On Avicennian Reception of Aristotle’s Categories (ch. VIII–XV)

Abstract

The article is the third part of a study regarding the problem of the re-edition of Aristotle’s Categories in the work “The Healing” (ash-Shifā’) by the greatest philosopher of classical Islam, Ibn Sina (Avicenna; d. 1037). It is based on the immanent study of the source. The study highlights Avicenna’s revision of Aristotelian doctrine of the last of the four main categories – quality, as well as the other six categories, and also the concepts considered by Aristotle in the third section of his treatise (postpredicates), first of all – opposition, antecedence-succession, and movement. There is noted the intention to harmoniously synthesize of different expositions of ten categories and post-categorical notions in Aristotle’s Categories and Metaphysics. Special attention is paid to the efforts Ibn Sina made to “ontologize” the Aristotelian categories, namely not only the proof of the existence of each of them, but also the establishment of its substantiality or accidentality.