Having looked at the debates over universals in the post-Avicennan tradition, we may naturally turn to the topic of Platonic Forms, which are often assumed to be a kind of theory of universals. Already Aristotle treats the Forms as an attempt to explain universal features of things (e.g. Metaphysics 13.4, 1078b33). But other comments by Aristotle should give us pause, since he also ascribes the Plato the view that Forms are not universals but paradigms (
As we have seen in previous chapters, Avicenna believes that an essence like “humanity” is neutral with respect to universality and particularity. Humanity can be instantiated in a particular, like Socrates, or be abstracted as a universal in the mind. What it cannot do is exist just by itself, independently of both minds and particulars, as Avicenna says that Plato held [T1]. He traces Plato’s mistake to a subtle distinction, which turns on the scope of a negation [T2]. When humanity is abstracted by a mental operation from all the particular humans one has encountered, then humanity is considered “without the condition of anything else (bi-lā sharṭ shayʾ ākhar).” This just means that one is ignoring other things that do, in fact, come together with humanity in the external world, like all of Socrates’ accidental features. But this does not mean that humanity can exist “with the condition that there is nothing else (bi-sharṭ lā shayʾ ākhar)” outside of our minds.2 The latter formulation would imply that humanity exists in the real world, completely unconnected to any other attributes; that would be a Platonic Form. In short, Plato’s view confuses the possibility of abstraction in the mind with an extramentally real possibility [T3]. Avicenna also follows Aristotle in rejecting the Platonist tendency to reify mathematical entities as separate Forms [T4], but this plays little role in the subsequent debate since the adherents of Platonism do not think of the Forms as being mathematical in nature (cf. however [T37] and [T42] which we discuss just below).3
Avicenna’s arguments against the Forms are rehearsed and expanded by later authors, most of whom accept it, though Bābā Afḍal does argue that Forms are needed to serve as objects of knowledge [T22, T23]. In addition to Avicenna’s complaint that essences do not exist “with the condition that there is nothing else” [T8] or “with the qualification of being separate” [T26], several other arguments circulated against reifying universals as Platonic Forms. At the end of our period, al-Ḥillī charged the Platonists with a mistake even more clumsy than the one diagnosed by Avicenna, namely that they confuse unity in kind for unity in number [T42]. Several authors were aware of the late ancient distinction between three levels of common entities, namely “after the many” (mental abstractions), “in the many” (instantiation in sensible particulars), and “before the many” (in God or the intelligible realm) [T25].4 But they pointed out that the common things “before the many” need not be Platonic Forms, they could just be divine ideas, as already held in the Baghdad Aristotelian school back in the tenth century [T5, T9].5
Another line of attack goes back even further, to Aristotle and in fact to Plato himself (in his Parmenides). A whole family of arguments exploits the idea that Forms would share properties with their participants; for instance, to use Plato’s example, the Form of Large would itself be large. We can call this the “univocity thesis.” This leads to the famous “third man argument”: if we need a Form as an exemplar to explain the commonality between all instances of humanity, but the Form is itself a further such instance, then a second Form will be needed to explain the commonality shared by the first Form plus its instances. This can be repeated, yielding an infinite regress of Forms [T24]. An interesting, and distinctively post-Avicennan, variant of the third man argument considers whether existence itself is subject to such a regress, wherein God’s existence is like a Form of Existence that itself partakes in existence [T26].6 The univocity thesis raises other problems too: if the Form of Human shares features with all its participants, why is the metaphysical status of the Form different from that of particulars—for instance, why is it an immaterial substance if they are not [T8]? For arguments exploiting univocity see [T10], [T24], and [T26] with a reply in [T27].
Against this litany of objections stands al-Suhrawardī, the leading proponent of Platonic Forms in our period.7 In light of which, we may immediately be surprised by the fact that he actually accepts Avicenna’s argument against postulating extramentally real equivalents of universals.8 He is able to do this because for him, Forms are not universals; nor, indeed, are they paradigms, which would share features with their participants like models of which copies are made [T15, T16, T17, T19, T41]. But if we do not postulate Form as real universals, or as paradigms, why postulate them at all?9 One reason given by al-Suhrawardī and his followers is that some of the great sages of antiquity, including Plato himself, actually had direct experience of the Forms. Accepting their testimony concerning the Forms is no less reasonable than, say, accepting ancient astronomical observations [T18]. This invocation of direct experience, though, is not given in lieu of argument, or because a rational proof for Forms is impossible. To the contrary, al-Suhrawardī and other proponents of the Forms offer several demonstrations of their existence. (At [T32] al-Shahrazūrī does suggest that a special experience is needed to know the Forms exist, yet he reproduces al-Suhrawardī’s arguments for them nonetheless.)
One of these seems to be inspired by Abū al-Barakāt al-Baghdādī [T7]. It contends that routine bodily processes cannot be explained solely with reference to bodily powers. It cannot be, as Avicenna claimed, that the nutritive power of the soul suffices to explain animal or human growth, since the power would itself be seated in bodily organs and would be subject to flux [T11, T29]. Al-Shahrazūrī adds that instinct in animals and intuition in humans must also be explained in terms of the influence of the forms [T34].
A further argument, which is perhaps the most distinctive contribution of al-Suhrawardī and the other Illuminationists to the debate over Platonic Forms, is the proof from the “nobler contingency (al-imkān al-ashraf).” This is like a narrower application of the famous principle of plenitude, namely that all genuine possibilities are realized at some point in time. Al-Suhrawardī does not make such a general claim, but he and his followers do argue that God’s creation cannot leave room for anything nobler than the things that in fact exist [T12, T28, T30]. So if we accept that Platonic Forms are at least possible, we cannot suppose that the world contains only things inferior to these Forms. An objection to this line of thought is considered by al-Shahrazūrī [T31]: if more noble possibilities are always realized, then every individual human should be as excellent as they could possibly be. He answers that the principles behind al-Suhrawardī’s argument apply only at the level of eternal entities.
If we probe further into the metaphysical nature of the Forms, we discover that yet again, al-Suhrawardī is not that far from Avicenna. Avicenna postulated that the Active Intellect, the lowest of the intellects of his celestial hierarchy, was a “giver of forms” to things in the sublunary world.10 As was already suggested by some of the aforementioned functions of the Platonic Forms in Illuminationism, for instance their ensuring the continuation of species, they play a similar role. The difference is really only that, instead of a single giver of forms for all species, there is one “Platonic Form” for each species. This is why the Illuminations call the Forms “Lords of Species.” Each of them is a luminous intellect or “light” [T35], with particular emphasis being placed on the claim that they are indeed intellects and not souls, because souls are too closely connected to the individual participants [T18, T19, T20, T29]. This may have been a real possibility considered by some, since Ibn al-Malāḥimī already mentions a version of the theory of Forms according to which they are intelligible souls [T6]. Bābā Afḍal’s version of the theory also speaks of souls, albeit he actually makes the Forms ideas in the Universal Soul [T23].
A significant advantage of the Illuminationist account is that the Third Man Argument and other refutations are answered, on the grounds that the intellective Lord over a given species need not share the properties of the physical instantiations of that same species [T13, T14, T15, T16, T19, T33]. Instead, they are of a fundamentally different ontological order, for instance by having no need of material substrates, being simple rather than composite, and exercising rather than receiving providential oversight. Between the realm of Forms and the domain of sensible participants, the Illuminationists furthermore postulate a level called the “world of images” [T21, T37, T38] which is beyond the heavens but below the world of Platonic Forms [T36]. The so-called “suspended images” explain a further range of phenomena, like reflections in mirrors and dreams, as well as other operations of the imagination, including in animals.11 There is room for confusion here, especially in the Arabic texts where “images” and “exemplars” are one and the same term, muthul, which we have disambiguated in our English translations. (The same word is sometimes used for the “images” of things abstracted in the human mind.) Al-Shahrazūrī makes it clear that these two levels of the metaphysical hierarchy, the world of images and the Lords of Species, are to be distinguished [T40].
In closing it should be noted that with this topic, we have an example of the twelfth-century spread of “Platonism,” meaning endorsement of Plato’s own views insofar as these were known at the time. One could suggest this for other topics as well, for example the nature of time.12 The reasons for this remain a matter of speculation, but it seems clear at least that by signaling their allegiance to Plato, al-Suhrawardī and others were at the same time registering their opposition to the “Peripatetic” tradition and its leading proponent, Avicenna.
Texts from: Avicenna, Bahmanyār, Ibn al-Malāḥimī, Abū al-Barakāt al-Baghdādī, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, al-Suhrawardī, Bābā Afḍal, al-Āmidī, al-Abharī, al-Nakhjawānī, Ibn Kammūna, al-Shahrazūrī, al-Ḥillī.
Platonic Forms
[T1] Avicenna, Shifāʾ, Ilāhiyyāt VII.2, 244.3–5 [trans. Marmura, mod.]
