THE PARTICIPANTS

Our texts come from sometime in the mid-10th century. Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī (dates usually given as 893–974) was a Christian student of the same Baghdadi Christian teacher, Abū Bishr Mattā ibn Yūnus (d. 940), as Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī (c. 872–950/951). When Abū Bishr died and Fārābī seems to have succeeded him as the recognized senior philosopher in Baghdad (“scholarch” is probably too formal), Yaḥyā apparently became a student of Fārābī, even though Yaḥyā was already a mature philosopher. Fārābī left Baghdad probably not long afterwards, in search of princely patrons in Damascus and Aleppo, and Yaḥyā seems to have succeeded him as the recognized senior philosopher in Baghdad. Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAdī was Fārābī’s secretary in Aleppo. The most sustained description of Ibrāhīm is contained in ʿAlī ibn Zayd al-Bayhaqī’s Tatimmat ṣiwān al-ḥikma:

Max Meyerhof translated ṣinw in this passage simply as “brother”, and Samīr Khalīl, the editor of Yaḥyā’s treatise On [Divine] Oneness (Fī al-tawḥīd), also interpreted ṣinw to indicate that Ibrāhīm was Yaḥyā’s full brother (akh shaqīq).Footnote ⁴ But the patronymics given in our manuscript contradict that: Yaḥyā’s father (not just some more remote ancestor) was genuinely named ʿAdī, whereas Ibrāhīm is given as ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAdī; the easiest assumption is that he was Yaḥyā’s nephew. They certainly seem to be family members – they refer to each other by first name, which is extremely unusual: Abū Bishr Mattā ibn Yūnus, for example, is almost always referred to as Abū Bishr rather than Mattā. We are fairly sure that Fārābī was dead by the time of our texts; Ibrāhīm is in Aleppo, at the court of Fārābī’s patron Sayf-al-Dawla, and Yaḥyā is presumably in Baghdad.

The sequence of events and texts seems to be as follows:

1. (1) Yaḥyā writes some text about bodies, in which he says that body is a kind of substance (we are not sure whether this can be identified with any extant text); Sayf-al-Dawla gives this text to Ibrāhīm and asks his opinion.

2. (2) Ibrāhīm writes a short comment on this text of Yaḥyā, saying that while bodies in the ordinary-language sense are substances, bodies in the technical Aristotelian sense are a kind of accident, specifically a kind of quantity, attaching to matter and form when matter and form are combined with each other; presumably he gives this to Sayf-al-Dawla, who shows it around for comments.

3. (3) An anonymous Opponent (as we will call him) writes a nasty attack on this text of Ibrāhīm; the Opponent holds the odd-sounding view that body (for Aristotle) is an ingenerable and incorruptible substance, while earth and water and horse are also substances, but are generable and corruptible and are not bodies (but, perhaps, arise from the union of bodies with some further form? – this is more plausible for horse than for water).

4. (4) Sayf-al-Dawla sends both Ibrāhīm's and the Opponent's texts to Yaḥyā to adjudicate the dispute; Yaḥyā’s reply is the first text that we edit and translate. (Texts [2] and [3] are not separately extant, but Yaḥyā quotes what seems to be pretty much the whole substance of both of them.) Yaḥyā is quite hostile to the Opponent, but also rather patronizing to Ibrāhīm, who he suggests is using terminology loosely (so that while what he probably means is acceptable, his formulations are not) and is untrained in the art of logic.

5. (5) As usual, Sayf-al-Dawla gives the text to Ibrāhīm, who replies to Yaḥyā in the second text that we edit and translate, and defends himself vigorously against the accusations of logical incompetence.

6. (6) Finally, our text concludes with a postscript which is apparently Yaḥyā’s final comment on the exchange. Perhaps Yaḥyā decided that enough was enough and did not send this one back to Aleppo; presumably the whole exchange was preserved among Yaḥyā’s papers in Baghdad, although how it got from there into our 17th century Iranian manuscript is anyone's guess.

Ibrāhīm's text, so far as we have it, seems to consist of the following pieces:

The Opponent's text, so far as we have it, seems to consist of the following pieces:

THE DEBATE

Our three philosophers – Ibrāhīm, his anonymous Opponent, and Yaḥyā – are disagreeing in the first instance about whether body [Arabic jism = Greek σῶμα] is a species of substance or a species of quantity. Substance and quantity here are two of the ten Aristotelian “categories” or highest genera, and the dispute goes back and forth between being a dispute about the philosophical truth and a dispute about the interpretation of Aristotle: all the disputants seem to assume that whatever Aristotle said, at least about this issue, was right. The Opponent thinks that body is a kind of substance; Ibrāhīm thinks that body is a kind of quantity, thus an accident belonging to substances; Yaḥyā thinks that while body may not be directly describable as a kind of substance, it is substantial or constitutive of substance, and belongs (if indirectly) to the category of substance rather than to any accidental category. The dispute about whether body is a species of substance or a species of quantity may seem narrowly technical and exegetical; indeed, it may seem like a parodic scholastic dispute, as when the Epistolae obscurorum virorum explain the conflict between the Albertists and Thomists at Cologne by saying that the Albertists say the object of physics is movable body, while the Thomists say it is movable being.Footnote ⁵ But this verbal-sounding question quickly involves Ibrāhīm and his Opponent, and then Yaḥyā, in deeper metaphysical issues.

The issue starts from the way Aristotle uses the term “body,” in the Categories and other works. The concept of body is not especially important in the Physics, but it becomes a central theme of the De Caelo, which announces a study of bodies in its first chapter, and then distinguishes them into the five simple bodies (earth, water, air, fire, aether, each with its natural motion) and their compounds. Bodies here are apparently a species of substances; natural bodies are a species of bodies; and the simple bodies are a species of natural bodies. Likewise when De Anima II,1 defines soul as the “first actuality of an organic natural body” (412b4–6), bodies are evidently a species of substance, whose subspecies include living bodies. However, in the Categories, which Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAdī will describe as “a book that [Aristotle] has specifically devoted to substance and accidents” (thus as the place we might look for Aristotle's most considered account), Aristotle does not say, or at any rate does not say explicitly, that bodies are substances. Instead, in Categories chapter 6, on quantity, he lists body (alongside line, surface, time and place) as a species of continuous quantity (4b20–25). Even more puzzlingly, in Categories chapter 7, on relation, body is listed as a type of sensible, alongside the hot and the sweet (7b35–8a12). (However, the Categories does say that whiteness is present in a body as in a subject (1a27–9, 2a29–34), and this suggests that a body is a substance, since a subject which is not itself in any more basic subject will be a substance according to the rules of the Categories. But it remains possible that although whiteness is in a body as in a subject, this body is in turn present in some more basic subject, so that that more basic subject, rather than the body, would be the substance: a quality, whiteness, would be present in a quantity, body, which would in turn be present in a substance. As we will see, many later philosophers take an option like this.) Apparently already in the first century AD, Lucius had criticized Aristotle “because, although body belongs to substance, he had transferred it to quantity,”Footnote ⁶ and given Aristotle's apparent commitments on body elsewhere (and perhaps even elsewhere in the Categories itself), that seems like a reasonable internal criticism to make.Footnote ⁷

You might say that the difficulty shows only that “body” is ambiguous, and that we can solve the problem by distinguishing mathematical body, which is a species of quantity, from physical body, which is a species of substance: mathematical body can be analyzed as three-dimensional extension, physical body can be analyzed as a compound of substantial form and matter, and each physical body will have some mathematical body as an attribute. Something like this distinction between physical and mathematical body was drawn by the Neoplatonic commentators going back at least to Porphyry, and will be taken up by Avicenna.Footnote ⁸ But problems will remain. If a physical body, which is by its essential constitution a substantial compound of form and matter, has three-dimensional extension as an attribute, what kind of attribute is this and what is the cause of this substance's having it? Is it an essential attribute of this kind of substance? As Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī will say, echoing an argument of John Philoponus, “you will find [that] the possessors of length, breadth and depth … cannot be affirmed as existing when length, breadth and depth have been separated from them, even in the imagination, let alone in actual existence. And this is the case of things that are constitutive of the thing they are in, and [are] the parts out of which its essence exists.”Footnote ⁹ On Aristotelian grounds, however, an essential attribute of a substance should be caused by its form, and should be contained in or derivable from its definition. But the soul as the form of a living thing seems to be defined by nutritive and sensitive and rational powers rather than by three-dimensionality, and the form of fire seems likely to be defined by its natural powers, lightness and hotness and dryness, rather than by three-dimensionality. And even if the form of some kind of natural substance contains three-dimensional extension, it seems less likely that it will contain this particular three-dimensional quantity, e.g., two liters – certainly the form of fire does not. So we might think that a natural substance will gain its three-dimensionality, or at least its particular three-dimensional quantity, not from its form but from its matter – we could compare Descartes, for whom bodies are entirely constituted by their matter, and the essence of that matter is three-dimensional extension or continuous quantity.

But Aristotle, unlike Descartes, thinks that the essence of matter is potentiality (potentiality for this or that kind of form) rather than extension. And, while it is hard to find it stated so clearly in Aristotle, the standard later view of both Platonists and Aristotelians is that matter is “incorporeal,” i.e., that it is not a body, with the implication that it is not intrinsically extended, but becomes extended only through the presence of something else. One Aristotelian passage that might be cited for this view is On Generation and Corruption II,1, which posits a common substratum of earth, water, air and fire, but criticizes the view that this is “bodily and separate” (329a8–10) or “a body and separate” (328b35–329a1); Aristotle himself posits “that there is a matter of the sensible bodies, but that it is not separate but rather always together with a contrariety [i.e., heat or cold or moisture or dryness], from which the so-called elements come to be” (329a24–6). He says that “the primary bodies” are “from the matter” (329a28–9), which suggests that this matter is not itself a body: he calls it “potentially sensible body” (329a33), which seems to leave open the possibility that it is a non-sensible body, but he has said earlier that “there is no common body” over and above fire and earth and so on (Generation and Corruption I,5 320b23), and he criticizes texts of the Timaeus that would suggest that the Receptacle is such a non-sensible body. If there were an actual bodily substratum of earth, water, air and fire, it seems that it would endure through all changes (so that the apparent generation of fire from earth would not be the generation of a new substance but just the qualitative alteration of a persisting body), and that this body would be incorruptible, having no contrary into which it could perish. And because this body would be incorruptible, it seems that there would be no basis for analyzing it into any further matter and form, so it seems that if there were a bodily matter underlying earth, water, air and fire, there would not also be a more basic non-bodily matter.Footnote ¹⁰

Given these difficulties of saying that body or three-dimensional extension is an essential attribute of substantial form-matter compounds, arising either from their form or from their matter, Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAdī will propose that body or three-dimensional extension is an accident in the category of quantity, attaching to form and matter when they are united to each other but not to either of them without the other. The hylomorphic composite substance itself might loosely be called a body, jism, and this allows Ibrāhīm to handle authoritative texts that call some substances bodies or say that bodies are a kind of substance, but the substance is more accurately called “embodied” or a “body-possessor,” mujassam, using an adjective derived paronymously from the noun jism which signifies the quantity, three-dimensional extension, just as a white substance is named by an adjective, abyaḍ, derived paronymously from the noun bayāḍ which signifies the quality of whiteness. By contrast, Ibrāhīm's Opponent, rejecting the view that body or three-dimensional extension can be a merely accidental attribute – perhaps influenced by our Philoponus passage on the impossibility of thinking things’ extension away, and in any case citing texts from Aristotle, including texts from the Categories that seem to imply indirectly that bodies are substances – bites the bullet and says that body is an incorruptible substance, enduring under the changes of water to air and so on. While the Opponent does not deny (in the texts we have) that body is hylomorphically composed of a more basic matter and form, we have no sign that he thinks it is, and it is hard to see how he could infer to any such more basic composition: more likely he thinks, as Philoponus does against most Aristotelian and Platonic philosophers, that the most basic matter is already itself three-dimensionally extended. This puts the Opponent at risk of concluding that there is no real substantial generation, that what appears to be generation is merely the qualitative alteration of a persisting bodily substance. The Opponent avoids this wildly un-Aristotelian conclusion by saying that earth and water and so on are generated, and are substances, but are not bodies: presumably he would agree with Ibrāhīm that these things are rather embodied, or have body. But while Ibrāhīm would analyze this by saying that there is an underlying substance which has body as an accident, or rather two underlying substances, the form and the matter, which when they are combined have body as a joint accident, the Opponent would say that earth has body by being a compound of body and another substance, namely a substantial form that does not destroy body but is added to it and combines with it. A view like this is often maintained in the case of animals, that in one sense an animal is a certain kind of body (where body is taken as a genus), but that in another sense an animal has a body (where body is taken as matter) and is a compound of body and soul.Footnote ¹¹ But this is a much stranger thing to say about fire and earth than about animals.

An important part of the background for the controversy between our three philosophers, and especially for Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī’s intervention, is given by John Philoponus’ discussion of whether all matter is corporeal or whether there is an incorporeal prime matter. While the issue comes up several times in Philoponus’ work, his fullest discussion is in On the Eternity of the World against Proclus XI; this treatise is apparently not extant in Arabic, but it was certainly translated and widely read and discussed.Footnote ¹² Philoponus attributes to “Plato and the most illustrious of the ancients” the opinio communis that “matter is incorporeal and formless” (XI,1 407,23–5): both his statement of the opinio communis, and his counterarguments that matter is always corporeal (which involve rethinking both matter and body) will be useful in understanding our 10^th-century controversy.

According to Philoponus, the opinio communis holds that matter is incorporeal and formless and eternal, and that it unites with quantity to yield the three-dimensional, which is “qualityless body” or “body simply so-called” (XI,1 407,23–408,4). (“Qualityless body” was the Stoic name for their first substratum or material principle; the Neoplatonists usually reply that qualityless body is the second substratum, and that an incorporeal matter is the first.) The first differentiae of this body are the large and the small, which determine the intrinsically indeterminate volume of qualityless body (408,4–9); then when quality is added to this qualityless body it produces the nature of the elements, e.g., heat and dryness added to this substratum yield fire (409,3–8). So this opinio communis posits a multi-layered ontology (in conversation, Marwan Rashed called it a “millefeuille” ontology), which analyzes ordinary sensible objects into a series of successive forms inhering in substrata, qualities in quantities in matter. Quantity plays a crucial mediating role: hot and cold can simultaneously inhere in matter only because quantified matter has different extended parts for them to inhere in, and when hot and cold and the like are stripped away, only extended quantity remains to differentiate bodies.Footnote ¹³ Ibrāhīm tentatively attributes such a millefeuille ontology to Yaḥyā:

Against the millefeuille ontology, Ibrāhīm defends substantial forms such as the form of earth (which for his and Philoponus’ opponents threatens to dissolve into the qualitative forms of heaviness, dryness and cold); and instead of positing three-dimensional extension as the subject underlying qualities and thus substances, he makes it a mere attribute inhering in substantial form and matter when they combine. Ibrāhīm's Opponent also apparently avoids the millefeuille ontology, because, while he posits extended body underlying earth and water and so on, he does not seem to posit a further unextended matter underlying bodies; he also does not seem to be interested in qualitative forms. And although Ibrāhīm suggests that Yaḥyā may accept the millefeuille ontology, Yaḥyā too is influenced by Philoponus’ critique.

