Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna)

At a close analysis, Abū Ḥāmid al-Ġazālī's Maqāṣid al-falāsifa [Intentions/Doctrines of the Philosophers] reveals itself as a richly stratified work, where the most rational trends of Avicennan falsafa intertwine with an approach strongly influenced by religious revelation. Focusing on the fifth and final treatise of the Physics of the Maqāṣid, this paper analyses the way in which prophecy is not only discussed as the subject-matter of a specific philosophical analysis, but also prominently employed throughout the treatise as a doctrinal authority in the context of otherwise purely philosophical argumentations. The great number of quotations from the Qurʾān and from the tradition of prophetic deeds and sayings (aḥādiṯ) showcases in particular al-Ġazālī's ability to weld and crosspollinate the two traditions of Greek-Arabic philosophy and Islamic religion.

Traduction introduite et annotée d’Ibn Taymiyya, « al-Jawāb al-ṣaḥīḥ li-man baddala dīn al-Masīḥ », édition BIN NĀṢIR, AL-‘ASKAR, & AL-ḤAMDĀN, t. I, p. 340-383. Réfutation de la thèse de la non-universalité de la mission du Prophète avancée par l’évêque de Sidon Paul d’Antioche (XIIe s.) dans sa « Lettre à un ami musulman ».

فبعض هذه الأمور إنما يجب عليه من جهة ما هُوَ طبيب أن يتصوره بالماهية فقط تصوراً علمياً، ويصدّق بهليته تصديقاً عَلَی أنه وضع له مقبول من صاحب الْعِلْم الطَّبِيعِيّ ، وبعضها يلزمه أن يبرهن عليه فى صناعته، فما كان من هذه كالمبادئ فيلزمه أن يتقلد هليتها، فإن مبادئ العلوم الْجُزْئِيَّة مسلمة وتتبرهن وتتبين فى علوم اُخَر أقدم منها، وهكذا حتّي يرتقي مبادئ العلوم كُلّها إلی الحكمة الأوْلی التي يقال لها علم ما بعد الطبيعة. وإذا شرع بعض المتطببين وأخذ يَتَكَلَّم فى إثبات العناصر والمزاج وما يتلو ذلك مما هُوَ موضوع الْعِلْم الطَّبِيعِيّ فإنه يغلط من حيث إنه يورد فى صناعة الطِّبِّ ما لَيْسَ من صناعة الطِّبِّ ويغلط من حيث يظن أنه يبيّن شيئاً ولا يَكُونُ قد بيّنه البتة .
و«جالينوس»، إذ حأوْل إقامة البرهان عَلَي  الْقِسْم الأوْل فلا يجب أن يحأوْل ذلك من جهة أنه طبيب ولكن من جهة أنه يحب  أن يَكُونَ فيلسوفاً يَتَكَلَّم فى الْعِلْم الطَّبِيعِيّ ، كما أن الفقيه إذا حاوْل أن يثبت صحة وجوب متابعة الإجماع فلَيْسَ ذلك له من جهة ما هُوَ فقيه، ولكن من جهة ما هُوَ متكلم ولكن الطبيب من جهة ما هُوَ طبيب والفقيه من جهة ما هُوَ فقيه لَيْسَ  يمكنه أن يبرهن عَلَي  ذاك بتة!  وإلا وقع الدَّوْر
القانون في الطب ابن سينا
.

The idea of the Suspended Man in Space or Suspended man in the air is also known with titles of Flying Man or Floating Man and Into Thin Air. Avicenna introduces this idea in The Book of Healing, and Remarks and Admonitions (Pointers and Reminders or Al-Ishārāt wa al-Tanbīhāt), and a treatise on Knowledge of the Rational Soul, and in the Risālah aḍḥawīyah fī amr al-miʻād  or Judgment Day. This repetition reflects the importance of this idea in his mind. He also points out this argument in his two writings, Al-Taʿlīqāt and Discussions (al-Mubāḥathāt), which contain his dialogues with his disciples, and provides explanations about some criticisms sustained against the idea. This indicates that, since that time, the idea, which is considered one of Avicenna’s innovations, has been debated and criticized.
we should point out that the idea of the suspended man in space proposed by Ibn Sina, which has had extensive applications in the Muslim world and the Western world to the present time, intends to demonstrate an immaterial soul for man; the soul that perceives itself as intuitive knowledge and is not a body or a part of the body. In this paper, four different interpretations of this idea were presented. For any further critique and analysis of the Avicennian idea of the suspended man, these four readings must be initially taken into account. Among these readings, some considered philosophical and abstract aspects and some considered empirical aspects. With the simultaneous attention to these interpretations, we can gain a more comprehensive view of this argument and, thus, take a more in-depth look at the vital matter of the human soul and its immateriality.