[the Platonic position]
As is known, Plato and his teacher Socrates went too far regarding this view, saying that there belongs to humanity one existing entity (maʿnā) in which individuals participate, and which continues to exist even if they cease to exist. It is not the sensible, multiple, and corruptible entity and is therefore an intelligible, separate entity.
[T2] Avicenna, Shifāʾ, Ilāhiyyāt V.1, 155.10–16 [trans. Marmura, mod.]
[the sense in which essences can exist separately]
For this reason, a distinction must be maintained between saying “animal as such is separated, without the condition of anything else (bi-lā sharṭ shayʾ ākhar),” and saying, “animal as such is separated, with the condition that there is nothing else (bi-sharṭ lā shayʾ ākhar).” If it were possible for animal as such to be separated, with the condition that nothing else exists concretely, then it would be possible for the Platonic exemplars (al-muthul) to exist concretely. But in fact animal, with the condition that there is nothing else, exists only in the mind. As for animal separated without the condition of anything else, it does have concrete existence. For, in itself and in its true nature, it is without the condition of anything else, even if a thousand conditions are connected to it extrinsically.
[T3] Avicenna, Shifāʾ, Ilāhiyyāt VII.2, 247.10–16 [trans. Marmura, mod.]
[contrast between mental abstraction and actual separation]
If we intellectually grasp the form of the human (for example, insofar as it is just the form of the human) we intellectually grasp an existent by itself and with regard to its essence (dhāt). But from the fact that we have grasped it in this way, it does not follow that it is by itself and separate [in existence]. For that which is mixed with something else insofar as it is what it is (min ḥaythu huwa huwa) fails to be separated from [that other thing] by way of negating [the copula], not by adding a negation to the predicate (al-ʿudūl),13 which is how [“non-separated”] should be understood as concerns separation in subsistence. It is not difficult for us to direct attention through perception, or some other state, to one of the things which is not such as to be separate from its companion in subsistence, even though it is separate from it in definition, meaning, and true nature, since its true nature does not enter into the true nature of the other. For “being together” implies being connected, not having the meanings interpenetrate.
[T4] Avicenna, Shifāʾ, Ilāhiyyāt VII.2, 248.16–249.2 [trans. Marmura, mod.]
[against Platonic Forms as principles]
The fifth [error] is their belief that if material items are caused, then their causes must be some or other items that can be separate. For it is not the case that, if material things are caused and mathematical things are separate, then it inevitably follows that the mathematical things are their causes. Rather, [their causes] may be other substances that are not [249] among the nine [non-substantial] categories. Nor have they verified the fundamental truth that the definitions of geometrical [figures] among mathematical [objects] cannot omit [reference] to matter absolutely, even though they can omit [reference] to matter of a certain sort.
[T5] Bahmanyār, Taḥṣīl, 500.12–16
[God and the angels know universals without deriving them from multiple things]
A universal meaning may be derived from extramental [reality], as when the meaning of “humanity” is derived from Zayd and ʿAmr; the form of humanity is provided by ʿAmr in just the same way it is provided by Zayd. In logic, this may be called “that which is after multiplicity,” in other words, this common meaning has been derived from various, multiple things. On the other hand [a universal meaning] may not be derived from extramental [reality], such as the knowledge of God the exalted, and of angels. This [knowledge] is called “that which is before multiplicity,” since it [i.e. knowledge] is the cause of multiplicity, as we will explain.14
[T6] Ibn al-Malāḥimī, Muʿtamad, 789.17–790.12
[Platonic world of separate intelligences, with refutation]
Ḥasan b. Mūsā al-Nabawakhtī—may God have mercy upon him—related the views of Sabian philosophers (al-falāsifa) concerning intelligible substances. He said: many of those we have met, among those who learned the positions of the philosophers and read their books, claimed that Plato, and others too, held that the intelligible world is not the same as the sensible world which we see, with the celestial sphere and whatever it contains. In [the intelligible world] there are living substances that are simple, not composed. Further, [they claimed] that Plato, Aristotle, and their followers said that [these substances] live through themselves and govern whatever is in this world. They are ten souls that are not rational. (Then he mentioned the names [of these substances], as given by them.)
[Al-Nabawakhtī] furthermore said: they claimed that what comes to the sensible world from [these substances] is the rational soul, which governs over a certain thing in which it resides. As for those substances, they govern the sensible world but do not reside in it. [790] [Al-Nabawakhtī] said: there is the rational soul in the celestial sphere, according to Plato. [The rational soul] was only created in the brain because [the brain] is circular and resembles the celestial sphere.15 [Al-Nabawakhtī] said: they used to justify their claims based on the fact that we find the sensible world to include things of two kinds: that which participates in the intelligible world, namely the rational souls, and the bodies that are not connected to them, namely unliving ones. Likewise intelligible substances are of two kinds: those that participate in bodies, namely the rational souls; and those that do not, these being the other substances we have described.
[790.6] He objected to them by saying: are you making an analogical inference from things in the sensible world to things in the intelligible world? If they say no, then one may say to them: then how have you reached the aforementioned conclusions? But if they say yes, one may say to them: then you should say that there are dead things in the intelligible world, just as in the sensible world. And we would say: you have not proved the reality of what you have asserted but you busy yourself with describing what these things are like, before even establishing that they are real. He said: they also looked for excuses by saying the proof for the multiplicity of [intelligible substances] is the multiplicity of governed things. One may to say to them: but must they be like the governed things? If they say yes, then they should make the intelligible world to be just like the sensible world. But if they say “no,” then one may say to them: then likewise, aren’t they [similar to sensible things] in being multiple? And one may say: on what basis do you deny that they are all in the world of sensation and rational souls?
[T7] Abū al-Barakāt, Muʿtabar, vol. 3, 167.5–11
[angels as preserving species in the sublunary world]
The [number] of spiritual angels equals the [number] of the visible and unseen stars, as well as the spheres that we know and fail to know. [Their number] may be even more than this, such that it reaches the number of the sensible existents, among minerals, plants, and animals. Every species among them has an angel that preserves the form in the matter, and maintains the species in its individuals according to their natures, perfections, proportionate states, and whatever they hold or even verify and know. For the preserver of the form (ḥāfiẓ al-ṣūra), despite the diversity of states [of the members of a species] in terms of existence and non-existence, surfeit and deficiency, must be one.
[T8] Al-Rāzī, Mulakhkhaṣ, 79.18–2716
[Plato’s argument for Forms, and counterarguments]
To Plato is ascribed [the thesis] that for every nature of a species, there must be an individual which remains always and eternally. We have already defended this claim in the chapter on existence. They relate that [Plato] argued for [his thesis] as follows: there is no doubt that this human exists, and the human that is a part of this human is existent. The human that is participated by sensible individuals differing in their accidents is separate from all of them. Otherwise individuals having different accidents could not participate in it [human]. There is no doubt [either] that the separate man is incorruptible, even when these sensible individuals are corrupted. Therefore one must affirm the reality of the human that is separate from all accidents.
Response: we have shown the difference between human “without the condition of something [else] (lā bi-sharṭ shayʾ)” and human “with the condition that there is nothing [else] (bi-sharṭ lā shayʾ).” In the first sense [humanity] does exist extramentally. Yet it need not be separate, since separation is a qualification (qayd) attached to human. What is participated is nothing but human devoid of any qualification.
Aristotle argued against these exemplars by saying that this separated is either participated by these individuals in its concrete being (bi-ʿaynihi), or not. The former would imply that this separate entity would be described by all attributes that occur to these individuals, so that whatever Zayd knows, ʿAmr would know as well, and vice-versa. This is absurd. But the latter is absurd [as well], since whatever is concomitant to one and the same nature is one and the same. So independence from matter or the need for it must occur to all individual instantiations of the species. Also, we have already proved that if something is not individuated in its species, it must be individuated through matter.
Response [to these objections]: we choose the second option [namely that the exemplar is not participated by individuals]. As for his argument that the instantiations of one and the same nature participate in their independence from any receptacle, or in their need for it, this is refuted by the case of existence, and in fact also genera’s [relation] to specific differences. As for his second argument, that whatever is not individuated can be only individuated through matter, this is based on the former argument, and the failure of [the former argument] reveals the falsehood of [this argument].
[T9] Al-Rāzī, Mabāḥith, vol. 1, 202.16–203.5
[agrees with al-Fārābī’s interpretation of Platonic Forms as divine ideas]
The eminent master Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī claimed in the book The Harmony of The Opinions [203] of the Two Sages that the disagreement between Aristotle and Plato is merely verbal, since existences are the intelligibles of the First Principle.17 For their forms are present to Him. Given that alteration is impossible for the First Principle, these forms remain exempt from alteration and change. These forms are those which Plato called “exemplars.” This interpretation is good, but we must furthermore provide a demonstration refuting separate exemplars [that are not divine ideas].
