by; Nader
El-Bizri
Abstract
This paper investigates
the manner in which Mull¡ s¯adra relies on causation in his articulation of the
question of being, and of the distinction between essence and existence, in
terms of the modalities of necessity, contingency and impossibility. My investigations
will be mainly focused on a close textual, exegetical as well as hermeneutic,
interpretational reading of Kit¡b
al-mash¡‘ir (Le livre des
pénétrations métaphysiques, or what is also rendered in English as: The
Book of Prehensions). This will be conducted from the standpoint of a
comparative consideration of Avicenna’s ontology in the light of accounting for
Martin Heidegger’s critique of the history of metaphysics in Sein und Zeit,
wherein the history of metaphysics is construed as being the history of the
oblivion of being. Like what I have attempted to show in my book, The
Phenomenological Quest Between Avicenna and Heidegger (Binghamton, 2000), I
will argue in this paper, that Mull¡ ¯adr¡’s ontology, like Avicenna’s ontology
before him, does indeed divert from the confines of the Aristotelian and
Peripatetic substance-based ontology (ousiology, that is based on ousia). Given
this state of affairs, his ontology overcomes some dimensions of Heidegger’s
critique of metaphysics while anticipating the emergence of phenomenological
methods of investigation in ontology. Yet, even if some aspects of Mull¡
¯adr¡’s ontology were akin to some of what is encountered in Heidegger’s
thinking, it nevertheless remains to be the case that an articulation of the question
of being, in terms of causality, falls within the confines of a ‘metaphysics of
making’ that is oblivious of being.
In the introduction of Kit¡b al-mash¡‘ir (Le livre des pénétrations
métaphysiques),1 the
reader encounters an arrogation of the philosophical voice, whereby the author,
with an ex professo gesture, appropriates with humbleness the representative
illuminating guidance with respect to matters related to onto-theology. Mull¡
¯adr¡ calls those who are guided by the light of gnosis, on the path to God, to
listen with their hearts in order that the light of his own wisdom penetrates
their souls. Ontology, and the arguments and speculations that surround it, or
emerge from it, are to be addressed as being matters of the heart that cause
inner sensations and penetrating feelings; namely that arouse al-mash¡‘ir. After all,
theological questions are themselves construed as being identical with the
articles of the faith in God and in His attributes. Metaphysics, and ontology
in particular, is accordingly identifiable with theology and faith. This is
further accentuated by Mull¡ ¯adr¡’s appeal to the proofs of the credo (al-adilla
al-naql¢yya), that are based on the Qur’¡n and ¦ad¢th, which are placed
alongside the logico-rational proofs (al-adilla al-‘aql¢yya). Within
this conceptual and religious framework, the question of being or existence (mas’alat
al-wujËd) remains to be the ground of philosophical principles themselves.
Hence, neglecting the question of being is indicative of some sort of philosophical,
if not theological, ignorance. To attend properly to the question of being is
to attempt to affirm the originary character of being or existence as the
origin, truth and reality, of all beings and existents. Accordingly, as Mull¡
¯adr¡ asserts, all that is other than being is a mere reflection, a shadow or
an.
The treatise, Kit¡b al-mash¡‘ir, which
representatively summarizes the main traits of Mull¡ ¯adr¡’s ontology, is
pervaded by hermeneutic dimensions that tend to clarify the relation between
the inner, esoteric, and hidden meaning of a term (al-b¡§in) from one
side, and its apparent and subtle exoteric sense (al-¨¡hir) from the
other side. With a modern philosophical sensibility, his ontological
speculations are mediated through a hermeneutic turn that pervades his
consideration of the question of the meaning and truth of being. With a voice
of authority, Mull¡ ¯adr¡ proclaims in the prologue (section 5) of Kit¡b al-mash¡‘ir, that:
The thatness of being (‘inn¢yyat
al-wujËd) is the most clear an evident of all entities in its givenness [or
presence] and in its revelation; while its quiddity is the most hidden in
conception and in apprehension; while its notion is in no need of
identification, and is the most manifest, clear, general and all encompassing
of all entities. As for its identity, it is the most determined of determined
entities in concreteness and individuation.
