world for centuries to come, and the sundry reactions to it, ranging 1350,” in Janssens and De Smet 2002: 81–97. Accordingly Avicenna set himself the task of presenting and writing about philosophy as an integral whole and not piecemeal and occasionalistically; bringing philosophy up to date; and studying how the human soul (intellect) knows as the foundation of his theory of knowledge, logical methodology, and the relation between the celestial and terrestrial realms, or the divine and human. He clearly had a conception of the unity of all philosophy, which could be systematically presented on the basis of the logical structure set forth in the Posterior Analytics (Barnes 1994, p. xii), while his classification of the sciences in Metaphysics E1 and K7 showed what the outline of such a systematic presentation would be. Each philosopher, through his own syllogistic reasoning and ability to hit correctly upon the middle terms, modifies and completes the work of his predecessors, and reaches a level of knowledge that is an ever closer approximation of the intelligible world, of the intelligibles as contained in the intellects of the spheres, and hence of truth itself. science, religion, theology, and mysticism. Shortly thereafter he wrote his first work, Compendium on the Soul (GP 10), dedicated to the ruler in apparent gratitude for the permission to visit the library. [Please contact the author with suggestions. The system was therefore both a research program and a worldview. Bukhara was their capital and it, together with Samarkand, were the cultural centres of the empire. “The full argument is a bit complicated, but here is a somewhat simplified version. Vajda, G., 1951, “Les notes d’Avicenne sur la «Théologie d’Aristote»,”. The palace library of the Samanids, where the teenager Avicenna was allowed to visit and study following his successful treatment of the ailing ruler, contained such books on all subjects, including books by the ancient Greeks in Arabic translation, as he had never seen before nor since (Gohlman 1974, 37). This makes it necessary for Avicenna to have an empirical theory of knowledge, according to which “the senses are the means by which the human soul acquires different kinds of knowledge (maʿārif ),” and man’s predisposition for the primary notions and principles of knowledge, which come to him unawares, is itself actualized by the experience of particulars (GS 12a, 23; transl. It is a difficult work, and it must be understood always through constant reference to the more explicit expository statement of Avicenna’s theories in The Cure. His reach was as global in its aspirations as his system was all-encompassing in its comprehensiveness; and history bore him out. Avicenna, also called Ibn Sina, belongs to present-day Uzbekistan and was born in 980. He also wrote what amounts to open letters depicting the controversies in which he was involved and seeking arbitration or repudiating calumniatory charges against him (GPW 1–3). Ibn Sina’s natural philosophy. in good Aristotelian fashion, realizing the genus and specific difference of something—or acknowledging the truth (taṣdīq) of a categorical statement by means of syllogisms. Ibn-Sina Married With Children DVD Buy all 12 seasons and 267 episodes on 20 dvd's. It proved hugely popular as a succinct though frequently amphibolous statement of his mature philosophy, open to interpretation, and it became the object of repeated commentaries throughout the centuries, apparently as Avicenna must have intended. Lameer 2006). He further argued that soul is ethereal and intangible; it cannot be destroyed. Hasse, D.N., and A. Bertolacci (eds. Avicenna, or in Arabic, Abu Ali al-Husain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina or simply Ibn Sina (as he is called by Persians) (980 - 1037), was a physician, philosopher, and scientist.He was the author of 450 books on many subjects, many on philosophy and medicine. Ibn Sina lived in Persia between 980 and 1037 during a period known as the Islamic Golden Age. Ibn-Sīnā [Avicenna] (ca. Ibn Sina (Avicenna) 3. ?id J?zj?n? –––, 2002, “The Heritage of Avicenna: The Golden Age of Arabic Philosophy, 1000 ‑ ca. al-Ṭūsī.[5]. It dominated intellectual life in the Islamic www.tvaddicts.tv AnswerNotes Library > Reference > AnswerNotes Source Ibn-Sina Islam's most renowned philosopher-scientist (980-1037), Ibn-Sina was a court physician in Persia, and wrote two of history's greatest works, The Book of In an effort to reach a wider audience, he expressed his theories on the rational soul in two allegories, Alive, Son of Awake (Ḥayy b. Yaqẓān, GM 7; Goichon 1959) and The Bird (GM 8; Heath 1990), and he versified still others: The Divine Pearl (al-Jumāna al-ilāhiyya) on the oneness of God and the emanated creation in 334 verses (GM 9), The Science of Logic, in verse, in 290 lines (GL 4), and a number of poems on medical subjects, notably his Medicine, in verse, in 1326 lines (GMed 27), which was commented upon by Averroes. Ibn Sina collected in over 100 books the enti re scientific knowledege of his time and is called the "P rince of Science". Avicenna was conscious of having attained a new level in the pursuit of philosophical truth and its verification, but he never claimed to have exhausted it all; in his later works he bemoaned the limitations of human knowledge and urged his readers to continue with the task of improving philosophy and adding to the store of knowledge. In his work he combined the disparate strands of His father, originally from Balkh farther to the southeast who had moved north as a young man apparently in search of (better) employment, was a state functionary, a governor of the nearby district Kharmaythan. As a result, his philosophical system dominated intellectual history in both Shi’ite and most of Sunni Islam (Gutas 2002), and through the sundry reactions it elicited, it determined, and can now explain, developments not only in philosophy but also in theology and mysticism, and it generated several fields of what can be called