Philoponus raises a number of difficulties against his opponents’ arguments; they are interesting especially in so far as they allow him to develop his own alternative. In XI,3 he argues that if three-dimensional extension is incorruptible as his opponents say, they will have no basis for arguing to a further underlying incorporeal matter; and he uses this to suggest simplifying, taking the extended matter as basic. But Philoponus’ deepest critique of his opponents’ arguments – and one that seems to have influenced Yaḥyā – comes in XI,5. There the opponents argue that “the ten categories are distinguished from each other, and quantity is other than substance, and the three-dimensional belongs to quantity per se, whereas body is a substance: so that the three-dimensional would not be body per se, since it is not even a substance, but rather a quantity” (421,16–21). Because three-dimensionality is an accident (so the opponent) it must inhere in some substantial substratum, and will combine with that substratum to yield three-dimensional substance, or body. The substratum which combines with three-dimensional quantity to yield body will not itself be a hylomorphic composite, e.g., a combination of prime matter with the form of fire, because that combined with three-dimensional quantity would yield a particular body (fire) rather than body-as-such. So the substratum in which three-dimensional quantity inheres will be just bare prime matter: Philoponus, speaking for the opponent, says that three-dimensionality informs the underlying matter, “so that the composite [of three-dimensionality and matter] will be the substance of body” (421,26–422,2). But Philoponus replies that if the opponents’ argument is correct, it will prove too much: “if three-dimensionality is an accident because it is a quantity, then the heat and dryness in fire will be accidents because they are qualities, and likewise the cold in water and the heaviness and lightness in bodies and the like. So it follows, as far as this argument holds, that all bodily substance is composed of matter and accidents, so that matter and accidents will be the elements of bodily substance” (422,4–12). And so, on this view accidents will be prior to this kind of substance and constitutive [συμπληρωτικά] of it, so that when the accidents perish the substance will perish with them; and Philoponus takes this to be a reductio ad absurdum, since on Aristotelian grounds no accident can ever be in this way ontologically prior to a substance, and so no substance can be composed of accidents, or of accidents and matter.

Since the conclusion that bodily substance is constituted by accidents (alone or together with matter) is clearly unacceptable, Philoponus tries to diagnose where the argument from the accidentality of qualities goes wrong, and then to apply the same diagnosis to his opponents’ argument from the accidentality of quantities. Philoponus can here draw on a long tradition of discussion of the status of qualities such as the heat and dryness and lightness of fire, going back ultimately to Lucius’ objections to the Categories.Footnote ¹⁴ Heat and dryness and lightness appear to be differentiae of a species of substance, namely fire – at any rate fire is one species of bodily substance, it must have some differentiae to distinguish it from other species of the genus, and it is very hard to imagine what else these differentiae could be. But if something is a quality and therefore an accident, how can it be a differentia and thus (partially) constitutive (συμπληρωτικόν, apparently Lucius’ word) of the essence of a substantial species? (Because a differentia is constitutive of the essence of its subject, it cannot, like an accident, come to be in, or cease to be in, this subject while the same subject persists. It would be in the subject more in the way that a part is in its whole, so that the part cannot cease to be there while the same whole remains, and Aristotle distinguishes this from the way an accident is in its subject, Categories 2 1a24–5.) And yet Aristotle is clear in the Categories that differentiae are not substances, not even in the secondary way in which species and genera are substances; but it seems absurd for differentiae to be neither accidents (things in a subject) nor substances (things not in a subject).Footnote ¹⁵ And if we say that a differentia is an accident just because it is in a subject (even though it is partially constitutive of that subject), it seems that we would also have to say that a form is an accident. Boethus, the first Peripatetic to have responded to Lucius’ objections, seems to have answered that while a form that constitutes a composite substance is not an accident of that composite substance (since it is in it as a part in the whole), it is nonetheless an accident of the matter, and that therefore, because it is in a subject (not as part in a whole), it cannot be a substance.Footnote ¹⁶ And presumably also a differentia that constitutes a species is not an accident of that species, but is an accident of the genus, and this is why it is not a substance.Footnote ¹⁷ Alexander and Porphyry, by contrast, are very resistant to saying that a form or differentia by which some substance is constituted is an accident (an accident cannot be prior to and constitutive of a substance). A form is not an accident of the matter-form composite, because it is in it as a part in a whole, and it is also not an accident of the matter, because matter as such is potentially this or that, but is not yet any one determinate subject.Footnote ¹⁸ It may not be proper to say that a form or a differentia is a substance, over and above the composite or the species, just as it is not proper to say that a foot is a substance over and above the whole animal (a foot is not, for instance, a member of some species, except in as much as it belongs indirectly to the species that the whole animal belongs to); nonetheless, as constitutive of substance, it is substance, and belongs (even if indirectly) to the category of substance rather than to any other category. If Aristotle sometimes calls a differentia a quality (and he does, at Metaphysics Δ14 1020a33–b1), he does not mean it in the sense in which quality is one category of accident; rather, it is as Aristotle calls it ἡ κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν ποιότης (Δ14 1020b1) or as Porphyry paraphrases it an essential or substantial quality [οὐσιώδης ποιότης] – the differentia “biped” signifies which animal, or which kind of animal [ποιόν τι ζῷον] a human is.Footnote ¹⁹

Philoponus, then, draws on this earlier discussion, and accepts Alexander's and Porphyry's diagnosis of the error in saying that qualities like the heat of fire are accidents. But he extends the thought by saying that it is equally an error to say that a quantity is an accident, in a case where the quantity is constitutive of a substance. Lucius already had said that size (alongside color and shape) is constitutive of sensible body as such (Simplicius 48,3–5). But if particular qualities like heat and dryness can be constitutive of particular bodily substances like fire, it seems that particular quantities can also be constitutive of particular bodily substances: as Aristotle notes, each species of animal or plant has a minimum and a maximum possible size (so Physics I,4 187b16–17), and so its essence will entail at least a range of sizes, and perhaps a disposition to a “normal” size near the middle of that range. Plotinus, in trying to show that matter does not of itself have quantity, seizes on this idea to argue that each bodily thing has its quantity not from its matter but from its λόγος, which in making it the particular kind of thing it is (or making it in imitation of a particular Form) gives it the appropriate quantities and qualities.Footnote ²⁰ Philoponus takes up these thoughts, and says that, just as there are substantial qualities, so too there are substantial quantities, which are constitutive either of body or of particular kinds of bodies. Once we have seen the absurdity of assuming that all qualities are mere accidents of some underlying substratum (absurd because it would make accidents constitutive of substances, or would dissolve bodily substances into a heap of accidents, or accidents together with matter), we will see that there is also no reason to make three-dimensional quantity a mere accident of bodily substance: “the substance of body simpliciter is nothing other than the indeterminate three-dimensional, which, when it is determined by the differentia of the small and the large and receives the specific differentiae of bodily substances, produces the particular substances of bodies, I mean of water and fire and sun and moon and all the rest” (De aeternitate XI,6 424,23–425,1). And there is also no reason to make three-dimensional quantity a mere accident of a non-bodily matter: “if the three-dimensional is the substance of body simpliciter, and this alone [sc. three-dimensional extension] remains unchanged in the change of bodies, as has been shown, then there is no argument that shows that incorporeal matter must underlie it” (425,6–10), since we would have such an argument only if something came to be or ceased to be three-dimensional. “So this [sc. three-dimensional extension] is the first substratum of all natural forms,” from which, in combination with quantitative and qualitative differentiae, the particular kinds of bodies arise (425,10–14). The opponent objects that since three-dimensional quantity possesses form, it cannot be the first matter (XI,7 425,25–426,4), but Philoponus says that this is begging the question: the matter for becoming F must lack the form of F, but it is merely the opponent's contested assertion that there is a matter with no form at all (426,4–427,9). Philoponus says that this has not been proved, and indeed is absurd, since something lacking all form would lack λόγος and being: while it is true, as the opponent says, that the ultimate substrate must be simple and incomposite, it is not a simple formless matter, but a simple quantitative form (427,9–428,17).

As we have noted, Ibrāhīm, Ibrāhīm's Opponent, and Yaḥyā all dissent in different ways from the millefeuille ontology, the opinio communis that Philoponus is opposing, although Yaḥyā remains the closest to the opinio communis. The Opponent apparently accepts Philoponus’ view that three-dimensional extension is the primary matter of the physical world. Yaḥyā does not accept this view without qualification, but he too, in his #13 (picked up again in #34 and #38), makes use of Philoponus’ argument that, because what is three-dimensionally extended could not continue to exist if its extension were removed, its extension must be in it as a part rather than as an accident, and must therefore be itself a substance. Yaḥyā does this while continuing to posit the traditional intrinsically non-extended prime matter.

Yaḥyā is like the millefeuille theorists, and also like the Opponent, in making the qualities of bodies immediately inhere in the extension or dimensive quantity. He is unlike the millefeuille theorists, but like the Opponent, in denying that the dimensions are a mere accident, whether of prime matter or (as Ibrāhīm thinks) of matter and form combined. (Yaḥyā also says, in #38, that even if Ibrāhīm were right that the dimensions are an accident, Aristotle might still think that bodies are substances, since they might be the dimension-bearers rather than the dimensions.) Yaḥyā agrees with the millefeuille theorists, against the Opponent and against Philoponus, that there is something intrinsically non-extended underlying the dimensions: although the dimensions are a substance, they are not a complete substance but an essential constituent of a complete substance, alongside the matter and perhaps other constituents.

Both Ibrāhīm and his Opponent, against the millefeuille theorists, seem to hold a fairly simple theory of inherence, which might be supported out of the Categories: there are no chains of inherence, rather every accident inheres, whatever it inheres in is a substance, and no substance inheres in anything else. (Ibrāhīm makes this a bit more complicated by noting that an accident can be predicated of more than one substance conjointly, as he thinks body is predicated of matter and form conjointly, and that a substance can be predicated accidentally of a substance without inhering in it, as the shoes are an accident of the shod person.) Against the Opponent, Yaḥyā denies that we can infer, from Aristotle's saying that whiteness is in body, that body is a substance: Yaḥyā says that “it is not something agreed on that an accident will not be in an accident; and Aristotle is one of those who asserts that an accident may be in an accident” (Yaḥyā #19), and when the Opponent complains “if it is possible that the accident be in an accident, and possible that a subject be an accident, what then is substance?” (Yaḥyā #22 = Opponent 8), Yaḥyā replies that “his adversary can say to him that a substance is what is not in a subject” (Yaḥyā #23).Footnote ²¹ So Yaḥyā is willing to entertain the possibility that an accident is in an accident which is in a substantial subject. However, in his view, when a quality is in the dimensions which are in a substance, the dimensions are not in the substance as an accident in a subject, but rather as an essential constituent in a substance. In particular, the prime matter, which might be thought to be the substantial subject of the dimensions, is not a determinate, actually existing substance until the dimensions are in it.Footnote ²² In the shorter of his two unpublished essays arguing that the heat of fire is not a substance,Footnote ²³ Yaḥyā says that body, capable of receiving all forms and their privations, is the first matter existing in actuality, although it can be decomposed in the intellect into the receptive capacity, which is the first matter existing in the intellect, and the bodily forms, the primary bodily form being the form of body as such, constituted by the three dimensions. So although three-dimensionally extended substance is a substantial composite, it is a composite not of two actually existing substances but of a potentiality and an actuality, separable only in the intellect, and three-dimensional extension is an essential constituent of this substantial composite.

For Yaḥyā, in his reply to Ibrāhīm and his Opponent, fire is a body, against the Opponent who thinks that fire is a corruptible substance and body is an incorruptible substance, and against Ibrāhīm who thinks that fire is an embodied substance, a body-possessor, and that body is a quantity. Presumably the form of fire is a substantial form which adds an essential differentia to the undifferentiated substance of body. In this way body will not be a mere accident of fire but rather its genus, and neither will the form of fire be a mere accident of body (or a separate substance conjoined to body) in such a way that when fire perishes the single incorruptible substance, body, would remain. Rather, when fire is extinguished and becomes earth, the body that was previously a constituent of one complete substance, fire, becomes a constituent of another complete substance, earth, and so it does not substantially persist: body is incorruptible quâ body but corruptible quâ fire (and corruptible simpliciter), and fire is corruptible quâ fire (and corruptible simpliciter) but incorruptible quâ body, and so the Opponent may not conclude that, because fire is corruptible and body is incorruptible, fire is not a body (so Yaḥyā #7). However, it should be noted that in the longer of his two unpublished essays arguing that the heat of fire is not a substance,Footnote ²⁴ Yaḥyā says something that apparently contradicts this. Here he is trying to undermine the familiar argument that if X is in Y in such a way that Y cannot exist without X, then X is not in Y as an accident in a subject but as an essential constituent, and X is therefore a substance. Against this, Yaḥyā points out that the consequence will not follow if Y is an accident (let Y = whiteness, X = color), or if Y is a substance-accident composite (let Y = white paper, X = whiteness). He proposes here that fire is not a substance but a substance-accident composite, being equivalent to “hot dry body”, so that, although fire cannot exist without heat, heat would be not a substance but an accident (it would be an accident, not of fire, but of body). This suggests the very un-Aristotelian view that there is a single incorruptible substance, body, and that the apparent generation and corruption of the bodily elements are really just qualitative changes in a persisting substance. However, perhaps what Yaḥyā thinks here is that the real differentiae of the bodily elements are not hot and cold, wet and dry, but something like different degrees of heaviness and lightness. If so, then although heat would always be an accident, and “fire” in the popular sense of “hot dry body” would not name a substance, there would still be a genuine simple body that could loosely be called “fire,” and it would remain true that body is not a complete substance but an essential constituent of several different kinds of substance.

Key:

1. 1) In the Arabic text, the symbol | signifies a line break in the manuscript.

2. 2) In the Arabic text, words between <angled brackets> are textual interpolations by the editors.

3. 3) In the translation, words between [square brackets] are added to help convey the meaning.

4. 4) Paragraph numbers in <angled brackets> signify the scribe's breaks in the manuscript.

5. 5) In the footnotes, the editors’ emended version (i.e., as contained in the editio princeps) is given on the right, next to the footnote number, and the original version in the manuscript is given on the left; the two versions are separated by a colon. Thus:

   ³⁵الكمّيّة : الممكنة

6. 6) In the introduction, editio princeps, translation and notes, <Ibrāhīm 10> refers to the tenth quotation of Ibrāhīm contained in Yaḥyā’s adjudication; to be precise, <Ibrāhīm 10> occurs in Yaḥyā #37, i.e., the 37th paragraph of Yaḥyā’s adjudication. By contrast, Ibrāhīm #10 refers to the tenth paragraph of Ibrāhīm's response to Yaḥyā’s adjudication.

