The 'Metaphysica' of Avicenna (ibn Sīnā)

The 'Metaphysica' of Avicenna (ibn Sīnā) PDF

Author: Parviz Morewedge

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-10-14

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 1317366115

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In this book, first published in 1973, Professor Parviz Morewedge, an expert on Islamic philosophy and mysticism, provides a critical exposition of one text of ibn Sina (Avicenna), the great Persian philosopher who lived from 980 to 1037. The text is his Metaphysica in the Danish Nama-I ‘ala’I (The Book of Scientific Knowledge). In addition to a translation of the text from Persian into English, this edition includes a critical commentary on the major arguments found in the text, and notes and references to other texts of ibn Sina as well as to relevant texts of Greek philosophers, particularly Aristotle, Plotinus and Proclus. There is also a glossary of the key terms used in the Metaphysica, with their Persian, Arabic, Greek and Latin equivalents where necessary. This book is concerned primarily to show that although in the text ibn Sina resorts to the Aristotelian vocabulary and Neo-Platonic themes, and appears to be in accord with the Islamic tradition, there is evidence that many doctrines expressed by him may be considered non-Greek and non-Islamic. These include his peculiar doctrine of Self (nafs) and the doctrine of the Necessary Existent (wajib al-wujud). The author attempts to clarify the extent to which salient features of ibn Sina’s position are in agreement with what may be regarded as Sufic doctrines.

Avicenna's Metaphysics in Context

Avicenna's Metaphysics in Context PDF

Author: Robert Wisnovsky

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2018-05-31

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 1501711520

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The eleventh-century philosopher and physician Abu Ali ibn Sina (d. A.D. 1037) was known in the West by his Latinized name Avicenna. An analysis of the sources and evolution of Avicenna's metaphysics, this book focuses on the answers he and his predecessors gave to two fundamental pairs of questions: what is the soul and how does it cause the body; and what is God and how does He cause the world? To respond to these challenges, Avicenna invented new concepts and distinctions and reinterpreted old ones. The author concludes that Avicenna's innovations are a turning point in the history of metaphysics. Avicenna's metaphysics is the culmination of a period of synthesis during which philosophers fused together a Neoplatonic project (reconciling Plato with Aristotle) with a Peripatetic project (reconciling Aristotle with himself). Avicenna also stands at the beginning of a period during which philosophers sought to integrate the Arabic version of the earlier synthesis with Islamic doctrinal theology (kalam). Avicenna's metaphysics significantly influenced European scholastic thought, but it had an even more profound impact on Islamic intellectual history—the philosophical problems and opportunities associated with the Avicennian synthesis continued to be debated up to the end of the nineteenth century.

Allegory and Philosophy in Avicenna (Ibn Sînâ)

Allegory and Philosophy in Avicenna (Ibn Sînâ) PDF

Author: Peter Heath

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2010-11-24

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 0812202228

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Islamic allegory is the product of a cohesive literary tradition to which few contributed as significantly as Ibn Sina (Avicenna), the eleventh-century Muslim philosopher. Peter Heath here offers a detailed examination of Avicenna's contribution, paying special attention to Avicenna's psychology and poetics and to the ways in which they influenced strains of theological, mystical, and literary thought in subsequent Islamic—and Western—intellectual and religious history. Heath begins by showing how Avicenna's writings fit into the context and general history of Islamic allegory and explores the interaction among allegory, allegoresis, and philosophy in Avicenna's thought. He then provides a brief introduction to Avicenna as an historical figure. From there, he examines the ways in which Avicenna's cosmological, psychological, and epistemological theories find parallel, if diverse, expression in the disparate formats of philosophical and allegorical narration. Included in this book is an illustration of Avicenna's allegorical practice. This takes the form of a translation of the Mi'raj Nama (The Book of the Prophet Muhammad's Ascent to Heaven), a short treatise in Persian generally attributed to Avicenna. The text concludes with an investigation of the literary dimension Avicenna's allegorical theory and practice by examining his use of description metaphor. Allegory and Philosophy in Avicenna is an original and important work that breaks new ground by applying the techniques of modern literary criticism to the study of Medieval Islamic philosophy. It will be of interest to scholars and students of medieval Islamic and Western literature and philosophy.