What are the most fundamental concepts of our mind in Avicenna's philosophy and what was his influence on Thomas Aquina's philosophy? Thomas built on Avicenna's work and founded the concepts on the concept of being, ordering the others hierarchically.

According to Avicenna, some of the objects of mathematics exist and some do not. Every existing mathematical object is a non-sensible connotational attribute of a physical object and can be perceived by the faculty of estimation. Non-existing mathematical objects can be represented and perceived by the faculty of imagination through separating and combining parts of the images of existing mathematical objects that are previously perceived by estimation. In any case, even non-existing mathematical objects should be considered as properties of material entities. They can never be grasped as fully immaterial entities. Avicenna believes that we cannot grasp any mathematical concepts unless we first have some specific perceptual experiences. It is only through the ineliminable and irreplaceable operation of the faculties of estimation and imagination upon some sensible data that we can grasp mathematical concepts. This shows that Avicenna endorses some sort of concept empiricism about mathematics.

Traduction, introduite et annotée, d’Ibn Taymiyya, « Kitāb al-Ṣafadiyya », édition M. R. Sālim, t. I, p. 258, l. 7 - 277, l. 3. Ibn Taymiyya propose dans ces pages une lecture particulièrement critique de l’évolution de la pensée islamique en ses divers développements, qu’ils soient théologiques, philosophiques, mystiques ou, parfois même, jurisprudentiels. Selon lui, ce sont les « idées intellectuelles corrompues et les interprétations déviantes » des théologiens du Kalām qui égarèrent maints penseurs postérieurs, corrompirent leur raison comme leur religion et les amenèrent à « traiter les Envoyés de menteurs »

This study is the first comprehensive analysis of the physical theory of the Islamic philosopher Avicenna (d. 1037). It seeks to understand his contribution against the developments within the preceding Greek and Arabic intellectual milieus, and to appreciate his philosophy as such by emphasising his independence as a critical and systematic thinker. Exploring Avicenna’s method of "teaching and learning," it investigates the implications of his account of the natural body as a three-dimensionally extended composite of matter and form, and examines his views on nature as a principle of motion and his analysis of its relation to soul. Moreover, it demonstrates how Avicenna defends the Aristotelian conception of place against the strident criticism of his predecessors, among other things, by disproving the existence of void and space. Finally, it sheds new light on Avicenna’s account of the essence and the existence of time. For the first time taking into account the entire range of Avicenna’s major writings, this study fills a gap in our understanding both of the history of natural philosophy in general and of the philosophy of Avicenna in particular.

Winner of the BRAIS-De Gruyter Prize 2017:
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Winner of the Bavarian Culture Prize 2017:
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Winner of the World Award for Book of the Year 2020:
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This book is a detailed analysis of the twelfth century Muslim philosopher Averroes (Abū al-Walīd Muḥammad Ibn Aḥmad Ibn Rushd), in particular his (in)famous ‘unicity thesis,’ i.e., the view that there is only one, separate, and eternal intellect that all human beings share. I focus directly on Averroes’s arguments, both from the immediate text of Aristotle’s De Anima, and, more importantly, his own powerful, philosophical arguments in the Long Commentary on the De Anima. I draw attention to Averroes’s broader metaphysical commitments, and I consider alternative positions throughout (especially from two important foils—Avicenna and Thomas Aquinas), including a separate chapter on Aquinas’s well-known and penetrating objections to the unicity thesis. My aim is to provide readers a single study on Averroes’s most pivotal arguments, offering a comprehensive case for and defense of his unicity thesis in the wider context of ancient and medieval Aristotelian philosophies of intellect.