[T10] Al-Rāzī, Mabāḥith, vol. 1, 204.2–13
[problems with univocity]
Second argument: if sensible humanity and intelligible humanity are equivalent in quiddity, then whatever is true of either of them must be true of the other. It must therefore be true of sensible humanity that it becomes intelligible, eternal, perpetual humanity, and of intelligible humanity that it becomes sensible, corruptible, originated humanity, which is absurd.
Third argument: the sensible human either (a) requires the intelligible human [as its principle] or (b) it does not. If it does require it, then this requirement may be (a1) due to the quiddity itself. But in this case, it would follow that the intelligible human requires another intelligible human, and so on infinitely; or—even worse—it could follow that the intelligible human would require itself. (a2) If however [the sensible human] requires [the intelligible human] not due to its quiddity itself, but rather due to certain of its accidents, then the accidents of something would necessitate the existence of something else prior to it, which is absurd. (b) If however the sensible human does not require the intelligible human, then the separate [forms] would be neither the causes of the sensibles nor their principles.
If on the other hand the intelligible human is not equivalent [in quiddity] to the sensible man, then it would not be its exemplar, and that’s not what we’re talking about here.
[T11] Al-Suhrawardī, Muqāwamāt, 191.3–192.2
[argument from bodily powers for Platonic Forms]
You should know that, in animals and plants, there are such [phenomena] as growth and nourishment. Their principle cannot be anything impressed [in the body], since [bodily] parts are [constantly] dissolving and being replaced through nourishment. So if the power were posited as being in a part [of the body], whatever [the part] has of [that power] will perish, and what remains will be dispersed through the dissolution of what has come in. So nothing is exempt from the replacement, and [the power] will be in constant flux. But that which preserves the [bodily] mixture and maintains the process of replacement cannot be something that has departed, since it could not produce anything once it is non-existent; nor can it be that which will be originated in it, since the replacement cannot be originated as a derivation from itself.
Nor are these activities in us due to our souls. For the quiddities [of our souls] are unities, not composed out of a perceiving and a non-perceiving nature. [Otherwise] these [composite souls] would be what we are in reality, and we would be informed about them and what their states are like only through a sort of inference. These activities, that is, nourishment, growth and so on, are arranged yet also in various ways diverse within a single arrangement. But non-perceiving nature cannot vary in its consequences, nor is it capable of this arrangement. Therefore what is active is not us, nor powers that belong to us. Rather there are inclinations in our bodies, and this inclination is called a “power (quwwa),” which originates through repulsion, attraction, or adhesion. The principle is something that is perceiving, and is outside. It is the Lord of the Heavenly Talisman. [Now,] if imagination is supposed to be corporeal, it won’t be able to come up with universal premises due to its corporeality. So soul must have a power of wisdom, which is incorporeal and is the true cogitative [power], and the Sacred Tree. [192] It is separated along with it. In bodies, there only are passive powers which when polished reveal the Forms. You must understand this, for these are the notions of the Throne (ʿarshiyyāt).
[T12] Al-Suhrawardī, Partūnāma, 46.18–47.17
[argument for Forms from the “nobler contigency (al-imkān al-ashraf)”]
Know that whenever a base contingent becomes existent, there must be a nobler existent prior to that existent. For, if a base contingent thing comes from the Necessary Existent in a unified way, [47] a nobler contingent may still be supposed to exist. But then, when we posited its existence, it would not occur from the Necessary Existent, since He is one in all respects. If He has yielded [only] the base existent, there could be no other aspect in Him [through which] He would yield the nobler existent. Hence, the cause of this nobler contingent thing would have to be nobler than the Necessary Existent, but it is absurd that anything, either in the intellect or in extramental reality, would be nobler than the Necessary Existent. Therefore a nobler existent must occur prior to the base existent. Since we know that bodies, accidents, and rational souls exist, and substances that are separate from matter in all respects and free from alteration are nobler than substances that are not separate from matter, and [also nobler than the souls that] are separate from matter yet not from connections to matter, and these do exist, it must therefore be that [these nobler substances] exist prior to them. Nor is it impossible for a substance to exist without being in matter. How else, since we provided a demonstration that soul is not in matter? So it is possible that there is something separate that has no connection to matter. Furthermore, the first thing to come from the Necessary Existent must be this substance, and this is the intellect. From this rule, one may also learn that there can be no nobler existence, or more noble worlds, than those which [already] are (hastand).
[T13] Al-Suhrawardī, Ḥikmat al-ishrāq, 65.19–67.7 [trans. Walbridge and Ziai, mod.]
[response to the Peripatetic univocity objection]
Among the errors that arise from taking the exemplar (mithāl) of something in the place of that thing is an argument used by the Peripatetics to deny the Plato’s exemplars: “were the forms of man and horse, water and fire, self-subsistent, it would be impossible to conceive of anything that participated in their true nature as being [66] in a subject of inherence. For, if any of their particulars needed a subject, then the true nature itself would need a subject. Thus, none of them could do without a subject of inherence.”
One may reply to them, don’t you acknowledge that the form of a substance occurs in the mind as an accident? After all, you say that the thing has both concrete and mental existence. If the true nature of substantiality can occur in the mind as an accident, then there may also be self-subsistent quiddities in the world of the intellect, which in this world have images (aṣnām) that are not self-subsistent. These are a perfection for other things, but they lack the perfection of the intellectual quiddities, just as exemplars (muthul) of the quiddities of extramental substances occur in the mind without being self-subsistent, so that they are a perfection or attribute of the mind and lack the independence and self-subsistence that the extramental quiddities have. So what is true of a thing is not necessarily true of its exemplar. […]
[67.1] [Avicenna] might reply [to the univocity problem as applied to the Necessary Existent], “His necessity is the perfection, completeness, and intensity of His existence. Just as one thing is more black than another not through something added to blackness, but through a perfection in the black itself, so likewise is necessary existence distinguished from contingent existence by an intensity and perfection.” Thereby he would acknowledge that quiddities may have completeness in themselves, so they have no need for a subject of inherence, or may have deficiency, so that they do need such a subject, as is the case with necessary existence and other existence, respectively.18
[T14] Al-Suhrawardī, Ḥikmat al-ishrāq, 108.17–23 [trans. Walbridge and Ziai, mod.]
[solution to the third man argument]
Do not suppose that these great men, outstanding in power and insight, held that humanity has an intellect that is its universal form and that is existent as one and the same in many [humans]. How could they allow there to be something unconnected to matter, yet in matter? Furthermore, how could one and the same thing be in the matter of many, indeed innumerable, individuals? It is not that they considered the Lord of the human idol, for example, to be given existence for the sake of what is below it, so as to be its model (qālab). They were most powerfully convinced that the higher does not occur for the sake of the lower. Were this not their teaching, they would be forced to admit that the exemplar has a further exemplar, and so to infinity.
[T15] Al-Suhrawardī, Mashāriʿ, Ilāhiyyāt, 461.1–6
[the Platonic Forms are not exemplars, solving the third man problem]
Those among them who gave it proper thought did not say that there is a subsisting Lord of Species (ṣāḥib al-nawʿ) for every accident, but [only] for the substantial species. Nor did they say that Lords of Species arise merely to be an exemplar for that which is below them, or like models (qālab). For according to them, the corporeal species have idols and shadows, and the two cannot be compared in terms of nobility. And how can the True Principle need exemplars for bringing things into existence, so that they would be rules (dustūrāt) for His creation? If He did need [them], then [the creation] of the exemplars would require further exemplars, and so on infinitely.
[T16] Al-Suhrawardī, Ḥikmat al-ishrāq, 109.1–21 [trans. Walbridge and Ziai, mod.]
[Forms do not share all properties with their particulars and are not universals in the logical sense]
Do not suppose that they held [the Lords of Species] to be composite, for that would imply that they would dissolve at some point. Instead, they are luminous, simple essences, though their idols (aṣnāmuhā) can only be conceived as composite. The exemplar need not resemble [the idol] in every respect. For even the Peripatetics admit that humanity in the mind corresponds to multiple things, and is an exemplar of what [exists] concretely, even though it is separate [from matter] and they are not, and it is without magnitude or substance, unlike that which [exists] concretely. Thus, it is not a condition for being an image (mithāl) that it be wholly similar. […]
[109.13] There are metaphors in the words of the Ancients. They did not deny that predicates are mental, or that universals are in the mind. But when they said that there is a universal man in the world of intellect, they meant that there is a dominating light containing different, interrelated rays, whose shadow among [corporeal] magnitudes is the form of man. It is a universal not in the sense that it is a predicate, but in the sense that it has the same relation of emanation to these numerically distinct things (al-aʿdād), as though it were the totality, and the root (al-aṣl). This universal is not that universal whose very conception does not preclude being shared; for they acknowledge that it has a specified essence and is self-knowing. How, then, could it be a universal notion? When they called one of the spheres “a universal orb,” and another “a particular [orb],” they did not mean “universal” in the sense used in logic.
