Shaker Lavaei; Tayebe Rezaei Rah
Volume 7, Issue 14 , March 2017, , Pages 79-95
Abstract
The argument from contingency which was first put forward by Al-Farabi, was subsequently developed by Avicenna. Al-Farabi's argument is based on the impossibility of an infinite regres, but Avicenna proves this imopssibility during his argument. So, to accept the Avicennian argument one doesn’t ...
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The argument from contingency which was first put forward by Al-Farabi, was subsequently developed by Avicenna. Al-Farabi's argument is based on the impossibility of an infinite regres, but Avicenna proves this imopssibility during his argument. So, to accept the Avicennian argument one doesn’t need to accept the impossibility of an infinite regres in advanced. This is one of the differences between Al-Farabi's and Avicenna's argument from contingency. Although Avicenna claims to have brought a greater innovation in Al-Isharat, and he maintains that this argument proves the existence of the necessary being even with the possibility of an infinite regress, his claim seems unjustified, since first, in contrast to Avicenna's claim and what is commonly believed, there is no crucial distinction between Avicenna's argument from contingency in Al-Isharat and the ones mentioned in Al-Mabdaa- wa-Al-maad and Al-Nijat. And second, his claim is not true about any of his arguments.
Another major flaw in Avicennian argument is his stance on the criterion of the need for a cause.
On the other hand, Mulla sadra's objection to this argument is not acceptable as well. He says contrary to Avicenna's claim, the chain of contingent things is not a contingent being. But Mulla sadra's argument has two problems. First, it's based on the premise that "existence is coextensive with unity" which can not be used as the middle term of an argument. Second, this objection is in conflict with his theory of the real unity of the universe.
