Bidayah Al-hikmah (arabic-english) [the Elements of Islamic Metaphysics]{edited}

المرحلة السادسة في المقولات العشر وهي الأجناس العالية التي إليها تنتهي أنواع الماهيات

CHAPTER SIX: The Categories

11 Units

6.1. DEFINITIONS OF SUBSTANCE AND ACCIDENT AND THE NUMBER OF THE CATEGORIES

Quiddity is divided in the first classification into substance and accident. That is, it is either such that, when existing externally, it does not exist in a locus that has no need of it for existing. This is irrespective of whether it does not exist in a locus at all (as in the case of self-sustaining intellectual substances), or exists in a locus that needs it for existing (as in the case of the elemental forms impressed in the ‘matter,’ which sustains them). Or, it is such that when existing externally it exists in a locus that does not need it for existing, such as the quiddities of ‘nearness’ and ‘remoteness’ between bodies, and ‘standing’ and ‘sitting,’ ‘facing’ and ‘having one’s back towards something’ for man.

The existence of these two kinds is necessary, and one who denies the existence of the substance is forced to consider accident as substances, thus unwittingly admitting its existence.

The accidents are nine. They are categories and constitute the highest genera. Their common name ‘accident’ is a general accident for them and there is no genus above them,’ in the same way as the concept ‘quiddity’ is a general accident for all the ten categories, which do not have a genus.

The nine accidental categories are: ‘quantity,’ ‘quality,’ ‘place.’ ‘time,’ ‘position,’ ‘possession,’ ‘relation,’ ‘action’ and ‘affection.’ This is the opinion of the Peripatetics concerning the number of the categories and inductive evidence forms its basis.

Some philosophers have held the accidents to be four. They put the relative categories, the last seven, into one group. Suhrawardi held them to be five, adding the category of motion to these four.’

The discussions concerning the categories and their classification into the kinds that fall under them are very elaborate and here we will give a summary based on the prevailing opinion amongst the Aristotelians, while referring to the other positions.

6.2. THE CLASSIFICATION OF SUBSTANCE

The metaphysicians first divide substance into five kinds: ‘matter’ (mâdddah), ‘form’ (shûrah), ‘body’ (jism), ‘soul’ (nafs) and ‘intellect’ (‘aql). Inductive evidence for the existence of these substances forms the basis of this classification.

‘Intellect’ is a substance devoid of ‘matter’ both in its essence and in act. ‘Soul’ is a substance devoid of ‘matter’ essentially but associated with it in act. ‘Matter’ is a substance that possesses potentiality. ‘Bodily form’ (al-shûrat al-jismiyyah) is a substance that gives actuality to ‘matter’ in respect to the three dimensions. ‘Body’ is a substance extended in three dimensions.

The inclusion of ‘bodily form’ in this classification is an accidental one, for ‘form’ is differentia negatively conditioned and the differentiae of substances do not fall under the category of substance, though the term substance may be predicable of it (in the sense of technical predication), as was seen in the discussion on quiddity.” The same applies to ‘soul.’

6.3. BODY

There is no doubt that there are various bodies sharing in bodiness as substances extended in three dimensions. Hence body qua body is divisible in the supposed dimensions and is perceived as having a continuous unity by the senses. But is it really a single continuum as it appears to the senses or a collection of particles separated by interstices, contrary to what is perceived by the senses?

If it is a continuous unit, are its potential divisions finite or infinite? If it is a collection of discrete particles, are its actual divisions - i.e. the smallest particles which represent a limit to division, not being susceptible to further division externally - capable of further division in the imagination on account of their being small bodies with a certain volume? Or are they incapable of any further division, externally as well as in the imagination, due to not possessing any volume, though they are capable of being pointed at sensibly? Further, in the last case, is their number finite or infinite? Each of these alternatives has had supporters.

In all there are five theories.

(i) According to one of the views, bodies are in fact continuous units as they appear to the senses and consist of potentially finite parts. This view is ascribed to Shahristani.

