Eternal Possibilities: Aristotle’s Metaphysics Θ8 in Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Healing
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2026-03-13
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en
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Avicenna’s most influential work, the Metaphysics of the Healing, is deeply indebted to Aristotle’s Metaphysics, which is quoted and referenced throughout. This thesis investigates the influence of book Θ of Aristotle’s Metaphysics ─the book concerned with the concepts of potentiality and actuality─ on Avicenna’s conception of these terms in his Ilāhiyyāt of the Šifāʾ. Aristotle's most important argument in Θ is that actuality is prior to potentiality in three distinct ways: in time, in account, and in being. Avicenna likewise defends the priority of actuality over potentiality. However, this thesis will argue that Avicenna expands Aristotle’s definition of priority in being, and that he modifies Aristotle’s arguments in order to accommodate his equation of the notions of potentiality and possibility in Ilāhiyyāt IV.2.
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Faculteit der Filosofie, Theologie en Religiewetenschappen