Bu çalışma öz olarak Sicilya Kralı II. Friedrich tarafından cevabını vermek üzere
İbn Seb’în’e yöneltilen dört felsefî sorunun ilkini yani âlemin kıdeminin Aristo
tarafından niçin kabul edildiğini ve bunun gerekçesinin geçerliliğini sorgulamakta
ve bu sorunun İbn Sînâ felsefesindeki izlerini sürmektedir.
İbn Seb’în’in, bu meselede Kral’a verdiği cevap çeşitli aşamalardan geçerek
teşekkül etmektedir. Onun felsefî düsturu hakkında bilgi veren bu aşamalar
felsefenin sahip olması gereken usulüne dair önemli bilgiler içermektedir. İbn
Seb’în sorulan soruya vereceği cevabı hazırlarken özellikle felsefî bir zemin
oluşturmakta, en başta sorunun sorulma şeklini düzeltmekte, akabinde Aristo’nun
nasıl anlaşıldığını ve nasıl anlaşılması gerektiğini açıklamaktadır. İbn Seb’în kralın ilk sorusuna Aristo’dan on bir burhan getirmektedir. Bu burhanlar birbirleriyle bağlantı kurularak ve birbirini izleyen bir sıradüzen ile anlaşıldığında sorunun cevabı teşekkül etmektedir. Biz bu çalışmamızda Aristo’nun İbn Seb’în tarafından aktarılan ve yorumlanan burhanlarına İbn Sînâ’nın burhânî katkısını da ekleyecek, bir nevi İbn Seb’în’de Meşşai felsefenin izlerini süreceğiz.

The paper deals with Avicenna's polemical attitude towards the traditional definition of differentia specifica as predicated of many items differing in species in the “what sort of thing is it?” that can be found in Porphyry's Isagoge. Two places of the reworking of Porphyry's Isagoge (Madḫal) at the beginning of Avicenna’s summa entitled Kitāb al-Šifāʾ will be mainly considered: the original account of differentia in chap. I, 13; and the rejection of Porphyry’s distinction between genus and differentia in chap. II, 1. By comparing these passages of Madḫal to other sections of the Šifāʾ, it will be possible to reconstruct in a comprehensive way Avicenna's refutation of the traditional account of differentia, in order to explain his preference for alternative definitions of this predicable in his other logical works. The exegetical problems posed by Porphyry’s definition of differentia, and the Greek and Arabic commentators’ ensuing discussions, provide the context in which Avicenna elaborates his refutation. Against this background, it will be argued that Avicenna is carrying out a refutation of the account of differentia first advanced by Porphyry and later adopted by the contemporary Peripatetic commentators active in Baghdad, in his effort to achieve a consistent interpretation of Aristotle's claims on differentia.

The present contribution reconstructs several passages from Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn's lost Arabic translation of Aristotle's De Anima, based on the Hebrew and the Latin versions produced from Isḥāq's Arabic, as well as on Isḥāq's extant Arabic translation of Themistius' commentary on Aristotle's De Anima. The relationship between these texts is carefully examined. One passage from Ibn Zurʿa's supplement to Isḥāq's translation of Aristotle's De Anima is similarly reconstructed. The reconstruction sheds light on Avicenna's commentatorial technique in his Marginal Notes on the De Anima and on Averroes' commentatorial technique in his Long Commentary on the same book.

از مشهورترین و مهم‌ترین آموزه‌های متافیزیک سینوی، طرح تمایز میان وجود و ماهیت است: تمایزی سرنوشت‌ساز و مناقشه‌برانگیز؛ از یک سو این تمایز، راه را برای طرح برخی نو‌آوری‌های فلسفی می‌گشاید و از سوی دیگر، موجبِ انتقادات جدی به فلسفه ابن‌سینا می‌شود. اما پرسشی جدی که میان مفسران ابن‌سینا تا به امروز مورد مناقشه بوده، آن است که آیا این تمایز، تمایزی ذهنی است یا هستی‌شناختی و در شق دوم آیا مدلولی غیرماهوی دارد؟ در این نوشتار پس از ترسیم محل نزاع، نشان داده می‌شود که گرچه تمامی دعاوی متافیزیکی ابن‌سینا بر تحقق مدلول غیرماهوی برای وجود مبتنی نیست، ولی پاره‌ای دعاوی و عبارات او متضمن تحقق وجود به عنوان حقیقتی غیرماهوی است. سپس با تمرکز بر عروض به عنوان مفهومی کلیدی در تبیین نحوه تحقق وجود و ماهیت در خارج، نشان داده می‌شود که ابن‌سینا به صراحت عروض وجود بر ماهیت را به معنای وابستگی عارض به معروض ندانسته و وجه صحیح حمل سخن او آن است که هم وجود و هم ماهیت را در خارج محقق دانست به گونه‌ای که از تحقق وجود، ماهیت لازم آید.