(ii) According to a second view, bodies are really the continuous units they appear to be to the senses and susceptible to an indefinite number of divisions. When actual division stops due to the smallness of size and the inadequacy of cutting instruments, they can be divided in the imagination, and when imagination fails as a result of extreme smallness, they are susceptible to division by the intellect in accordance with its universal judgement that whenever anything is divided into parts, the resulting parts are divisible as they possess volume and two distinct sides. Thus there is no end to this process, for division does not exhaust volume. This opinion has been ascribed to the philosophers.

(iii) According to a third view, a body is a collection of small unbreakable particles that are not devoid of volume. They are susceptible to division in the imagination and the intellect though not in external reality. This theory has been ascribed to Democritus.

(iv) A fourth view is that bodies are composed of parts that are indivisible, externally as well as in the imagination and the intellect. They are susceptible to being pointed at sensibly and are finite, separated by interstices through which the cutting instrument passes. This opinion is ascribed to a majority of the theologians (mutakallimûn).

(v) According to a fifth view, bodies are composed as described in the fourth theory, with the difference that it holds the particles to be infinite in number.

The fourth and the fifth views stand refuted on the ground that if the indivisible particles they hypothesize do not have any volume, their aggregate, of necessity, cannot produce a body possessing volume, and if they possess volume, they are of necessity susceptible to further division by the imagination and the intellect if, supposedly, their external division is not possible due to extreme smallness.

Further, if the particles were infinite in number, the body formed by their collection would also necessarily have an infinite volume. Other arguments have been advanced against the theory of indivisible particles in elaborate works.

As to the second theory, it is unacceptable due to the weakness of reasons advanced to prove that simple bodies’ are substances consisting of a single continuum without interstices, as they appear to be to the senses. In recent times physicists have accepted after extensive experiments that bodies are composed of small atomic parts, which are themselves constituted by other particles and have a nucleus possessing mass at their centre. However, this is a premise derived from disciplines outside philosophy.

The first view is also unacceptable as it is prone to the objections that arise against the second, fourth and fifth views, for it relieves in the actual continuity of a body and its potential divisibility into a finite number of parts whereat division ceases absolutely (i.e. externally as well in the imagination and the intellect).

Hence the existence of ‘body’ as a continuous substance extended in three dimensions is undoubtedly affirmed, but this conception corresponds only to the fundamental particles possessing extended mass, into which all specific bodies are reducible, as pointed out above. This is same as the view of Democritus with some modification.

6.4 PRIME MATTER AND BODILY FORM

Body qua body - i.e., that which primarily and essentially possesses extended mass - has an actuality, and it has a potentiality n insofar as it can receive specific forms (al-shûwar al-naw’iyyah) and their properties. The mode of actuality is different from the mode of potentiality, for actuality is marked by possession and potentiality by non-possession. Hence there is a substance in body with the potentiality for receiving specific forms, and it is such that it has no actuality except sheer potentiality and that is its mode of existence. The ‘bodiness’ by virtue of which it has actuality is a form that gives subsistence to that potentiality. This shows that ‘body’ is composed of ‘matter’ and ‘bodily form,’ the aggregate of two.

This ‘matter’ is present in all bodily existents and is called ‘prime matter’ (al-mâddât al-ûlâ or hayûlâ). Moreover, ‘prime matter’ along with ‘bodily form’ constitutes a ‘matter’ for receiving ‘specific forms,’ and is called ‘second matter’ (al-mâddât al-tsâniyah).

6.5. SPECIFIC FORMS

The bodies existing in the external world differ manifestly from one another in respect of their properties and actions. These actions must inevitably originate in some substance that cannot be prime matter, for its main feature is receptivity and affection, not action. Neither can it be their common bodiness, for it is a feature in which they share while the actions are multiple and various. Hence they must originate in different sources. If these sources were different accidents, they would yield different substances, and, as said, the cause of variance cannot be bodiness, which is common to them all. Hence it is the variety of substances that produces the variety of bodies. These substances are called ‘specific forms.’

The first variety of material substances, following their common bodiness, is the one produced by specific forms, which give rise to the elements. The elements then form ‘matters’ for other forms that unite with them. The ancients considered the elements to be four, and the metaphysicians took it as an extra-philosophical postulate. Recent research has brought the number of elements to more than a hundred.

