Ammonius and al-Farabi: The Sources of Avicenna’s Concept of Metaphysics

The doctrinal influence of Ammonius Son of Hermeias (Alexandria, V-VI c. AD) on the metaphysical thought of Avicenna appears to have been not only indirect (i. e. exerted by Ammonius’ disciples, like Philoponus, rather than by Ammonius himself, and stemming from these latter’s commentaries on natural philosophy and psychology, rahter than from works of metaphysics), as portrayed in recent scholarship, but also direct: it came directly from Ammonius and originated from some writings of his on metaphysics. The present article argues that the first recipient and witness of this influence in Arabic philosophy was al-Farabi in his treatise On the Goals of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, whose impact on Avicenna’s understanding of the Metaphysics is well-known. In the light of its literary genre (an introduction to the Metaphysics modeled on the prolegomena literature of Late Antiquity), some of its doctrines (the investigation of God as the main goal of metaphysics, metaphyiscs as the universal science of existent qua existent, the proof provided by metaphysics of the principles of the particular sciences), its theme (an investigation of the goal of the Metaphysics and of the goals of its single books), some of the authors referred to in it (the “Posterior Peripatetics”) and the range of its possible sources (Ammonius’ treatise on the goals of Aristotle’s works, mentioned in Arabic bio-bibliographical literature), al-Farabi’s Fi Aghrad can be envisaged as dependent on Ammonius’ metaphysics. In the first section (§1), the content of the Fi Aghrad is overviewed. In the second (§2), the reliance of the Fi Aghrad on Ammonius’ metaphysics is argued for, and the work of Ammonius which al-Farabi might have taken as model is tentatively identified. In the third section (§3), Avicenna’s reception of al-Farabi’s treatise is documented in detail.If the analysis proposed in the present essay is correct, a fundamental joint connecting the Greek metaphysics of Late Antiquity with the early phase of Arabic metaphysics is now available for further investigation.