Questo volume ?! stampato con contributi parziali del Consiglio di Amministrazione dell'Universita degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro e del Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici dell'Uni\•ersita del Salento. La pubblicazione rientra nel progetto scientifico Unii,>ersaliJy and its limits: Strategi.es of Inclusion and Exclusion in the History of Philosophy and Contemporary Philosophical Debates (PRlN 2012). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.

Di zaman seperti ini kesehatan patut diperhatikan. Karena jika kita sehat, kita dapat melakukan aktifitas dengan baik, dan begitu pula sebaliknya. Apabila keadaan fisik seseorang sedang tidak baik atau dapat dikatakan sedang sakit, pastikan ketika melakukan pengobatan bukan hanya fisik saja yang sehat, melainkan keadaan psikologis juga harus sehat. Memang tidak salah melakukan pengobatan medis atau melalui pemeriksaan dokter. Akan tetapi pengobatan melalui hypnosis atau hypnotherapy juga bisa menjadi alternatif dalam proses penyembuhan.

The Shi’ah Institute in London arranged the publication of an English translation of one of the most popular Iranian textbooks of the Avicennan tradition of metaphysics in Islam. First printed in Persian in 1956, Mahdī Ḥaʾirī Yazdī’s Universal Science gives an un-contextualized presentation of the most important discussions that happened within Avicennan metaphysics since its inception in the 11th century.

In this study we will illustrate Manuscript 2197, held at the University Library of Bologna. A Splendid Unicum for its Miniatures. Avicenna and the Canon of Medicine in the Muslim world and in the West Abu ‘Ali Husayn Ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna, was born in 980 C.E. (370 of the Egira) at Afshana, near Bukhara, an important caravan centre in Central Asia, then ruled by the Samanids (819-1005). Although of Iranian culture (the language they spoke was Persian), the inhabitants of these lands, converted to Islam starting from the eighth century e.v., were an integral part of the vast Muslim world that at that time extended from the Atlantic to the borders of China. Consequently, the language of culture and science was also Arabic, and it is precisely in this language that Avicenna wrote almost all of his works, composed during his travels to Islamic lands until his death in 1037 in Hamadan. Avicenna was active in medical practice and what most characterized him was his prodigious memory, intertwined with a great freedom of thought. Georges Anawati divides his enormous production, which includes 276 titles including uncertain and apocryphal writings, according to the following sectors: general philosophy; logic; linguistics; poetry; physics; psychology; medicine; chemistry; mathematics; music; astronomy; metaphysics; exegesis of the Koran; mystical; moral; domestic economy; policy; prophecy; epistolography and various. 

The flying man thought experiment upon which Avicenna grounds his theory of self-awareness (al-shu‘ūr al-dhātī) and justifies the argument that the soul is an immaterial, incorporeal and independent substance, has drawn as much interest in the modern era as it has in the classical Islamic and Latin worlds, spawning various interpretations on what to make of the experiment’s basic claim and purpose. Commentators of both traditions differ on the basic claim and purpose of the flying man experiment, depending the ontological and epistemological attitudes they emphasize. This study firstly tries to clarify the claim and purpose of the experiment, inasmuch as it forms the basis of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s criticisms. It proceeds to briefly point out the context of the experiment from Avicenna to al-Rāzī, and examine al-Rāzī’s comments and criticisms thereof. Since he rejects the claim that the soul is an immaterial, incorporeal and independent substance, it follows that al-Rāzī does not understand the term essence (dhāt) in self-awareness (al-shu‘ūr al-dhātī) in the same way as Avicenna, who through the experiment, argues the exact opposite. Al-Rāzī rather interprets essence directly as the self, from which he proceeds to develop a distinct understanding of self-awareness.