7. 7) In order to help the reader reconstruct the original debate, an Appendix contains Ibrāhīm's and the Opponent's texts extracted from Yaḥyā’s adjudication and collated. Readers may well want to read these texts first: Ibrāhīm makes the first move in the debate, then the Opponent, then Yaḥyā in our first directly transmitted text, then Ibrāhīm in our second directly transmitted text, then Yaḥyā, in his final comment transmitted at the end of Ibrāhīm's text.

TEXT

MS Tehrān, Madrasa-yi Marvī 19, no. 50, fols. 70a20–71b25

نسخة ما كتب به يحيى بن عديّ في الحكومة بيْن إبراهيم بن عليّ المعروف بأبي نصر بن عديّ الكاتب ومناقِضه فيما اختلفا فيه من أنّ الجسم جوهر وعرض وكتابته إلى الأمير سيف الدولة أبي الحسن عليّ بن عبد بن حمدان

<١> قال أُوصلت إليّ أنا يحيى بن عديّ رقعة منسوبة إلى إبراهيم بن عليّ نسختها <إبراهيم ١> قرأت ما أنفذه سيّدنا الأمير سيف الدولة إليّ من خطّ يحيى بن عديّ بما ذكره في الجسم ولو كان غيره المتكلّم لما أجبته عنه وذلك لما أعرفه من | فهمه وقد وصفته بذلك مرّات وليس من عادتي أنْ أظنّ بمثله إلاّ أحسن الظنون وأكثر الناس مختلفون في أشياء تكون أكثر الأسباب في ذلك أنْ يظنّ هذا الإنسان Footnote ²⁵ الكلمة أنّها تدلّ على معنى والإنسان | الآخر يظنّ أنّها تدلّ على معنى آخر فيكون حينئذ بيْنهم الخلف لا في المعاني ولكنّ في غيرها

<٢> فقال مناقض ناقض إبراهيم في هذا القول <المناقض ١> غلط لأنّ الخلاف الذي ذكره في المعنى لأنّه قال إنّ إنسانًا يظنّ معنى |70a25| <و>آخر يظنّ معنى آخر ومن لم يعلم أنّ هذا الخلاف في المعنى وقد قدّم ذكره المعنى لم يستحقّ الخطاب

<٣> لعمري إنّ ظاهر كلام إبراهيم يوجب أنْ يكون القول فيه كما قال المناقض الاختلافFootnote ²⁶ | في المعاني إذْ كانت المعاني هي المختلفة لا الكلمة التي هي واحدة إلاّ أنّ هذا يلزم إبراهيم بالمضايقة إذا تعمّدنا المنافرة الردّيّة لا المناظرة المحدّثة فإنه إذا تؤمّلتْ جملة قول إبراهيم وجُمِعَ | أقاويله بيْن المبتدأFootnote ²⁷ وبيْن المنتهى إليها وما بيْن ذلك كان قصر كلامه هذا على ما يفهم من ظاهره إذا أفرد ولم يتسامح بوصله بما بعده سرفًا في المناقشة وشحًّا في المكالمة وذلك أنّه قد يمكن أنْ يكون إبراهيم | أراد بهذا الكلام الكلمة المشتركة المأخوذة في قضيّة ما محمولة كانت أو موضوعة يحمل عليها محمول ما كقول قائل مثلاً العين مريضة فإنّ هذه الكلمة أعني لفظة العين لما كانت مشتركة تدلّ على | ينبوع الماء وعلى آلة الإبصار وعلى عين الميزان وعلى أحد أسباب الأدواء <و>على ما يقول ما بيّن وعلى محض الشيء فإنْ اختلف إنسانانFootnote ²⁸ في القضيّة القائلة العين مريضة فقال أحدهما بأنّها مريضة |70a30| من حيث يفهم منها آلة الإبصار وقال آخر إنّها ليست مريضة من حيث يعنى ينبوع الماء أو غيره من المعاني التي تدلّ عليها كلمة العين لم يكن هذا الخلاف في المعاني لأنّهما لم | يتّفقا على المعنى الموصوف بالمرض فلذلك لا يكون الخلاف في قضيّة واحدة ولا هاتان قضيّتان متنافيتان أعني القائلة إنّ العين مريضة والقائلةFootnote ²⁹ إنّ العين ليست | مريضة وذلك أنّهما قد يصدقان معًا ولو كان الخلاف في معنى مقدّمة واحدة لما جاز أنْ يصدق الإيجاب لشيء واحد في المعنى على شيء واحد في المعنى | وسلب ذلك الشيء بعينه من ذلك الشيء بعينه وقد دلّ ما قاله إبراهيم في آخر كلامه ممّا بعد أنّه يعني بالجسم ما ظنّFootnote ³⁰ أنّ أرسطوطالس يعنيه | به وهو الأبعاد فقط على أنّه إنّما ذهبFootnote ³¹ في كلامه الذي حكيناه إلى ما وصفناه فكأنّه يقول إنّ من قال إنّ الجسم جوهر وهو يعني |70a35| ما سماه إبراهيم مجسّمًا كأرض وماء ورجل ومن يقول إنّ الجسم <ليس ﺑ>جوهر وهو يعني بالجسم الأبعاد فقط ليس اختلافهما في | المعنى يريد أنّ وصفتهما المختلفة بالإيجاب والسلب في المعنى أيْ معنى واحد موضوع فيصفه هذا بإيجاب | شيء ويصفه ذاك بسلب ذلك الشيء بعينه فيكون اختلافهما حينئذ كاختلاف من قال | بأنّ الجسم وهو يريد الأبعاد أيضًا مثلاً جوهر وآخر قال إنّ الجسم وهو يريد الأبعاد | أيضًا ليس بجوهر وإنّ اختلاف وصفيْ هذيْن هو في معنى واحد |70a40| وهو الأبعاد ولا يخرج حينئذ بذلك إذا صرف | قوله إلى ما قد بيّنّا انصرافه إليه عن جملة | مستحقّي الخطاب

‖70b1‖ <٤> <إبراهيم ٢> قد قلت إنّ | الناس كلّهم يظنّون بالجسم | هذا الشيء المشار إليه كأرض <و>ماء ورجل | وقد سئلت غير مرّة عن الجسم فقلت إنّه جوهر على المذهب |70b5| الذي يعرفه الناس فأمّا أرسطوطالس يذكر في كتاب قد وضعه | للجوهر والأعراض أنّ نوعًا من أنواع الكمّيّة وهي عرض الجسم فإنّما عنده أنّ الجسم | هو الأبعاد لا الحامل لأبعاد

<٥> فقال مناقض إبراهيم <المناقض ٢> غلط فإنّ الأرض والماء والرجل | ليس واحد منها جسمًا والدليل على ذلك أنّ الجسم لا يقبل الكون والفساد إلاّFootnote ³² عند جميع الناس وهذه | دائمًا تتولّد وتفسد أمّاFootnote ³³ الجبّائيّ فيزعم أنّ الجسم لا يجوز عليه الفساد إلاّ إلى ضدّه وضدّه الفناء ولو حدث الفناء لبطلت |70b10| الأجسام كلّها وأمّا البلخيّ فإنّه لا يجيز حدوثها الآن لأنّه ليس في العالم خلاء ولا يجيز فسادها لأنّه لا يصير في العالم خلاء ويقول لو أراد | الآن إحداث جسم لأفنى جسمًا ممّا في العالم بمقداره لأنّه لا خلاء في العالم ولا يجوز وجود جسميْن في مكان لكنّ الأرض والماء جواهر لأنّ الفيلسوف | ذكر أنّ حركتيْ الكون والفساد هما في الجوهر وكلّ جسم جوهر ولا كلّ جوهر جسم فالكون من الجوهر فيما ليس بجسم

<٦> قد أقرّ إبراهيم في هذا القول وفيما قاله | بعده أيضًا أنّه يقول ويظنّ أنّ الجسم جوهر وهو في هذا القول والظنّ مصيب وذلك أنّه يقول إنّي قد قلت إنّ الناس كلّهم يظنّون بالجسم هذا الشيء المشار إليه وهو واحد من | الناس فيصرّح بذلك بقوله وقد سئلت غير مرّة عن الجسم فقلت إنّه جوهر على المذهب الذي يعرفهFootnote ³⁴ الناس فإذْ كان قوله هذا إذا ما أضيف إلى ما قد تقدّمه فهم منه أنّه يقول إنّ الجسم جوهر |70b15| إلاّ أنّه بما يتبع به هذا القول وبمرامه فيه أنْ يتبيّن مستسهل أرسطوطالس أنّ الجسم عرض يلزمه أنْ يكون معتقدًا أنّ الجسم ليس بجوهر أيضًا واجتماع هذيْن الاعتقاديْن في إنسان واحد في وقت واحد | من جهة واحدة محال فإنْ كان هو لما لم يأخذ الجسم بجهة واحدة بل بمعنييْن مختلفيْن فلا يلزمه لذلك أنْ يكون متناقضًا من هذا الوجه

<٧> فأمّا ما ظنّ إبراهيم أنّ قول أرسطوطالس إنّ الجسم أحد أنواع الكمّيّةFootnote ³⁵ | وهي عرض يوجب أنّه يرى أنّ الجسم هو الأبعاد فمستحقّ أنْ يُهْزَأَ به وذلك أنّ الذي يلزم بطريق القياس <من> هاتيْن المقدّمتيْن اللتيْن استشهدا إنْFootnote ³⁶ سلّمنا له على ما فيهماFootnote ³⁷ ينتج منهما أنّ الجسم عرض فأمّا الأبعاد فلا ذكر لها في | المقدّمات فغير ممكن أنْ تذكر في النتيجة وذلك أنّ حدّيْ النتيجة لا بدّ من أنْ يوجدا في المقدّمات التي تنتج عنها فأمّا قول مناقض إبراهيم إنّ الأرض والماء والرجل ليس واحد منها جسمًا فهو مجيز مذهبيْن فإنّه | إنْ كان إنّما يفهم من اسم الجسم ما يفهمه الجمهور منه وهو الطويل العريض العميق وذلك أنّ كلّ إنسان ذي فهم له بصر شاهد الأرض والماء والرجل طويلاً عريضًا عميقًا <…> وممّا يزيد فيَّ تعجّبًا منه أنّه يظنّ |70b20| أنّ إبراهيم يعتقد أنّ هذه الثلاثة أجسام وهو بهذا القول قد صرّح أنّ تمثيله بالأرض والماء والرجل على الجسم إنّما هو بحسب ما يظنّه الناس لا بحسب ما تروم بصيرته وهو أنّ الجسم إنّما هو الأبعاد لا هذه التي عددها | التي يقول إنّها مجسّمات حاملة للأبعاد وأمّا دليل المناقض على أنّ الأرض والماء ليست جسمًا فمستطرف قد غضّ طرفه عمّا فيه من الكذب أوْ الخصوص المانع من كون القول قياسيًّا وذلك أنّ القضيّة القائلة إنّ | الجسم لا يقبل الكون والفساد إذا أخذت بغير استثناء كانت كاذبة وإذا كان في القياس قضيّة كاذبة جاز أنْ يكون نتيجته كاذبة ونحن نوازنه بقياس موازن لقياسهFootnote ³⁸ هذا نتيجته نتيجة ما أحسبهFootnote ³⁹ يستجيز أنْ | يقول إنّها صادقة فنقول إنّ الإنسان من الاضطرار ذو نفس والجوهر ليس من الاضطرار ذا نفس فالنتيجة عن هاتيْن بحسب ظنّ المناقض أنّ الإنسان ليس جوهرًا وهذا محال ظاهر ما أرى المناقض يقول به وينبغي | أنْ تعلم أنّي إنّما أشير باسم الجوهر إلى ما عبّر عنه أرسطوطالس في كتاب المقولات بأنّه الذي ليس هو في موضوع وبالجملة من شكّ في أنّ الأرض جسم يحتاج إلى حسّ أوْ إلى أنْ يستعمل الحسّ فإنّ هذا شيء يدرك بحسّ البصر |70b25| وبحسّ اللمس وباقي قول المناقض الذي ذكرناه إنّما هو فيه جالٍ عن القائليْن بما ذكره ونحن نصدّقه عليه ولا حجّة فيه على إبراهيم

<٨> ثمّ قال مناقض إبراهيم أيضًا <المناقض ٣> ذكر الفيلسوف أنّ للكمّ أنواعًا أحد الأنواع الجسم كما | قال في باب المضافFootnote ⁴⁰ إنّ الجبل صغير بالإضافة إلى جبل آخر والسمسمة كبيرة بإضافتها إلى سمسمة أصغر منها وجعلهما في باب المضاف فيجب أنْ يجعل الجبل والسمسمة عرضًا أيضًا

<٩> قد أصاب وأحسن | في هذا الإلزام أحسن توفيقه

<١٠> ثمّ قال مناقض إبراهيم <المناقض ٤> أيضًا وجملة القول إنّه لا يخلوFootnote ⁴¹ من أنْ يكون ما قاله الفيلسوف له وجه كما يجعل الشيء الواحد في مقولتيْن أوْ يكون غلط وإثم ولا ثالث لهما

|<١١> الظنّ <اﻟ>صحيح هو الأوّل إلاّ أنّه بقي أنْ تعرف الوجه الذي به يكون الجسم تحتFootnote ⁴² الكمّ

<١٢> <إبراهيم ٣> قال إبراهيم ولم يذكر أرسطوطالس في باب الجوهر ما يدلّ على أنّ الجسم جوهر فقال مناقض إبراهيم <المناقض ٥> كذب و لأنّ باب | الجوهر في كتاب قاطيغورياس يدلّ في مواضع كثيرة على أنّ الجسم جوهر

<١٣> الأجمل عندي أنْ يقال لإبراهيم تأمّل وفّقك فإنّك إنْ كنت إنّما تفهم من الجوهر ما قد فهمه مفسّروFootnote ⁴³ |70b30| كلام أرسطوطالس كبيرهم وصغيرهم ولا يختلف فيه إنسان منهم وهو الذي عبّر عنه في قسمته للموجودات بقوله لا في موضوع وعبّر عمّا هو في موضوع الذي قد أجمع المفسّرون أيضًا | لا خلاف بيْنهم في ذاك أنّه عبارة عن العرض بقوله إنّه الموجود في شيء لا كجزء منه وليس يمكن قوامه من غير الذي هو فيه ثمّ <إنْ> تأمّلت الطويل العريض العميق وجدته ليس هو في | موضوع وذلك أنّك تجد ذوات الطول والعرض والعمق التي هي الأبعاد كلّها لا تثبت إذا فارقها الطول والعرض والعمق في الوهم فضلاً عن الوجود | بالفعل وهذه هي حال الأشياء المقوّمة للشيء الذي توجد فيه والأجزاء التي منها توجد ذاته وتجد أيضًا الأعراض كلّها قد ثبت ذوات الأشياء التي هي | موجودة فيها في التوهّم وإنْ كان من الأعراض ما لا يفارق موضوعه في الوجود فإذا كان ذلك كذلك فقد وجد في كتاب المقولات |70b35| ما يدلّ على أنّ الأبعاد التي ظننتَ أنّ أرسطوطالس إليها يشير باسم الجسم جوهرًا وإذا كانت جوهرًا فليست عرضًا بالمعنى الذي | قد ذكرنا رسمه إيّاه

