“The Excellent among the Earlier Scholars”: Alexander of Aphrodisias in Avicenna’s Metaphysics

A glaring example of the centrality of Alexander of Aphrodisias’s metaphysics in medieval Arabic-Islamic philosophy is provided by the most important philosopher of the so-called “classical” or “formative” phase of falsafa, namely Avicenna (d. 428H/1037). Alexander of Aphrodisias is surely one of the main Greek sources of Avicenna’s metaphysics, as his four explicit quotations in the most important metaphysical work by Avicenna – the Ilāhiyyāt (Science of Divine Things), of Kitāb al-Šifāʾ (Book of the Cure or of the Healing) – attest. The present contribution analyzes Avicenna’s four explicit references in the Ilāhiyyāt to the writing Maqāla fī l-Qawl fī mabādiʾ al-kull bi-ḥasab raʾy Arisṭāṭālis al-faylasūf (Treatise on the Speech regarding the Principles of the Universe according to the Opinion of Aristotle the Philosopher) ascribed to Alexander in the Syriac and Arabic tradition, contextualizes them in the framework of Avicenna’s recourse to the philosophical and scientific authorities that Avicennas’ mentions in this work, and discusses the degree of realiability of the interpretation of the Alexander Arabus that Avicenna provides.