This article explores Avicenna's conception of divine providence in the light of his allegorical work Decree and Determination (R. fī l-Qaḍāʾ wa-l-qadar), wherein the philosopher stages interactions between the rational soul, the animal soul, and the Active Intelligence. Centering on the parable of the two generous men told in Decree and Determination by the legendary sage Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, this analysis draws parallels from numerous works of Avicenna—notably his other allegorical work, Alive, Son of Awake (R. Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān)—so as to bring into focus lesser-known facets of his philosophical worldview.

In the last 30 years, information technology produced tens of thousands of information systems covering and infiltrating into almost all the aspects of human endeavor, from business processes to linguistics, from military to life sciences and driverless cars. To have effective and precise communication among the different people (system analysts, architects, designers, programmers, testers, etc.) working in the IT industry, the necessity of a standardized language capable of representing cognitive models of such a variety of the different areas of reality emerged.
After different trials, in 1997, UML (Unified Modeling Language), a widely known general-purpose modeling language used in software engineering, developed and maintained by OMG (Object Management Group) to respond to this demand, was standardized. UML is a useful tool for capturing and representing abstract
entities' essence and their relations, processes, and behavior of different systems.

For conceptual modeling focusing on the areas where the ontology is critical, OntoUML, an ontology-driven conceptual modeling language, practically an extension of UML, was proposed in 2005 by Giancarlo Guizzardi and his colleagues working in Ontology & Conceptual Modeling Research Group (NEMO). OntoUML is based on
the theoretical ground worked out in the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO).
Because UML and OntoUML have the capability to represent abstract conceptual structures in a highly standardized and formalized manner - in my opinion - they have the intrinsic capacity to be used in such surprising areas as philosophy.

The scope of this paper is to demonstrate the feasibility of the graphical representation of philosophical concepts using UML and OntoUML diagrams and methods. This approach could help in philosophy for mapping, explaining, clarifying, and model checking, in the same way as symbols in mathematics.

This article discusses the interplay between Hermannus' version of Aristotle and his citations from Avicenna, looking both at the translator’s statements and at his practice. I concentrate firstly on the various degree of literality Hermannus employs when he deals with his different authors, and secondly on the principles that guide him in deciding which source to select in different contexts. Finally, I discuss whether and how this translation could be used to improve the Arabic editions of the Rhetoric and of the Book of the Cure, and on what this might tell us about the early transmission of these texts.

Historical considerations have always been open to doubts and have led to ambiguities for researchers. Recently, doubts have been raised concerning the name and sobriquet of the famous scientist and physician of the seventh Hijrī century 'Alā' al-Dīn Abū al-Ḥasan 'Alī ibn Abī al-Ḥazm /al-Ḥaram al-Qarashi, known as Ibn al-Nafīs. In this study, we investigated these uncertainties and attempted to arrive at his accurate name and sobriquet through data from codicology, as well as Islamic medicine manuscripts and his works in other scientific traditions. Accordingly, we referred to various versions of his works, such as al-Mūjaz, Sharh al-Qānūn fī al-ṭibb(Commentary on Avicenna's Canon of Medicine) etc., as well as citations by his contemporaries and posterities, and presented many doubts regarding attributing the sobriquet Ibn al-Nafīs to him. Nevertheless, this does not bring about the conclusion that this attribution is incorrect; however, exercising caution in using the sobriquet Ibn al-Nafīs for this great physician appears sensible. Therefore, it is recommended that encyclopedias use al-Qarashi for the entry of his name. Also, we considered four possibilities in his lineage and showed that among Qarshi, Qurashi and Qarashi readings, the latter reading is supported by more evidence. Nonetheless, other readings are not generally rejected but citing Qarashi in studies appears more reasonable. With regard to the title (kunya) of his father mentioned along with Qarashi's name as Ibn Abī al-Ḥaram or Ibn Abī al-Ḥazm, we showed that contrary to the view of contemporary researchers none of the two possibilities should be excluded and preferably in contemporary citations the word should be written as al-Ḥaram/al-Ḥazm. Ultimately, using several handwritten manuscripts attributed to him, and the writings of contemporary researchers, we arrived at the conclusion that the best form of mentioning his name in texts and articles are in short 'Alā' al-Dīn al-Qarashi or as a full name Abū al-Ḥasan 'Alī ibn Abī al-Ḥaram/al-Ḥazm al-Qarashi.

