‘Abd al-Laṭīf al-Baġdādī's Philosophical Journey. From Aristotle's Metaphysics to 'Metaphysical Science'

‘Abd al-Latif al-Bagdadi’s Philosophical Journey. From Aristotle’s Metaphysics to the ‘Metaphysical Science’ is devoted to the Arabic reception of Greek philosophy and metaphysics by ‘Abd al-Latif al-Bagdadi (1162- 9 November 1231), a relatively unknown author of the Arabic-Islamic falsafa. The volume focuses on Bagdadi’s Book on the Science of Metaphysic, an important work in the process of the Arabic assimilation of Greek thought, showing as it does acquaintance with Greek metaphysical doctrines. ‘Abd al-Latif al-Bagdadi has been considered a pedantic scholar, whose thought was scholastic and legalistic rather than experimental and creative. Nevertheless the interpretative categories of ‘purist’ and ‘compiler’ are not suitable for describing the intellectual life of this writer. ‘Abd al-Latif al-Bagdadi can not count as a supporter of a sort of return to Aristotle or Galen sic et simpliciter. True, in his autobiography he argued for going back to the Greek sources. Still, the reader must go beyond this claim and try to see what corresponds to it in the historical reality of ‘Abd al-Latif al-Bagdadi’s sources. This volume does so, and allows the reader to realize that these sources are not the translations themselves, which were too far from him, but the Arabic philosophic and scientific works generated by the assimilation of the Greek thought in Islamic culture. There materials have been reworked by ‘Abd al-Latif al-Bagdadi in a original vein. In ‘Abd al-Latif al-Bagdadi’ s system of sciences, metaphysics owes its leading role to its focus on beings qua beings. It grants the principles of particular sciences, and inquires into the first principle: it is at one and the same time ontology, universal science, first philosophy, and theology. This idea of metaphysics as a science results from the uninterrupted process of reception, assimilation and transformation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics in the Arabic-speaking world. The Book on the Science of Metaphysics in fact cannot be understood without bearing in mind al-Kindi’s model of reception of the Metaphysics with the focus on its aitiological and theological books. Also the attention paid by al-Farabi to metaphysics as ontology and universal science plays a pivotal role. In ‘Abd al-Latif al-Bagdadi’s companion on metaphysics, the Kindian and Farabian models even supersede Avicenna’s Ilahiyyat. The metaphysical science counts as an autonomous discipline: it is not only ‘ilm kulli, nor only ‘ilm ilahi, but ‘ilm ma ba‘d al-tabi‘a, ontology and theology together. If I have labelled the Book on the Science of Metaphysics as a “companion”, it is because it looks like a school textbook: “metaphysics” is a discipline to be learnt under the guidance of various teachers, all of them following Aristotle and helping to understand his doctrines: Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius, Proclus, al-Kindi and al-Farabi.