Beyond Religious Borders: Interaction and Intellectual Exchange in the Medieval Islamic World

Chapter 6: Maimonides and the Arabic Aristotelian Tradition of Epistemology

c h A p t e r 6 Maimonides and the Arabic Aristotelian Tradition of Epistemology chArles h. mAnekIn Recent years have witnessed increased scholarly interest in Maimonides’ epistemology , especially his understanding of the nature, scope, and justification of human knowledge.1 These studies have often viewed Maimonides within the context of Aristotle’s epistemology and the Arabic philosophical tradition but less often within the Arabic Aristotelian epistemological tradition that we have strong reason to believe was known to him.2 I say “strong reason to believe was known to him” because of the scholarly propensity in recent Maimonidean studies to look far and wide for possible influences, as the writings of his era become better known.3 That Maimonides crossed religious and ethnic borders in his quest for knowledge is well-known; as he famously put it, one should accept the truth from whomever says it.4 In trying to chart this crossing, it is important to continue to pay attention to the immediate intellectual context that emerges from the sources he mentions, sources that generally belong to the Aristotelian commentarial tradition in Arabic. I wish to focus here on two issues: first, Maimonides’ goal of attaining certainty through demonstration (and of attaining near-certainty through proofs approximating demonstration); and second, his advocacy of Alexander of Aphrodisias ’s method of theory acceptance, that is, that an undemonstrated theory should be accepted when it arouses less serious doubts than rival theories. Shlomo Pines pointed out over a half century ago that Alexander of Aphrodisias’s On the Principles of the All, to which Maimonides makes two explicit references, is extant in two Arabic versions,5 yet I am not aware that scholars have examined the Maimonides 79 work further for its relevance to Maimonides’ epistemology. As for Maimonides’ view on demonstrative certainty, although he does not mention a source explicitly , it is well-known that he praises Alfarabi as a logician and uses some of his commentaries on books of the Organon.6 His characterization of certainty in Guide 1.50 has already been related by Michael Schwarz to Alfarabi’s definition of certainty in the short treatise on the Posterior Analytics.7 The reinterpretation by Arab Aristotelians of Aristotle’s “science” (epistēmē) as objective, demonstrative “certainty” (yaqīn), or simply “certain knowledge” (ʿilm yaqīnī) is a key to understanding Maimonides’ project in the Guide, which is to provide the reader with such certainty, dispel doubts, and reduce perplexity as much as possible. This is not to say that the Arabic Aristotelian epistemological tradition devalues epistēmē; as we shall see, for Alfarabi and Maimonides it remains the highest species of certain knowledge. But it is not the only species, and that consideration has important ramifications for understanding Maimonides’ epistemology ,especiallyhisviewthathumanscanhavecertainknowledgeofmetaphysical and theological truths. Certain Knowledge (ʿIlm yaqīnī) Maimonides does not provide a formal definition of certain knowledge, but one can infer the conditions of certainty from his brief characterization in his discussion of divine attributes in Guide 1.50: “Belief is the affirmation that what has been represented is outside the mind just as it has been represented in the mind. If, together with this belief, it is realized (haṣala) that a belief different from it is in no way possible, and that no starting point can be found in the mind for a rejection of this belief, there is certainty (yaqīn).”8 These conditions can be formulated as follows: S is certain of p (or “S believes p certainly ”) if and only if (1)S represents p. (2)S assents (ṣadaqa)9 that p conforms to extra-mental existence. (3)S realizes that not-p is in no way possible. (4)S realizes that any q leading to rejecting p is impossible. (5)S realizes that any q leading to supposing not-p is impossible. The certainty described here is objective rather than subjective, a point that is brought out more clearly by Alfarabi, as we shall see. Moreover, conditions 80 chAr les h. mAnekIn (3), (4), and (5) require that the subject realize not only the impossibility of not-p, but the impossibility of anything implying the rejection of p or the supposition of not-p. These are strong conditions that require the subject to see the connection between that which is believed with certainty and that which implies its negation. Maimonides continues, “When you shall have cast off desires...