UML

[3.3.3] Ibn Sina on the Soul

A. L. Komáromi7 Comments

Ibn Sina (Avicenna, 980-1037 AD) elaborates on the Soul in the book De anima of the Shifā or Healing, according to which:

  • The Soul is immaterial, separated from the body, however, linked to it.
  • Exterior and interior senses serve the Intellect as a source of knowledge, through a process of abstraction from sense perception.
  • Knowledge – Forms – is also received from the Active Intellect

The following UML Use Case diagram presents the main concepts in Avicenna’s theory of the human soul, strongly related with his Cosmology (see [3.3.2]), and Aristotle’s Psychology (see [1.3.6]):

Avicenna on the soul
FacultyUse CaseRelations
EXTERNAL SENSESUse TASTE, TOUCH, SMELL, HEAR, SEE perception: are shared by non-rational and rational animals. impressed by Object in External World
COMMON SENSE (receptive)
(al-mushtarak) 		(Use COMMON SENSE to) unify and monitor 5 senses, present in animals also.Includes all 5 extenal senses
RETENTIVE IMAGINATION (retentive)
(al-khayyāl/ al-mutasawwira)		(RETENTIVE IMAGINATION) retains sensible images provided by the External Senses and Common Sense.Includes “Use COMMON SENSE to) unify and monitor 5 senses”
ESTIMATION (receptive)
(wahm)		Instinctive sensing of intentions (is provided by ESTIMATION): “While the range of properties included under the rubric of estimative intentions appears to be quite broad, the most vivid and well-known examples that Avicenna gives are of affective qualities, such as the sheep‘s grasp of the fact that the wolf is her natural enemy, and her recognition of her offspring as an object of affection.”
Estimation is present in animals also.		Includes “Use COMMON SENSE to) unify and
MEMORY (retentive)
(ḏikr)		(MEMORY) stores intentions – whether of good or of evil.Includes “Instinctive sensing of intentions (is provided by ESTIMATION)”
COMPOSITIVE IMAGINATION (al-mutakhayyila) (COMPOSITIVE IMAGINATION) combines and divides sensible images and intentions, produces cogitation: “The compositive imagination is posited to account for the capacity to combine and divide sensible forms and images with estimative intentions without reference to the actual configuration of things in the external world, that is, without any stipulation that the external senses have previously been affected by such combinations. […] So it is necessary for there to be a faculty in us by which we do this, and this is the faculty which is called cogitative (mufakkirah) when the intellect employs it, and imaginative (mutaḫayyilah) when the animal faculty uses it.”
Compositive Imagination is present in animals also, but in humans – when controlled by the Intellect – produces cogitative thought. This, through the generalization of the images and intentions and using syllogisms, prepares the Intellect to receive forms from Agent Intellect through emanation/actualization. 		Includes “(MEMORY) stores intentions”; Includes “(RETENTIVE IMAGINATION) retains sensible images”
INTELLECT (Actual INTELLECT) controls Compositive Imagination; produces derivative propositions and concepts through cogitation.Includes “(COMPOSITIVE IMAGINATION) combines and divides sensible images and intentions, produces cogitation”
INTELLECT(Acquired INTELLECT) receives concepts/forms through actualization from the Active Intellect: “…all new intelligibles must ultimately be explained with reference to a direct emanation from the Agent [Active] Intellect.”Extends “(Acquired INTELLECT) receives concepts/forms through actualization from the Active Intellect”;
Communicates with Active Intellect
Use Cases

ActorDescriptionRelations
Object in External WorldA sensible object in the external world.
Active IntellectActive (or agent) intellect is the last, tenth member of the chain of celestial intelligencies emenated by the First Pronciple (see [3.3.2]).
User of the SoulA human person.uses (Actual INTELLECT) controls Compositive Imagination; produces derivative propositions and concepts
Actors

Sources

  • All citations from: Black, Deborah, “Rational Imagination: Avicenna on the Cogitative Power”, University of Toronto
  • Gutas, Dimitri, “Ibn Sina [Avicenna]”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
  • Herbert A. Davidson, “Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, on Intellect”, Oxford University Press 1992

First published: 15/8/2019
Updated: added use case related to Acquired Intellect on 7/3/2021
Updated: added table with Actors 7/3/2021

[3.2.3] Al-Farabi on Knowledge and Certitude

A. L. KomáromiLeave a comment

An important concept related to knowledge in al- Fārābī’s (872-950 AD)(and arabic) philosophy is certitude (al-yaqīn): “‘Certitude’ is identified as the cognitive state produced in the knower by her employment of demonstrative methods, in contrast to the inferior logical arts of dialectic, rhetoric, poetics, and sophistry, which produce cognitive states that approximate the certitude of demonstration in varying degrees. “Certitude” thus functions as a technical term in Arabic accounts of demonstration, to a large extent displacing the traditional identification of the end of demonstration as the production of “knowledge” or “science” (‘ilm, equivalent to the Greek epistēmē).”

Al-Fārābī writes about the notion of absolute certainty in his Book of Demonstration (Kitāb al-burhān) and the second is the Book on the Conditions of Certitude (Kitāb Šara’iṭ al-yaqīn). Here Al-Farabi names six, more and more restrictive criteria, the fulfillment of which lead to absolute certitude. These can be conceptualized as the differentia in the 10-fold Aristotelian categorization scheme [1.3.2].

The six criteria are:

  • second order knowledge criteria: (C1) S believes that p; (C2) p is true; (C3) S knows that p is true;
  • certitude criteria: (C4) it is impossible that p not be true; (C5) there is no time at which p can be false; (C6) conditions 1-5 hold essentially, not accidentally;

The process of getting to absolute certitude is shown in the UML Activity Diagram below, where S is the subject and p is the proposition:

Al-Farabi on knowledge and certidude

By the end of this process the potentiality in Material Intellect becomes actualized in the Actual Intellect by grasping absolute certitude (see [32] also).

Sources

First published: 24/07/2019