Abstract: The Arabic version of the Enneads is the earliest datable text in which appears the term “anniyya”, that features in Avicenna’s metaphysics and lies in the background of the Latin definition of the Causa prima as esse tantum, typical of the Liber de Causis. This paper examines some examples of the use of “to be” in the Arabic translation of the Enneads. It also discusses the description of the First Cause as ‘pure Being’ or ‘first Being’ in the Arabic Plotinus, and compares it with the Divine Names of the pseudo-Dionysius.
Abstract: This paper examines the Treatise on the Difference between the two fields of philosophical logic and Arabic grammar (Maqāla fī tabyīn al-faṣl bayna ṣina‘atay al-manṭiq al-falsafī wa-l-naḥw al-‘arabī) by Abū Zakariyā’ Yaḥyā ibn ‘Adī, providing also the Italian translation of it. It will appear that Yaḥyā ibn ‘Adī’s approach is based on Fārābī’s ideas about the relationship between logic and the sciences of language. Even more important is the fact that the difference established by Yaḥyā ibn ‘Adī’s between logic and grammar both as for the subject (mawḍū‘) and as for the scope (ġarad) counts as the source for Avicenna’s distinction between subject (mawḍū‘) and scope (ġarad) of the metaphysics.