6.6. THE INSEPARABILITY OF MATTER AND FORM

Prime matter and form are inseparable from each other. Matter cannot be without form, because prime matter is potentiality in all aspects. It is not found but as subsisting by the means of the actuality of a substance united with it, for an existent is not actualized except with actuality, and the actual substance that possesses this feature is form, Q.E.D.

As to the forms that are inherently associated with matter, they cannot be dissociated from it, for none of the kinds accessible to perception and experience is without the potential for change and Affection - a postulate derived from the natural sciences - and that which possesses potentiality and potential for change is not devoid of matter.

والجواب : أنه سيأتي في مرحلة القوة والفعل أن تبدل الصور في الجواهر المادية ليس بالكون والفساد وبطلان صورة وحدوث أخرى ، بل الصور المتبدلة موجودة بوجود واحد سيال يتحرك الجوهر المادي فيه ، وكل واحد منها حد من حدود هذه الحركة الجوهرية ، فهي موجودة متصلة واحدة بالخصوص وإن كانت وحدة مبهمة ( 5 ) تناسب إبهام ذات المادة

6.7. MUTUAL NEED BETWEEN MATTER AND FORM

To explain briefly, the composition of matter and form is a real composition by the way of union, possessing a real unity, and, as explained earlier,’ there is a mutual need between the parts of a real composite (al-murakkab al-haqîqî).

To give a more elaborate explanation, form needs matter for its determination, for its species is determined by the prior potential (isti’dâd) carried by matter, which is again associated with its prior form. The same is true of the prior form, and so on and so forth.

Also, form needs matter for its individuation, that is, for existing as a particular individual with its accompanying accidents, called ‘individuating accidents’ (al-‘awârid al-musyakhkhishah) such as shape, position, place, time, etc.

For coming into existence and for continuing to exist, the existence of matter depends on some form or another from among the forms that it assumes and which it sustains. The form is neither a ‘complete cause’ nor an ‘efficient cause’ of matter, for it Deeds matter for its own determination and individuation. The efficient cause is one that acts with its actual existence. Accordingly, the ‘agent’ responsible for bringing matter into existence an immaterial substance, immaterial in all aspects. Hence it is an immaterial Intellect that creates matter and preserves it through consecutive forms it creates therein.

Thus form is part of the complete cause and a participant in the cause of matter, as well as the condition for the actuality of its existence. The sustaining of matter by the immaterial Intellect through some form or another has been likened to keeping a tent erect while changing its poles: whenever a pole is removed, another replaces it.

An objection has been raised here. The metaphysicians hold prime matter of the world of elements to be a numerical unity They make form, which is a ‘general unity’ participate in its cause thus making a general unity the cause of a numerical unity, although the latter is stronger in respect of existence than a general unity and the cause must necessarily be stronger than its effect.

Moreover, even if the above difficulty is overlooked, there is doubt that the change of forms necessitates the disappearance of a preceding form and the appearance of the succeeding one in its place. However, when form is supposed to be part of matter’s complete cause, the disappearance of the preceding form necessitates the disappearance of the whole, the complete cause, which leads to the disappearance of matter. Hence taking form as a participant in the cause of existence of matter leads to its negation.

The answer to this objection is that, as will be explained in the chapter on potentiality and actuality,’ the change of forms in material substances is not by the way of coming into existence and going out of existence and through the disappearance of a certain form and the appearance of another form. Rather, the changing forms exist through one fluid existence in which the material substance moves. Each of the forms is a limit along the course of this substantial movement. Hence the forms make up a continuum that is a ‘particular unity,’ though that unity is ambiguous in proportion to the

essential ambiguity of matter, which is pure potentiality. As to the statement that form, which is a ‘general unity.’ participates in the cause of matter, that generality is cast upon it due to the multiplicity introduced by division of what is a single continuum.