Avicenna also discussed a facility for or habituation with intellection, which he called direct vision or experience (mushāhada) of the intelligibles. This was due as much to his own philosophical training, which followed this curriculum, as to the earliest commissions he received while still in Bukhara for works that would encompass all philosophy; but then these commissions inevitably reflect the broad philosophical culture of the period that viewed science and philosophy as an integral whole. Avicenna picked up on the very concept of the talent for hitting upon the middle term, literally translated in the Arabic version as ḥads (guessing correctly, hitting correctly upon the answer), and made it the cornerstone of his epistemology (Gutas 2001). He died in 1037 in Hamadhan and was buried there. para-philosophy:[6] philosophy influenced mightily the medieval and Renaissance Finally after reading a manual by a famous philosopher al-Farabi, he found … He wrote more, and more frequently, on these two subjects than on anything else. It comes about after prolonged engagement with intellective techniques through syllogistic means until the human intellect is not obstructed by the internal or external senses and has acquired a certain familiarity or “intimacy” with its object, “without, however, the middle term ceasing to be present.” This kind of intellection is accompanied by an emotive state of joy and pleasure (Gutas 2006a,b). Avicenna synthesized the various strands of philosophical thought he inherited—the surviving Hellenic traditions along with the developments in philosophy and theology within Islam—into a self-consistent scientific system that explained all reality. At the age of 16, he became a famous physician in his area. There is no free emanation of the intelligibles on “couch-potato” humans, or afterlife contemplation for them of eternal realities in the company of the celestial spheres (Avicenna’s paradise). This is also evident in his disregard (rather than neglect?) Fast Shipping. There are reports that he wrote major portions of his greatest work, The Cure, without any books to consult (Gohlman 1974, 58; transl. This difference applies to all things except God, said Ibn Sina. I won't talk a lot about Ibn Sina, I would just let him tell you about himself: "I devoted myself to studying the texts – the original and commentaries – in the natural sciences and metaphysics, and the gates of knowledge began opening for me. He also studied many books on metaphysics, astronomy, and natural sciences. precision. He was also a logician, mathematician and a poet. Only the contemplative life while in the body prepares the intellect, which has to use the corporeal external and internal senses to acquire knowledge and gain the predisposition for thinking the intelligibles, for the contemplative life after death. It is also our most extensive source about Avicenna’s life and times. He charts in great detail the operations of all the senses, both the five external senses and especially the five internal senses located in the brain—common sense, imagery (where the forms of things are stored), imagination, estimation (judging the imperceptible significance or connotations for us of sensed objects, like friendship and enmity, which also includes instinctive sensing), and memory—and how they can help or hinder the intellect in hitting upon the middle term and perceiving intelligibles more generally. Essence is what comprises the nature of things, and should be recognized as something separate from the physical and mental realization of things. His most famous works are The Book of Healing and The Canon of Medicine, also known as the Qanun.. reading the science of medicine under [him]’ (Sirat al-shaykh al-ra… Lizzini 2009). The title refers to Avicenna’s adjudication between traditional Aristotelian exegeses and Avicenna’s own views by presenting arguments in support of the latter. At about that time he was allowed to visit the library of the Samanid ruler, just mentioned above, where, he says, he “read those books, mastered their teachings, and realized how far each man had advanced in his science” (Gohlman 1974, 36; transl. Ibn Sina's independent thought was served by an extraordinar y intelligence … In other words, if we seek to verify the statement “A is C,” we must look for a suitable B to construct a syllogism of the form, “A is B, B is C, therefore A is C.” The significance of the middle term is discussed in the Posterior Analytics (I.34), where Aristotle further specifies, “Acumen is a talent for hitting upon (eustochia) the middle term in an imperceptible time” (Barnes 1994 transl.). medical Canon (GMed 1), often revised, formed the basis of paraphilosophical constructs, determined developments in philosophy, Gutas 2014a, 184). Ibn Sina, also known as Avicenna in the west lived in the period between 980 – June 1037. Up until that time, philosophical treatises on discrete subjects and abstruse commentaries, the two dominant forms of philosophical discourse, as just indicated, were matters for specialists that could not and did not claim endorsement or allegiance from society as a whole; the philosophical summa did. revealed religion and its theological and mystical elaborations. Avicenna lived his philosophy, and his desire to communicate it beyond what his personal circumstances required, as an intellectual in the public eye, is manifest in the various compositional styles and different registers of language that he used. 7 How did Avicenna (Ibn Sina) ‘prove’ God exists? It is for this reason that we find Avicenna, involved in certain political/intellectual controversies in some of the cities in which he lived, addressing to political elites a scientific treatise instead of political oratory in his defense (Michot 2000; Reisman 2013, 14–22; Gutas 2014a, personal writings listed on p. 503). The creation of the philosophical summa—and not only this particular first one for ʿArūḍī but especially the major work, The Cure, and the alluring and allusive Pointers