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. 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. 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). Avicenna’s rationalist empiricism is the main reason why he strove in his philosophy on the one hand to perfect and fine-tune logical method and on the other to study, at an unprecedented level of sophistication and precision, the human (rational) soul and cognitive processes which provide knowledge through the application of rational empirical methods. Ibn-Sīnā [Avicenna] (ca. and analysis in Gutas 2014b-VII, esp. Avicenna’s proof actually has nothing to do with design, he doesn’t need the idea that the universe is intelligently put together. Ibn Sina’s natural philosophy. philosophers and scholars, just as the Latin translation of his . Born in Uzbekistan, Ibn Sina, also known as Avicenna was a humble, devout Muslim who always sought out to gain knowledge, as the Quran emphasised the importance of education. 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. 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. As a result, many a ruler evinced sheer interest in science itself out of a desire to appear knowledgeable and participated in scientific debates, usually conducted in political fora. For Ibn Sina, people can be categorized on the basis of their ability to grasp the intelligible. –––, 2014b-I, “Avicenna: Biography,” in Gutas 2014b, article I. On coming to be and passing away (Aristotle’s, Arithmetic (Nicomachus of Gerasa, Diophantus, Euclid, Thābit b. Qurra, and others), Universal Science: the study of being as being, first philosophy, natural theology (Aristotle’s, Metaphysics of the Rational Soul (phenomena of religious and paranormal life studied as functions of the rational soul), Prophetic legislation as the basis for the three parts of practical philosophy, Politics (prescriptions by the prophet legislator for public administration and political ruler to succeed him; [Plato’s and Aristotle’s books on politics]), Household management (prescriptions of the prophet legislator for family law; [Bryson’s, Ethics (as legislated by a caliph; [Aristotle’s, Adamson, P., 2004, “Non-Discursive Thought in Avicenna’s Commentary on the Theology of Aristotle,” in, Biesterfeldt, H.H., 2000. IBN SINA 980 - 1037 Persian Scientist Ibn Sina was the most famous of the philosopher-scientists of Islam. He developed a style of supple Arabic expository prose, complete with technical philosophical terminology, that remained standard thenceforth. 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. 7–27. revealed religion and its theological and mystical elaborations. Acknowledging the truth of a categorical statement meant verifying it, and this could only be done by taking that statement as the conclusion of a syllogism and then constructing the syllogism that would conclude it. 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. 970–1037) was the preeminent –––, 2013, “The Life and Times of Avicenna. Ibn Sina, also known by his Latinized name in Europe as Avicenna, was a Persian philosopher and polymath, born in 980 CE. Thus logic and the theory of the soul as the basis for epistemology are the two motors driving Avicenna’s philosophy. 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. Thus began Avicenna’s lifelong itinerant career and the attendant quest for patronage and employment (Reisman 2013). thinking in Greek late antiquity and early 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. cAli Ibn Sina (known in Europe as Avicenna) was born in the village of Afshana in the vicinity of Bukhara (in what is now Uzbekistan), in 370 AH (980 AD )—the generally accepted date 6—of an Ismailian family concerned with intellectual sciences and philosophical inquiry, all of which had its effect upon the scientific career of Avicenna. Toward the end of his life Avicenna wrote two more summae in slightly divergent modes. Next I sought to know medicine, and so I read the books written on it. The lowest is the person with an impure soul, who lacks the capability of developing an argument. 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. 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). 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). He was born in the village Afshena near Khorasan in … Z. Iskandar , D.Phil. The Jewish Accordingly, while the classification of the different parts of philosophy continued to be presented as a virtual blueprint for a potential philosophical summa, the main form of philosophical discourse was the individual treatise on one or more of related themes and, predominantly, the commentary on the works of “divine” Plato and, by the sixth century, also “divine” Aristotle. Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BP He is one of the most significant, physicians, intellectuals, writers and astronomers of the Golden Islamic era. Ibn Sina, also known by his Latinized name in Europe as Avicenna, was a Persian philosopher and polymath, born in 980 CE. ?Abd All?h Ibn S?n?, ?Abd al-W? ), and finally in Isfahan (1024?–1037), in the court of ʿAlāʾ-ad-Dawla, the Kakuyid ruler of the area (Gutas 2014b-I, 6–9). 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. 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). How did Avicenna (Ibn Sina) ‘prove’ God exists? And Avicenna who wrote in different styles and genres to reach as many people as possible, as also noted above, clearly intended as much. 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. He was also a logician, mathematician and a poet. 25–27). The course of ibn Sina's life was dominated by the period of great political instability through which he lived. Avicenna subscribed fully to this view of human happiness in this world, and extended it to make it also the basis for happiness in the next—as a matter of fact, he made it a prerequisite for happiness in the next. The Samanid dynasty, the first native dynasty to arise in Iran after the Muslim Arab conquest, controlled Transoxania and Khorasan from about 900. 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. 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). 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. 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). Ibn-Sina Married With Children DVD Buy all 12 seasons and 267 episodes on 20 dvd's. 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. Abu Ali Al-Husain Ibn Abdullah Ibn Sina who has been called the prince of physicians, known as Avicenna in the west. 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. 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 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. 