[T17] Al-Suhrawardī, Ḥikmat al-ishrāq, 109.22–110.10 [trans. Walbridge and Ziai, mod.]
[against equating Platonic Forms with universals]
As for what some people offer as proof to establish the exemplars, namely that humanity in itself is not many, so it is one: this is not right. [110] For humanity as such implies neither unity nor multiplicity, but may be said of both. […] [110.6] Furthermore, humanity as a unity that is said of a totality (kull) is only in the mind, and its use as a predicate does not require another form. The argument that the individuals perish but the species endures does not imply that there must be something universal and self-subsisting, [since] the opponent can instead say that what endures is a form in the intellect, and with the principles. All arguments of this sort are rhetorical.
[T18] Al-Suhrawardī, Mashāriʿ, Ilāhiyyāt, 459.17–460.14
[distinction between Platonic Forms and governing souls]
They said: the Lord of Species is not a soul, since souls inevitably receive damage and pain [460] through the pain inflicted of their bodies, whereas the Lord of Species feels no pain through the infliction of pain upon its species. Also, the soul is connected to just one body, whereas the Lord of Species exercises providence over all bodies within its species.
[Zoroastrianism and Platonic Forms]
They said: as has been explained, the attraction of oil to fire is not due to the necessary absence of void, as we have mentioned. Nor is it due to the attraction of fire in its specificity. [Rather] it too is due to the governance connected to the Lord of Species, which preserves pine nuts and other things [in fire]. This is the Lord of the Species for fire, the one that Persians called “Ardibehesht.” For the Persians had a strong tendency to exaggerate when it came to the Lords of Species, so that they sanctified the Lord of the Species of a plant which they called “haoma,” which is included in their scriptural texts, and called [this Lord] “God of Haoma (hūma īzād),” and likewise for all the species.
[empirical evidence for Platonic Forms]
Hermes, Agathodaemon, and Plato mentioned no proof to establish [the Lords of Species]. They did however claim to have seen them. If they really did so, then it is not for us to dispute with them. If Peripatetics do not dispute with Ptolemy and others in the field of astronomy, so that Aristotle relies on the observations of Babylonians, and the eminent Babylonians, the Greeks, and others all claimed that they have seen these things, then one observation is the same as the other, one report is the same as another; using corporeal observation is the same as using spiritual observations, and the rarity [of astronomical observations] is the same as the rarity [of spiritual observations].
[T19] Al-Suhrawardī, Mashāriʿ, Ilāhiyyāt, 463.3–464.4
[the structure of the intelligible world]
Even though the Lord of Species has providence over the species, in the opinion of the ancients, its providence is not a providence of connection, so that it and a body would become a single individual and single species. Rather it is a species in itself. According to [the ancients], the intellects are divided into the “Mothers” in the extended series, which are the principles, and the secondary [intellects], which are the Lords of Species. The rational soul [in its turn] is divided into the soul that is perpetually connected [to a body], such as the soul of the celestial sphere, and the soul that is not perpetually connected [to a body], such as the soul of human.
[the difference between Platonic Forms and universals]
They did sometimes call the Lord of each species by the name of this species, calling it “the universal of that species.” But they did not mean by this the universal where the very conception of its meaning does not exclude participation. Nor [did they mean] that, when we intellectually grasp the universal, our intelligible object is the very thing that is the Lord of Species. Nor [did they mean] that the Lord of species has two hands, two feet, and a nose [in the case of the form of human]. Rather they meant by it that [the Lord of Species] is a spiritual essence. The corporeal species is its shadow, as if it were its idol (ṣanam). The corporeal relations between the corporeal species are only like mere shadows of spiritual relations and luminous features in the essence of [this Lord of species]. Whenever its idol cannot be preserved in a concrete individual, due to its unavoidably falling under generation and corruption, it is preserved as a disseminating individual (shakhṣ muntashir). This is universal in the sense that it is “the Mother of Species”; its relation to everything is equal, by being its Lord and that which extends its perfection and preserves the species through infinite individuals.
[the Platonic Forms are not exemplars]
When you hear that Empedocles, Agathodaemon, and others indicating the Lords of Species, you must understand their purpose. Do not think that they claimed the Lord of Species to be a body, or corporeal, [464] or that it has a head and two feet. When you find Hermes saying, “my spiritual self turned to the understandings (maʿārif), and I said to them: who are you? They said: we are your perfect nature (ṭibāʿuka al-tāmm),” you should not refer to them as our exemplars. All that is ascribed to [the ancients] on this topic is not true, as shown by the fine character of their words. But mistakes have crept in due to [textual] transmission and in the [diverse] natures of the languages, and ascription of [ideas] to them by people who did not understand their words.
[T20] Al-Suhrawardī, Hayākil al-nūr, 65.1–6
[the Platonic Form of humans is the Active Intellect]
Among the totality of the dominating lights, our father and the Lord of the Talisman of our species, that which emanates our souls and bestows theoretical and practical perfections upon them, is the Holy Spirit, which the philosophers (al-ḥukamāʾ) call the Active Intellect. All of them are separate divine lights. The First Intellect is that from which existence comes forth, and is the first to be illuminated by the light of the First. The intellects are multiplied by the multiplicity of illuminations, and their weakening in the course of descent.
[T21] Al-Suhrawardī, Ḥikmat al-ishrāq, 138.12–19 [trans. Walbridge and Ziai, mod.]
[suspended images]
You already know that forms cannot be imprinted in the eye and that, for similar reasons, they cannot be imprinted in some location of the brain. The truth is that the forms in mirrors and the imaginative forms are not imprinted. Instead, they are “suspended fortresses,” fortresses that are in no subject of inherence at all. Though they have sites of manifestation, they are not in them. The form in the mirror has the mirror as its site of manifestation. These forms are suspended and are in no place and no subject of inherence. The forms of the imagination have the imagination as their site of manifestation, and they are suspended. If there are real exemplars that are separate, and flat, without depth or any parts behind (ẓuhūr), like in the mirror, subsisting in themselves and not an accident of [the mirror], then there can also exist a substantial quiddity that has an accidental exemplar. The deficient light is like an exemplar of the perfect light; so understand this.
[T22] Bābā Afḍal, Taqrīrāt, 645.3–10 [trans. Chittick 2001, mod.]
[intersubjectivity proof for the independent being of Platonic Forms]
You should know that the intelligible meanings are self-subsistent. It is not that they have a connection to the knower’s soul; rather, the knower has a connection to them. Were they attached to the knower’s soul, no knower would be able to teach someone else what he has come to know, and were he to teach it, his knowledge would be destroyed. It would be impossible for anyone to reach a meaning and to know it; but all this is indeed possible and feasible. So none of the meanings and things of the mind are joined with, or subsist through, the knower’s essence. Rather, the meanings are true realities through their own essences. This is why they are called “meanings (maʿānī)”: they are what is “intended” from and “signified” by the words. With regard to themselves they are true realities, but with regard to the relation between them and to souls, they are forms.19
[T23] Bābā Afḍal, ʿArḍnāma, 194.13–21
[proof for Platonic Forms from the imperishability of knowledge]
Whatever is known and conceptualized in the soul remains in one and the same mode of existence, and it is not susceptible to decay, change, non-being, or destruction. But whatever exists in the world of nature either corrupts and changes, or is at least capable of corrupting and being destroyed.
If someone comes to believe that the form may be forgotten, or not known, so that even the object of knowledge may corrupt and become non-existent, then this belief is a mistake and an error. For by “object of knowledge” we intend the universal and certain true nature, which is in the universal intellective soul (nafs-i ʿāqil-yi kullī) and not in particular souls (nufūs). The universal intellective soul, which has itself as the object of knowledge, never forgets [its object of knowledge]. It is the particular knowers who forget. It only through their connection to the universal intellective soul that they intermittently observe, and are aware of, the universal and certain forms.
[T24] Al-Āmidī, al-Nūr al-bāhir, vol. 5, 157.7–158.7
[third man and univocity objections against Platonic Forms]
As for those who speak of exemplars, [the following] consequence is forced upon them: if an exemplary form (al-ṣūra al-mithāliyya) exists, it must be either (a) an object of the senses or (b) not. (a) If it is sensible, then one and the same thing would have to have two different sensible forms, which is absurd. Then too, it would need to have a further exemplar, and the argument would apply to that exemplar just as it does to the first, which is absurd. (b) If on the other hand [the exemplar] is not sensible, then either (b1) it is of the same nature as the sensible form, or (b2) not. (b2) If it is not of the same nature, then it would not be its exemplar. In fact, it would have no more claim to be the exemplar of the natural form of the sensible human than the exemplar of the form of horse. (b1) If however [the exemplar] is of the same nature [as the sensible form], then by its nature, it is either (b1a) susceptible to generation and corruption or (b1b) not. (b1a) If the former is the case, then for the exemplar there would necessarily be another exemplar, and so on to infinity, given the lack of any relevant distinction among generated things. (b2b) If however the second is the case, then it would follow that the natural form is insusceptible to generation [158] and corruption, given that both [the sensible form and its exemplar] are necessarily identical in nature. For whatever must hold for one participant in a nature, due to that very nature, must hold likewise of the other.