He then adds that being
(al-wujËËË£d) cannot be identified, given that identification is based
on either definition or description. Being cannot be defined since it has no
genus nor species, while it cannot be described given that it cannot be
perceived or grasped by way of what is more manifest, apparent or prevalent
than it (sections 6-7). Furthermore, nothing in the realms of forms is
correspondent or correlative with it. In a manner that is akin to what is
encountered in 20th century
methods of investigation in ontology, particularly those indicative of Martin
Heidegger’s inclinations in Sein und Zeit, being (Sein, être, al-wujËd) is not taken to be a
handy and available concept, nor is the ontological difference between being
and beings articulated in terms of a talk about genus and species.2 This turn in ontology is indicative of
the extent of the indebtedness of metaphysicians, like Mull¡ ¯adr¡, to
Avicenna’s methods of investigation in ontology.
Pointing to the
originary and primary character of being, Mull¡ ¯adr¡ holds (III, 16) that the
truth and reality of anything is encountered in its being or existence. This is
the case, given that being is the truest and most real of true and real things.
Although being or existence must have correlates in the world, as beings and
existents, it is nevertheless distinct from that to which it is predicated
(III, 19). In addition, the originary character of being entails that if there
were no being, that is if there is no ‘is’ as such, then there would be no
things. This itself is phenomenally experienced in terms of saying that the
counterfactual: "If there is no ‘being’, then there would be no
thing", is itself ungrounded, given that there is no position or situation
in the world, or in any conceivable possible world, whereby that counterfactual
might make sense. Even with possible world semantics we obtain the tautological
conditional: if there is something, then ipso facto ‘there is being’; namely
that: ‘there is’, es gibt Sein, il y a, hun¡lika. This is itself a lesson that
could be learnt from the instructive scenes that are enacted in Descartes’
Meditations and Avicenna’s De anima (Kit¡b al-nafs). Based on Descartes’
cogito argument and Avicenna’s ‘suspended person’ argument, ‘being’ cannot but
be affirmed. Being is revealed within hyperbolic processes of doubt as being
convergent with thinking. The logical conditional that pervades ontology is: If
‘x’ is not in union with being, then ‘x’ cannot be; or: ‘x’ is, if and only if,
‘x’ is in union with being. Given this, how would we attend to ‘being’ or
‘existence’, that is, how would we attend to ‘al-wujËd’ with which
beings and existents are united? In the fourth mash‘ar (metaphysical
penetration or prehension) Mull¡ ¯adr¡ asserts that ‘al-wujËd’ is
characterized by a concrete determinate givenness (‘aynn¢ya) that is,
hic et nunc, realized in the world that is external to the mind. The reality of
existence is not realized in the mind, rather its reality is realized in a
determinate concrete givenness in the world, namely in a realm that is external
to the mind (IV, 55, 57). In this sense, existence is not super-added to
essence like what is claimed to be the case with Avicenna’s proclaimed
‘essentialism’, as it has been hastily declared by I . Gilson, A. –M. Goichon,
H. A. Wolfson, and J. Caputo. However, this does not readily entail that being
or existence is reducible to being a concrete and determinate existent entity
that is realized in the world. This is the case given that such construal of
being or existence would entail that the existence of ‘existence’, as an
existent, would require an existence, and so on ad infinitum (IV, 39).
Existence is not reducible to the order of an existent, nor is being reducible
to the order of a being; in other terms, the ontological is not reducible to
the ontic. As indicated in a quotation taken from Avicenna, Mull¡ ¯adr¡ asserts
that existence is existing or the state of existing. This is similar to what in
a contemporary philosophical sense is encountered in Emmanuel Levinas’
ontological remarks in Le temps et l’autre: wherein ‘être’ is taken to
be ‘exister’, similarly, al-wujud
huwa-l-mawj£d¢ya, its truth is that it ‘is’ (IV, 47). This polemically
opens up the perplexing question of the difference between the ontological and
the ontic. This might be captured by the expression: ‘exister sans existant’,
‘existing without an existent’, ‘being without a being’, which is almost
unthinkable, and thus falls beyond the limits of being articulated in a
meaningful discourse.
In accounting for the
question of being in terms of its originary character, one mediates the
reflection on this matter through a consideration of being in terms of the
modality of necessity. In this regard, and in a manner that is akin to what is
encountered in Avicenna’s account of being in terms of necessity, Mull¡ ¯adr¡
holds that, in contrast with contingents, the Necessary Existent is prior to
every existent, It is what depends on nothing other than Its-self. Its
necessity is an Eternal Necessity, and It is what has no imperfection
whatsoever (IV, 42). Given the primary character of existence/being, and the
concrete determinacy of its givenness, Mull¡ ¯adr¡, like Avicenna before him,
asserts that substance, quality, and the other [Aristotelian and Peripatetic]
categories are all kinds of essences. As for existence/being, it is the ground
of existential realities which are characterized by a determinate and concrete
mode of givenness. Being, or existence, is thus not a substance (jawhar),
nor is it a quality, nor a quantity. Being, or existence, overcomes the
confines of ousiology (an ousia based ontology) and its categories. After all,
based on Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Book IX), dealing with ‘beings in the primary
sense’ leads the inquiry to that which ‘all other beings are referred back to’,
namely ousia.3 Based
on this reading, and quoting Aristotle, one could say that ‘everything that is
(the other categories than ousia) must, in and of itself, have the saying of
ousia’.