and Reminders—had momentous consequences. its integral and comprehensive articulation of science and philosophy, At the same time, however, given his undisputed fame and immense intellectual authority that he exercised soon after his death, pseudepigraphy became a major factor multiplying the works attributed to him (Reisman 2004 and 2010). In the former case he created a veritable metaphysics of the rational soul (Gutas 2012b), which he added to the traditional treatment of metaphysics (being as such, first philosophy, natural theology) as an additional subject, called “theological” (al-ʿilm al-ilāhī, al-ṣināʿa al-ilāhiyya). But in addition to intelligible knowledge, the divine effluence from the intellects and the souls of the celestial spheres also includes information about events on earth, past, present, and future—what Avicenna calls “the unseen” (al-ghayb)—, for all of which the intellects and souls of the celestial spheres are directly responsible. Gutas 2014a, 183–184). There is thus a deeply ethical aspect to Avicenna’s philosophical system. ], Arabic and Islamic Philosophy, historical and methodological topics in: Greek sources | As Avicenna explains his title, “I divided [in the book] scholars into two groups, the Westerners [the Greek commentarial tradition and the Baghdad Aristotelians] and the Easterners [Avicenna’s positions], and I had the Easterners argue against the Westerners until I intervened to judge fairly when there was a real point of dispute between them” (GS 14, 375; transl. and analysis Gutas 2014a, 35–40; Gutas 2000). The Life of Ibn Sina: A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation (Hardcover) Life in Hamadan Abu Ali ibn Sina, whose biography is connected withconstant wanderings, in an attempt to escape from the encroachments of the Sultan was in the city of Hamadan (modern territory of Iran). In subsequent centuries, when the polyphony subsided to just two voices, of the Platonists and the Aristotelians, which eventually had to be presented as one for political reasons (to counter the one “divine” voice of the rapidly Christianizing Roman empire, east and west), the tendency to return to the texts of the two masters (ad fontes) for their defense, which had started even before the domination of Christianity, intensified. [3] philosopher and physician of the Islamic Ibn e Sina passed away in June 1037, in the Hamadan area of Iran. This is humanist ethics dictated by a scientific view of the world. counterparts, preferring Averroes instead. He was inspired by Aristotelian philosophy and … Sources on his life range from his autobiography, written at the behest of his disciple ‘Abd al-Wahid Juzjani, his private correspondence, including the collection of philosophical epistles exchanged with his disciples and known as al-Mubahathat (The Discussions), to legends and doxographical views embedded in the ‘histories of philosophy’ of medieval Islam such as Ibn al-Qifti’s Ta’rikh al-hukama (History of the Philosophers) and Zahir al … In the second, also his very last summa, he diverged even more drastically from traditional modes of presentation and developed an allusive and suggestive style which he called “pointers and reminders” (al-Ishārāt wa-l-tanbīhāt, GS 9). This knowledge, which represents and accounts for reality and the way things are, also corresponds, Avicenna maintains, with what is found in books, i.e. Engaging in science and philosophy during the first three Abbasid centuries (750–1050) in Islam was done mostly under the political patronage of the rulers and the ruling elite who were the sponsors and also among the consumers of the scientific production. Sina was Persian by ethnicity. Dimitri Gutas The Metaphysics of the Rational Soul; Practical Philosophy, Arabic and Islamic Philosophy, historical and methodological topics in: Greek sources. His teachings and views on theology were part of the core curriculum of various schools across the Islamic world well into the nineteenth century. He based his theories on God as the chief Existence, and this forms the foundations of his ideas on soul, human rationale and the cosmos. ‘And the intellect,’ that which intellects, ‘and the intelligible are one and the same’ with regard to the essence of the thing as it relates to itself…. Using the words of Aristotle, Avicenna paraphrases this passage as follows: “As for the foremost ‘understanding (noêsis, fahm) in itself, it is of what is best in itself;’ and as for ‘what understands itself, it is’ the substance ‘of the intellect as it acquires the intelligible, because it becomes intelligible’ right away just as if ‘it touches it,’ for example. Some marginal notes on De anima, surviving independently as transcribed in a manuscript, have the same approach and manifestly belong to the same period and project (GS 11c; Gutas 2004b). –––, 2010, “The Ps.-Avicenna Corpus II: The Ṣūfistic Turn,” in. Tradition Arabe,” in, –––, 2012b, “Avicenna: The Metaphysics of the Rational Soul,”. the active intellect] lets flow upon the [human rational] soul form after form in accordance with the demand by the soul; and when the soul turns away from it [the active intellect], then the effluence is broken off” (GS 5, De anima, 245–246; transl. The most famous of the philosopher-scientists of Islam, Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn-Abd Allah ibn-Sina, known in the West as Avicenna, was born in Bukhara, Persia, and died in Hamadan. He says specifically, “The active principle [i.e. The method Avicenna adopted already at the start of his career was logic, and the mental apparatus wherewith we know involved an understanding and study of the human, rational soul. His ultimate aim was to prove God’s presence and existence and the world is His creation through scientific reason and logic. our essential core which identifies us and survives, our rational souls) are given a body and our materiality hampers our unencumbered intellection like that enjoyed by the First and the other celestial beings, we have to tend to the body