All these absurdities follow simply as a result of supposing the exemplar to exist; therefore there is no exemplar. Rather, whatever we get hold of in terms of universal meanings and common forms that may be participated by individuals, we do it not insofar as they have existence and self-subsistence, above and beyond the subsistence of particulars. Rather we imagine forms as imitating concrete existents, and corresponding to them in their true nature. This only happens by way of supposition and [illegible word, possibly “intellection”]. They have no existence except in the intellect and supposition.
[T25] Al-Āmidī, Daqāʾiq al-ḥaqāʾiq, Manṭiq, 49.17–21
[what is “before the many”]
Since the meaning of the universal in the mind has been verified, [we can say now] that includes that which is “after the many,” like the notion (maʿnā) of human that occurs in the soul, once the forms of Zayd and ʿAmr have occurred in the imagination. Then there is that which is “before the many.” Individual entities (maʿānī) corresponding to it occur in concrete reality, posterior to its existence in the intellect. For instance what occurs in relation to the souls of the spheres. It is this that some people interpret as “exemplars.”
[T26] Al-Abharī, Kashf al-ḥaqāʾiq, 269.10–271.5
[Plato’s argument for Platonic Forms, with refutations]
Plato claimed that every nature of a species must have an eternally remaining, perpetual individual. He argued for this as follows: this human is existent, so the human that is a part of this human is existent. Individuals with their various accidents participate in the latter, so it is separate from all of them. Otherwise things that have various accidents could not participate in it.
Response: we do not concede that, if it were not separate from all accidents, there could be no participation. For the participated human is not the separate human. Rather, what is participated is human as such (min ḥaythu huwa huwa). It does not follow from participation of various things in humanity as such that they participate in humanity with the qualification that it is separate (maʿa qayd al-tajrīd). A proof that the separate is not participated is the fact that, if various individuals were to participate in the human that is qualified as being separate, then one and the same thing [270] would be described by contrary accidents, which is absurd.
[species can only be instantiated in matter]
A disproof of Platonic exemplars is that, if there existed a separate individual for every species, then if its concretization (taʿayyun) were caused by the quiddity, then its species would be limited to one individual. But if it were caused by an agent, then so long as the agent’s production of concretization does not depend on some preparedness of the recipient [of the productive act], then its species would again be limited to one individual. But if it does depend [on the recipient’s being prepared], then every individual instance of that quiddity would be connected to matter. But we have supposed that this is not so, thus we have a contradiction. In other words, that quiddity either requires matter for becoming concrete, or it doesn’t. And the second option is absurd, since otherwise its concretization would never depend on matter, so different concretizations could not be brought about for it by an agent, since this would be preponderation without a preponderating factor. This is why that quiddity would be limited to a single individual. And this is a contradiction. So only the first option remains, namely that it cannot become concrete without matter.
[is existence a counterexample?]
Imām [Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī] argued that the proof against Platonic exemplars may be refuted with the case of existence. For existence is a single nature, but some of its instances (afrād) are separate, while others are connected to contingent quiddities. But it is not as he claimed. For not all concretizations that have to do with existence are existing: rather the individuations vary, some of them existing, others privative. The privative ones are not caused by anything. So it is not correct to say that the nature of existence either requires matter for its concretization or not, as was the case with the quiddities of species. For the concretization of the latter is something existing, which is additional to them. That is why we say that [their concretization] is either caused by the quiddity or is not. If it is [271] caused by the quiddity, then its species must be limited to one individual, so there will be no numbering [of its instances]. But if it is not caused by the quiddity, we shall say: either the quiddity requires matter for its concretization, or it can do without [matter]. The second option is absurd, since otherwise it would become concrete by an agent without any matter. So only the first option remains. So everything concrete must be material. This however does not apply to existence, because not all of its instances become concrete by something existing, as you have learned.
[T27] Al-Abharī, Muntahā al-afkār, 287.10–18
[refutation of the concretization argument from T26]
Against Platonic exemplars it was said: if there were to occur a separate, self-subsistent individual of human, then the quiddity of humanity would be independent of any connection to matter. If this were the case, then its independence would be essential, since nothing is involved here apart from humanity. And that which is essentially independent from something cannot ever need it. So it would follow that humanity can never be connected to matter, which is a contradiction.
This calls for further inquiry. For we do not concede that its independence would have to be essential. Why couldn’t it be independent only because the quiddity is stipulated as being separate from attachments [to matter]?
Let it not be said: if its separation were due to its quiddity, then every human would be separate; but if it were due to some cause that is distinct from it, then there would be preponderation with no preponderating factor. For we say: we do not concede the dilemma. This would follow only if separation were due to some cause. [But we reject this,] because separation is something privative, and is not caused by anything existing.20
[T28] Al-Nakhjawānī, Sharḥ al-Ishārāt, fol. 61v17–62v2
[argument for Forms from the nobler contingency]
This section (namaṭ)21 brings to completion a detailed investigation into the states of these classes, by inquiring into those entities that are outside of any connection with bodies and of the domain of sensibles and their attachments. Among these are the separate entities called “Platonic Forms,” which some more recent scholars called “Lords of Idols.” So [Avicenna] begins by establishing the existent that is not grasped by sensation, but only by the intellect. […]
[62r8] The erudite commentator [al-Rāzī] conceded that this participated humanity exists, but in the mind, not in extramental reality. But then one can only wonder how that which is in the mind corresponds to that which is in extramental reality, since the extramental entity is in fact the cause of that which is in the soul, sense-perception, and imagination as well. […]
[62r12] Also, if there exists the base contingent (mumkin), namely material things, then their existence as being separate from matter must be possible (mumkin). And if it is possible, then it must exist, because the nobler existent must be prior to the more base existent. For given that the aspect of actuality and existence is more powerful and more complete in the nobler contingent, and the aspect of potentiality and contingency in it is weaker and more deficient, whereas the aspect of potentiality and contingency is stronger and more complete in the baser contingent while the aspect of actuality is weaker and more deficient, this implies that the nobler contingent is essentially prior to the more base contingent. For, given that the unqualified perfection of that Existent which is pure, necessary existence implies unqualified essential priority, it follows that the ranks of essential priority must be in accordance with the ranks of perfection in existence, and that the ranks of essential posteriority are in accordance with the ranks of deficiency in existence. And it has been shown that this possibility is the most noble of the aforementioned classes. It is the forms of the species of bodies, which are separate [62v] from matter in extramental reality and are essentially prior to the baser contingent, namely the forms of bodily species that are connected to matter. The martyr Imām Shihāb al-Dīn [al-Suhrawardī]—may God have mercy on him—mentioned this in his book al-Talwīḥāt.
[T29] Ibn Kammūna, Sharḥ al-Talwīḥāt, vol. 3, 352.8–355.17
[argument from bodily powers for Platonic Forms, cf. T11]
It may be supposed that the powers in plants are accidents, because they inhere in a subject of inherence, according to the notions of the earlier scholars, or because they inhere in a subject of inherence that can do without them, according to the notions of the later scholars. Either way, the spirit (rūḥ) is their bearer, and they change and perish along with it. Likewise if their bearer were a [bodily] organ, since there is no organ or part of the body that does not dissolve in some way. Also, the parts of plants dissolve and change through nutrition. So if it is supposed that the power resides in some part [of the body], whatever is in that part will perish, while the rest will change along with the dissolution that occurs through nutrition. But that which preserves the mixture that endures through the change cannot be the same as that which passes away and perishes, since nothing can have an effect after becoming non-existent. Nor can it be that which is about to originate, since it is derived from the body, and what is derived does not originate [its own] source. Thus the aforementioned factor that preserves [the mixture] cannot be anything [inherent] in that which dissolves and arises anew.
Furthermore, when the power of growth produces augmentation (al-wārid), then it must originate this by interpenetrating with that which is being augmented. So [the power] gives rise to a number of movements: the moving of the augmentation, and the movement of what is augmented, through origination by interpenetration. But, as this movement is [a kind of] traversal (kharq), it must become manifold [as it goes] in various directions. […] The nutritive power also gives rise to various motions when it replaces whatever was dissolved, and fastens together the [bodily] parts. These different [actions] cannot proceed from one and the same power which is homogeneous in its states.