<١٤> <إبراهيم ٤> فإنْ قال قائل إنّه يقال في كمّيّة الجسم كثيرًا ودلّ ذلك على جوهر قيل في الجواب | إنّه قاله على ما يعرفه الناس من هذه اللفظة والأولى أنْ يظنّ به أنّ رأيه هو ما وضعه في كتاب | قد خصّه بالجوهر والأعراض فإنّه إذا رجع إلى باب الكمّيّة وهي عرض واحد قد جعله أحد | أنواعها وإذا رجع إلى باب الجوهر لم يوجد قائلاً فيه ما يدلّ علىFootnote ⁴⁴ أنّ الجسم |70b40| جوهر

<١٥> هذا تحكّم من إبراهيم فإنّه إذا كان | مقرًّا بأنّ الفيلسوف إنْ قال في بعض المواضع ما يدلّ | عنده على أنّ الجسم جوهر وقال في موضعFootnote ⁴⁵ | آخر ما يدلّ عنده على أنّ | الجسم عرض ‖71a1‖ فليس الظنّ به بأنّه يرى | أنّه عرض بأوْلى من الظنّ به أنّه يرى | أنّه جوهر

<١٦> وقال مناقض إبراهيم <المناقض ٦> فمنها أنّه قال | إنّ الجوهر الأوْلى بالتقديم والتفضيل هو الذي لا يقال على |71a5| موضوع ولا هو في موضوع ثمّ قال والبياض هو في موضوع أيْ في الجسم ثمّ | قال وقول البياض لا يحمل في حال من الأحوال على الجسم أراد أنّ البياض بحدّه لا يحمل على | الجسم لأنّه جوهر

<١٧> هذه الأقاويل التي حكاها عن الفيلسوف قد قالها | الفيلسوف وإنْFootnote ⁴⁶ كان في الحكاية نقصان من قولهFootnote ⁴⁷ إلاّ أنّه لا ينتج أنّ الجسم جوهر وأمّا قوله في آخر هذا الكلام لأنّه | جوهر فهو تحكّم لم يقله الفيلسوف هاهنا ولا واجب ممّا حكاه من أقاويله

<١٨> ثمّ قال أيضًا <المناقض ٧> ثمّ قال بعد قليل واللون في الجسم |71a10| فهو أيضًا في جسم ما وقد أجمع الناس على أنّ العرض لا يكون في عرض فكيف يكون اللون في الجسم

<١٩> ليس أنّ العرض لا يكون | في عرض مجمعًاFootnote ⁴⁸ عليه وأرسطوطالس أحد من يقول بأنّ عرضًا يكون في عرض وقد صرّح بذلك في قوله في المقالة الأولى من السماع الطبيعيّ وذلك | أنّ غير المتناهي هو شيء داخل في الكمّ وأيضًا فإنّه إنْ لم يوجد في عرض عرض كيف يكون المساوي وغير المساوي وطبيعتهما طبيعة العرض خاصّة للكمّيّة والشبيه | وغير الشبيه خاصّة للكيفيّة ثمّ قال أيضًا <المناقض ٨> وقال بعد قليل وكما أنّ الشيء إذا قيس بنفسه أيضًا قيل إنّه أكثر وأقلّ مثال ذلك أنّ الجسم إذا كان أبيض فقد يقال في هذا الوقت | إنّه أبيض بأكثر ممّا كان قبل فقد دلّ على أنّ الجسم يحمل البياض الذي يقال بالأكثر والأقلّ

<٢٠> <المناقض ٩> ثمّ قال في الجوهر إنّ الواحد منه هو بعينه يكون أبيض حينًا وأسود حينًا

|71a15| <٢١> هذه كلّها إذا لم يسلّم له القضيّة القائلة إنّ العرض لا يعرض للعرض لم ينتج منها أنّ الجسم جوهر

<٢٢> ثمّ قال مناقض إبراهيم أيضًا <المناقض ١٠> فَلَيْتَ شِعْري إذْ قال إنّ اللون في الجسم ثمّ قال إنّ الجوهر هو الذي على | الحقيقة يقبل المتضادّيْنFootnote ⁴⁹ لأنّه يكون أبيض حينًا وأسود حينًا والجسم هو الذي يقبل اللون إليهFootnote ⁵⁰ ثمّ يعلّم أنّ هذا القول فعلم منه أنّ الجسم جوهر فهذا ما قاله في باب الجوهر من ذكر الجسم وقد قال في أوّل الكتاب | قبل أنْ ينتهي إلى باب الجوهر وبياض ما هو في موضوع أيْ في الجسم إذْ كان كلّ لون في جسم فَلَيْتَ شِعْري إذا جاز أنْ يكون العرض في عرض وجاز أنْ يكون الموضوع عرضًا فما الجوهر

<٢٣> لخصمه | أنْ يقول له إنّ الجوهر هو ما ليس هو في موضوع

<٢٤> ثمّ قال المناقض <المناقض ١١> لكنّ من لا يعلم أنّ الماء ليس بجسم فلا وجه لمكالمته

<٢٥> إنْ كان هذا المناقض وفّقه يفهم من اسم الماء <ما> يفهمه الجمهور ومن اسم | الجسم ما يفهمه الجمهور أيضًا فالأقوى في ظنّي أنّه إنّما قال هذا عنادًا لا اعتقادًا إذْ كان الحسّ يشهد أنّ الماء ذو طول وعرض وعمق ثمّ قال <المناقض ١٢> لأنّ المعتزلة إذا كانت لا تعلم ذلك لم يكلّمها المنطقيّون لأنّ المعتزلة تقول |71a20| ليس في العالم إلاّ جسم وعرض ولا تعرف الجوهر إلاّ الجزء وليس عندهم في الوجود وإنْ كان قد يجوز أنْ يكون

<٢٦> ليس امتناع من يمتنع من المنطقيّين عن مكالمة من لا يرى مكالمته لأنّه لا يعلم | أنّ الماء ليس بجسم إذْ كان هذا ممّا لا يمكن أنْ يعلمه أحد إذْ ليس بحقّ بل إنّما امتناع بعض من يمتنع من المنطقيّين عن مكالمة من يمتنع عنFootnote ⁵¹ مكالمته لقصدهFootnote ⁵² في ذلك المراء والمغالبة والمعاندة لا الارتياض والفائدة | ثمّ قال مناقض إبراهيم <المناقض ١٣> ولو يعلم واضح المنطق كان أوْلى به من المسامحة في شيء قاله الفيلسوف على سبيل ما يقول الشيء الواحد في مقولتيْن لتعلّقه بوجه وبوجه آخر

<٢٧> هذا القول منه | إرشاد وهداية أحسن جزاه وهو معنا أوْلى بجميع من به وجد إليه سبيلاً ثمّ قال أيضًا <المناقض ١٤> وجملة القول إنّه لا يخلوFootnote ⁵³ بتّةً من أنْ يكون لقول الفيلسوف وجه يصرف إليه أوْ غلط حين جعل الجسم كمًّا وكذلك | كلّ من قال لعشرة رجال كمْ هم فقد أخطأ لأنّه قد جعل الناس عرضًا لأنّ الكمّ زعم عرض ولو لا أنّ سيّدنا أيّده يؤثر ذلك ما أتعبت نفسي في مكالمة شيخ لأنّه من العناء رياضة الهرم

<٢٨> قد أجبت |71a25| عن قوله إنّه لا يخلوFootnote ⁵⁴ بتّةً من أنْ يكون لقول الفيلسوف وجه يصرف إليه أوْ غلط حين جعل الجسم كمًّا بما عندي فيه من قبل هذا فأمّا قوله وكذلك من قال لعشرة رجال كمْ هم فقد أخطأ لأنّه قد جعل الناس عرضًا لأنّ | الكمّ زعم عرض فإنّ القائل لعشرة رجال كمْ هم لم لأنّه لم يسأل عن بكمْ وإنّما يسأل عن عددهم والعدد من الكمّ كما لا يخطئ من يسأل عنهم أيْن هم وما أراه قائلFootnote ⁵⁵ هذا إلاّ ملزمًا بخصمه أنْ يقول إنّ الرجال عرض إذْ قد | سئل عنهم بكمْ والكمّ عرض فهذا آخر ما وجدته في الرقعة التي من كلام المناقض لإبراهيم قد رسمت ما عندي فيه وأمّا إبراهيم فقال بعد الذي حكيته من قوله <إبراهيم ٥> وأجبته بما عندي فيه ومن أدلّ دليل على أن <رأي الفيلسوف ذلك>Footnote ⁵⁶ | وأنّه هو هذا أنّه لا يختلف اثنانFootnote ⁵⁷ في أنّه يرى أنّ كلّ جسم من مادّة وصورة وأنّ المادّة ليست جسمًا والصورة أيضًا ليست جسمًا

<٢٩> هذا القول يلزمه مناقضة نفسه لا محالة وذلك أنّه كان قال | إنّ أرسطوطالس إنّما يرى أنّ الجسم هو الأبعاد المجرّدة في الفكر ومن البيّن أنّ هذه ليست مركّبة من مادّة وصورة ولا أعرف أحدًا يقول إنّ شيئًا من الأعراض مركّب من مادّة وصورة والأبعاد |71a30| التي إيّاها يعني بالجسم عنده أنّ أرسطوطالس يرى أنّها عرض فيجب بحسب هذا القول أنّ أرسطوطالس يرى أنّه ولا شيء من الجسم مركّب من مادّة وصورة وهو يقول الآن إنّه | لا خلاف في أنّه يرى أنّ كلّ جسم مركّب من مادّة وصورة وهذان حكمان متضادان واعتقادان أيضًا متضادان لا يمكن أنْ يجتمعا لإنسان واحد في وقت واحد | ثمّ قال إبراهيم بعد ذلك <إبراهيم ٦> وإنّ الجسم الذي نراه مثل الأرض والماء وغيرهما منهما وإنّهما مبدآن له

<٣٠> قد صدق في هذاFootnote ⁵⁸ فكذا قال وبيّن أرسطوطالس | في السماع الطبيعيّ

<٣١> قال إبراهيم <إبراهيم ٧> فإذا كانت المادّة غير جسم والصورة غير جسم فالجسم إذًا عارض فيهما

<٣٢> قد تبيّن | بـهذا القول أنّ هذا الرجل أصلحه ضعيف النظر بصناعة المنطق وذلك <أنّه> قد اجتمع في قوله هذا ضربان من الفساد كلّ واحد |71a35| منهما على انفراده كاف في المنع من أنْ يكون ناتجًا ما رام أنْ ينتجه عنه فكمْ بالحرى عنه اجتماعهما وذلك ظاهر | لا يخفى على من عرف ما بيّن أرسطوطالس في كتاب أنولوطيقا الأولى: أحدهماFootnote ⁵⁹ ذكره في النتيجة ما | ليس بموجود في المقدّمات وهذا محال بيّن وذلك أنّ من الأشياء البيّنة أنّ النتيجة | إنّما قوامها من حدّ هو محمول فيها يسمّى أكبر ومن حدّ هو موضوع فيها | يسمّى أصغر وهذانFootnote ⁶⁰ جميعًا يجب ضرورةً أنْ يوجدا في المقدّمتيْن |71a40| اللتيْن عنهما تلزمFootnote ⁶¹ النتيجة أمّا الأكبر ففي الكبرى وأمّا الأصغر ففي الصغرى | وقياسه هذا ينتج منه | أنّ الجسم ‖71b1‖ عارض فيهما يعني المادّة | والصورة وهو مؤلّف من مقدّمتيْن | إحداهما القائلة إنّ المادّة غير جسم والصورة | غير جسم ومن الظاهر أنّهما لم يتضمّنا للعارض وهو الأكبر ذكرًا |71b5| بتّةًFootnote ⁶² والفساد الآخرFootnote ⁶³ من ضربيْ الفساد هو أنّه رام أنْ ينتج من مقدّمتيْن سالبتيْن | وهذا الضرب لا ينتج شيئًا البتّة فإنْ هرب من هذه الشناعة رجأً إلى ادّعاء أنّه لم يأخذ المقدّمتيْن | بطريق السلب بل أخذهما على أنّهما موجبتان وقع في شناعة أخرى وهي أنّه لم يعلم أنّ هذا الضرب | أيضًا ليس هو ناتجًا لأنّه من موجبتيْن في الشكل الثاني من أشكال المقاييس وإنْ هرب من هذا أيضًا واعتصم بأنّه أخذ | إحداهما سالبة والأخرى موجبة وقع في شناعة أقبح من تينكFootnote ⁶⁴ وذلك أنّه يروم بحسب هذا الوضع أنْ ينتج من مقدّمتيْن |71b10| غير مؤلّفتيْن إذْ ليس فيهما حدّ واحد متوسّط وصلFootnote ⁶⁵ بيْنهما

<٣٣> ثمّ قال إبراهيم بعد ذلك <إبراهيم ٨> وليس قولي كانا وما شاكل ذلك أنّ الجوهريْن كانا | متفرّقيْن في المكان فاجتمعا ولكنّي أردت أنْ أوْضح بهذا الخطاب للسامع القول فيكون أبْين ولا يجوز أنْ يقال إنّ المادّة والصورة ليستا جوهريْن | بل عرضيْن

<٣٤> إذْ كانت الصورة جوهرًا والمادّة جوهرًا والأبعاد عرضًا على ما قد أعطى فيلزمه أنْ يقول إنّ الأبعاد هي موجودة في شيء | لا كجزء منه وليس يمكن أنْ يكون قوامها من غير الذي هيFootnote ⁶⁶ فيه وقد بيّنّا فوق أنّ الأبعاد إنّما وجودها في ما يوجد فيه كوجود الأجزاء المقوّمة لذوات الأشياء التي توجد فيها <لا> كوجود | الأعراضFootnote ⁶⁷

<٣٥> ثمّ قال إبراهيم <إبراهيم ٩> ولو سألني سائل عن الجسم لما قلت له إلاّ أنّه جوهر لا في أعلم إلى أيّ شيء يؤمى

<٣٦> هو في قوله |71b15| إنّ الجسم جوهر مصيب وفّقه

<٣٧> ثمّ قال <إبراهيم ١٠> ولكنّي أقول إنّ أرسطوطالس أراد بالجسم الأبعاد فقط التي الجوهران وهما الصورة والمادّة حاملان لها وهو الطول والعرض والعمق بالفكر لأنّي | وجدت في كتاب قد وضعه للجوهر والأعراض ذكر الجسم في باب العرض ولم أجدهFootnote ⁶⁸ ذكره في باب الجوهر