6.8. SOUL AND INTELLECT

The soul is a substance essentially devoid of matter but dependent upon it in action. We find in human souls the property of knowledge, and - as will be explained later on in the chapter on the knower and the known’ - the intelligible forms are immaterial, existing for the knower and present for him. If the knower were Dot immaterial by virtue of his being devoid of potentiality and his possession of sheer actuality, there would be no sense in anything being present for him. Hence the intelligent human soul is immaterial. It is a substance because it is the form of a substantial species, the form of substance being a substance, as mentioned above.”

As will be explained later on,”” the soul on the plane of the material intellect (al-‘aql al-hayûlânî) is something in potentia in relation to its intelligible forms. That which gives it actuality in their respect cannot be the soul itself while it is in potentia, nor can it be anything material that may be supposed. Hence that which produces intelligible forms in the soul is a immaterial substance free from potentiality, and that is the Intellect.

Also that which gives actuality to the material species, by creating matter and form and preserving matter through form, is an immaterial Intellect.

There are many other proofs for existence of the soul and the intellect, and later on we will refer to some of them.

Conclusion

Of the properties of substance is that there is no contrariety (tadhâdd) in it, for the condition for contrariety is the existence of a locus (mawdû’) that alternates between two contraries, and substance has no locus.

6.9. QUANTITY, ITS KINDS AND PROPERTIES

Quantity is an accident that is essentially susceptible to division in the imagination.’ The metaphysicians divide it in a first classification into continuous and discrete.

A continuous quantity is that which can be supposed to have parts with a common boundary. The common boundary is that which, if considered the extremity of one of the two parts, can be considered to be the extremity of the other part as well - such as a point between two parts of a line, a line between two parts of a plane, a plane between two parts of a three-dimensional geometrical form and an instant between two parts of time.

A discrete quantity is the contrary of a continuous quantity, and is represented by integers, such as 5, which if divided into 3 and 2 does not have a common boundary. Otherwise, if the common boundary be a unit from among them, the rest would be four, while if it be a unit from outside, the whole would be 6. But both cases would contradict our original supposition.

The discrete quantity is a number obtained through the repetition of ‘one,’ although ‘one’ itself is not a number because the definition of, quantity (as something essentially susceptible to imaginary division) does not apply to it. The metaphysicians have counted every one of the numbers as a separate species due to their different characteristics.

The continuous quantity is divided into ‘static’ (qârr) and ‘non-static’ (ghayr qârr). A static quantity is one all of whose supposed parts coexist, e.g. a line. A ‘non-static’ quantity is its contrary and is represented by time, for each of its supposed parts comes into being when the preceding part has elapsed and its subsequent part has not yet come into being.

The static continua are of three kinds: three-dimensional geometrical form overlapping a natural body divisible in the three dimensions; plane, which is the extremity of a three-dimensional geometrical body divided in two directions; line, which is the extremity of a plane divided in one direction.

Those who believe in the existence of vacuum, in the sense of a space devoid of any existent that may occupy it, question the existence of static continuous quantities. But it is difficult to establish the existence of vacuum in this sense.

Quantity has certain properties.

(i) There is no contrariety (tadhâdd) between any of its kinds, for they do not pertain to the same object (mawdhû’), and a condition of : contrariety is that there should be a common object.

(ii) It accepts actual imaginary division, as mentioned earlier.

(iii) It has a unit of measurement, i.e. something that exhausts its on repetition. The source of a discrete quantity is the ‘unit,’ which measures all kinds of it, though some of them measure some others, e.g. ‘two’ is a measure for ‘four’ and ‘three’ for ‘nine.’ As for a continuous quantity, it is divisible into parts and a part of it serves is die measuring unit for the whole.

(iv) Equality and non-equality are characteristics of quantity, which also apply to anything marked by quantity.

(v) The same is true of finiteness and infiniteness.

6.10. QUALITY

Quality (kayfiyyah) is an accident essentially unsusceptible to division or relation. The metaphysicians divide it in a primary classification into four kinds.

(i) The psychic qualities (al-kayfiyyât al-nafsâniyyah), e.g. knowledge, will, cowardice, courage, hope and despair.