[353] This perfect arrangement cannot possibly come from a non-perceiving nature, as anyone who is sound in nature will realize. This judgment applies especially to the power that forms the organs as they are, with wondrous order, marvelous ruling, extraordinary demarcation, beneficial distribution, and forms that are necessary for the continuance of both individual and species, as explained in the chapter on dissection and the usefulness of organs in medical science, and in the books on plants and animals.
[Platonic Forms are intellects, not souls]
It remains then to relate these acts to a separate existent: either soul or intellect.
As for the souls that belong to us, we find that they are unaware of these various, well-arranged regulations. As you will learn, the soul is not composed from a perceiver and a non-perceiving true nature, such that it could give rise to these activities in us without us taking any notice of them. So the occurrence of these motions and regulations in the human being does not come from his rational soul. Intuition (ḥads) judges that in other animals too, [these activities] do not come from souls, which are perceptive and capable of voluntary motion. As for plants, none of their parts are more deserving [than any other part] to be fixed over the whole period of time that they persist, so nothing in them is fixed. If [the plant] had a soul that is separate from matter, as we do, then it would be alive. It would follow that its soul would be suspended, futile, and hindered from its perfection; intuition denies this. So the principle of all these regulations is something separate, namely the Lords of Species, which are [self]-subsistent and emanate through their elements upon that which is like an idol or shadow for them. This emanation comes from perception and comprehension.
The Master of Species (ṣāḥib al-nawʿ) cannot be a soul for that species. For the soul is susceptible to pain, and is harmed by whatever harm befalls its bodies. If the Master of Species felt pain through its species’ feeling pain, it would always be in pain. All that would happen for the Master of Species of plants, as a result of its dwelling in its bodies, would be constant pain from plucking, cutting, diseases, and so on. And likewise for many [other] Lords of Species (arbāb al-anwāʿ). Furthermore, the soul is connected to a single body, whereas the Lord of Species takes care of all of the bodies of its species. [354] Then too, the Master of Species emanates in virtue of itself. It has no need to be perfected through body. What need would that which has the rank of the principles have to dwell in the body in such a way that it would become its perfection, so that from these two would arise a single species and single individual? The connection to bodies is due only to a deficiency in substance on the part of whatever has the connection, so that it becomes perfect through the connection. The principle of body cannot act by the intermediary of body. The connection does not subject it to the control of this body that is caused by it, nor does the connection to any other body, such that [the principle of body] would wind up having no act come forth from it, unless by means of the body, and it would be the perfection of that body. It is evident that the perfection of that which is separate [from matter] consists in imitating its principle, whereas the connection to body would be a deficiency for it.
Given that the acts related to the powers do not proceed from anything inherent in the body, nor from anything that lacks awareness and perception, nor from a separate soul, they must be from a substance that is absolutely separate [from matter].
[preservation of species]
Furthermore, we find in this world species that do not arise just by chance, since if they did, their species would not be preserved. It would be possible that something other than a human occurs from a human, from a vine something other than a vine, and from wheat something other than wheat. Nor do things that are always the case rely on chance. Those marvelous colors in the feathers of peacock, for instance, do not originate just through different mixtures [that constitute] those feathers with no governing rule. Thus each of these species must have an abstract substance that is a universal for this species.
[Platonic Forms are not universals properly speaking]
By “universal” we do not here mean something where the very conception of its meaning does not prevent participation in it. For [the Lord of Species] is a specified object (dhāt mutakhaṣṣaṣa), and it knows itself. Nor [do we mean] that it exists as one and the same in a multiplicity of things, since nothing can, while being one and the same, exist in many instances of matters and innumerable individuals, not being separate from matter or separate from [the individuals]. Rather, we mean that it is “the mother of species,” and that its relation to each of its individual is equal for as long as it emanates upon them, as if it were the totality and the root.
[355] The Master of Species does not bestow existence for the sake of that which is below it, so as to be its exemplar, since the higher does not happen for the sake of the lower. Whatever one takes as a model or exemplar of something, that thing must be nobler than it, since it is the final end. But this cannot be true of the [separate] intellects. If it were the case [that the Lords of Species are exemplars], then there would need to be other exemplars for [these] exemplars, and so on to infinity.
[relations between Platonic Forms and their instances]
Even though their idols can only be conceptualized as composite, [the Lords of Species] are simple objects that do not dissolve at any time, due to their simplicity. It is not a necessary condition for being an exemplar that it resembles in all respects. For humanity in the mind corresponds to a multiplicity among concrete individuals, yet it is separate [from matter], non-substantial, and cannot be measured, unlike what is in extramental reality. Whatever relations apply to the corporeal species are like shadows of the relations and spiritual forms in the [Lord of Species] itself. Besides there need not be an exemplar for animality, for instance, and another exemplar for animal’s being bipedal, and likewise musk and its smell, or sugar and its taste, or other analogous cases. Rather every independently existing thing from among these has something in the higher world that relates to it. The idol of their separate essences, together with their spiritual forms, is this independent thing, like humanity together with its organs, which vary according to the relations assigned to them.
Even though the form of humanity or horse, for instance, cannot but subsist in matter in the lower world, it is nonetheless separate from matter in the intelligible world. Likewise many forms in the mind are accidents that are not self-subsistent, yet they are taken from substances that are self-subsistent. The same goes for the forms of species that are taken from these exemplars. The intelligible quiddities have a perfection in themselves, with no need for any subject of inherence. By contrast, the quiddities which are their idols have a deficiency such that they do need [a subject of inherence]. The reason is that [the idols] are a perfection for something else, and are not self-subsistent. [Or] like the existence of the Necessary or of something else, or [again] the substance and the form that is taken from it in the mind.
[T30] Al-Shahrazūrī, Shajara, vol. 3, 339.2–340.6
[argument for Forms from the nobler contingency]
One of the implications derived from the rule “from the one proceeds only one” is that, whenever there is a more base and a more noble contingent, if we find the more base to be existent, this indicates that the nobler contingent exists before it.
Proof of the inference: if the more base contingent is existent, it is among the effects of the Necessary in Itself. (a) If it proceeds from Him through the intermediary of some other effect, then that effect is the cause of this more base contingent. The cause must be essentially prior to the effect, and be nobler than it. From this follows the soundness of the inference. (b) If however this more base contingent is an effect of the Necessary in Itself without an intermediary, and if (b1) the nobler [effect] could also proceed from Him without any intermediary, then the rule stipulating that “from the one proceeds only one” would be violated. For then two things, the more base and the nobler [effects] we have supposed, would both proceed [from God]. The falsity of this has been shown repeatedly. (b2) If on the other hand that nobler [effect] proceeded from Him through the intermediary of some other thing, then it would follow that the effect is nobler than the cause. For we have supposed that the more base contingent proceeds from Him without an intermediary. So if the nobler [effect] could proceed from Him through the intermediary of another effect, then it would follow that the nobler must come forth from the more base, which is absurd. For, if the Necessary in Itself yielded that which is more base through His aspect of oneness, He would have no other aspect [left] for yielding that which is more noble. So long as the more noble is contingent, as has been supposed, and no absurdity follows from supposing that the contingent thing occurs, at least in respect of itself (though absurdity may arise in some other respect), then, if we suppose that the nobler contingent is existent, and it is not necessary through the Necessary in Itself (since it has been supposed to occur through another), nor can it be necessary through any of Its effects (since the nobler cannot proceed from the more base), [the result of all this is that] its occurrence calls for an aspect that is nobler than that of the Necessary Existent. But this is absurd, because one cannot conceptualize, either in [340] concrete or in mental existence, any aspect that would be nobler than that of the Necessary Existent. Just as one cannot conceptualize anything as being nobler than Himself, so one cannot conceptualize anything being nobler than the effect than immediately proceeds from Him. Likewise, there is nothing closer to Him than [His first, most noble effect]. So, there must be intermediaries that arise between the Necessary in Itself and that which is more base: first, something nobler, and then something else even more nobler, and so on until the end of the ranks of effects is reached. The nobler does not proceed from the more base, rather the more base must proceed from the nobler, down to the last of the ranks.
[T31] Al-Shahrazūrī, Shajara, vol. 3, 343.15–344.15
[objection to the argument from the nobler contigency, with reply]
You might say: if the nobler contingent occurred necessarily, as you have insisted on the basis of this rule, then no given individual could be prevented from [attaining] whatever is more nobler and more perfect for it. But this is not so, for most people are indeed prevented from [attaining] their intellectual perfections, even though it would be more perfect and nobler for these perfections to occur to those individuals, rather than not doing so. If the rule of the nobler contingency were valid, then no individuals could be prevented from [attaining] that which is nobler. The consequent is false, so the antecedent as well.