<٣٨> قول أرسطوطالس إنّ الجسم نوع من أنواع الكمّيّة ليس يجب منه أنّه يرى أنّ الأبعاد | هي الجسم ولم يعرض إبراهيم لبيان ذلك أصلاً وهو مع هذا يكرّر القضاء على الفيلسوف به متحكّمًا بدعوى مجرّدة من غير برهان هذا على أنّ ما ظنّه إبراهيم من أنّ الأبعاد الثلاثة عرض لو كان حقًّا لجاز لقائل أنْ يقول | إنّه لم يعن بالجسم الأبعاد لكن إنّما عنى به ما يعرفه الناس من اسم الجسم وأخطأ في ظنّه أنّه عرض وأخذ هذا الحكم بغير برهان <و>كلّ أخذ إبراهيم حكمه دالّ بغير برهان لم يكن أحدهما بأوْلى بالتصديق من مخالفه فكمْ بالحرى | إذا كان القول بأنّ الأبعاد أعراض ليس بصادق كما بيّنّا قبل وغير لائق بالفيلسوف القول به

<٣٩> ثمّ قال إبراهيم <إبراهيم ١١> ويشاكل ذلك رجلاًFootnote ⁶⁹ وضع كتابًا في المقصور والممدود فأثبت الهواء في باب الممدود أترانا كنّا نظنّ به أنّه |71b20| يرى أنّه مقصور وإنْ رأيناه قد كتب الهوى بالياء في كتبه ورسائله ورقاعه ولكنّا كنّا نقول إنّه أراد الهوى في كتبه ورسائله ورقاعه هوى النفس أوْ أنّ ذلك يكتب بالياء على مذهب قوم وعادتهم لا على مذهبه | هو لأنّ مذهبه قد أظهره وبيّنه في كتاب رسمه بالمقصور والممدود وذكرت الجواب لتوقف عليه إنْ شاء

<٤٠> قد تقدّم الجواب عن مثل هذا القول فإعادته من الفضل وبيّنّا أنّ الذي | يتبيّن من كتاب الجوهر والأعراض إنْ كان يعني بهذا الرسم كتاب المقولات وهو المعروف بقاطيغورياس أنّ الأبعاد التي ظنّ إبراهيم أنّ أرسطوطالس إليها يشير باسم الجسم ليست عرضًا بما فيه كفاية فليطلب الوجه | الذي به يدخل الجسم تحت الكمّيّة فيكون به عرضًا فإنّه إنْ ظهر له زالت عنه هذه الحيرة ويرى أنّ الفيلسوف عنده من هذا الرأي الذي نسبته إليه إنْ شاء

<٤١> ثمّ قال إبراهيم <إبراهيم ١٢> ولعلّ يحيى بن عديّ ظنّ أنّ قائلاً | يقول إنّ هذه الأرض بكلّيّتها لا أبعادها فقط عرض ولعمري إنّ هذا منكر وفيما مضى كفاية إنْ شاء

<٤٢> ما ظننت هذا وقد بيّنت أنّ الأبعاد ليست عرضًا وأنّ القائل بذلك |71b25| مخطئ والفيلسوف من هذه الظنّة بري فهذا آخر ما وجدته في رقعة إبراهيم قد ذكرت ما عندي فيه و ذي الجود والحكمة والحول ولي العدل وواهب العقل الحمدFootnote ⁷⁰ شكرًا دائمًا خالصًا كما هو له أهل وإليه |

TRANSLATION

A copy of what Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī wrote in adjudicating between Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAlī (known as Abū Naṣr ibn ʿAdī) the Secretary and his Opponent, concerning their disagreement about whether body is a substance or an accident;Footnote ⁷¹ and [a copy of] what he wrote to Prince Sayf-al-Dawla Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd-Allāh ibn Ḥamdān.

<1> He [Yaḥyā] said: A note attributed to Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAlī was delivered to me (I being Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī), the text of which is [as follows:] <Ibrāhīm 1> “I read what our Lord Prince Sayf-al-Dawla forwarded me in Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī’s hand with his remarks about body [bi-mā dhakarahu fī al-jismi]. If anyone else had been the interlocutor, I would not have responded to it. [The reason I make this exception] is because of how intelligent I know him to be, I having described him thus on many occasions. It is not my custom to think about those like him anything other than the best of opinions. Most people differ about things, and most often the reason is that this man thinks that this word signifies one meaning [maʿnā] while some other man thinks that it signifies another meaning [maʿnā], and so there is then a difference between them, not over the meanings, but in respect of something else.”Footnote ⁷²

<2> An Opponent, opposing Ibrāhīm about this statement, says, <Opponent 1> “He is wrong, since the difference he mentions is in respect of the meaning, since he has said that one man has one meaning in mind, while some other [man] has another meaning in mind. |70a25| Whoever does not know that this difference is in meaning, having started by bringing up meaning, does not deserve to be addressed.”

<3> [Yaḥyā says:] By my life, the manifest sense of Ibrāhīm's discussion must be as the Opponent has said: the difference is in meanings, since it is the meanings that are different, not the word, which is one [and the same]. But this will necessarily get Ibrāhīm into trouble, if we set out to compete in abasing each other in an eristic rivalry rather than a dialectical dispute. For when the entirety of Ibrāhīm's statement is taken into consideration, and his statements from beginning to middle to end are harmonized, [Ibrāhīm's] discussion here is defective with regard to what would be understood from its external [formulations] when taken in isolation.Footnote ⁷³ He [the Opponent] did not have the generosity to bring what follows to bear [in his recapitulation of Ibrāhīm's argument], being profligate with protestation [sarfan bi-al-munāqasha] while miserly in dialogue [shuḥḥan fī al-mukālama]. For Ibrāhīm might have intended with this expression [i.e., in saying that their difference is not in meanings] a homonymous word that was taken in some proposition or other, be it as a predicate or as a subject of which some predicate is predicated, as when someone says (for example) “the eye [al-ʿayn] is diseased.” This word – I mean the expression “al-ʿayn” – since it is homonymous, signifies “the spring of water” and “the organ of sight” and “unevenness in a balance [ʿayn al-mīzān]”Footnote ⁷⁴ and “one of the causes of diseases” and the sense that expresses “what is evident”Footnote ⁷⁵ and “the bare thing”.Footnote ⁷⁶ If two men disagree over the proposition that says “the eye is diseased” – for one of the two says that it is diseased |70a30| inasmuch as he understands by it the organ of sight, and another says that it is not diseased inasmuch as he means by it the spring of water, or some other of the meanings that the word “ ʿayn” signifies – then this difference will not be about objects [fī al-maʿānī],Footnote ⁷⁷ because the two of them do not agree about the object [maʿnā] that is qualified by being diseased. For this reason the dispute is not about a single proposition. And these two propositions are not contradictories – I mean the one stating that the eye is diseased and the one stating that the eye is not diseased – since they can both be true together. If the difference were about the meaning of a single proposition, then it would not be possible for [both] the affirmation of a thing with a single meaning of a thing with a single meaning, and the denial of that same thing of that same thing, to be true. What Ibrāhīm says afterwards, at the end of his discussion, that he means by body what he thinks Aristotle means by it, namely the dimensions alone, indicates that he maintains in his discussion which we have recounted only what we have attributed to him. So it is as if he said that the disagreement between a person who says that body is a substance and means [by body] |70a35| what Ibrāhīm calls “embodied” [mujassam], like earth and water and man, and another person who says that body is not a substance and means by body the dimensions alone, is not about the object [maʿnā, i.e., the thing they have in mind] in the sense that their characterizations which differ by way of affirmation and denial would be about the object [maʿnā], i.e., about a single underlying object, so that the former would characterize it by affirming a thing while the latter would characterize it by negating that thing. This would be the case if their dispute were like the disagreement between someone who says that body – and he too means, e.g., the dimensions – is a substance, and another person who says that body – and he too means the dimensions – is not a substance: the disagreement between these two people's characterizations is about a single object [maʿnā], |70a40| namely the dimensions. If what he [Ibrāhīm] says amounts to what we have shown it amounts to, he will not, in this instance, have fallen thereby outside the totality of those who deserve to be addressed.Footnote ⁷⁸

||70b1|| <4> [Ibrāhīm says:] <Ibrāhīm 2> “I have said that all people believe body to be this thing that can be pointed to, such as earth, water and man, and I was asked repeatedly about body, and I said that it is a substance according to the opinion |70b5| that ordinary people acknowledge. As for Aristotle, he mentions in a book which he devoted to substance and accidentsFootnote ⁷⁹ that one of the species of quantity – which is an accident – is body; so according to him body would be the dimensions rather than the embodied thing that bears dimensions.”Footnote ⁸⁰

<5> Ibrāhīm's Opponent says <Opponent 2> “He is wrong, because neither earth nor water nor man is a body, proof of which consists in the fact that body does not admit of coming to be and passing away, except according to the masses of people,Footnote ⁸¹ whereas these [earth, etc.] are constantly coming to be and passing away. As for al-Jubbāʾī, he maintains that body cannot be corrupted except into its contrary, and its contrary is annihilation. If annihilation were to occur, then all bodies would be abolished. |70b10| As for al-Balkhī, he does not allow their coming to be now, since there is no void in the world, and he does not allow their passing away, since there will not come to be any void in the world. He says that had God wanted to generate a body now, he would annihilate one of the bodies in the world that is of the same size, since there is no void in the world, and it is not possible for two bodies to exist in a [single] place.Footnote ⁸² Yet earth and water are substances, since the philosopher [i.e., Aristotle] mentioned that the two motions of generation and corruption are [change] in [the category of] substance, and every body is a substance and not every substance is a body. Thus generation belongs to a substance which is not a body.”

<6> Ibrāhīm confirmed in this discussion and what he said afterwards as well, that he says and thinks that body is a substance, and in this statement and opinion he is correct. This is because he said “I have said that all people think body to be this thing that is pointed to,” and he is one of the people. He is explicit about this when he says “I have been asked repeatedly about body and I said that it is a substance according to the opinion that ordinary people acknowledge.” For this statement of his, if it is not juxtaposed with what he already proposed, will be understood as his saying that body is a substance: |70b15| although in what he follows this statement with and in his desire to vindicate the straightforward reading of Aristotle, [i.e.,] that body is an accident, he is compelled to believe that body is not a substance. And the combination of these two beliefs in a single person at a single time in a single respect is absurd.Footnote ⁸³ If he did not construe body in a single way, but with two different meanings, he would not be forced on account of this into a self-contradiction in this way.

<7> As for what Ibrāhīm thinks, that Aristotle's assertion that body is one of the species of quantity, which is an accident, necessitates that he thinks that body is the dimensions, this is ridiculous. This is because what follows by syllogistic necessity from the two premises that have been cited – if we make a concession to him in view of what they contain – is only the conclusion that body is an accident. As for the dimensions, there is no mention of them in the premises, so it is impossible that they should be mentioned in the conclusion, since the two terms of the conclusion must both be found in the premises from which it results. As for the assertion of Ibrāhīm's Opponent that neither earth nor water nor man is a body, this allows two opinions. For if he understood by the name “body” what ordinary people understand by it, namely, what is long, broad and deep, then since every man possessed of understanding has a [sense of] sight which bears witness that earth and water and man are long and broad and deep … .Footnote ⁸⁴ Part of what is even more astonishing to me is that [the Opponent] thinks |70b20| that Ibrāhīm believes that these three are bodies, although in this assertion [Ibrāhīm] has made it explicit that his offering earth, water and man as examples of body is only in accordance with what people think, not in accordance with what is intended by his own point of view, namely that body is only the dimensions and not these [things] that we have enumerated [i.e., earth, water, man], which [Ibrāhīm] says are “embodied” and bearers of the dimensions. As for the Opponent [and] his proof that earth and water are not body, well, he is someone who seeks to avertFootnote ⁸⁵ his eyes from the falsehood or peculiarity that it contains and which prevents what he says from being syllogistic.Footnote ⁸⁶ For the proposition that asserts that body is not capable of generation and corruption, if it is taken without reduplication [i.e., without adding “qua body”], is false; and if there is a false proposition in a syllogism, it is possible that its conclusion is false. And we will counter it with a syllogism that is a counterbalance to this syllogism of his,Footnote ⁸⁷ the conclusion of which is a conclusion that I do not reckon he will deem permissible to assert as true: so we say that man is necessarily possessor of soul, and substance is not necessarily possessor of soul. What results from these two [premises] according to the Opponent's opinion is that man is not a substance, and this is manifestly absurd, as I think the Opponent will agree. You must know that with the word “substance” I am indicating merely what Aristotle [himself] expressed in the Book of Categories: that it is what is not in a subject (Categories 3a7–8). In sum, whoever doubts that earth is a body needs the senses, or needs to use the senses, since this is something that is perceived by the sense of sight |70b25| and the sense of touch.Footnote ⁸⁸ What the rest of the Opponent's statement that we mentioned contains, simply as a digression taken from the two people who hold the theories that he mentioned,Footnote ⁸⁹ well, we hold what he says to be true, yet it contains no proof against Ibrāhīm.

<8> Then Ibrāhīm's Opponent also says, <Opponent 3> “The philosopher has mentioned that ‘quantum’ [kamm] has species and that one of the species is body, just as he said, under the heading of relation, that the mountain is small in relation to another mountain, and a sesame seed is large in relation to a smaller sesame seed.Footnote ⁹⁰ He places these two [i.e., ‘large’ and ‘small’] under the heading of relation.Footnote ⁹¹ So it is necessary that he posits mountain and sesame seed as accidents also.”Footnote ⁹²

<9> He is exactly right in this necessary consequence, may God grant him success.

<10> Then Ibrāhīm's Opponent also says, <Opponent 4> “and to sum up the statement: there is no escape from [saying either] that what the philosopher says has some sense [in which] he has placed a single thing in two categories, or that he has made a mistake, there being no third [alternative].”Footnote ⁹³

<11> The opinion that is correct is the first; except that it remains for you to know the sense in which body falls under [the category of] quantity.

<12> [Ibrāhīm says:] <Ibrāhīm 3> “Aristotle does not mention in the chapter on substance anything that would signify that body is a substance.” And Ibrāhīm's Opponent says <Opponent 5> “it is false, by God: the chapter on substance in the Book of Categories signifies in many passages that body is a substance.”