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. Performance of the first task, necessarily entailed the second, bringing philosophy up to date. ‘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…. this.”[8] world for centuries to come, and the sundry reactions to it, ranging [3] 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. Somebody whose internal sense of imagination or estimation is overactive, for example, may be hindered thereby in the clear reception of dream images so that his dreams would require interpretation, while someone else not so afflicted may get clearer messages; or a soothsayer who wishes to receive information about the future has to run long and hard in order to bring about such a humoral equilibrium through the exertion, thereby preparing his intellect to receive the message. He also attempted at a philosophical interpretation of religion and religious beliefs. Is it the soul which compels a person to choose between good and evil in this world, and is a source of reward or punishment in the hereafter. 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. and analysis Gutas 2014a, 35–40; Gutas 2000). philosopher and physician of the Islamic His father was a scholar working for the Samanid Empire, which used to cover all of today's Afganistan. Buy The Life of Ibn Sina: A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation (Studies in Islamic philosophy and science) by Gohlman, W.E. 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). The book, in two parts, deals with logic in the first and with physics, metaphysics, and metaphysics of the rational soul in the second. In essence, following this method of logical verification meant for Avicenna examining the texts of Aristotle, read in the order in which they are presented in the curriculum, and testing the validity of every paragraph. In the field of metaphysics, Ibn Sina differentiates between what exists and its essence. –––, 2015, “The Author as Pioneer[ing Genius]: Graeco-Arabic Philosophical Autobiographies and the Paradigmatic Ego,” in. 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. 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. Bukhara was their capital and it, together with Samarkand, were the cultural centres of the empire. There are reports that he wrote major portions of his greatest work, The Cure, without any books to consult (Gohlman 1974, 58; transl. In both of these books he left out the mathematical sciences and the subjects of practical philosophy, only the former of which was later supplemented by Jūzjānī, first in Arabic and then in Persian, on the basis of earlier writings by Avicenna. An area that needed to be added most urgently in both the theoretical and practical parts of philosophy, if all reality was to be covered by his system, was all manifestations of religious life and paranormal events. His ultimate aim was to prove God’s presence and existence and the world is His creation through scientific reason and logic. 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. 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). 3–21. He was inspired by Aristotelian philosophy and … POLYMATH extraordinaire Ibn Sina was the father of modern medicine who devoted his entire life to the pursuit of knowledge. Avicenna complied, and thus was born the first philosophical summa treating in a systematic and consistent fashion within the covers of a single book all the branches of logic and theoretical philosophy as classified in the Aristotelian tradition. “The full argument is a bit complicated, but here is a somewhat simplified version. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders. The highest category comprises of the prophets, who have pure rational souls and have knowledge of all things intelligible. 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. He says specifically, “The active principle [i.e. paraphilosophical constructs, determined developments in philosophy, In Latin translation, Gutas 2014a, 145). 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. This is humanist ethics dictated by a scientific view of the world. ‘And if the deity<’s state> is always like the state in which we sometimes are, then this is marvelous; and if it is more, then it is even more marvelous’” As he put it, “it behooves his [Aristotle’s] successors to gather the loose ends he left, repair any breach they find in what he constructed, and supply corollaries to fundamental principles he presented” (GS 8, 2–3; transl. 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. 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. The reason that this is possible at all is again the consubstantiality and congeneric nature of all intellects, human and celestial alike. Book 10, Chapter 1: Celestial effects on the world: inspiration, dreams, prayer, celestial punishment, prophecy, astrology. 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. 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. 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. Avicenna served the various local rulers in these cities certainly in his dual capacity as physician and political counselor, functions he had assumed already back home, but also as scientist-in-residence. 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. century. 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. 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. as it was intuitively acknowledged in the Islamic world where he is 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. 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. 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. precision. Gutas 2014a, 377; cf. 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?) Sina is also regarded as the father of medieval medicine science. ), 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. Gutas 2014a, 36). ], Arabic and Islamic Philosophy, historical and methodological topics in: Greek sources | Gutas 2014a, 18). Book 9, Chapter 7: Destination of the rational soul in the afterlife and its bliss and misery; real happiness is the perfection of the rational soul through knowledge. Faced with this situation, Avicenna set himself the task of revising and updating philosophy, as an internally self-consistent and complete system that accounts for all reality and is logically verifiable, by correcting errors in the tradition, deleting unsustainable arguments and theses, sharpening the focus of others, and expanding and adding to the subjects that demanded discussion. al-Ṭūsī.