Allegory and Philosophy in Avicenna (Ibn Sînâ): With a Translation of the Book of the Prophet Muhammad's Ascent to Heaven

7. The Interpretation and Function of Allegory

7. The Interpretation and Function of Allegory Avicenna's theory of allegory is straightforward, easily summarized, and, obviously, highly pertinent to an understanding of the rhetorical dimension of his allegories and philosophical writings. As with any theory of literary creation or interpretation, however, Avicenna's hermeneutics must be taken with a grain of salt. Authorial theories of composition and reading are indeed relevant, but they should not be accepted so literally that they overly determine our understanding of the workings of the texts themselves. Writers often valorize rules of composition or endorse methods of interpretation that they themselves do not completely follow in practice.' Avicenna's theory of interpretation is based upon his logic, poetics, and theory of prophecy, and it is to these subjects that we now must turn. Logic and Poetics In the Aristotelian- Neoplatonic tradition of philosophy in which Avicenna participated, poetics is a branch of logic.2 According to this tradition, the main task of logic is to study different forms of argumentation, whether demonstrative or otherwise. The eight logical texts that came to comprise Aristotle's Organon therefore delineate ascending and descending levels of valid disputation and elucidate the relative degrees of philosophical certainty to which each can aspire. This program is most fully illustrated in Avicenna's own writings by his organization of logic in ash-Shifli/. Avicenna begins the logical component of his philosophy with his version of Porphyry's Isagoge (al-Madkhal), which serves as a propedeutic to the Aristotelian logical corpus proper." Thereafter follow three tracts of an introductory nature. The Categories (al-Maqulat) and On Interpretation (Pi l-(ibara) each put forth basic definitions and concepts, while the Prior Analytics (al-Qiyas) introduces the syllogism. These texts form the meth- 148 Interpretation and Allegory odological preamble to the preeminent treatise of logic, central in placement and importance, Demonstration (al-Burhan, equivalent to Aristotle's PosteriorAnalytics) , which analyzes the forms of syllogistic demonstration that lead to indisputable conviction based on rational assent (ta$diq). Other, less conclusive, forms of persuasion also exist, however, and these become the subject of the final four books of Avicenna's logic. Dialectic (Pi l-jadal) examines arguments based on well-founded opinions and generally accepted premises (~ann); SophisticRefutation (as-Safsata) investigates arguments based on false or faulty forms of disputation. Rhetoric (al-I(hitaba) studies the art of formulating convincing appeals to intuitive impressions of right and wrong and/or subjective opinions of affirmation or condemnation. And finally, Poetics (ash-Shi(r) examines acquiescence promoted by the creation of mimetic representations and imaginative analogies. In this schema, each of these less conclusive forms of argument, whether dialectical, rhetorical, or poetic, can reflect truthful propositions, but they cannot be used to prove them beyond dispute; only rational demonstration is able to accomplish this task. As Ismail Dahiyat observes: The logical art of demonstration. is the center of the whole augmented Organon according to this scheme. The first three arts (i.e., Categories) On Interpretation and PriorAnalytics) [excluding, for the moment, the Isagoge]are "introductions" and ways into demonstration, while the other four (dialectic, sophistic, rhetoric and poetic) are appendages and tools which are more or less useful to the process of "judicative logic" which induces necessity and truth. These arts (dialectic, rhetoric and poetic) relate to the process of "discovery " in which something more or less true is achieved but without having the logical necessity of scientific truth." It is worth noting that this logical hierarchy has obvious analogues in Avicenna's epistemological theory, for these various types of logical argumentation correlate rather precisely with the linguistic modes of expression typical of the individual psychological faculties. Rational demonstration is thus the responsibility of the theoretical intellect, while dialectic, which employs arguments based on generally accepted belief, is the natural domain of cogitation. The practical intellect then mixes these two cognitive realms by deploying rational criteria to evaluate or improve upon everyday ethical or political beliefs. Similarly, one directs rhetorical arguments toward the instinctual reactions of estimation and uses poetic discourse in order to appeal to the pictorial sensuousness of the imagination. This comparison between logical categories of argumentation and Interpretation and Function of Allegory 149 psychic faculties of perception highlights a further tension existing among the internal faculties of the soul.5 On the one hand, the lower internal faculties, common sense and representation, are primarily preoccupied with the internal reception and the proper...