<13> What is best in my opinion is that it should be said to Ibrāhīm: Consider, may God grant you success: if you [a] construe by substance what the interpreters |70b30| of Aristotle's discourse have understood by it, the great and small among them (and not a man of them disagrees), namely, what he expresses in his division of beings by saying that it is not in a subject; and [Aristotle] expresses what is in a subject (and on this too the commentators agree – and there is no disagreement among them on this – that it is an expression for accident) by saying that it is “what is in something, not as a part of it, such that it is not capable of subsisting without the thing it is in” (Categories 2, 1a24–25).Footnote ⁹⁴ And next, if you [b] consider what is long, broad and deep, you will find that it is not in a subject. This is because you will find [that] the possessors of length, breadth and depth, which are all the dimensions there are, cannot be affirmed as existing when length, breadth and depth have been separated from them, even in the imagination, let alone in actual existence.Footnote ⁹⁵ And this is the case of things that are constitutive of the thing they are in, and [are] the parts out of which its essence exists.Footnote ⁹⁶ And you will also find in the case of all accidents that the essences of the things they are in can exist [without those accidents] in the imagination, even though there are some accidents that will not be separated from their subject in [actual] existence. If this is so, there does exist in the Book of Categories |70b35| evidence indicating that the dimensions which you [Ibrāhīm] think Aristotle refers to by the name “body” are a substance. And if they are a substance, then they are not an accident in the sense whose description [sc. “what is in a subject” etc.] we have mentioned.

<14> [Ibrāhīm says:] <Ibrāhīm 4> “And if someone says that it is said with respect to the quantity of a body ‘it [the body] is great’, and that this [i.e., ‘body’] refers to a substance,Footnote ⁹⁷ it will be said in response that he [Aristotle] is speaking about what ordinary people understand by this expression [i.e., ‘body’], and the most appropriate [awlā] thing to think is that his [Aristotle's] opinion is what he has put in a book that he has specifically devoted to substance and accidents. For when he comes to the chapter on quantity, which is one [kind of] accident, he renders it [body] as one of its species; but when he comes to the chapter on substance, he is not found to be saying anything that would signify that body |70b40| is a substance.”Footnote ⁹⁸

<15> This is an arbitrary judgment on Ibrāhīm's part, for if he has determined that the philosopher, [even] if he says in some passages things that signify (according to him) that body is a substance, also in another passage says something that signifies (according to him) that body is an accident, ||71a1|| then [Ibrāhīm's] opinion of [Aristotle] – that he [Aristotle] thinks that it is an accident – is not more appropriate [awlā] than the opinion that he thinks that it is a substance.Footnote ⁹⁹

<16> Ibrāhīm's Opponent says <Opponent 6> “There are [passages] where [Aristotle] says that ‘the substance which is prior and more excellent is what is neither said of |71a5| a subject nor in a subject’.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ Then he says ‘whiteness is in a subject, i.e., in body’ (Categories 2a31).Footnote ¹⁰¹ Then he says ‘but the account of whiteness is never predicated of body’ (Categories 2a32–4) – he means that whiteness with its definition is not predicated of body, because it [sc. body] is a substance.”Footnote ¹⁰²

<17> [Yaḥyā replies:] These assertions which he [the Opponent] reports from the philosopher, the philosopher did indeed say them (even if it is an incomplete report of what he said). But he [Aristotle] does not draw the conclusion that body is a substance. As for his statement at the end of this discussion “because it is a substance,” this is an arbitrary judgment, which the philosopher does not say here and which does not follow necessarily from the statements of [Aristotle] that he recounts.

<18> Then he [the Opponent] also says <Opponent 7> “Then he [Aristotle] says a little further on, ‘color is in body |71a10| and it is in a particular body’ (Categories 2b1–2).Footnote ¹⁰³ And everyone agrees that an accident is not in an accident, so how would color be in body [if body were an accident]?”Footnote ¹⁰⁴

<19> [Yaḥyā replies:] It is not something agreed on that an accident will not be in an accident; and Aristotle is one of those who asserts that an accident may be in an accident. He makes this clear in his statement in Physics I, namely that infinity is something belonging to quantity (Physics I 185a33–4). Also, if an accident is not present in an accident, how are the equal and unequal, which have the nature of an accident, propria of quantity (Categories 6a26ff), and how are the similar and dissimilar propria of quality (Categories 11a15ff.)? What is more, he [the Opponent] then says, <Opponent 8> “He [Aristotle] says a little further on, ‘so too the thing can said to be more and less, even in comparison to itself: for example, if the body is white, it can be said of it at the present moment that it is more white than it was previously’ (Categories 4a2–4),Footnote ¹⁰⁵ and this signifies that body is the subject of whiteness, which is said [of the body] more and less.”

<20> [The Opponent continues, saying:] <Opponent 9> “Then he [Aristotle] says about substance that each of them, while remaining the same, may be white at one time and black at another time (cf. Categories 4a10–11 and 4a17–20).”

|71a15| <21> [Yaḥyā replies:] If the proposition that asserts that an accident does not inhere as an accident in an accident is not conceded to him, then there does not follow from all this that body is a substance.

<22> Then Ibrāhīm's Opponent says also, <Opponent 10> “Would that I knew – since he [Aristotle] says that color is in body (cf. Categories 2a31 and 2b1–2 as above), and then says that substance is what in reality admits of contraries since it is white at one time and black at another (cf. Categories 4a10–11 and 4a17–20 as above), and body is that to which color attaches;Footnote ¹⁰⁶ and then he teaches that from this statement it is known that body is a substance. This is what he says in the chapter on substance by way of mentioning body. And he has already said at the beginning of the book, before reaching the chapter on substance, ‘and a particular whiteness is in a subject, i.e., in body, since every color is in a body’ (Categories 1a27–8)Footnote ¹⁰⁷ – if it is possible that the accident be in an accident, and possible that a subject be an accident, what then is substance?”Footnote ¹⁰⁸

<23> His adversary can say to him that a substance is what is not in a subject.

<24> Then the Opponent says, <Opponent 11> “but whoever does not know that water is not a body, there is no way to have a discussion with him.”

<25> If this Opponent, may God grant him success, understands by the word “water” what ordinary people understand by it, and understands by “body” what ordinary people understand by it also, then the most likely thing in my opinion is that he is saying this out of stubbornness, not out of conviction, since sensation bears witness to the fact that water possesses length and breadth and depth. Then he says, <Opponent 12> “Because, whenever the Muʿtazilites do not acknowledge this, the logicians will not engage in discussion with them: for the Muʿtazilites say |71a20| that there is nothing in the world except body and accident, and they do not acknowledge [any] substance except the atom, there being – according to them – nothing [else] in existence, although it is possible for there to be.”Footnote ¹⁰⁹

<26> No logician refuses to have a discussion with someone on the ground that he does not know that water is not a body, since this is one of things that no one can know, since it is not true. Rather, some logician might refuse to have a discussion with someone only through his [the opponent's] aiming in this at quarrelsomeness or contentiousness or argumentativeness, not education or benefit. Ibrāhīm's Opponent says, <Opponent 13> “if he [Ibrāhīm] knew the evident [truths] of logic, he would more likely have shown indulgence to what the philosopher says, by way [of admitting] that he [Aristotle] says the same thing in two categories due to [his] attaching it to one or another meaning.”

<27> This statement contains some guidance and direction, may God improve his lot, and in our view He is most generous to whoever finds thereby a path to Him.Footnote ¹¹⁰ Then he says also <Opponent 14> “To sum up the statement: there is absolutely no escape from saying either (a) that the philosopher's assertion has some qualification that he turns to,Footnote ¹¹¹ or else (b) that he is in error when he renders body a quantity, and that likewise anyone who asks about ten men, ‘How many are they?’, has made a mistake, since he has rendered man an accident, since quantity is thought to be an accident.Footnote ¹¹² If our master [Sayf-al-Dawla], may God aid him, had not favored this, I would not have exhausted myself in conversation with an old man, for it is toilsome to educate the aged.”Footnote ¹¹³

<28> I have already responded to |71a25| his saying “there is no escape from saying either (a) that the philosopher's assertion has recourse to some qualification, or else (b) that he is in error when he renders body a quantity”, with whatever resources I have to bear, before this.Footnote ¹¹⁴ As for his statement “and that likewise anyone who asks about ten men, ‘How many are they?’, has made a mistake, since he has rendered man an accident, since quantity is thought to be an accident” – someone who asks about ten men, “how many are they?”, has not made a mistake, since he has not asked “how many” about their essence, rather he has asked only about their number, and number is a quantity, just as he has not made a mistake if he asks about them “where are they?”. I think he says this only as someone compelled by his adversary to say that man is an accident since he has asked about him “how many are they?”, and quantity is an accident.Footnote ¹¹⁵ This is the last of what I have found in the note of the account of Ibrāhīm's Opponent which I have mentioned. And I have already described what my opinion about it is. As for Ibrāhīm, he says, after the part of what he says that I have [already] recorded,Footnote ¹¹⁶ <Ibrāhīm 5> “And I have answered with my opinion about it and with the most evident proof that I possess that <the opinion of the philosopher is this, namely,>Footnote ¹¹⁷ that no two [people] disagree that he [Aristotle] thinks that every body is composed of matter and form and that matter is not a body and that form also is not a body.”

<29> This assertion doubtless entails a self-contradiction, since he has said that Aristotle thinks that body is simply dimensions abstracted in thought, and it is clear that these [dimensions] are not composed of matter and form – I do not know anyone who says that any accident is composed of matter and form.Footnote ¹¹⁸ [As for] the dimensions |71a30| which body [supposedly] refers to, according to him Aristotle thinks that they are an accident, and so it follows necessarily in accordance with this account that Aristotle thinks that no body is composed of matter and form. But now he says that there is no disagreement that [Aristotle] thinks that every body is composed of matter and form: these are two contrary judgments, and contrary beliefs cannot be combined in a single person at a single moment.Footnote ¹¹⁹ Then Ibrāhīm says after this, <Ibrāhīm 6> “and the body which we see, like earth and water and so on, is composed of [matter and form], and they are both principles of it.”Footnote ¹²⁰

<30> He is right about this [assertion],Footnote ¹²¹ and Aristotle says and shows this in the Physics.Footnote ¹²²

<31> Ibrāhīm says, <Ibrāhīm 7> “if matter is not a body and form is not a body, then body therefore belongs accidentally to the two of them.”

<32> And with this assertion it becomes clear that this man, may God set him straight, is weak in his understanding of the art of logic, since there are combined in this assertion of his two types of flaw, each one |71a35| of which on its own would be sufficient to prevent his desired conclusion from following, and how much more the combination of both! This is clear and is not hidden from anyone who knows what Aristotle showed in the Prior Analytics. One of the two [flaws] is his mentioning in the conclusion something that is not present in the premises, and this is clearly absurd, since it is clear that the conclusion can only be constituted out of a term which is the predicate in it and is called the major [term], and from a term which is the subject in it and which is called the minor [term]. And these must both be present in the two premises |71a40| from which, in themselves, the conclusion is entailedFootnote ¹²³ – as for the major term, it is in the major premise, and as for the minor term, it is in the minor premise. The conclusion of this syllogism of his is “body ||71b1|| belongs accidentally to the two of them” – he means matter and form – and this is a combination of the two premises, one of which says that matter is not a body and [the other of which says that] form is not a body, and it is manifest that these premises do not include any mention at all of “belongs accidentally”, which is the major term that he has cited. |71b5| And the second type of flaw is that he wishes to conclude from two negative premises; but this type of alleged syllogism concludes nothing at all.Footnote ¹²⁴ And if he flees from this repugnance by taking refuge in the claim that he has not taken the premises in the negative sense but instead he takes them as affirmative,Footnote ¹²⁵ then he falls into another repugnance, namely, he does not know that this type also is inconclusive, since it is from two affirmatives in the second figure of the syllogism.Footnote ¹²⁶ And if he flees from this as well and clings to saying that he has taken one of them as negative and the other as affirmative, then he falls into a repugnance more shameful than these two [errors], and this is that he wants from this position to conclude from two premises |71b10| that are not combinable, since there is not a single middle term that would link them.

<33> Then after this Ibrāhīm says, <Ibrāhīm 8> “My statement ‘they are both…’Footnote ¹²⁷ and so on is not that the two substances were separated from each other in place and then came together; rather I wanted to make the statement clearer to the hearer with this expression, so that it is clear that it cannot be said that matter and form are not two substances but two accidents” –

<34> since the form is a substance and the matter is a substance, but the dimensions are an accident, according to what he had already set forth. So he is compelled to say that the dimensions are present in a thing, not as a part of it, such that they are not capable of subsisting without the thing they are in.Footnote ¹²⁸ But we have already shown above that the presence of the dimensions in what they are present in is like the presence of the parts which are constitutive of the essence of the things in which they are present, and <not> like the presence of accidents.Footnote ¹²⁹

<35> Then Ibrāhīm says, <Ibrāhīm 9> “If someone should ask me about body, I would say simply that it is a substance not in .…” Know that what he is signalling,

<36> by saying |71b15| that body is a substance, is correct, may God grant him success.

<37> Then he says, <Ibrāhīm 10> “But I say that Aristotle intended by body the dimensions alone, which the two substances, i.e., the form and the matter, bear as predicates, namely length, breadth and depth, abstracted by thought, since in a book that he devoted to substance and accidents I found body mentioned in the chapter on accidents, whereas I did not find it mentioned in the chapter on substance.”Footnote ¹³⁰

<38> Aristotle's saying that body is one of the species of quantity does not necessarily imply that he thinks that the dimensions are the body. And Ibrāhīm does not apply himself to proving this at all, but nonetheless keeps imposing this judgment on the philosopher arbitrarily, with assertion bare of any demonstration. [And] this despite the fact that if what Ibrāhīm thinks – that the three dimensions are an accident – were true, it would [still] be possible for someone to say that he [Aristotle] did not mean by “body” the dimensions, but he meant by it only what [ordinary] people understand by the name “body.” Ibrāhīm has erred in his thinking that it is an accident and he has taken this judgment without any demonstration. Each of Ibrāhīm's assumptions of a judgment that signifies without demonstration will not be more worthy of assent than its opposite.Footnote ¹³¹ How much more so if the assertion that the dimensions are an accident is not true, as we have shown above,Footnote ¹³² and the assertion of it is not appropriate to the philosopher.

<39> Then Ibrāhīm says <Ibrāhīm 11> “This is like a man who writes a book about the shortened and the lengthenedFootnote ¹³³ and places ‘air’ [al-hawāʾ] under the heading of the lengthened. Do you think that we would believe that |71b20| he thinks it is shortened? Even if we see that he has written “hawā” with a yāʾ in his books, essays and notes, we would nevertheless say said that he means [by] “hawā” in his books, essays and notes the passion of the soul, or that he wrote this with a yāʾ following the view and custom of some [other] group, not according to his own opinion, since he has manifested and shown his own opinion in a book he devoted to the shortened and the lengthened.” I have mentioned the response so that you may be acquainted with it,Footnote ¹³⁴ God willing.

<40> The answer to this kind of assertion has already been given, and repeating it is superfluous. We have shown that what is shown in the book on substance and accidents, if he means by that description the Book of Categories, which is known as Qāṭīghūriyās, is that the dimensions which Ibrāhīm thinks Aristotle refers to by the name “body” are not an accident, and [what we have already said] is sufficient. Let him seek the way that body falls under quantity such that it is an accident: for if it becomes manifest to him, this confusion will pass from him, and he will see, God willing, that the philosopher holds to this opinion which I have attributed to him.

