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In this project, I offer an extended treatment of Gabirol's metaphysical doctrine of universal hylomorphism (UH). My thesis is that, for Gabirol (Avicebron), matter signifies the most sublime moment of the Neoplatonic Intellect, and, by extension, the pre-determinate, essential existence which each thing has in virtue of its subsistence in said Intellect. In analyzing Gabirol's UHist claim that 'all things are comprised of matter,' I thus stress a Neoplatonically emanationist conception in which matter, in signifying the most potential state of Intellect, demarcates a most generic grade of unspecified Being per se which lies at the ontological core of all things. Matter as such is shown to refer at one and the same time to the cosmic reality of the hypostasized Intellect and to the most essential existential foundation of each and every substance.In thus identifying the material with a pure grade of Being, my project presents Gabirol's Neoplatonic cosmology and his UHist analysis of substances as integrally interrelated theses. On my interpretation, UH is for Gabirol an implication of his Neoplatonic views on the emanating Intellect; in stressing this point, my thesis succeeds in presenting a truly holistic picture of Gabirol in which his emanationist cosmology informs his hylomorphic ontology. In thus treating Gabirol's UH as a function of his views on Intellect, my thesis differs from other approaches: First, my thesis differs from those treatments which see Gabirol's doctrine of Will as having displaced emanationism; secondly, unlike Augustinian accounts of UH in which matter and existence are placed on opposite sides of the ontological fence, my reading of Gabirol identifies matter and existence; lastly, my analysis of Gabirol's UHist ontology in terms of the Neoplatonic cosmology of a sustaining Intellect makes the link between Gabirol's ontological reference to 'universal matter' and Gabirol's cosmic reference to a 'first matter' more explicit than in the accounts of such scholars as Brunner and Schlanger: on my account, the universal matter at the heart of each and every substance simply is the manifestation in each thing of the first cosmic matter; on my account, the materiality which all things exhibit simply is the first 'material' moment - or purest existential state - of Intellect, their emanative source.In addition to providing a truly holistic account of Gabirol's ontology and cosmology, my thesis has two other advantages: First, it provides an extremely clear sense of why, in general, Gabirol privileges the material over the formal in the Fons Vitae and, in particular, makes sense of Gabirol's vexing claims that (a) matter is 'per se existens,' (b) matter emerges more directly from the Godhead than does form, and (c) matter is like a Divine Throne. Secondly, in making explicit the link between matter and the existential role of Intellect in Gabirol's thought, my thesis sheds light on the odd waffling between the notions of 'matter' and 'intellect' in the Ibn Hasday's Neoplatonist materials, as it similarly sheds light on the divergent descriptions of First Matter to be found in the Arabic recension of the Pseudo Empedoclean tradition on the one hand, and the Hebrew recension of that tradition on the other.Finally, my project closes with a 'meta' analysis of Gabirol's metaphysical project in which I suggest treating Gabirol's interest in universal hylomorphism-and any other bits of cosmo-ontology - in terms of said doctrine's ability to effect the reader's soul in certain ethically and epistemologically crucial ways. In this move, I suggest that the importance of Gabirol's philosophical metaphysics is not best gauged by considering what his metaphysical propositions denote, but instrumentally by considering the effect said propositions are intended to have on the reader. I develop this point by providing analyses of Neoplatonic dialectic, textual rhetoric, and the mechanics of imagination in Gabirol's Arabic Neoplatonic tradition. |
