Influences and Translated works
During the classical period of Islamic philosophy, there were two major influences; Aristotle, and the Neo-Platonic tradition. The first was very influential with his work on logic – the Arabs were looking for a method to teach their religious ideas, and they found the tools in Aristotle’s Organon. However, what the Arabic thinkers believed to be Aristotle’s ideas on soul, intellect, God, creation, knowledge, and psychology, was actually the work of the latter, the Greek Neo-Platonic tradition. Thus, the second major influence was the Neo-Platonic tradition, which roughly covers the period from Plotinus (205-270 C.E.), untill the last Platonic school in Athens was closed in 529. The work of two important thinkers of this tradition, Plotinus and Proclus, would be translated into Arabic as works by Aristotle. Plotinus’ Enneads and Proclus’ Elements of Theology would become known in the Islamic realm as respectively Theology of Aristotle and Book on the Pure Good (or the Book on Causes, which would later become known in its Latin version as Liber de Causis). Via this mix-up the merging of these two opposite strands of philosophy started in the Islamic tradition, to later be passed along to the Christian tradition. It would not be until the thirteenth century Thomas Aquinas discovered that Liber de Causis is actually Proclus’ Elements of Theology. Because of this, the mixture of Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic thinking is an inherent part of Islamic philosophy. Repeatedly both philosophies were combined and used in order to help religious thought.
Plotinus and Theology of Aristotle
In 205 Plotinus was born in Egypte. Later on he would get a Greek education in Alexandriaand would work in Romeas a philosophy teacher, where he would also die in 270. He is considered the founder of Neo-Platonism. His writings were collected and rearranged by Prophyrius into six books, each with nine treatises. The books that were translated from Greek via the Syriac language into Arabic, and were then named the Theology of Aristotle, were Ennead IV, V and VI; respectively on the happiness, the soul and psychology, on epistemological matters and the intellect, and on Being and the One, the first principle of all.
The most important contribution Plotinus made to the Islamic tradition is his concept of emanation (fayd) of the One or God. The act of creation is the bringing of non-being into being and God, who is responsible for this event, is also the principle of true being. For a good understanding of this concept, it is helpful to think of it as a water fountain. God is the fountain from which all water falls down and flows forth. It is a stream that we cannot disrupt, it is the First Principle. With this flow the unfolding of the cosmos is a mere consequence of the being of the One, God. The first emanation, the first stepping stone on which the water of the fountain falls, is the Nous, followed by the World Soul, which is divided in higher and lower Nature Soul. The human soul comes forth from the higher Nature Soul. The lowest forms of being are brought forth by the lower Nature Soul.
In Theology of Aristotle we find that Plotinus considers the soul to be apart from the body, as he tries to reduce the soul to her oneness with the One. Aristotle sees striving for the highest fulfillment as a characteristic of humans; Plotinus takes this endeavor as a vital element of everything in the universe, so everything and everyone is striving towards being (at) one with the One. According to Plotinus, the One is pure potential. What exists is actualization (a typical Aristotelian distinction), so there is a hierarchy, and also a world of being, and one of potential, that is not yet actualized. Furthermore, he wants the One, God or the divine First Principle, to be above everything. At the same time, the soul is able to know the First Principle. As we will see, Plotinus’ ideas of emanation, the oneness and the soul, are very useful to the Islamic thinkers. However, it does leave them with the problem of duality. How can something be the absolute One, being above all existing things, and at the same time be one with them?
Proclus and the Book on the Pure Good (or Book on Causes)
Even in the Neo-Platonic tradition the problem of duality is not left for the Islamic thinkers to wrestle with. The first thinker directly after Plotinus who tried to tackle the problem of duality is Proclus. He was born in the Constantinopleof 412. In431 he became leader of the Academia in Athensand he would remain so until his death in 485. At the Academia he studies and teaches the old Greek tradition, practices rituals, and prays to the Greek Gods. He collected and systematically wrote down all theological truths in his Elements of Theology, which as mentioned earlier, would be translated into Arabic as Book on the Pure Good by Aristotle. As the original title indicates, Proclus wrote about the fundamental metaphysical concepts of theology. The core concept within Proclus’ metaphysics is the idea of multiplicity of entities, within the oneness theory.
Proclus defined more metaphysical elements of the universe than Plotinus. In hierarchical order: One, Being, Life, Intellect, Soul, Nature, Body, and Matter. For him, the human soul is not always transcendental, as it is for Plotinus. All these distinctions are a result of the perspective of the human soul that uses these concepts to understand the surrounding universe, which is in fact a unified one. However, it is possible for the human soul to return to the First Principle, through the right mediation; of course, that would be philosophy. Like the human soul, every caused entity has the One as cause and as point to return to. Proclus’ cause theory is more exhaustive, since he considers a starting point, a current position, and a final goal – all are in connection with the One. With this elaborate cause theory, Proclus is able to establish a multiplicity in the unity of the One.
The One isn’t a simple the name for the First Principle; the One gives existence to the things in the world by giving them unity. This unity, or oneness, is transferred through forms – this idea is of course based on Plato’s theory of Forms, and like the latter theory this idea is also the source of the Good; the One is the Good.
See also: Islamic Philosophy