Avicenna on common natures and the ground of the categories
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21597741 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Hashem Morvarid (0000-0001-8744-4621, University of Illinois Chicago, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 766-797 |
| Publication date | 2024-07-03 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | British Journal for the History of Philosophy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0960-8788 • E-ISSN: 1469-3526 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09608788.2023.2201609 |
| OpenAlex | W4377824482 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 35 |
A main function of common natures in Avicenna’s metaphysics is supposed to be providing an objective ground for the categories. Thus, it is commonly assumed that in his metaphysics things are objectively divided into the categories into which they are because members of each category share the same common nature. However, common natures cannot perform the function unless they are shared, in a real sense of the word, by the members of the respective categories, and it is not clear at all in what real sense Avicenna took common natures to be shared by them. On the one hand, he rejected Platonic and Aristotelian realisms about common natures, the two standard accounts of how common natures are shared by their instances. On the other hand, it is unclear that his alternative account(s) of common natures renders them genuinely common. The primary goal of this paper is to examine whether Avicenna’s common natures can provide an objective ground for the categories. It considers various interpretations of Avicenna's account and argues that they are either incorrect interpretations of Avicenna or do not render common natures genuinely common. It concludes with proposing to look elsewhere in Avicenna’s system to find the objective ground
Common cause and special cause · Common ground · Common name · Common sense · Epistemology · Metaphysics · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Computer Science · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · Mathematics · Medieval and Classical Philosophy · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Artificial Intelligence
An inquiry into meaning and truth
The Arabic, Hebrew and Latin Reception of Avicenna's Metaphysics
The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus
Duns Scotus on the Common Nature and the Individual Differentia
Avicennian essentialism
Notes on Avicenna's Concept of Thingness ( šay'iyya )
Varieties of Avicennian arguments for the existence of God
Al-Suhrawardī’s Critique of Ibn Sīnā’s Refutation of the Platonic Forms
Avicenna against Mathematical Platonism
Essence and Modality
Finean essence, local necessity, and pure logical properties
Conceptual Analysis, Dualism, and the Explanatory Gap
On the Reduction of Necessity to Essence
Aquinas on the Problem of Universals
Impredicative Identity Criteria
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |