movements that arise subsequently, after locomotion; all these clearly have a character of this kind.”

He then cited Ibn Sīnā’s formulation of this issue, as we shall mention.

Aristotle’s discussion contains four points:

First: Knowing something other than itself entails its being perfected by something other than itself. Thus, it is better for it not to perceive certain things than to perceive them.

Second: Its knowledge of changing things entails fatigue and weariness.

Third: This is a kind of motion that necessarily requires locomotion to precede it.

Fourth: Its knowing things is a kind of motion that entails a multiplicity of cognitions, so that it stands to them as matter does to form.

These arguments turn on the contention that knowledge entails multiplicity, change, and being perfected by the object known.

Abū al-Barakāt said:

“Chapter Fifteen: Examining the Arguments Transmitted from Aristotle

As for Aristotle’s claim that its apprehension of something other than itself is a perfection whose absence would imply a deficiency in it, one may respond with a dialectical argument to which he is bound to assent, saying: ‘You acknowledge it to be a First Principle and the creator of