<41> Ibrāhīm says <Ibrāhīm 12> “perhaps Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī thought someone will say that this earth in its entirety, not its dimensions alone, is an accident. Upon my life, this is reprehensible, and what has been said already will be sufficient, God willing.”

<42> I didn't think this.Footnote ¹³⁵ And I have already made clear that the dimensions are not an accident, and that whoever says this |71b25| is in error. The philosopher is exempt from this opinion. This is the last of what I found in Ibrāhīm's note. I have mentioned what I think about it, and to GodFootnote ¹³⁶ – the possessor of generosity and wisdom and power, the patron of justice and the giver of intellect – belongs praise with everlasting pure gratitude as He deserves.Footnote ¹³⁷ And [appended] to it [sc. Yaḥyā’s text] is [the copy of Ibrāhīm’s text].

TEXT

MS Tehrān, Madrasa-yi Marvī 19, no. 51/52, fols. 71b26–72b24

نسخة ما كتب به إبراهيم بن عليّ المكنّى بأبي نصر ويعرف بابن عديّ |

<١> قرأت ما أجاب به يحيى بن عديّ أطال بقاء سيّدنا الأمير سيف الدولة ولعمري إنّه ليس لغيره ممّن غرضه المماراة إلاّ أنّه قد انحرف عن المعهود من أخلاق طبقته ولو | انحرف كثيرًا عظيمًا لم يواز هذه الطبقة التي <هو> أستاذها لأنّه لا غرض لها غير المماراة ولهذه العلّة أمسك عن وأمّا ما ظنّه يحيى في بعض أقاويلي من ظاهر | اللفظ ثمّ رجع عنه لمّا لاح له من ألفاظي ما أردته فلا جواب للمعترف وهو يعلم والجماعة أنّ المعاند إذا أراد معاندة ضدّه في قول صحيح قد آتاه أمكنه |71b30| ذلك التشبيه ورأيْته قد تكلّم على المعنى القريب وتكلّمت أنا على المعنى البعيدFootnote ¹³⁸ ولهذه العلّة اختلفنا وما يمكنه إذا رمى بفكره نحو غرضي | أنْ يخالفني البتّة لأنّه قد تعجّب من قول المعاند لي إنّ الماء ليس بجسم فحكم لمعاندته وأنّ ما في ضميره يخالف ظنّه وقال في جواب | لي إنّي فيما قلت بعيد من معرفة المنطق وهذا قبيح لفظ قد يجوز أنْ يقال عليه ودليل على أنّه لم يعلم طريقًا سواه | وكان غرضي في ذلك اللفظ الذي لفظت به أنْ يفهمه سائر الناس ليس ليفهمه هو ومن يتعاطى المنطق | فقط ولو كان غرضي أنْ يفهم هو ما عندي لعدلت إلى كلام أصحاب المنطق فقط و|71b35|الإنسان إذا أراد أنْ يتكلّم بكلام واحد يفهمه أكثر الناس فسبيله أنْ يعدل إلى | السهل والمألوف ليتلفّظ ذوFootnote ¹³⁹ الفهم منه ما يدلّ غوامضه عليه | ويحيى ابن عديّ لمّا أجاب وأراد أنْ يبرهن على | بطلانٍ نقض القول <و>قال ما لا يعرفه | إلاّ المنطقيّون فقط |71b40| فانعجم ‖72a1‖ عن الأكثرFootnote ¹⁴⁰ وبقي الأقلّ والأيْسر ولهذه الطائفة أنْ تقول ما عندها وأن تشبّه إنْ أجازت المغالطة فأمّا إذا كان الكلام مفهومًا عند الكلّ | أوْ الأكثر ثمّ عمل الأقلّ إلى دحضه كان خصماؤه كثيرين فإنْ أحبّ الإنسان التطويل تكلّم بما يفهمه الجمهور فردًاFootnote ¹⁴¹ وبما يفهمه المنطقيّون فردًا |

<٢> وينبغي أنْ تعلم أنّي إنّما أشير باسم الجوهر إلى ما عبّر عنه أرسطوطالس في كتاب المقولات بأنّه الذي ليس هو في موضوع |

<٣> قد صدق كذا قال أرسطوطالس ولكنّ هذا هو الجوهر المركّب من مادّة وصورة وليس إلى هذا ذهبت وإنّما كان خطابي في الصورة |72a5| على انفرادها والمادّة على انفرادها وقد صرّحت بذلك وما يجوز أنْ يعتقد يحيى أنّ حدّ كلّ واحد منهما هو مثل حدّ مجموعها ولعلّه أنْ ينكر | قولي في هذا الحدّ دون الرسم وقد قلت أخيرًا ما يزيل الشكّ وأردت بهذا الكلام أنْ يفهمه كلّ أحد فعادات أهل زماننا غير عادات القدماء |

<٤> قال يحيى إنّ المناقض لي قد أصاب فيما ألزمنيه من قول أرسطوطالس وذلك أنّه قال في قاطيغورياس إنّ للكمّ أنواعًا أحدها الجسم كما قال | في باب المضاف إنّFootnote ¹⁴² الجبل صغير إلى جبل آخر والسمسمة كبيرة بإضافتها إلى سمسمة أصغر منها فينبغي أنْ أجعلFootnote ¹⁴³ الجبل والسمسمة | عرضًا

<٥> إنْ تأمّل المتأمل الكلاميْن علم أنّ بيْنهما خلفًا وأسعى عن التنبيه ولو صرف أرسطوطالس عند ذكره الجسم في أنواع |72a10| الكمّيّة الجسم كما صرف الجبل عند ذكره إيّاه لقيل إنّ هذا مثل هذا ولكنّه قال من الكمّيّة ما هو متّصل ومنه ما هو منفصل فالمتّصل الخطّ | والبسيط والجسم لم يقل أيضًا واتّصال الجسم

<٦> في جواب ما قلت إنّ في كتب أرسطوطالس ما يدلّ على أنّ الجسم جوهر و|في قاطيغورياس الذي ألّفه في الجوهر والأعراض ما يدلّ على أنّ الجسم عرض وأنّ الأوْلىFootnote ¹⁴⁴ أنْ نظنّ برأيه هو ما تضمّنه الكتاب الذي وضعه | في هذا الباب من أنّه ليس يجب أنْ يحكم على أرسطوطالس بهذا الظنّ وأنّي إذا أقررت بان الفيلسوف قد قال ماFootnote ¹⁴⁵ يدلّ على أنّ الجسم | عرض فليس الظنّ بأنّه عرض أوْلى منه بأنّه جوهر

<٧> ليس هذا الجواب جواب جميع ذلك الكلام لأنّه ينبغي أنْ يفضّل أحد الأمريْن |72a15| على الآخر لأنّي قلت إنّه قد وضع كتابًا في الجواهر والأعراض ذكر الجسم في باب من أبواب العرض ولم يذكر أنّه نوع من أنواع الجوهر كما ذكر أنّه نوع | من أنواع العرض ثمّ ذكر الجسم في كتبه ذكرًا مرسلاً بما دلّ عليه أنّه جوهر فدلّ هذا منه على أنّها لفظة تدلّ على معنييْن مختلفيْن أحدهما | الجوهر والآخر الاتّصال والأبعاد أوْ يتكلّم بذلك على ما ألفه الناس وعاداتهم من أنّه جوهر

<٨> قال يحيى إنّي إبراهيم قلت ومن أدلّ دليل | على أنّ رأي الفيلسوف ذلك أنّه لا يختلف إثنان في أنّه يرى أنّ كلّ جسم من مادّة وصورة وأنّ المادّة ليست جسمًا والصورة ليست جسمًا | وأنّ هذا القول يلزمه مناقضة نفسه لأنّ أرسطوطالس إنْ كان يرى أنّ الجسم هو الأبعاد فكيف يكون الأبعاد وهي عرض من مادّة وصورة |72a20| وأتى بكلام بعده

<٩> هذه مغالطة أليس قد قلت إنّ أرسطوطالس ما دلّ على أنّ الجسم جوهر أوْردFootnote ¹⁴⁶ ذلك يحيى في كتابه عني كان | ينبغي أنْ يظنّ أنّي أردت بالجسم هاهنا الجوهر حتى يكون هذه الأرض التي نقول إنّها جوهر من مادّة وصورة وإنّهما حاملان للاتّصال والأبعاد | كما هما حاملان للبياض <و>الألوان

<١٠> إنّي قلت فإذا كانت المادّة غير جسم والصورة غير جسم فالجسم إذًا عارض فيهما وإنّي قد بيّنت | عن ضعف بصري بصناعة المنطق لأنّي نتجت عن سالبتيْن نتيجة ثمّ صرف القول في هذا إلى موجبتيْن وغيرهما

<١١> قد قلت غرضي ما | هو في صدر هذه الرسالة ولو سمع هذا الكلام من شاء من الناس لعلم أنّه حقّ ومثال ذلك قول قائل إذا كانت الصورة غير بياض والمادّة |72a25| غير بياض فالبياض الموجود في المجتمع منهما عارض في كلّ واحد منهما وكقول آخر إذا كان بدن زيد غير قميص فالقميص المجتمع مع جسمهFootnote ¹⁴⁷ | عارض لجسمه المنطقيّون والمعتزلة وجميع الناس يعلمون صحّة هذا القول ولا يدفعونه ولكن يحيى قد صار بمداومته دراسة المنطق | إذا أتاه كلام يخرج عن تأليف المقدّمات يتّسع منه ويعد عليه تأليف قياسه وأنا أؤلّف له قياسًا يُنتِج ما قلته إذْ ليس بعيدًا ولا صعبًا | أتراه لا يعلم أنّ المنطق إنّما هو منتزع من الموجودات كانتزاع النحويّين الإعراب من كلام العرب وأنّ الموجودات قبل المنطق وإنْ كان | عيارًا على صحّتها كما أنّ كلام العرب قبل الإعراب وهذا هو التأليف كلّ صورة إذا رسمت على طريق الحدّ فهي مستغنية عن أنْ يدخل في |72a30| رسمها ذكر الجسم وكلّ ما استغنى عن أنْ يدخل في رسمه ذكر الجسم وكانت ذاته مقوّمة من غير الجسم فالجسم الموجود مضافـ<اً> إليه عارض له | فإذن كلّ صورة فالجسمFootnote ¹⁴⁸ الموجود مضافًا إليها عارض لها وكذلك البرهان على المادّة وهذا قياس في الشكل الأوّل والمقدّمة الصغرى | من محمول وموضوع فأمّا الموضوع فهو قولنا كلّ صورة إذا رسمت على طريق الحدّ وأمّا <اﻟ>محمول فهو قولي فهي مستغنية وباقي الكلام و|المقدّمة الكبرى أيضًا من محمول وموضوع أمّا المحمول فهو قولي فالجسم الموجود مضافًا إليه عارض له وأمّا الموضوع فهو قولي وكلّ ‖72b1‖ ما استغنى وباقي الكلام وهما مقدّمتان صادقتان ومن المقدّمات الأول التي لا تحتاج إلى برهان وهذا الآخر إذا قرأه غير منطقيّ | لم يعرفه فأمّا الكلام الأوّل فيفهمه المتكلّمون والمنطقيّون الذين قد ألفوا الكلام فأمّا من لم يعرف شيئًا من الكلام غير فن المنطق فإنّما يفهم | الآخر فقط وقولي كلّ صورة إذا رسمت على طريق الحدّ إنّما أردت بذلك الحدّ أنْ يتفطّن لما أقوله غير المنطقيّ لأنّ الحدّ على رأي الفيلسوف هو فيما كان | له جنس وقد ذكرت فيما ألّفته من كتبي أنّه يجوز أنْ يقع التسمّح لعادات الناس ولأنّه أسهل عليهم أنْ يسمّى الجميع باسم واحد وهو الحدّ وما في ذلك |72b5| ضرر إذا كان المعنى صحيحًا بل الأجود أن ينقل كلام القدماء إلى كلام قد ألّف فيكون أفهم بيْنهم وما أظنّ يحيى لا يعرف الغرض الذي أدلّ به بأنّ الجسم عرض | لغيره وأنّه صحيح غير مشكوك فيه لأنّه عارض لغيره فإنّ هذه الخشبة جوهر ولو حملها الإنسان وهو جوهر لم يقل إنّها من جوهره لكنّها عارضة | له لأنّه لا يحتاج في حدّ الإنسان إلى ذكر الخشبة وكذلك هذا الانتفاخ إنْ سمّيته انتفاخًا أو الاتّصال إنْ سمّيته اتّصالاًFootnote ¹⁴⁹ أوْ الأبعاد إنْ سمّيتها | أبعادًا وهي التي ترى الجسم عليها من حيث لا تجد ذات الصورة بهذه الحال إنّما هو عارض لها وهذا الكلام يفهمه سائر الناس أيضًا ولعلّ يحيى يعتقد | ما يعتقده قوم أنّه من اجتماع الصورة والمادّة كان الجسم على طريق الكون والفساد وأنّه إذا اجتمعت إلى الجسم صورة الثقل منذ كانت الأرض فيجب من |72b10| هذا الكلام أنّه لا جسم مشاهد هو من أقلّ من مادّة وصورتيْن ويلزم أنْ يقال لبياض أيضًا صورة إذا اجتمعت مع الجسم صار أبيض وليس هذا | رأيًا محمودًا وطرقات الفلسفة إلى معرفة حقائق الأشياء تحظر ذلك وأمثاله وتوجب لمن فهمها ما قلناه و ولي التوفيق والإرشاد وهو حسبي ونعم | الوكيل

