argument for the finitude of efficient causes in Metaphysics 2; his proof for the prime mover in the Physics and Metaphysics 12; his argument against the Megarians in Metaphysics 9; and his argument for the mutual entailment between the necessary and the eternal in De Caelo 1.12. Moreover, Hatherly contends, when Avicenna's versions of these arguments are correctly interpreted using his distinctive understanding of necessity and possibility, the objections raised against them by his contemporaries and modern scholars fail.
Celia Kathryn Hatherly is assistant professor of philosophy in the Humanities Department at MacEwan University.
Introduction Part One: God as The First Cause of Existence Chapter One: The Modal Distinction in the Proof from the Metaphysics of the Healing Chapter Two: The Modal Distinction in the Proof in the Metaphysics of the Salvation Part Two: God as The Ultimate Final Cause Chapter Three: The First Efficient Cause as the Ultimate Final Cause Chapter Four: The Role of the Proof from Motion Part Three: The Eternity of the World Chapter Five: Material Potency as a Principle of Change Chapter Six: The Eternal and the Generable
Google Preview content