Like Avicenna before
him, Mull¡ ¯adr¡ opens up the ontological investigations to a realm that does
not reduce being to essentia or substantia. Being, or existence, has no genus,
no species, no differentia, no essence or quiddity. Moreover, none of the
categories apply to it (IV, 60-61). Mull¡ ¯adr¡, also asserts that the category
of relation (al-mu¤¡f), and the other nine categories belong to the
domain of essences not existences. Although the Necessary Existent is the
source of everything, and that the relation of every state of affairs is due to
It, however It transcends the category of relation and does not belong to it
(VII, 99). With a Neoplatonic tone, modes of existence or being are taken to be
primordial and originary realities and truths, like the ‘rays and reflected
lights of the True Light and of the Eternal Existence’ (VI, 85). Furthermore,
with an evident Neoplatonic parlance, and in a careful distinction from the
positions held by Stoics and Peripatetics, Mull¡ ¯adr¡ holds that what is
emanated and made by-itself, in everything that has a maker (j¡‘il), is
the concrete and determinate mode of givenness of existence (VII, 89). In this,
the existence of the maker, or creator, acts as the ground for the existence of
the created entity. Based on causal explanations, one could say that the
existence of the effect is due to the existence of its cause, and is
strengthened by it. In this sense, one cannot claim that it is possible to
conceive an effect while being oblivious of the existence of the cause that
necessitates it (VII, 91-92). Based on this, the causal nexus itself is seen as
being that of a necessary connection between the cause and the effect, whereby
the knowledge of the effect is mediated through the knowledge of its cause.
Therefore, explanations, and the issuing understanding that is coupled with
knowledge, cannot take place unless a thorough account of causes is in place.
In this sense, Occasionalism will undo our knowledge as well as undo the
grounds by virtue of which beings are encountered in the world. One could even
say that the concrete and determinate mode of givenness of things and beings is
itself dependent on the principle of causation. This is the case given that the
knowledge of a specific mode of existence cannot be accomplished unless it is
mediated through a knowledge of the ‘emanating cause’ of that specific mode of
existence. It is therefore said that: ‘the knowledge of what belongs to a
cause, namely an effect, cannot be achieved except through the knowledge of its
cause’ (VII, 92). And the meaning of posteriority and priority, in knowledge
and in existence, emerges from the standpoint of the relationship between a
cause and its effect. This is the case given that the cause is evidently prior
to an effect, and priority itself is understood in terms of being a priority in
existence as well as being a priority in time (VII, 100). Furthermore, the
created or constituted entity is not essentially distinct from its cause, given
that the truth of an effect is not its essence but its existence. Based on
this, the existential truth of an effect is essentially linked to what brought
it to existence, that is its cause (First Path, Auxilliary mash‘ar VIII, 116).
In order to understand what beings are, and how they come to be, they have to
be accounted for from the standpoint of causation. It is therefore imperative
to reflect on how the ‘concept’ of something is itself reducible to being
merely ‘the effect of a cause’. Any being is thus the effect of something other
than itself. Beings are therefore the effects of the creator and maker. Based
on their concept, they are created beings (VII, 93). Accordingly, the notion of
what something is, that is the concept by virtue of which the quiddity, and
even the existence, of that thing is revealed, is in itself known by way of
being construed as the effect of a maker or a creator. In this sense, and in
tune with Mediaeval doctrines, beings are construed as ens creatum, and this in
itself raises contemporary phenomenological doubts about how the question of
being is addressed from that standpoint. After all, according to Heidegger’s
assessment, a construal of beings as ens creatum, is a an onto-theological
undertaking that falls under the rubric of the metaphysics of productivity and
making as exemplified by the workings of the Vorhandenheit, wherein being is
reduced into an objective and produced handy presence.4 But is it the case that being is
reduced to a mere productive act of making that characterizes creation? It is
clear that based on an emanation scheme, which itself may be articulated and
understood in terms of accounts of causation, one could hypothesize that
‘whatever has a simple nature, its action is simple’. Therefore, creation and
existence by way of Eternal Necessity, are both synchronously concurrent.