(ii) The qualities associated with quantities (al-kayfiyyât al-mukhtashshah bil-kammiyyât), e.g. straightness, curvature, figure shape) and whatever is associated with continuous quantities, as well as qualities associated with numbers and discrete quantities, such as evenness and oddness.

(iii) The ‘qualities of potency’ (al-kayfiyyât al-isti’dâdiyyah), also referred to as ‘potency’ (quwwah) and impotency (lâ quwwah), such as the receptivity associated with plasticity and the absence of it associated with rigidity. In fact one may include among these absolutely all the potencies that are sustained by matter. The relation of this potency to the substantial potentiality represented by prime matter is similar to the relation between a three-dimensional geometrical body, as the actuality of extension in three dimensions, to a physical mass possessing the potential for it. ‘

(iv) The sensible qualities (al-kayfiyyât al-mahsûsah), which are perceived through the five senses. If transitory - as in the case a blush arising from bashfulness, or a paleness resulting from fear - they are called ‘affections’ (infi’âlât). But if they are stable, such as the yellowness of gold and the sweetness of honey, the’ are called ‘dispositions’ (infi’âliyyât).

Nowadays natural scientists have cast doubts on the belief heir earlier that the sensible qualities exist externally in the manner they appear to exist to the senses. The related details can be found in their books.

6.11. THE RELATIVE CATEGORIES

These are: ‘place,’ ‘time,’ ‘position,’ ‘possession,’ ‘relation,’ ‘action’ and ‘affection.’

‘Place’ is a mode that arises from a thing’s relation to place.

‘Time’ is a mode that arises from a thing’s relation to time and its being in it, both when it is in a duration of time, as is the case with all motions, and when it is instantaneous, as in the case of such instantaneous events as reaching, separating, touching and the like. Further, it includes both its being by way of correspondence, as in the case of ‘traversing motion’ (al-harakât al-qath’iyyah) and otherwise, as in the case of ‘mediating motion’ (al-harakât al-tawassutiyyah)’

‘Position’ is a mode of being which arises from the relation of a thing’s parts to each other and the relation of the aggregate to its external surroundings, e.g. ‘standing,’ which is a mode that arises for a man due to the particular relation it brings about between his bodily members themselves and between them and the external surroundings, due to his head being above and his feet being below.

‘Possession’ (jidah, also called mulk) is a mode that arises due to a thing’s being surrounded by something else, so that the thing that surrounds it moves along with it, whether the envelopment is complete, as in the case of a woman wearing chariot, or incomplete, as with someone wearing a shirt or shoe.

Categorical relation’ (idhâfah) is a mode of being that arises from k reciprocity of relation (nisbah) between two things, for a mere don is not necessarily categorical. It means that the referent is related to the relatum, which in turn is related to the referent; e.g. a father’s relation to his son.

Relations are either symmetrical (e.g. the relation between two brothers) or asymmetrical (e.g. the relation between a father and a, and the relation between something higher and something lower).

A property of the categorical relation is that there is a parity between the referent and the relatum (together referred to as mudhâfayn) in terms of existence and non-existence, actuality and potentiality, and they do not differ in respect of existence and a- existence, actuality and potentiality.

It should be known that the term mudhâf also applied to the relation itself, e.g. that of fatherhood and sonhood, whereat it is called al-mudhâf al-haqîqî. The term is applied as well to the referent id relatum - father and son, in the example - whereat it is called al-mudhâf al-masyhûri.

‘Action’ is a mode that arises in something affecting something se as long as it continues to affect the latter, like the act of heating by a heater, as long as it continues to heat.

‘Affection’ is a mode that arises from being affected, as long as le thing affected continuous to be affected, such as the heating f something as long as it continues to be heated. The ‘gradualneess” (tadrîj, i.e. a process extended in time) which is subsumed in le definitions of ‘action’ and ‘affection’ is for the sake of excluding ‘creative action’ and ‘creative affection’ - such as the action of the exalted Necessary Being in bringing into existence the immaterial Intellect from non-existence, and the

‘affection’ of the Intellect in emerging from non-existence into existence solely by virtue of its essential contingency.