by all means, behavioral (religious practices, ethical conduct) and pharmacological, to bring its humoral temperament to a level of equilibrium that will help the function of the intellect in this life and prepare it for unimpeded and continuous intellection, like that of the deity, in the next. His clinical practice based on experiments and regarding every patient unique and recognizing that health of the body is intertwined with the science of behavior and mind, embracing all … Chiefly being a metaphysical philosopher, Ibn e Sina attempted at presenting a comprehensive system linking human existence and experiences with its contingency, while staying in harmony with the Islamic exigency. The lowest is the person with an impure soul, who lacks the capability of developing an argument. The book, in two parts, deals with logic in the first and with physics, metaphysics, and metaphysics of the rational soul in the second. and However, the identity between absolute knowledge, in the form of the intelligibles contained in the intellects of the celestial spheres, and philosophy, as recorded in the Aristotelian tradition, is not complete. –––, 2004a. IBN SINA 980 - 1037 Persian Scientist Ibn Sina was the most famous of the philosopher-scientists of Islam. This auto-/biographical complex, which also contains bibliographies and has been transmitted as a single document (Gohlman 1974), is an early representative of an Arabic literary genre much cultivated by scientists and scholars in medieval Islam (Gutas 2015). communities in Europe used Hebrew translations of some of his works, His fame grew, and when he was twenty-one he was asked by a neighbor named ʿArūḍī to write a “comprehensive work” on all philosophy, which he did (Philosophy for ʿArūḍī, GS 2), treating all subjects listed above except mathematics; another neighbor, Baraqī, asked for commentaries on the books of philosophy on all these subjects—essentially the works of Aristotle—and he obliged with a twenty-volume work he called The Available and the Valid (i.e., of Philosophy, GS 10) and a two-volume work on the practical sciences, Piety and Sin (GPP 1). The life of Ibn Sina, a critical edition and annotated translation Reviewed by A. The core conception was the life of the rational soul: because our theoretical intellects—our selves—are consubstantial with the celestial intellects, it is our cosmic duty to enable our intellects to reach their full potential and behave like the celestial ones, that is, think the intelligibles (cf. Furthermore, the Islamic tradition before Avicenna was not any less unhomogeneous, as it was represented by the eclectic al-Kindī and his disciples, the Aristotelians of Baghdad, and the sui generis Rhazes (of whom Avicenna thought little even as a physician). How he did this in practice, teasing out the figures and forms of syllogisms implied in Aristotle’s texts, can be seen in numerous passages in his works. Performance of this second task, in turn, entailed the third, the accuracy and verifiability of the knowledge which would constitute the contents of his updated philosophy. The highest level of intellection is that of the prophet, who, on account of his supremely developed ability to hit upon middle terms, acquires the intelligibles “either at once or nearly so … in an order which includes the middle terms” (GS 6, 273–274; transl. In 999 the Turkic Qarakhanids effectively put an end to the Samanids and took over Bukhara. Avicenna had an excellent education on all subjects, but he dwells at length in the Autobiography on his study of the intellectual sciences, that is, the philosophical curriculum in practice in the Hellenic schools of higher education in late antiquity, notably in Alexandria. philosophers and scholars, just as the Latin translation of his Awais Ahmad 2. Avicenna grew up and was educated there and began his philosophical career as a member of the educated elite in political circles close to the Samanids. As mentioned above, the prophet, through his supremely developed ability to hit upon the middle of terms of syllogisms, acquires all knowledge (all the intelligibles actually thought by the active intellect) “either at once or nearly so.” This acquisition “is not an uncritical reception [of this knowledge] merely on authority, but rather occurs in an order which includes the middle terms: for beliefs accepted on authority concerning those things which are known only through their causes possess no intellectual certainty” (GS 5, De anima, 249–250; transl. Ibn Sina, also known by his Latinized name in Europe as Avicenna, was a Persian philosopher and polymath, born in 980 CE. In understanding the goal of human life in this manner Avicenna was again being true to the Aristotelian view of divine happiness as the identity of thinker, thinking, and thought (Metaphysics XII.7, 1072b18–26). Furthermore, he is one of the most substantial philosophers of the pre-modern period. That Avicenna was able to produce such a work (and repeat it seven more times thenceforth) is of course a tribute to his genius (universally acknowledged both then and now), but that the request for it should have come from his society is telling evidence of its cultural attitude regarding science. Those whom we call Neoplatonists he knew as commentators of Aristotle along with the rest, and even Plotinus and Proclus were available to him in translated excerpts under the name of Aristotle, as the Theology of Aristotle and The Pure Good respectively. (ISBN: 9780873952262) from Amazon's Book Store. POLYMATH extraordinaire Ibn Sina was the father of modern medicine who devoted his entire life to the pursuit of knowledge. It is important to realize that this is not because the intellect does not have the constitution to have purely intellective knowledge, like the celestial spheres, but because its existence in the sublunar world of time and perishable matter precludes its understanding the intelligibles through their causes. –––, 2014b-VII, “The Empiricism of Avicenna,” in Gutas 2014b, article