Response: the rule of the nobler contingency is not applied without exception to [344] all contingent existents, so that [this] problem would arise. Rather it [is applied] without exception only to those existents that are fixed in existence, and prevented from non-existence caused by anything that is originated. Rather, they exist eternally, due to the eternity of their causes, which are fixed and devoid of any influences from the spherical motions and rays of the stars—unlike the contingents that fall under the influence of various motions and are elemental compositions. For, although heavenly motions do produce their existence, they also produce their non-existence. A multiplicity of things is possible for the many things in the world of generation and corruption, in their essences. Then, through other causes that are extrinsic to their essences, their existence winds up being prevented from [attaining] whatever is more perfect and nobler, due to hindrance to [the influence of] the heavenly causes and prevalence of the natural causes that follow upon the heavenly motions. This is how it goes with everything that falls under the motions. Thus one and the same thing may yield something nobler at one time, and something base at another time, because of the way it has been disposed by the eternal motion, not in itself. This is not how it is with the eternal things. Their nobility and baseness differs only due to a difference in agent, or a difference of aspects in it: what was made by the nobler is more nobler, what was made by the more base is more base. Thereby one sees the difference between cases where the nobler contingency applies without exception, and where not; so this deals with the aforementioned objection.
[T32] Al-Shahrazūrī, Shajara, vol. 3, 426.4–11
[direct experience of Platonic Forms]
These luminous exemplars are those that all divine ancient philosophers affirmed. Mere demonstration does not suffice for affirming them. Rather, to perceive them, one needs refinement, discipline of the soul, unerring intuition, the “taste (dhawq)” of unveiling, intelligible considerations, and [acts] of spiritual separation. It was inevitably difficult for the Peripatetic philosophers to affirm the luminous exemplars, as their philosophy (ḥikma) was purely investigative, with no admixture of the “taste (dhawq)” of unveiling and lordly divination. So they posed objections against [the exemplars], and took what the ancients (may God have mercy on them) had mentioned about [the exemplars] to be a matter of mere persuasion and rhetoric, and a weak philosophy of their times.
[T33] Al-Shahrazūrī, Shajara, vol. 3, 436.10–15
[Platonic Forms do not share all the features of their participants]
According to them the Lords of Luminous Species are simple, not composite. They cannot dissolve or perish at all, even though their resembling idols and material models are composite. For, despite the fact that these material species are semblances of those luminous separate species, it is not a condition for the exemplar (al-mithāl) that it resemble (al-mumāthila) [its model] in all respects. Otherwise the exemplar, and what it resembles, would be one and the same, with no numerical [distinction] between the two. This would imply that what resembles does not resemble, which is absurd.
[T34] Al-Shahrazūrī, Shajara, vol. 3, 441.5–12
[intuitions, animal acts, and unconscious acts come from Platonic Forms]
What leads to certainty for the insightful among those gifted with intuition, and strong opinion for everybody else, are the inspirations (ilhāmāt) that occur all at once in the branches of knowledge or in practical affairs (fī al-ʿulūm wa-l-siyāsāt); in children; whenever speechless animals heal their sicknesses with herbs, liquids, and [other] medicaments, knowing of the benefit they will derive; and when a baby seeks for the breast, and when [chick’s] embryo breaks the egg; or when one blinks when someone pokes a finger or something sharp at it; and other inspirations and amazing phenomena that are found among animal species, according to the exposition one may learn from the Book of Animals—all this happens due to the Lord of Species, which governs, preserves, and inspires that species with whatever suits it in terms of well-being and the beneficial.
[T35] Al-Shahrazūrī, Shajara, vol. 3, 442.9–443.11
[Platonic Forms are light]
An indication that all the ancients believe that the Creator, the exalted, is separate light, and that those sorts of angels that are near to Him, and the Lords of Species, are separate lights, is what Plato and his followers declared: that the pure light is the world of intellect. Likewise those philosophers who came before him, like Socrates, Pythagoras, and Empedocles and other eminent [thinkers], mentioned that the world that is separate from matter and hidden from sense-perception due to its extreme subtlety, is pure light, and sheer luminosity.
[T36] Al-Shahrazūrī, Shajara, vol. 3, 454.2–17
[the world of images is beyond the heavens]
You should know that the upper surface of the highest sphere cannot touch non-existence, as when it is said that there is no void or emptiness beyond it, since from this it would follow that there is pure non-existence beyond [the surface of the sphere]. An existing thing cannot be adjacent to non-existence or touch it. Rather, there is beyond it a spiritual sphere of images (falak rūḥānī mithālī) that is self-subsistent, and is in neither place nor time. Although it encompasses [the outmost sphere] spiritually, it penetrates through all bodies and all things separate [from matter], and flows through them, in the mode appropriate for spiritual things. Furthermore, other spiritual spheres encompass this spiritual sphere. […]
[454.13] Furthermore, the spiritual sphere that encompasses the highest [celestial] sphere and the spheres of the world of images (ʿālam al-mithāl) above it: just as it encompasses the bodies of spheres and penetrates through them, so also it encompasses the elemental bodies, mineral composites, plants, and animals belonging to the world of images. These are the suspended images in the spiritual air, subsisting by themselves and penetrating through bodies by flowing through them.
[T37] Al-Shahrazūrī, Shajara, vol. 3, 457.3–458.12
[proof for an “intermediary” world of suspended images; its role in mathematics, dreams, and mirror images]
You have already learned, in the book on the soul, during the investigation into faculties and the forms of mirrors that is part of natural science, that no imaginative forms conjured by humans while waking or dreaming are seated in the brain, nor in any of its parts, whichever part it may be, given the demonstrations mentioned [there] that something large, such as the half the sphere of the world, or a great mountain, cannot be impressed in a small part of the brain. Nor do they exist in the world of sense-perception. Otherwise everyone who has properly functioning sense-perception would see them; but this is not the case. Nor are they purely non-existent, since pure non-existence cannot be conceptualized or imagined. Yet we do conceptualize these imaginative forms properly and completely, and we distinguish them from other sensible and imaginative forms. We also judge that they have things in common with other sensible and imaginative forms. Yet no pure non-existence can have anything in common with something else, or be distinguished from it. Therefore, none of the imaginative forms, or those forms that we behold in sleep, are pure non-existence. And if they are not pure non-existence, nor are they in any part of the brain, or in the world of sense-perception, it is determined that they are surely in some other world.
That world is called the world of images and imaginations: it is above the sensible world and place, but below the world of intellect. It is in the middle between those two worlds. [458] Everything that specialists in mathematics have imagined, whether figures, measures, bodies, and whatever is connected to them in terms of motions, rests, positions, forms, surfaces, lines, points, and other states: all of it exists in the intermediary world (al-ʿālam al-awsaṭ). This is why the philosophers (ḥukamāʾ) called [mathematics] “the intermediary philosophy” and “the intermediary science.”
Likewise mirror images, as you have learned, are not in the mirrors, given the proof that has been mentioned in natural science. Nor are they imprinted in the air or in the eye, nor are they in pure non-existence after they have been observed. So they must be in the aforementioned world of images. The divine master [al-Suhrawardī] mentioned in the Philosophy of Illumination that everything that is seen in dreams, whether mountains, seas, earths, terrifying, great sounds, or many enormous people: all these are images that subsist neither in place nor in any subject of inherence. Likewise those accidents that only subsist in bodies, in our [world], such as tastes, smells, sounds, the four active and passive modalities, and other accidents: they are images (muthul) that do not subsist in matter [in the world of images].
[T38] Al-Shahrazūrī, Shajara, vol. 3, 460.14–461.14
[modalities of the world of images]
All that is in our world, whether spheres, stars, elements, composites, motions, and other accidents, exists in the world of images. Still these things are subtler, better, nobler, and more eminent in the world of images than in this world of ours, because of their proximity to the First Principle and the intelligible principles.
You should know that the world of images is a huge world of enormous expanse, entirely without delimitation (ḍīq). For delimitation applies only to places and material dimensions, whereas the forms there subsist in themselves without needing matter. Nor do they need place, since place is needed only by that which has matter. Those spiritual forms do not compete over subjects of inherence and place. […]
[461.6] Just as the spheres and stars of the sensible world are perpetually in motion, and its elements and composites are perpetually receptive of dispositional effects from the spheres, and souls [are in perpetual reception] from angels, and so on infinitely, in the same way, the spheres and stars of the world of images, are in perpetual motion, and the elemental likenesses, and the forms of minerals, plants, animal and human perpetually receive the effects of those imaginative motions and illuminations of the intelligible worlds, given that they are related to separate likenesses in their separation from matter. Therefore they receive intelligible illuminations, and there occur from those illuminations, in combination with the reception of those likenesses, the species of diverse forms, whether of spheres, stars, elements, and the forms of elements, plants, animal, and human, given the diverse relations that exist in that world, infinitely.
These suspended images may sometimes occur by way of origination and arise anew, thanks to the origination of a form in a polished mirror or in animal imaginations. Then these forms may also perish after having occurred in the receiver, or in the imagination. So it does not remain after having vanished from the receptacle or the imagination, [instead] being self-subsistent and essentially independent, like all the others form that are fixed in the world of images.