However, given the priority of a cause over the effect, one could argue that
there is some sort of an analogical hierarchical significance (tashk¢k)
that pervades the relation of a cause to its effect, and that such state of
affairs is translated into a priority in being and/or in time. If the
relations, between the maker (or creator) and the made (or created), are those
of deficiency to perfection, of weakness to strength, then would it not also be
the case that such relations obtain between a cause and an effect? This is the
case given that the creator or maker, that is the one that causes, is more
perfect and more complete in realization, than the created or made, that is its
effect. The cause in this sense is more perfect, more complete, and stronger
than what issues from it as an effect. One could also add that the cause is
more concretely determined in its mode of givenness in existence than its
effect. The hierarchy unfolds along a ‘great chain of being’ which is
intricately articulated through the intermediacy of the causal nexus. This
grounds our understanding of the process of emanation, which is construed as
being a mode of explaining creation, whereby the chain of created beings must
have its terminus in the Necessary Existent (First Path, Auxiliary mash‘ar: 1,AI, 104).
Both causation and
emanation are traced back to the process of the modalization of the First
Principle along the many modes of Its epiphany and manifestation (1, AVIII,
117). Mull¡ ¯adr¡ holds that ‘an existent is either the truth of being and
existence, or it is something else’. By the ‘truth of being’, he means ‘a pure
existence that is not contaminated by anything like definition, end (telos),
deficiency, generality or specificity. The truth of being is the ‘Necessary
Existent’ (1, AI, 104). Based on this, the Necessary Existent is pure being,
esse only. Without this truth, no thing would ever exist. Every essence and
quiddity exists due to that truth. Anything that is an existent, yet that is
not the truth of being, is a composite and contingent entity. It is composed of
what marks its being and existence and of something that is other than
existence. And anything that is other than being or existence manifests a
partaking in privation. Furthermore, every composite is posterior to what is
simple and is in need of it. As for privation, it has no part in the ‘existing’
of existents although it partakes in the shaping of their definition or
meaning. From this, the pure truth of being, which is not contaminated by
whatever is not of the order of being, is the origin and ground of the existing
of every existent; the ground of the beingness of every being (1, AI, 104).
The Necessary Existent
(Ex necesse esse) is the truth and reality of being that is not affected by
anything other than pure being and existence, that is Its-self. Being as such,
the Necessary, is not subject to definition or limit, given that what is
subject to definition and limit is not pure being, it is rather that which is
in need for a cause or reason (sabab) to define it and specify it. Being
pure being, is being beyond definition, description and limit. It is what is
without differentia, form, agent, purpose, telos and end. In a revisionist
position viz. Plato’s theory of forms, the Necessary Existent is even taken by
Mull¡ ¯adr¡ to be that which is the form of Its-self. It is what cannot be
described or made known but by being Its-self (1, AII, 105). Being as such, The
Exalted Necessary, is neither bound up with anything nor dependent on anything.
It is a simple truth and reality, Necessary in all respects with the exclusion
of contingency and impossibility, otherwise this would entail composition. Pure
being, as the Necessary Existent, is unparalleled, incomparable, without
similar, opposite, contrary or like. It is rather pure being as the ‘fountain
of all goods’, a perfect above perfection (1, AIII, 106-107). The Necessary
Existent is the primordial origin and telos of everything. It emanates
everything without having partners in emanation. All that is other than It is
merely of the order of contingent essences that are deficient in themselves and
dependent on what is other than themselves. All contingents, in their
hierarchies and ranks in being, are indigent in themselves towards the
Necessary. They are contingent due to themselves and conditionally necessary
due to the Necessary Existent. Without It they are false and perishable. The
Necessary Existent is the completion and perfection of all things, It is the
Light of lights, the reference of all that is (1, AIV-AV, 108-110). All beings,
all creatures, tend back to It as their maker, origin, and telos. In a
dialectical sensibility, Mull¡ ¯adr¡ argues that the Necessary Existent, as a
simple truth and reality, as a simple pure being, encompasses in its unity all
that is, except what is of the order of privations, lacks and deficiencies.