VII. The subjects of all parts of practical philosophy are covered briefly also at the very end of The Cure, as follows: Book 10, Chapter 2: Proof of prophecy on the basis of the need for laws, to be enacted by the prophet legislator, in order to regulate social life which is necessary for human survival. Traditionally it has rarely been read except together with a commentary, notably those of Fakhr-ad-Dīn al-Rāzī and especially Naṣīr-ad-Dīn At some point in his later years, Avicenna wrote for or dictated to his student, companion, and amanuensis, AbÅ«-Ê¿Ubayd al-JÅ«zjānÄ«, his Autobiography, reaching till the time in his middle years when they first met; al-JÅ«zjānÄ« continued the biography after that point and completed it some time after the master’s death in 1037 AD. ), 2002, Kaya, M.C., 2012, “Prophetic Legislation: Avicenna’s View of Practical Philosophy Revisited,” in, –––, 2014, “In the Shadow of “Prophetic Legislation”: The Venture of Practical Philosophy after Avicenna,”, Lizzini, O., 2009, “Vie active, vie contemplative et philosophie chez Avicenne,” in. For human knowledge, therefore, the intellect functions as a processor of the information provided by the external and internal senses. For further reading, see the entries on Barhebraeus in his Syriac Cream of Wisdom). In his influence on the intellectual history Bukhara was no backwater provincial town, teeming as it was with scholars in residence and visiting intellectuals. Here the scientist spent almost ten years, from 1015 to 1024, these were very eventful years. (Geoffroy et al. Greek after the sixth century, reborn in Arabic in the 9th The highest category comprises of the prophets, who have pure rational souls and have knowledge of all things intelligible. Bukhara lies on one of the main trade routes of the Silk Road between Samarkand and Marw, and like these and other cities along the Silk Road, had been economically and culturally active from pre-Islamic times. Only, as already mentioned, because of their varied circumstances, the latter think of the intelligibles directly, permanently, and atemporally, while the human intellect has to advance from potentiality to actuality in time by technical means leading to the discovery of the middle term as it is assisted by all the other faculties of the soul and body. These were, first, his understanding of the structure of philosophical knowledge (all intellectual knowledge, that is) as a unified whole, which is reflected in the classification of the sciences he studied; second, his critical evaluation of all past science and philosophy, as represented in his assessment of the achievements and shortcomings of previous philosophers after he had read their books in the Samanid library, which led to the realization that philosophy must be updated; and third, his emphasis on having been an autodidact points to the human capability of acquiring the highest knowledge rationally by oneself, and leads to a comprehensive study of all functions of the rational soul and how it acquires knowledge (epistemology) as well as to an inquiry into its origins, destination, activities, and their consequences (eschatology). The Samanid dynasty, the first native dynasty to arise in Iran after the Muslim Arab conquest, controlled Transoxania and Khorasan from about 900. Even though the Autobiography has particular philosophical points to make (discussed in the next section), this is no mere boast. The philosophical knowledge that Avicenna received was neither complete nor homogeneous. As a result, he succeeded in de-mystifying concepts like inspiration, enthusiasm, mystical vision, and prophetic revelation, explaining all as natural functions of the rational soul. Under the Samanids in the 9th and 10th centuries, who followed a deliberate agenda of Persian linguistic revival as well as promotion of the high Arabic-Islamic culture radiating from the center of the Islamic world, Baghdad, it provided a sophisticated and refined milieu for the cultivation of the arts and sciences. The human intellect can think an intelligible for some time, but then it disappears, it being impossible for the immaterial intellect to “store” it, or have memory of it, as opposed to the two internal senses, imagery and memory, which have a storage function for their particular oblects (forms and connotational attributes) because they have a material base in the brain. . He had no access to the entirety of even the very lacunose information that we now have about the philosophical movements during the 1330 years separating him from Aristotle (Avicenna gives this quite accurate number himself), but could view the entire tradition as essentially Aristotelian. But the social context in which philosophy now found itself had changed. Initially he moved north to Gurganj in Khwarizm (999?–1012), but eventually he had to leave again and traveled westwards, staying for a while (1012–1014?) The first was his youthful commentary on the works of Aristotle which he wrote upon commission by his neighbor Baraqī, mentioned above, The Available and the Valid [of Philosophy]. that encompassed and explained all reality, including the tenets of (Gutas 2004a, 2010). But by the same token, and by its very nature, this worldview so clearly presented, documented, and validated, set itself up against other ideologies in the society with contending worldviews. In Ibn Sina, or Avicenna, was born in Bukhara then a leading city in Persia.His youth was spent in the company of the most learned men of his time and he became accomplished in … In addition, he engaged in protracted correspondence with scholars who asked or questioned him about specific problems; noteworthy are his Answers to Questions Posed by Bīrūnī [GP 8], the other scientific genius of his time, on Aristotelian physics and cosmology, and especially the two posthumous compilations of his responses and discussions circulating under the titles Notes (GS 12a) and Discussions (GS 14). With this secure and syllogistically verified knowledge, the prophet then