مسئله هراس از مرگ از مسائلی است که  از یک‌سو در تاریخ فلسفه و از سوی دیگر، در تاریخ و اخلاق پزشکی مورد توجه اندیشمندان قرار گرفته است. از گذشته علاوه بر آثار ادبی و نگاه‌های اسطوره‌ای منعکس‌شده در داستان‌ها و نمایشنامه‌ها و متون عرفانی و غنوصی، فیلسوفان نیز نتایج اندیشه‌ ورزی خود را در این خصوص در آثار فلسفی منعکس کرده‌اند. در یونان باستان، در کنار اندیشه‌ ورزی‌های سقراط و افلاطون، اپیکوری‌ها و رواقی‌ها نیز در فلسفه‌ ورزی در زمینه هراس از مرگ سهم بسزایی داشته‌اند. در جهان اسلام نیز اندیشمندانی همچون محمد زکریای رازی و ابوعلی مسکویه و ملاصدرا در اینباره سخن گفته‌اند. امّا در این میان، تنها تک‌نگاری موجود در زمینه هراس از مرگ که به تفصیل این موضوع را مورد توجه قرار داده، منسوب به بوعلی سینا است. از این رساله با نام‌های «الشفاء من خوف الموت ومعالجة داء الاغتمام» و «دفع الغمّ من الموت» یاد شده است. ابن‌سینا هم فیلسوفی برجسته، هم یکی از بزرگترین پزشکان دوره اسلامی است و بنا براین شایسته نظر‌ ورزی در خصوص این مسئله مرزی میان فلسفه و پزشکی است؛ ازاین‌ رو، محققان پس از وی و بویژه پژوهشگران معاصر ارجاعات بسیاری به نگاشته او داشته‌اند. با بهره‌گیری از پژوهش‌های پیشین و برخی دلایل متن‌شناختی دیگر روشن می‌شود که این رساله در اصل بخشی از کتاب تهذیب الأخلاق و تطهیر الأعراق ابوعلی مسکویه است که به اشتباه به ابن‌سینا نسبت داده شده است. این انتساب بدلیل اشتباه ناسخان، به سهو یا به عمد رخ داده است. پس از بررسی وجوه مختلفی که به این اشتباه انجامیده، انتساب این رساله به ابن‌ سینا نفی و صحت انتسابش به مسکویه اثبات می‌شود
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Throughout history, the fear of death or thanatophobia has preoccupied philosopher’s ideas and medical issues, and ethics. Since ancient times, philosophers have expressed their ideas about death and fear of dying in their books, alongside literary texts, stories, mystical and gnostic texts. In ancient Greece, in addition to Socrates and Plato, the Epicureans and Stoics played an important role in philosophizing death and thanatophobia. In the realm of Islamic philosophy, thinkers like Muhammad ibn Zakariyyā al-Rāzī (Rhazes), Abū ʿAlī Miskawayh, and Mulla-Sadra have commented on death and thanatophobia. Nevertheless, the only monograph which deals with death and death anxiety in detail is Philosophical Approaches to Thanatophobia and its Treatments, the authorship of which is attributed to the great philosopher and physician of the Islamic world, Avicenna. The work, which is published in the collection of Avicenna’s treatises, has been translated under different titles. As an eminent philosopher and competent physician, Avicenna has aptly philosophized death and thanatophobia, the authenticity has been acknowledged by the numerous references scholars and academicians have made to the work. However, the work, as this study suggests, is wrongly attributed to Avicenna. This treatise is, originally, a part of Abū ʿAlī Miskawayh’s Tahdhīb al-Akhlāq was Taṭhir al-Aʿaraq (Refinement of character and purification of dispositions), wrongly attributed to Avicenna, whether intentionally or inadvertently. Examining different aspects of this wrong attribution, this study textually demonstrates that the treatise is written by Miskawayh.