However, we are cautioned as to not imagine that the relation of contingent
beings with the Necessary Existent implies any sense of incarnation or union
that would entail a duality in the ground of being (1, AVIII, 117). By way of
illustrating this point, Mull¡ ¯adr¡ conjectures that if an entity ‘x’ exists,
such as ‘x’ is ‘not y’, then by saying ‘x’ we already imply that ‘it is not y’,
and that it is not anything that is ‘not x’. In a dialectical structure, this
entails that every being thus contains the negative as one moment of its own
determination, in its very own essence, it is also an affirmation of the
negative within itself, being and non-being are two moments of the same
determination of being. Affirmation and negation are thus revealed as being one
and the same. However, this implies that whoever conceives a human being, also
conceives that it is not a horse, yet, it is the case that conceiving something
as not being a horse does not entail that what is conceived is a human being. Given
that the consequent is not true, so would be the antecedent; accordingly,
‘being x’ is different from ‘being not y’ (1, AVI, 110).
According to Mull¡
¯adr¡, the effect of an agent is either natural, compulsory, coercive,
intentional, or it is due to resignation, providence, or epiphany. These
determinations of the effect of the agent may vary with the doctrinal positions
of such groups like the materialists, the naturalists, the Mu‘tazilites, the
Illuminationists, the philosophers, and the ¥£f¢s (3, AI, 123). If it has been
shown that causation accounts for the coming to existence of something, it
might itself also account for the subsistence of something in existence. In
this regard, it might be said that everything in the world constantly acquires a
renewed identity without fixity in its mode of being or in its individuation.
Accordingly, it may be observed that nature is in a state of ever self-renewing
itself. In this, ontology, which breaks away from ousiology, may be turned into
a metaphysics of processes. This state of affairs may be attributed to a
‘substantial form’ that always grants the modification, renewal (tajaddud),
division, disappearance, and destruction of all bodies. This view is itself
founded on the claim that the maker or creator, makes or creates the
self-renewal in entities by way of creating their self-renewing essences.
Accordingly, entities will be caused by their essential self-renewing causes.
Based on this account, creation or making may be restricted to the creation or
making of self-renewing essences which themselves grant the self-renewal of
things without the intermediacy of existential causes. In that sense, the
essential cause allows for the endurance and self renewal of things while the
existential cause grants the possibilities for having such self-renewing
essence. Thus, the created being will be linked to the Eternal by way of
self-renewal. However, stamping being with becoming is indicative of processes
and motions rather than self-same, eternal and necessary substances. Yet,
motion is understood Mull¡ ¯adr¡ as being the indicator of a transition from
potentiality to actuality rather than being the means by virtue of which such
transition is effected. In this sense, he asserts that motion is ‘the gradual
transition’ of a substance ‘from potentiality into actuality’, and ‘time is the
measure’ of this transition. Yet, neither this substantial motion, nor time,
nor accidents, are suitable to act as mediators between what is generated and
the Eternal. Contingency, ‘being in need’, and ‘being an effect’, all are
auxiliaries [if not supplements] to existence and being, but not to its truth
and reality. They are linked to being by way of deficiencies and privations
that are external to the truth of being. Pondering on necessity/contingency, or
richness/indigence, leads to the affirmation of the unity of the attributes of
the Necessary Existent, and consequently tends towards unveiling the quality of
Its states and influential traces. Like what is attested with Avicenna, being is
a simple reality and truth, that has no genus, no differentia, no definition,
no description or proof.5 The
difference between its ‘ones’ and ‘numerous many’ is merely a difference in
levels of perfection and deficiency, priority and posteriority, richness and
indigence, or due to accidental matters like it is the case with the same
essence that persists in different individuals. This being the case, Mull¡
¯adr¡, asserts that the deficiency in being or existence does not emerge from
the truth or reality of existence, given that it entails privation which is the
negative moment in the perfection of being or existence. After all, pure being
cannot be associated with privation and non-being. Privation, deficiency, and
lack cannot arise at the source and origin of being. They are negative moments
in the determination of being which arise due to posteriority, as what is
implied in the privation and indigence that arise due to the process of
emanation. Based on the ranks in being, the caused cannot be equal to what
causes it, the made is weaker and posterior to the maker, the created is not
equal to the creator, and the emanated is not equal to the source of emanation.