is in a position to legislate and regulate social life as well as have a legitimate ground for gaining consent. Ibn Sina’s metaphysics For although the knowledge to be acquired, in itself and on the transcendent plane of the eternal celestial intellects, is a closed system and hence static, on a human level and in history it is evolutionary. Thus unfettered, their knowledge can be completely intellective because they perceive and know the intelligibles from what causes them, while the human intellect is in need of the corporeal senses, both external and internal, in order to perceive the effect of an intelligible from which it can reason syllogistically back to its cause. Exaggerated and hagiographic as some of these reports might be, it is clear that Avicenna had constructively internalized (not to say “memorized”) the philosophical curriculum and he could reproduce it, properly assimilated and analytically reconstructed, at will. To these philosophers should be added the philosophically sophisticated theologians of the various Muʿtazilite branches (one of whose most prominent representatives, the judge ʿAbd-al-Jabbār, Avicenna may have met in Ray between 1013 and 1015). Regarded as one of the most influential thinkers and writers of the Islamic Golden Age, Ibn Sina wrote extensively on philosophy of ethics and metaphysics, medicine, astronomy, alchemy, geology psychology and Islamic theology. In the emanative language which he inherited from the Neoplatonic tradition, and which he incorporated in his own understanding of the cosmology of the concentric spheres of the universe with their intercommunicating intellects and souls, he referred to the flow of knowledge from the supernal world to the human intellect as “divine effluence” (al-fayḍ al-ilāhī). For him, God is the basic cause and so it is both the essence and the existence. for keeping copies of his works; as it must have happened rather frequently, when commissioned or asked to write about a subject that he had treated earlier, it was apparently just as easy for him to compose a treatise anew as it was to copy an earlier version of it. The human intellect can engage in a syllogistic process in the order which includes the middle terms and which is identical with that of the celestial intellects for the simple reason, as Avicenna repeatedly insists, that both human and celestial intellects are congeneric (mujānis), immaterial substances. –––, 2014b-I, “Avicenna: Biography,” in Gutas 2014b, article I. abroad (and inimical to those at home) and came to know After The Cure, he was asked to write a brief exposition of the philosophical subjects, which he did by collecting and putting together—at times even splicing together—material from his earlier writings and produced The Salvation (al-Najāt). The implementation of the first task, the treatment of all philosophy as a unified whole, though historically seemingly unachievable, was accomplished by Avicenna almost without effort. this.”[8] Hasse 2013, 118). as it was intuitively acknowledged in the Islamic world where he is Its contents can be seen in his extensive treatment of it all at the end of the metaphysics part of The Cure, as follows. For a full list of Avicenna’s works in Arabic and Persian, their editions, translations, and studies, see the inventory in Gutas 2014a, also for further bibliography. Ibn Sina also penned down a significant number of short treatise on Islamic theology and the prophets, whom he termed as ‘inspired philosophers’. not as members of the Islamic commonwealth, accepted most of his ideas This theory made the core of syllogistic verification by means of hitting upon the middle term the one indispensable element of all certain intellectual knowledge, and it explained why people differ in their ability to apply this syllogistic method by presupposing that they possess a varying talent for it, as with all human faculties. All issues relating to the cognitive side of religion he added to the traditional contents of metaphysics, and those relating to the social side he added to the practical sciences. At an early age, his family moved to Bukhara where he studied Hanafi jurisprudence with Isma‘il Zahid and at about 13 years of age he studied medicine with a number of teachers. Apart from the references in the text, the bibliography also lists several recent studies on Avicenna along with some reference works. al-raʾīs), after Aristotle, whom Avicenna called Already in his very first philosophical treatise, Compendium on the Soul, which Avicenna dedicated to the Samanid ruler, as noted above, he presented the theoretical knowledge (the intelligible forms) to be acquired by the rational soul precisely as classified in the philosophical curriculum (Gutas 2014a, 6–8), and with his second work, the Philosophy commissioned by ʿArūḍī, he fleshed out this outline into the first scholastic philosophical compendium or summa. Ibn Sina (981 - 1037 C.E. Avicenna’s name only through its occurrence in the Greek Ibn Sina [Avicenna]: metaphysics | Gutas 2014a, 377; cf. On the social side of religion, he added a fourth subdivision to practical philosophy (in addition to ethics, household management, and politics) which he called “the discipline of legislating” (al-ṣināʿa al-shāriʿa, Kaya 2012; Kaya 2014; Gutas 2014a, 470–471, 497). When, at the end of all these operations just described, the intellect hits upon a middle term or just perceives an intelligible that it had not been thinking about before, it acquires the intelligible in question (hence the appellation of this stage of intellection, “acquired intellect,” al-ʿaql al-mustafād ), or, otherwise expressed, acquires it from the active intellect which thinks it eternally and atemporally since the active intellect is, in effect, the locus of all intelligibles, there being no other place for them to be always in actual existence. Chapter 5: Politics (the caliphate and legislation); ethics. In the court of ʿAlāʾ-ad-Dawla in Isfahan where he spent his last thirteen years or so, Avicenna enjoyed