الشفاء: الالهيات

الشفاء: الالهيات PDF

Author: Avicenna

Publisher: FARMS

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 932

ISBN-13:

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Within this emanative scheme we encounter some of the basic ideas of Avicenna's religious and political philosophy, including his discussion of the divine attributes, divine providence, the Hereafter, and the ideal, "virtuous" city with its philosopher-prophet as the recipient and conveyer of the revealed law, a human link between the celestial and the terrestrial worlds."--BOOK JACKET.

Ibn Sina’s Remarks and Admonitions: Physics and Metaphysics

Ibn Sina’s Remarks and Admonitions: Physics and Metaphysics PDF

Author:

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2014-07-08

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0231537425

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Al-Isharat wal-Tanbihat (Remarks and Admonitions) is one of the most mature and comprehensive philosophical works by Ibn Sina (Avicenna, 980–1037). Grounded in an exploration of logic (which Ibn Sina described as the gate to knowledge) and happiness (the ultimate human goal), the text illuminates the divine, the human being, and the nature of things through a wide-ranging discussion of topics. The sections of Physics and Metaphysics deal with the nature of bodies and souls as well as existence, creation, and knowledge. Especially important are Ibn Sina's views of God's knowledge of particulars, which generated much controversy in medieval Islamic and Christian philosophical and theological circles and provoked a strong rejection by eleventh-century philosopher al-Ghazali. This book provides the first annotated English translation of Physics and Metaphysics and edits the original Arabic text on which the translation is based. It begins with a detailed analysis of the text, followed by a translation of the three classes or groups of ideas in the Physics (On the Substance of Bodies, On the Directions and Their Primary and Secondary Bodies, and On the Terrestrial and Celestial Souls) and the four in the Metaphysics (On Existence and Its Causes, Creation Ex Nihilo and Immediate Creation, On Ends, on Their Principles, and on the Arrangement [of Existence], and On Abstraction. The Metaphysics closes with a significant discussion of the concepts of providence, good, and evil, which Ibn Sina uses to introduce a theodicy. Researchers, faculty, and students in philosophy, theology, religion, and intellectual history will find in this work a useful and necessary source for understanding Ibn Sina's philosophical thought and, more generally, the medieval Islamic and Christian study of nature, the world beyond, psychology, God, and the concept of evil.

Avicenna, ›The Healing, Logic: Isagoge‹

Avicenna, ›The Healing, Logic: Isagoge‹ PDF

Author: Avicenna

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2021-04-19

Total Pages: 598

ISBN-13: 3110726564

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This book offers a new edition, with English translation and commentary, of the Kitāb al-Madḫal, which opens Avicenna’s (d. 1037) most comprehensive summa of Peripatetic philosophy, namely the Kitāb al-Šifāʾ. For the first time, the text is established together with a stemma codicum showing the genealogical relations among 34 manuscripts, the twelfth-century Latin translation, and the literal quotations by Avicenna’s first and second-generation students. In this book, Avicenna’s reappraisal of Porphyry’s Isagoge is examined from both a historical and a philosophical point of view. The key-features of Avicenna’s theory of predicables are analyzed in the General Introduction and in the Commentary both in their own right and against the background of the Greek and Arabic exegetical tradition. Readers shall find in this book the first systematic study of the Madḫal which, in addition to being the only logical work of the Šifāʾ ever transmitted in its entirety both in Arabic and in Latin, is crucial for understanding Avicenna’s conception of universal predicables at the crossroads between logic and metaphysics.

A Compendium on the Soul

A Compendium on the Soul PDF

Author: Avicenna

Publisher: DigiCat

Published: 2022-08-15

Total Pages: 88

ISBN-13:

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DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "A Compendium on the Soul" by Avicenna. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.