قال يحيى بن عديFootnote ¹⁵⁰

<١٢> إنّي لم أجر في كتبي ما كتبت به إلى مماراة ولا مباراة إنّما سُئلت عمّا عندي في الأقاويل التي أنفذت إليّ فرسمته طاعةً | لمن أمر بذلك أيّده فإنْ كنت قد وافقت الحقّ فيما قلته فبتوفيق ومعونته وله الشكر على تسديده وإنْ خالف ذلك الحقّ فذلك كلّ ما | عندي وقد استفرغت في التماس الحقيقة فيه جهدي وذلك يوجب عذري إذْ قد أفنيت في طلب الحقّ أكثر عمري فأمّا التمادي في ضروب المناظرة |72b15| وتمحيق الزمان في صنوف المنافرة فأمر لا أرضى به لنفسي بل أرى صيانتها عنه وتنزيهها منه فإنْ كان الغرض في التماس ما التمس مني الوقوف | على الحقّ في المبحوث عنه وهو أنّ الجسم وهو المحدود بأنّه ما له طول وعرض وعمق ليس بعرض إذْ كان العرض على ما رسمه أرسطوطالس في قاطيغورياس | وهو أوّل كتبه المنطقيّة بقوله إنّه الموجود في شيء لا كجزء منه ولا يمكن أنْ يكون قوامه من غير الذي هو فيه فذلك يتبيّن عن كلام فرفوريوس | في كتابه في المدخل إلى المنطق عند رسم الجوهر قال إنّ الجوهر ينقسم إلى الجسم وغير الجسم فإذا كان الجسم نوعًا للجوهر وكلّ نوع فذاته لا محالة من ذات | جنسه فالجسم إذًا من ذاتFootnote ¹⁵¹ الجوهر فهو إذًا جوهر والجوهر على ما رسمه أرسطوطالس في قاطيغورياس أيضًا بأنّه ما ليس هو البتّة في موضوع ما فالجسم |72b20| إذًا ليس هو البتّة في موضوع ما وكلّ عرض فهو في موضوعFootnote ¹⁵² فالجسم إذًا ليس هو ما هو في موضوع وما هو في موضوع هو العرض | فالجسم إذًا ليس هو عرضًا وفي هذا كفاية في تبيين أنّ الجسم عند الفلاسفة ليس هو عرضًا وقد تبيّن أنّ ذلك هو الحقّ من أنّه حقيقة الجسم أنّه ما له طول وعرض وعمق وكان من الأوائل في العقول السليمة الصحيحة أنّه ولا واحد من الأجسام يوجد في شيء لا كجزء منه ولا يمكن أنْ | يكون قوامه من غير الذي هو فيه وهذا هو رسم العرض فمن البيّن الظاهر أنّه يلزم هذيْن الحكميْن أنّه ولا واحد من الأجسام عرض فقد اتّضح | خطأ من قال أوْ اعتقد أنّ الجسم عرض والحمد ذي الجود والحكمة والحول ولي العدل وواهب العقل شكرًا دائمًا خالصًا كما هو له أهل |

TRANSLATION

A copy of what Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAlī (nicknamed Abū Naṣr and known as Ibn ʿAdī) wrote

<1> I read what Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī said in response – may God prolong [His] preservation of our Lord Prince Sayf-al-Dawla – and by my life, he is not like the others, whose aim is to be quarrelsome; and yet he has still departed from the established manners of his class.Footnote ¹⁵³ But even if he had departed often and greatly, he still would not be equivalent to this class whose teacher he is, because their aim is solely being quarrelsome. For this reason I shall refrain from addressing them.Footnote ¹⁵⁴ As for what Yaḥyā thought, on the basis of the external expression, about some of the things I said (and then left it aside when it became clear to him what I meant by my expressions), well, no answer is owed to one who has conceded [the point]; he and everyone else knows that when a contentious person wishes to refute his opponent in respect of a correct statement that [the opponent] has brought forward, [the contentious person] will be capable of this [form of] sophistry |71b30|.Footnote ¹⁵⁵ I think he [Yaḥyā] was speaking in a strict sense when I was speaking in a loose sense, and for this reason we disagreed. When he directs his thought at my objective he is not able to disagree with me at all, because he has expressed astonishment at the statement of the one who is being argumentative with me that water is not a body. So he [Yaḥyā] passes judgment on his [the Opponent's] argumentativeness, and that what is in his [the Opponent's] heart is different from his [the Opponent's expressed] opinion.Footnote ¹⁵⁶ He says in response to me that I, in what I say, am far from knowing logic.Footnote ¹⁵⁷ This is an ugly expression that can be cited against him, [as] a sign that he knows no method other than it [logic].Footnote ¹⁵⁸ My aim with this [manner of] expression that I have used is that other people may understand, not that only he and those who practice logic may understand. Had my aim been that he understand what my thoughts were,Footnote ¹⁵⁹ I would have made recourse only to the speech of the logicians. |71b35| If a man wishes to speak with a single speech [that] most people will understand, his method will be to make recourse to what is easy and customary, in order that someone in possession of understanding may express with these words what his abstrusities signify. When Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī responded, and wished to demonstrate a fault, he criticized the [manner of] speaking and said what none but the logicians are acquainted with; |71b40| he will be obscure ||72a1|| to the majority, with nothing left but the minority and the few. This faction can speak as they see fit, and can sow doubts if they deem sophistry to be permissible. Now, if [my] speech was understood by all or [by] the majority, but then the minority work towards invalidating it, they [the minority] will have many opponents. If a man prefers to speak at greater length [instead of speaking with a single speech, as above], then he will speak once with [a speech] that the ordinary people will understand and separately with [a speech] that the logicians understand.

<2> [Yaḥyā says] “You must know that with the word ‘substance’ I am indicating merely what Aristotle [himself] expressed in the Book of Categories: that it is what is not in a subject (Categories 3a7–8).”Footnote ¹⁶⁰

<3> He is right: Aristotle did speak thus. But this is the substance which is composed of matter and form, and I wasn't thinking about this; rather, my discussion was just about form |72a5| on its own and matter on its own. I was explicit about this. What is possible is that Yaḥyā thinks that the definition of each of them is like the definition of their composite; or perhaps he rejects my calling this the “definition” as opposed to the “description.”Footnote ¹⁶¹ I have said something later on that puts an end to this doubt.Footnote ¹⁶² I intended by saying this that everyone should understand. For the customs of the people of our time are other than the customs of the ancients.

<4> Yaḥyā saysFootnote ¹⁶³ my Opponent is correct in what he says must follow for me from what Aristotle says, namely, he says in the Categories that quantity has species one of which is body, just as he says under the heading of relation that a mountain is small in relation to another mountain and a grain of sesame is large in relation to a grain of sesame smaller than it. So it is necessary that I posit the mountain and the sesame seed as an accident.

<5> If one considers the two passages one knows that there is a noteworthy difference between them. If Aristotle, when he mentioned body among the species |72a10| of quantity, used body in the same way that he used mountain when he mentioned it, it could be said that this [case or passage] is like that [case or passage]. But in fact he said “of quantities there are some that are continuous and others that are discrete … and the continuous is line and plane and body” (Categories 4b20, 4b23–4) and he did not also say “the continuity of body” [which would imply that body was a substantial subject of continuous quantity, rather than a species of quantity].

<6> In answer to what I said that “in the books of Aristotle there are things that signify that body is a substance, while in the Categories which he composed on the subject of substance and accidents there are things that signify that body is an accident,” and that “the more appropriate thing [al-awlā]Footnote ¹⁶⁴ is that we consider his opinion to be what is included in the book he devoted to this subject,” [Yaḥyā says]Footnote ¹⁶⁵ that we need not impose this opinion on Aristotle, and that [even] if I have determined that the philosopher has said something that signifies that body is an accident, [nevertheless] the opinion that it is an accident is not more appropriate [awlā] than the opinion that it is a substance.

<7> This answer does not respond to the whole of this argument, since he must state his preference for one of the two optionsFootnote ¹⁶⁶ |72a15| over the other – because I said that [Aristotle] devoted a book to substances and accidents [where] he mentioned body in one of the chapters of accident, and he did not mention that it is one of the species of substance in the way that he mentioned that it is one of the species of accidents, and then he mentions body rather freely in his [other] books,Footnote ¹⁶⁷ in ways that signify that it is substance. So this signifies either that it is an expression which signifies two different meanings, of which one is the substance and the other is continuity and the dimensions, or else he discusses this in accordance with what people are accustomed to and their habit in saying that it is substance.

<8> Yaḥyā says that “I, Ibrāhīm, say that the most evident proof that the opinion of the philosopher is this is that no two people disagree that he thought that every body is composed of matter and form, and that matter is not a body and form is not a body,”Footnote ¹⁶⁸ so that a self-contradiction follows from this assertion, since if Aristotle thought that body is the dimensions, how are the dimensions composed of matter and form?Footnote ¹⁶⁹ |72a20| He goes on to say some more afterwards.

<9> This is sophistry. Did I not say that Aristotle does not indicate that body is a substance? Yaḥyā [himself] cites this in what he wrote down of my [discussion].Footnote ¹⁷⁰ He should have considered that what I meant here by body was substance, in such a way that this earth, which we say is a substance, is [made] of matter and form, they [sc. matter and form] being bearers of continuity and the dimensions as they are bearers of whiteness and colors.

<10> I said, “if matter is not a body and form is not a body, then body therefore belongs accidentally to the two of them,”Footnote ¹⁷¹ and [Yaḥyā says that thereby] I showed the weakness of my insight into the art of logic, since I derived a conclusion from two negative premises; then he turns the discussion of this to two affirmatives and so on.Footnote ¹⁷²

<11> I already said what my aim is, at the beginning of this essay, and if whoever of humanity should wish were to hear this discourse, he would know that it is true. This would be like someone's saying “if the form is not whiteness and the matter |72a25| is not whiteness, then the whiteness that exists in the compound belongs accidentally to each of them.” This resembles someone else who says “if the body of Zayd is not [a] shirt, then the shirt which is compounded with his body belongs accidentally to his body.”Footnote ¹⁷³ The logicians and the Muʿtazilites and the masses of people will recognize the correctness of this statement and they will not resist it. But Yaḥyā, due to his long-standing study of logic, has gotten to the point where when he encounters an argument that goes beyond the combination of premises and extends beyond them, he counts the composition of its syllogism against it. So I will compose for him a syllogism that yields as a conclusion what I have said, since it is not remote or difficult. I wonder if he does not know that logic is merely an abstraction from the things that are, in the way that the grammarians extract the [rules of] declension from the speech of the Arabs, and that the things that are are prior to logic (although it [logic] is a standard of their correctness), just as the speech of the Arabs is prior to the [rules of] declension.Footnote ¹⁷⁴ This is the composition [of the syllogism]: every form, if it is described by way of definition, is such that there is no need for |72a30| any mention of body to enter into its description, and anything such that there is no need for any mention of body to enter into its description, and whose essence is constituted without body, is such that the body that is found to be connected to it will belong accidentally to it;Footnote ¹⁷⁵ therefore every form is such that the body that is found to be connected to it will belong accidentally to it. And the proof goes similarly in the case of matter. And this is a syllogism in the first figure. The minor premise is composed of a predicate and a subject. The subject is our saying “every form when it is described by way of definition,” and the predicate is my saying “there is no need”, etc. And the major premise is also composed of a predicate and a subject, and the predicate is, “the body that is found to be connected to it belongs accidentally to it.” And the subject is, “anything such that ||72b1|| there is no need” etc. These are both true premises and are among the first premises that do not require demonstration. And if a non-logician reads this second argument, he will not acknowledge it. But the first discourse will be understood by the mutakallimūn and the logicians who are already accustomed to kalām, whereas whoever does not acknowledge any discourse except the art of logic will understand the second argument alone. And when I said “every form when it is described by way of definition,” by this “definition” my intention was only that a non-logician would comprehend what I am saying, since definition according to the philosopher's view belongs to what has a genus – and I have already mentioned in the books I have composed that it is permissible to show indulgence towards people's customs – and since it is easier for them to call the whole [including both definitions strictly speaking and descriptions] by a single name, namely definition. There is no |72b5| harm in this, as long as the meaning is sound; indeed, the best thing is to translate the discourse of the ancients into a discourse that is already familiar [to modern people], so that it will be more understandable among them. I do not think [that] Yaḥyā is unaware of the aim with which I indicated that body is an accident of something other than itself, and that [this aim] is sound and not dubious, since [body] belongs accidentally to something other than it. For this piece of wood is a substance and if a man carried it – and he is a substance – it is not said that it belongs to his substance but rather it belongs to him accidentally,Footnote ¹⁷⁶ since there is not required in the definition of man any mention of a piece of wood. Similarly, extension if you call it extension, continuity if you call it continuity, or the dimensions if you call them dimensions, these being the [aspects] in which you see body,Footnote ¹⁷⁷ inasmuch as you do not find the form by itself in this condition, belong only accidentally to [the form]. This discussion the rest of mankind too will understand. Perhaps Yaḥyā thinks what one group of people thinks, namely, that body arises by way of generation and corruption from the conjunction of form and matter, and that when the form of heaviness is conjoined to body, earth comes to be. And there necessarily follows from |72b10| this account that no perceptible body is composed of less than one matter and two forms. And it would follow that to whiteness also should be ascribed a form such that when it is conjoined with body [this compound] becomes white. And this is not a worthwhile opinion. The paths of philosophy to the knowledge of the realities of things forbid this and its like and make incumbent on one who understands them what we have said. God is the granter of success and guidance; He is my sufficiency and the best of guardians.Footnote ¹⁷⁸

Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī said:Footnote ¹⁷⁹

<12> In my writings I did not aim to be quarrelsome or competitive, but I was asked simply what my thoughts are about the assertions that were forwarded to me. I described [what I thought] in obedience to the one who commanded that [i.e., Sayf-al-Dawla], may God assist him.Footnote ¹⁸⁰ If I am in accord with the truth in what I have written it is through God's help and assistance, and to Him be gratitude for His guidance, and if this differs from the truth, well, these are all my thoughts [on the subject]. I have made all my effort in the search for truth in this, this being all the justification I need, since I have consumed most of my life in the search for truth. As for persistence in the varieties of dialectical dispute |72b15| and consumption of time in the types of eristic rivalry,Footnote ¹⁸¹ this is something I take no pleasure in for myself, rather, I think to safeguard [myself] from it and to divest [myself] from it.Footnote ¹⁸² And if the goal in requesting what was requested from me is arriving at the truth concerning the object of investigation – namely, that body, which is defined as that which has length and breadth and depth, is not an accident, since an accident is as Aristotle describes it in the Categories, which is the first of his books on logic, by saying that it is “what exists in a thing not as a part of it, such that it is not capable of subsisting without the thing it is in” (Categories 1a24–5)Footnote ¹⁸³ – then this will be clear from Porphyry's account in his book on Introduction to Logic: in his description of substance he says that substance is divided into body and what is not body,Footnote ¹⁸⁴ and if body is a species of substance, and the essence of any species is doubtless [derived] from the essence of its genus, then [the essence of] body therefore is [derived] fromFootnote ¹⁸⁵ the essence of substance and therefore it is a substance. And substance, according to the way Aristotle describes it too in the Categories, [is] what is not in any way in a subject (Categories 3a7–8), and body |72b20| therefore is not in any way in a subject, and every accident is in a subject, and if body is not what is in a subject, and what is in a subject is an accident, then body therefore is not an accident. This is enough to make clear that body, according to the philosophers, is not an accident, and it has become clear that this is the truth from the fact that the essence of body is that it is what has length and breadth and depth, and it is among the first principles in intellects which are healthy and sound that no body exists in anything not as a part of it, such that it is not capable of subsisting without the thing it is in, which is the description of accident. And it is clear and manifest that it follows necessarily from these two premises that no body is an accident, and thus the error of whoever says and believes that body is an accident has been shown. Praise be to God, the possessor of generosity and wisdom and power, the patron of justice and the giver of intellect, with everlasting pure gratitude as He deserves.