[T39] Al-Shahrazūrī, Shajara, vol. 3, 464.18–465.4
[the world of images as the afterlife]
The world of images has many levels, which only God the exalted and the intelligible principles can count. At each level are an infinity of individuals for the species that are in this world of ours. [465] Some of these levels are luminous, pleasant, eminent, and noble; these are the levels of paradise, which can be enjoyed by the intermediary inhabitants of the paradise. But these levels are also diverse. Some of them are more eminent and more luminous, some less so. Likewise there are dark and painful levels. These are the levels of hell, in which the inhabitants of the fire are tormented. [They are also] diverse in the intensity of their darkness and desolation.
[T40] Al-Shahrazūrī, Shajara, vol. 3, 469.19–470.7
[Platonic Forms and the world of images]
The world of images, that is, of suspended forms, is not the Platonic exemplars (muthul). For the Platonic exemplars are pure luminosity and they are the intellects that are separate from matter. [Some] suspended images are dark, but [others] are illuminated, and they reflect white upon the blessed, so that they may enjoy them, but for the unfortunate they are blue and black, so that they are tormented by them.
Just as Plato and some of his predecessors, like Socrates and some philosophers (ḥukamāʾ) who came earlier, affirmed [470] the luminous exemplars (al-muthul al-nūriyya) which are the Lords of Idols, so they also affirmed the suspended images (al-muthul al-muʿallaqa), both the illuminated and the dark. They claimed that these are separate substances that are fixed in thought and the imagination of the soul. Plato said: I perceived the outlines (rusūm) of particulars, like point, line, surface, and body, and they exist through themselves. Likewise the accoutrements of body as separate, such as motion, time, place, and form. We are aware of them with our minds, sometimes as simple, sometimes as composite. They have22 true realities through themselves, without no bearers or subjects.
[T41] Al-Shahrazūrī, Shajara, vol. 3, 503.16–19
[on al-Ṭūsī’s account of Platonic view]
[Al-Ṭūsī’s] second [mistake]23 is that he reported that the great and mighty divine Plato believed in the self-subsistence of intelligible forms. [Rather] Plato only meant to establish the Lords of the Idols of Species. For he said that every corporeal species—be it simple or composite—possesses a Lord of Species which is an abstract intellect which subsist by itself. That self-subsistent intellect is the intelligible of any species, and not that the intelligible is an accident form, or an image, or a trace which subsists by itself.
[T42] Al-Ḥillī, Asrār, 505.15–506.2
[diagnosing the mistakes of the proponents of Platonic Forms]
Also, when one says that humanity is a single meaning in which many participate, they believed that “one and the same (al-wāḥid)” here means numerical unity (al-wāḥid al-ʿadadī), so that humanity would be one in number existing in many things. And, when one says that material things are caused by that which is separate [from matter], they believed that whichever of the separate beings this is, it is capable of exercising causality, so they made mathematical objects the principles for natural ones.
T. Bates, Duns Scotus and the Problem of Universals (London: 2010), 77.
The two Arabic expressions differ only in the place of the negation lā in the word order; one might render this into English more literally as “with no condition of any other thing” and “with the condition of no other thing.” For the distinction see S. Menn, “Avicenna’s Metaphysics,” in P. Adamson (ed.), Interpreting Avicenna: Critical Essays (Cambridge: 2013), 143–169, at 158. Avicenna allows that an essence can exist “with the condition of no other thing” in the mind in Shifāʾ, Ilāhiyyāt, I.5, 155.14.
On Avicenna’s critique of Platonic Forms see M. Marmura, “Avicenna’s Critique of Platonists in Book VII, Chapter 2 of the Metaphysics of his Healing,” in J.E. Montgomery (ed.), Arabic Theology, Arabic Philosophy: From the Many to the One: Essays in Celebration of Richard M. Frank (Leuven: 2006), 355–370; R. Arnzen, Platonische Ideen in der arabischen Philosophie: Texte und Materialien zur Begriffsgeschichte von ṣuwar aflāṭūniyya und muthul aflāṭūniyya. (Berlin-New York: 2011); D. Janos, Avicenna on the Ontology of Pure Quiddity, chapter 2; M.S. Zarepour, “Avicenna on the Nature of Mathematical Objects,” Dialogue 55 (2016): 511–536 and idem, “Avicenna against Mathematical Platonism,” Oriens 47.3–4 (2019): 197–243.
For this classification see e.g. Simplicius, Commentary on the Categories, 82–83.
In addition to al-Fārābī, mentioned below, a view like this can be found in Ibn ʿAdī. See M. Rashed, “Ibn ʿAdi et Avicenne: sur les types d’existants,” in V. Celluprica and C. D’Ancona (eds), Aristotele e i suoi esegeti Neoplatonici (Naples: 2004), 109–171. See also F. Benevich, “ ‘Die ‘göttliche Existenz’: Zum ontologischen Status der Essenz qua Essenz bei Avicenna,” Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 26 (2015), 103–128 and “The Priority of Natures and The Identity of Indiscernibles: Alexander of Aphrodisias, Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī and Avicenna on Genus as Matter,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 57 (2019), 205–233.
See further the chapter on God’s Essence, esp. [T41].
It should be noted that his arguments, and generally positive attitude towards the Forms, are found in authors beyond the Illuminationist tradition. A student of al-Rāzī named al-Kashshī quotes from al-Suhrawardī on the topic in Ḥadāʾiq al-ḥaqāʾiq, 142v, but at 141v he has cautioned that this doesn’t necessarily mean he follows al-Suhrawardī’s views. Also as we will see, Bābā Afḍal gives arguments in favor of the Forms, without referring to the Illuminationist position.
On this see F. Benevich, “A Rebellion against Avicenna? Suhrawardī and Abū l-Barakāt on ‘Platonic Forms’ and ‘Lords of Species,’ ” Ishraq 9 (2020), 23–53.
Cf. the interpretation of the status of the Platonic Forms in J. Kaukua, Suhrawardī’s Illuminationism: A Philosophical Study (Leiden: 2022) as well as Arnzen, Platonische Ideen in der arabischen Philosophie.
On Avicenna’s Giver of Forms see our chapter on Active Intellect in the Physics and Psychology volume, and for the reception of the idea D.N. Hasse, “Avicenna’s ‘Giver of Forms’ in Latin Philosophy, Especially in the Works of Albertus Magnus,” in D.N. Hasse and A. Bertolacci (ed.), The Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin Reception of Avicenna’s Metaphysics (Berlin: 2012), 225–250.
See further N. Sinai, “Al-Suhrawardī on Mirror Vision and Suspended Images (muthul muʿallaqa),” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 25 (2015), 279–297.
See further P. Adamson, A. Lammer, “Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Platonist Account of the Essence of Time,” in A. Shihadeh, J. Thiele (eds.), Philosophical Theology in Islam. Later Ashʿarism East and West (Leiden: 2020), 95–122.
In other words we have not a straightforward negation (“S is not P”) but a so-called “metathetic” proposition of the form “S is non-P.” For more on metathetic propositions see our chapter on Propositions in the Logic and Epistemology volume.
See further Avicenna, Shifāʾ, Madkhal I.12.
Cf. Plato, Timaeus 69c, 73e, 90a–d.
Quoted after MS Tehran Majlis 827t, because the passage is lacking from MS Berlin or. oct. 623.
See Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī, L’Harmonie entre les Opinions de Platon et d’Aristote, texte et traduction, ed. and trans. F.W. Najjar et D. Mallet (Damascus: 1999), § 68; and in the newer edition al-Fārābī, L’armonia delle opinioni dei due sapienti il divino Platone et Aristotele, ed. and trans. C. Martini Bonadeo (Pisa: 2008), 70. The passage is discussed in P. Adamson, “Plotinus Arabus and Proclus Arabus in the Harmony of the Two Philosophers Ascribed to al-Fārābī,” in D. Calma (ed.), Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes, vol. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 184–199.
See further the chapter on God’s Essence, esp. [T41].
For the continuation of this passage see [T46] in the chapter on God’s Essence.
Al-Abharī’s only engagement with al-Suhrawardī’s analysis of Lords of Species seems to be a non-critical repetition of the “nobler contingency argument” in al-Abharī, Bayān al-asrār, fol. 50. Note that al-Abharī does not use it there to prove the existence of the Lords of Species, but only to establish the priority of the celestial intellects over the sublunary world.
This is a commentary on the text quoted in our chapter on Universals [T8].
Reading lahā with three manuscripts listed in the apparatus, instead of lā.
The context of this paragraph is a discussion whether God can have knowledge through inherent forms, or they must be separate intelligibles; see further our chapter on God’s Knowledge and God’s Knowledge of Particulars, especially [T75].