For Avicenna, happiness in the afterlife is twofold: on the one hand, it consists, as it does in this life, of the perception of bodily pleasure (this is also how revealed Law explains it); on the other, it is intellectual and involves the soul, in so far as the latter is separate from the body. In this respect, the pleasure of the soul – whose destiny is to become an intellectual world – is absolute. The bases of this doctrine are Avicenna’s intellectual psychology and his theory of knowledge, which in turn explains his philosophical elitism.

This paper investigates a peculiar moment of the Latin reception of the Arabophone theologian and philosopher Abū Ḥāmid al-Ġazālī (d. 1111) in the works of Albert the Great (d. 1280). It focuses primarily on a rather atypical remark in Albert’s commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, which accurately describes al-Ġazālī as opposing the theory of the eternity of the world, and as the source, in connection with Moses Maimonides (d. 1204), of a particular philosophical argument concerning potentiality in the debate on the theory. Furthermore, it takes into account another peculiar description of al-Ġazālī offered in Albert’s Super Ethica, in which the Islamic thinker known in Europe as the most faithful follower of Avicenna is startlingly portrayed as a Jewish theologian. With the tools of doctrinal, philological, and broadly historical analysis, the paper investigates three interconnected but separate questions : (1) how Albert could have known that al-Ġazālī actually denied the eternity of the world, as opposed to the common view of the Latin Algazel as a believer in it ; (2) how Albert could have known about al-Ġazālī’s argument on potentiality, given that the source was an as yet untranslated work (al-Ġazālī’s Tahāfut al-falāsifa); and (3) what could account for the fact that Albert returned in later works to regarding al-Ġazālī as accepting the world’s eternity.

Invited talk for "Macrocosms and Microcosms: From Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages," University of Cambridge, 24th - 26th September, 2021.

The map of the pre-modern world, Asia, Africa, and Europe, is drawn collectively in the shape of a bird and fits with the Islamic Neoplatonic conception of the bird as the ultimate mediator between God and his people in communication with the cosmos and God’s angels through the process of emanation. The meaning of the bird in the map is explained through the Neoplatonic doctrine of Emanation (fayd) and the way in which it creates a link between man and God: microcosm to macrocosm.

In Neoplatonic philosophy, the rational soul is symbolized as a bird. When deprived of its natural intellectual ability (symbolized by the ability to fly), the bird/soul falls captive to the instincts and passions of the lower faculties of the animal soul. Imprisoned by the physical demands of matter, it is condemned to endless exile among the desolate wastelands and meaningless signposts of microcosmic earthly existence. At a larger collective metaphoric level, the bird/dove/pigeon symbolizes the plight of the rational souls of all humanity and therefore it can be used as a metaphorical representation for the world.

But the bird can forget its nets and cages and learn to fly again. In this sense, the bird also symbolizes redemption and the possibility of return to the macrocosmic Universal Intellect. It is thus not surprising to find that the bird is an oft-repeated motif in Islamicate culture with a multitude of meanings related to the bird’s reflection of soul and its ability to be closer to the heavens and God.

The main object of this paper is to clarify and evaluate Avicenna's view of universals, in light of some modern and contemporary discussions. According to Avicenna, universality is a contingent attribute of entities that are in themselves neither universal nor particular. An account of universality as a contingent attribute is offered which clarifies and gives additional support to Avicenna's view. Nevertheless, it will be argued that Avicenna, through his use of such terms as " nature " and " quiddity, " faces the same problems which he attributes to his predecessors.

This chapter will focus on two aspects of Aquinas’ treatment of memory: its sources, primarily in Aristotle and Ibn Sina, and the distinctive position he takes on intellectual memory that he draws in partial opposition to Ibn Sina. Memory in the proper sense involves a corporeal faculty for the retention of temporally indexed sensible forms – temporally indexed particular sense information employed teleologically in the life of perfect animals. Sense memory is memory per se, while intellectual memory, a habitual state of knowledge in the incorporeal faculty of intellect, is only memory per accidens. The chapter will proceed in two stages, considering sense memory first and then intellectual memory. There are several important settings for understanding Aquinas’ account of memory –
primarily his Commentary on Aristotle’s On Memory and Recollection, and his Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, but also his development of his general account of the powers of the soul in the Summa Contra Gentiles, the Summa Theologiae, and the Disputed Questions on the Soul. Thematically, he works out his account in his dispute with Ibn Sina on the correct interpretation of Aristotle on the intellect, particularly on intellectual memory, but also his discussion of the human as an image of God, engaging Augustine’s theory of mind from the latter’s De Trinity. So Aquinas’ positions on memory, sensory and intellectual, provide a striking instance of the interplay of philosophical and theological concerns in his thought.