the appreciation that it was felt he deserved. world. The reason that this is possible at all is again the consubstantiality and congeneric nature of all intellects, human and celestial alike. Other than in the summae, Avicenna wrote comprehensively on all philosophy in two major and massive works, both in about twenty volumes, both now lost. This entailed detailed study of the operations of the soul in its totality and in all its functions, whether rational, animal, or vegetative. Ibn Sina was an extremely religious man. This information can also be received by humans in various forms—as waking or sleeping dreams, as visions, as messages to soothsayers—depending on the level of the humoral equilibrium of the recipient, the proper functioning of his internal and external senses, and the readiness of his intellect. . His father was a scholar working for the Samanid Empire, which used to cover all of today's Afganistan. Thus, he is considered as the first significant Muslim philosopher of all times. He was born in the village Afshena near Khorasan in … with philosophy, or more specifically, with the philosophical sciences as classified and taught in the Aristotelian tradition. 25–27). He completed his education on Islam, math, and medicine when he was just 13 years old. McGinnis, J., with the assistance of D.C. Reisman, 2004. These consisted of logic as the instrument of philosophy (the Organon), the theoretical sciences—physics (the natural sciences), mathematics (the quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music), and metaphysics—, and the practical sciences—ethics, oeconomics (household management), and politics. It was certainly a matter of prestige for a ruler to be flanked by the top scientists of his day, but patronage of the sciences was also seen, politically more importantly, as legitimizing his right to whatever throne he was occupying. the extent that they were writing for their respective communities and 970–1037) was the preeminent His achievement consisted in his harmonization of the disparate parts into a rational whole, and particularly in bringing the sublunar and supralunar worlds into an intelligible relation for which he argued logically. (notably Maimonides in his Arabic Guide of the Perplexed and Avicenna makes a point to say that he studied these subjects all by himself, in this order, at increasing levels of difficulty, and that he achieved proficiency by the time he was eighteen. first in Jurjan, off the southeastern Caspian, and then going on into the Iranian heartland, in Ray (1014?–1015), in Hamadhan (1015–1024? He wrote with the purpose of reaching all layers of (literate) society, but also with an eye to posterity. Avicenna is quite explicit about the need for the human intellect to be prepared and to demand to hit upon a middle term, or actively to seek an intelligible, in order to receive it. This analysis and understanding of the rational soul, precisely elaborated on the basis of the Aristotelian theory but also going much beyond it, enable Avicenna to engage systematically primarily with all aspects of religion, cognitive and social alike, and secondarily with what we would call paranormal phenomena (prognostication of the future, telekinesis, evil eye, etc.). Verifiability depends on two interdependent factors for the person doing the verification: following a productive method and having the mental apparatus to employ that method and understand its results. He developed a style of supple Arabic expository prose, complete with technical philosophical terminology, that remained standard thenceforth. from acceptance to revision to refutation and to substitution with Z. Iskandar , D.Phil. Gutas 2014a, 145). intellects. All humans have both the physical and mental apparatus to acquire intelligible and supernal knowledge and the means to do so, but they have to work for it, just as they have to prepare for their bliss in afterlife while their immortal rational souls are still affiliated with the body. He completed there his major work, The Cure (al-Shifāʾ, GS 5), and four further summae of philosophy, along with shorter treatises, and conducted a vigorous philosophical correspondence with students and followers in response to questions they raised about sundry points in logic, physics, and metaphysics. The lesser philosophical schools of antiquity—the Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics, and Pythagoreans, who had ceased to exist long before late antiquity—he knew mostly as names with certain basic views or sayings affiliated with them. However, once the soul has been freed of the body after death, and if, while still with the body, it has acquired the predisposition to perceive the intelligibles through philosophical training, then it can behold the intelligibles through their causes and become just like the celestial spheres, a state which Avicenna describes as happiness in philosophical terms and paradise in religious. He also attempted at a philosophical interpretation of religion and religious beliefs. To have thought so would have negated the entire philosophical project Avicenna so painstakingly constructed. Ibn Sina was born in AH 370/AD 980 near Bukhara in Central Asia, where his father governed a village in one of the royal estates. 2014, 59).