[5]. Science was much more integrally related to the social and political life and discourse during this period, which is also a significant factor in its rapid spread and development in the Islamic world. Ibn Sina also penned down a significant number of short treatise on Islamic theology and the prophets, whom he termed as ‘inspired philosophers’. Being a devout Muslim himself, Ibn Sina applied rational philosophy at interpreting divine text and Islamic theology. The Arabophone Jewish and Christian scholars within Islam, to Out of his 450 various publications and treatises, almost 240 of them have survived, majority of which belongs to philosophy and medicine. 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]. Awais Ahmad 2. In the polyphony of philosophical voices and systems that followed his death in 322 BC and throughout the Hellenistic period (336–31 BC), his suggestions went mostly unheeded by the Peripatetics and were only followed, at the end of that period, by Andronicus of Rhodes if only for the purposes of the order in which he put Aristotle’s school treatises (his extant corpus) in his first edition of them. He also studied many books on metaphysics, astronomy, and natural sciences. Instead, it must proceed to them from their perceived effects. para-philosophy:[6] Grasping the logic and the comprehensible is the first step towards determining the fate of one’s soul, thereby deciding human actions. beginning with the 12th century, Avicenna’s Muslim scientists thought about the origin of minerals, rocks, mountains, earthquakes and water, etc. Ibn Sina is called the father of modern medicine for establishing a clinical practice. translations of the Latin scholastics that began after the At the age of 16, he established himself as a respected physician. 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. 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. Ibn Sina’s metaphysics 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). Details: In the Muslim world, he is known simply as Ibn Sina. His productivity never flagged, even during these years that were militarily and politically turbulent. 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. 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. 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). In 999 the Turkic Qarakhanids effectively put an end to the Samanids and took over Bukhara. And because we (i.e. The inspiration here is clearly the beginning of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics (cf. 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. This difference applies to all things except God, said Ibn Sina. 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. it represents the culmination of the Hellenic tradition, defunct in 1350,” in Janssens and De Smet 2002: 81–97. The same applies to other forms of communication from the supernal world. It runs to twenty-two large volumes in the Cairo edition (1952–83), and its contents exhibit all the parts of philosophy in the Aristotelian tradition which they reproduce, revise, adjust, expand, and re-present, as follows: Avicenna did not treat all of these subjects in each one of his summae, but he varied their contents and emphasis depending on the specific purpose for which he composed them. Plato was not available in Arabic other than in brief excerpts, in Galen’s epitomes, in gnomologies, and in second-hand reports in Aristotle and Galen (Gutas 2012a), and accordingly Avicenna could dismiss him. The Metaphysics of the Rational Soul; Practical Philosophy, Arabic and Islamic Philosophy, historical and methodological topics in: Greek sources. Persian philosopher Ibn Sina or Avicenna (c.980-1037) was born in the village of Afshana near the present-day Bukhara (in Uzbekistan) then a leading city in Persia (Iran.) 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. its integral and comprehensive articulation of science and philosophy, 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. 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. The Life of Ibn Sina: A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation. Ibn Sina [Avicenna]: logic | pp. from acceptance to revision to refutation and to substitution with Born in Afshana, Bukhara in Central Asia, his work on medicine, specifically the Canon, or the Qanun fil Tibb, was taught in schools in the Islamic world and in Europe alike till the early modern era. 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. As Google Doodle celebrates his … Avicenna could write fast and with great precision, sacrificing nothing in analytical depth. Aristotelian ethics provided the foundation of the edifice. ), better known in the West as Avicenna, has a leading contribution in his famous Encyclopaedia of Philosophy and Natural Sciences – “Kitab Al-Shifa” (the Book of Healing). 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. “Geometry and the Rebirth of Philosophy in Arabic with al‑Kindī,” in, –––, 2004b, “Avicenna’s Marginal Glosses on, –––, 2006a, “Intellect Without Limits: The Absence of Mysticism in Avicenna,” in, –––, 2006b, “Imagination and Transcendental Knowledge in Avicenna,” in, –––, 2012a, “Platon. 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. 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. though they were far less receptive than their Roman Catholic 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. At a higher level, Avicenna analyzed non-discursive thinking, which takes no time and grasps its object in a single act of intellection, though the knowledge acquired is still structured syllogistically, complete with middle terms (because in its locus, the active intellect, it is so structured) (Adamson 2004). 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. 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. the extent that they were writing for their respective communities and Thus, he is considered as the first significant Muslim philosopher of all times. Early life He was born in around 370 (AH) / 980 (AD) in Afshana, his m other's home, a small city now part of Uzbekistan His father, a respected Ismaili scholar, was from Balkh now part of Afghanistan .He had his son very carefully educated at Bukhara. The philosophical knowledge that Avicenna received was neither complete nor homogeneous. Avicenna, Ab? Islam into a rationally rigorous and self-consistent scientific system His scientific edifice rested on Aristotelian physics and metaphysics capped with Neoplatonic emanationism in the context of Ptolemaic cosmology, all revised, re-thought, and critically re-assessed by him. Finally after reading a manual by a famous philosopher al-Farabi, he found … It presented for the first time to the world a comprehensive, unified, and internally self-consistent account of reality, along with the methodological tools wherewith to validate it (logic)—it presented a scientific system as a worldview, difficult to resist or even refute, given its self-validating properties. Ibn Sina was an extremely religious man. –––, 2014b-VII, “The Empiricism of Avicenna,” in Gutas 2014b, article VII.