Beings, as caused entities and originated existents, are all creatively ranked,
without strict fixity, from the noble to the nobler, with varying motions and
degrees of intensity in their participation in being in the movement of
self-perfection (Epilogue, 144-146). Being as becoming, initiates the rise of a
process ontology that breaks away from ousiology, yet by the structuring force
of the principle of causation, the substantial movement is itself subjected to
a determining and ordering fixity. Furthermore, the process ontology itself is
eventually turned into a classical onto-theology that is reductive of being in
view of religious ends. The structuring order of causation and the
transformation of ontology into onto-theology, both work hand in hand as
principles that counteract the aspiration to take metaphysics to be the science
of being qua being as conceived by Avicenna. ‘Being’ is central to Mull¡
¯adr¡’s onto-theology, yet apparently it is not the most central and primary
subject matter of his metaphysics. Based on his onto-theology, the subject
matter of his metaphysics is eventually Divinity and the Divine. In this
regard, one wonders how one would still be able to religiously affirm all the
divine attributes, on the grounds of them being mentioned in God’s word,
al-Qur¡n, and in the Prophet’s words, al-¦ad¢th,
while philosophically refuting all the categories viz. the Exalted One. The
perplexing matter that calls for thinking is how can one still talk about the
Exalted One as maker, origin, and telos, if the category of relation is
refuted? In order to avoid such seeming inconsistencies, do we not have to
accentuate the priority of the religious elements in Mull¡ ¯adr¡’s thinking up
and above his philosophical onto-theological inclinations? Would it not be the
case that, piety and worship, if not mysticism, are more powerful matters of
the heart, which in this regard are of more significance than following the
philosophical tendencies of systematic onto-theology? After all, one could say
that, to attend to the question of being requires a thinking that ‘lets beings
be’, that ‘lets being lie forth’. If one would ponder on this matter from a
contemporary standpoint, and thus receive Martin Heidegger’s critique of
metaphysics with philosophical seriousness, then one would say that a
‘causal-ontological’ account inevitably emerges from a philosophy of actualitas
that is based on a ‘language of production and making’. This would unveil the
traits of a metaphysics that attends to the realitas, causalitas, and
actualitas, and neglects the ‘truth as unconcelament’ (aletheia).6 Ultimately, ‘causal-ontology’ belongs
to the history of the metaphysics of Vorhandenheit (objective presence),
energeia, ousia, and techne, which all fall under the rubric of the metaphysics
of making or of productivity that is ultimately oblivious of being.
Notes:
1-In this paper, I have
mainly relied on the Arabic version of the text Kit¡b al-mash¡‘ir which appears in the bilingual
Arabic/English edition: Mull¡ ¯adr¡, Book of Prehensions (Kit¡b al-mash¡‘ir),
trans. Parviz Morewedge (Binghamton: Society for the Study of Islamic
Philosophy and Science, 1992). All references to Kit¡b al-mash¡‘ir are inset within the body of the text
of this paper, and they are all based on the Arabic text that is included in
the above edition.
2-After all, it could
be argued that one of the main features of Heidegger’s critique of metaphysics
is expressed in the claim that being has fallen into oblivion throughout the
history of Western metaphysics. This in itself reflects a deep interest in
thinking about the unthought ontological difference between being and beings in
terms of addressing what opens up that difference in its very own differing.
3-For the
interpretation of this passage in relation to Martin Heidegger’s critique of
the history of metaphysics, see: Martin Heidegger, Aristotle’s Metaphysics, IX
1-3: On the Essence and Actuality of Force, trans. Walter Brogan and Peter
Warneck (Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995), p. 2.
4-Heidegger’s critique
of metaphysics expresses a critical concern with a particular side of the
history of metaphysics that is oblivious of being and that has been dominated
by making and productivity. Such particular history is that of the metaphysics
of Vorhandenheit (objective presence), energeia, ousia, and techne, which all
fall under the rubric of the metaphysics of making or of productivity.
5-After all, in more
than one occasion, Avicenna holds that, the First has no genus, nor quiddity,
nor quality, nor quantity, nor place, nor time, nor a counterpart, nor a
partner, nor a contrary opponent. He also asserts that the First has no
definition or demonstration. That It is rather the proof and originary
principle of all that is and It is not a thing among things. For furtter
elaboration on this issue, refer to: Kit¡b
al-Naj¡t, ed. Majid Fakhry (Beirut: D¡r al-‘¡f¡q al-jad¢da, 1985), pp.
265-266; Livre des Directives et Remarques, trans. A. –M. Goichon (Paris:
Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1951), pp. 351-357.
6-For a brief account
of how Martin Heidegger’s critique of metaphysics may be applied to
metaphysicians like Thomas Aquinas and Avicenna, see: John Caputo, Heidegger
and Aquinas: An Essay on Overcoming Metaphysics (New York: Fordham University
Press, 1982), p. 6; John Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger’s Thought
(New York: Fordham University Press, 1986), pp. 76, 80.