[9]. Avicenna, Arabic Ibn SÄ«nā, in full AbÅ« Ê¿AlÄ« al-Ḥusayn ibn Ê¿Abd Allāh ibn SÄ«nā, (born 980, near Bukhara, Iran [now in Uzbekistan]—died 1037, Hamadan, Iran), Muslim physician, the most famous and influential of the philosopher-scientists of the medieval Islamic world. The purpose in this, for which he borrowed the topos of late antique Aristotelian commentarial tradition explaining why Aristotle had developed a cryptic style of writing, was to train the student by providing not whole arguments and fully articulated theories but only pointers and reminders to them which the student would complete himself. though they were far less receptive than their Roman Catholic ?Al? Though Aristotelianism is the philosophical tradition most worthy of adherence, Avicenna says, it is nevertheless not perfect, and it is the task of philosophers to correct and amplify it through the acquisition of further intelligibles by syllogistic processes. According to the scientific view of the universe in his day which he studied in the curriculum—Aristotelian sublunar world with Ptolemaic cosmology and Neoplatonic emanationism in the supralunar—all intelligibles (all universal concepts and the principles of all particulars, or as Avicenna says, “the forms of things as they are in themselves”) were the eternal object of thought by the First principle, and then, in descending hierarchical order, by the intellects of the celestial spheres emanating from the First and ending with the active intellect (al-ʿaql al-faʿʿāl), the intellect of the terrestrial realm. philosophical/scientific[2] Accordingly, some medieval bibliographies of his works (and some modern ones, based on the former) list close to three hundred titles, though a recent sober tally of them brings the authentic writings down to fewer than one hundred, ranging from essays of a few pages to multi-volume sets, and flags the pseudepigraphs that need to be assessed and authenticated (Gutas 2014a, Appendix, 387–540). Don't want to give too much away about Ibn Sina's achievements, but suffice to say, he was a genius well ahead of his time, and just to share one of his achievements, he was father of medicine - His Canon of Medicine including details of ailments and surgical procedures was standard textbook of medicine in the middle ages for centuries. In the Autobiography he provides no political context for his decision but merely says, “necessity led me to forsake Bukhara” (Gohlman 1974, 40–41), though the nature of this “necessity” could hardly be mistaken by his contemporaries and even by us. Avicenna, Ab? There being three terms in a syllogism, two of which, the minor and the major, are present in the conclusion, the syllogism that leads to that conclusion can be constructed only if one figures out or guesses correctly what the middle term is that explains the connection between the two extreme terms. Janssens, J., and D. De Smet (eds. His mother Setareh was from the same village, while his father Abdullah was Ismaili, who was a respected local governor, under the Samanid dynasty was from the ancient city of Balkh (today Afghanistan). He was in the employ of the Persian Samanid dynasty that ruled Transoxania and Khurasan with Bukhara as its capital (819–1005), where the family moved when Avicenna was still a boy. Buy The Life of Ibn Sina: A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation (Studies in Islamic philosophy and science) by Gohlman, W.E. However, their respective acquisition of knowledge is different because of their different circumstances: the human intellect comes into being in an absolutely potential state and needs its association with the perishable body in order to actualize itself, whereas the celestial intellects are related to eternal bodies and are permanently actual. In section after section and chapter after chapter in numerous works he analyzes not only questions of formal logic but also the mechanics through which the rational soul acquires knowledge, and in particular the conditions operative in the process of hitting upon the middle term: how one can work for it and where to look for it, and what the apparatus and operations of the soul are that bring it about (Gutas 2001). Open access to the SEP is made possible by a world-wide funding initiative. His approach is doctrinal, not historical, presenting, as he says, “the fundamental elements of true philosophy which was discovered by someone who examined a lot, reflected long,” and had nearly perfect syllogistic prowess, namely, himself (GS 8, p. 2 and 4; transl. In the case of the prophet, he acquires all the intelligibles comprising knowledge, complete with middle terms as already mentioned, because the intellective capacity of his rational soul to hit upon the middle terms and acquire the intelligibles is extraordinarily high; this capacity is coupled with an equally highly developed internal sense of imagination that can translate this intellective knowledge into language and images (in the form of a revealed book) that the vast majority of humans can easily understand. Despite his peregrinatory life spent in historically turbulent times and areas, including the frequently unfavorable personal circumstances in which he found himself (as recounted in the Autobiography and Biography, Gohlman 1974), Avicenna was terribly productive, even by the standards of the highly prolific authors writing in Arabic in medieval Islam. Much work still remains to be done in this regard. theology using philosophical discourse to express (or hide) Islamic content (the tradition of al-Ghazālī and his followers and imitators), “philosophical” mysticism (the tradition of Ibn al-ʿArabī, who was called the Greatest Master” [al-Shaykh al-Akbar] to rival Avicenna’s “The Preeminent Master” [al-Shaykh al-Raʾīs]), occultism, numerology, lettrism. By his eighteenth year, he had internalized the philosophical curriculum and verified it to his own satisfaction as a coherent system with a logical structure that explains all reality. In Latin translation, [7] He became so famous that, he was invited by the king of Bukhara for the treatment of a disease that many … , The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is copyright © 2016 by The Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), Stanford University, Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054, 4. –––, 2015, “The Author as Pioneer[ing Genius]: Graeco-Arabic Philosophical Autobiographies and the Paradigmatic Ego,” in. Chapter 3: Acts of worship as reminders of the afterlife and as exercises predisposing the rational soul to engage in intellection (cf. The book was unfortunately lost during some military rout, and only the commentary on Book Lambda, 6–10, of Aristotle’s Metaphysics survives (GS 11a; Geoffroy et al.