In this study we will illustrate the Manuscript 2197, held at the University Library of Bologna. A Splendid Unicum for its Miniatures. Avicenna and the Canon of Medicine. Abu ‘Ali HusaynIbn Sina, known in the West as vicenna, was born in 980 C.E.(370 of the Egira) at Afshana, near Bukhara, an important caravan centre in Central Asia, then ruled by the Samanids(819-1005). Although of Iranian culture (the language they spoke was Persian), the inhabitants of these lands, converted to Islam starting from the eighth century e.v., were an integral part of the vast Muslim world that at that time extended from the Atlantic at the borders of China. Consequently, the language of culture and science in Bukhara was also Arabic, and it is precisely in this language that Avicenna wrote almost all of his works composed during his travels to Islamic lands until his death in 1037 in Hamadan.

Ascension/Mi’raj of the Prophet Mohammad is explored and examined
from different, agonistic approaches and fields of study in Muslim intellectual history. One of them is by Avicenna, in the format of an independent Persian treatise (Heravi version [1986]; and Heath translation [1992] are the bases of my paper).
Here on the basis of the internal logic of Mohammad's narrated account, I consider it as a kind of hypnopompic dream.

Avicenna describes Hads as an intense ability to "connect with the (supernal) intellectual entities." He explains that "regarding such a person, concerning everything (one can think of) the forms of the active intellect are recorded in his mind spontaneously or close to that, structured in an arrangement which is not based on oral tradition but on the middle term (of a syllogism)". 
My purpose in this paper is to explain the possible motivation behind the objections by Jewish thinkers to this intellectual prophecy (hads). The philosophers whom I examine herein do not reject Hads openly and explicitly.  In most cases they prefer to keep the original framework of hads and its basic terminology, but to apply to it different functions, so it can fit their particular concept of prophecy.
While Ibn Daud contends that inspiration occurs only through syllogism, a  rationalist philosopher like Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) barely tolerate the blurring of boundaries between fantasy and cogitation, syllogistic knowledge and a sudden flash of inspiration, which are the main characteristic of  hads.
I assume that the two opposing approaches to intellectual prophecy - the hyper-philosophical and the anti-philosophical - which are reflected and echoed in the attitude of the Jewish philosophers to hads are both reactions to information transmitted through Al-Ghazali’s writings. Al-Ghazali sticks to the scientific framework of the doctrine of hads; he gives a careful description of the concept of hads and explains its assimilation with the intellectual functions of the human mind. Although he mentions the connection between hads and sanctification, Al-Ghazali refrains from equating Hads with supra-natural inspiration. Al-Ghazali’s strategy in favor of Hads might be explained by its affinity to dhawq, which along with Avicenna’s hads, offer an alternative to the philosophers’ strict syllogism.

Le commentaire du Poème de l'âme d'Avicenne par le polygraphe al-Munāwī (m. 1031/1622) Précisons tout d'abord que al-Munāwī 1 (m. 1031/1622) vécut à la période ottomane dans la ville du Caire où il passa toute sa vie. Nous savons par ailleurs que Dāwūd al-Anṭākī y séjourna aussi quelques années afin d'y étudier. Dans son commentaire du poème sur l'âme d'Ibn Sīnā, al-Munāwī nous apprend que Dāwūd al-Anṭākī fut son maître, comme l'indique cette mention : al-Munāwī, Kitāb Šarḥ al-Munāwī 'alā Qaṣīdat al-nafs li-bn Sīnā. Wa-fīhi ta'rīf al-rūḥ, al-Fatanī M. R. (éd.), Maṭba'a l-mawsū'āt, Le Caire, 1318/1900 Un savant, une identité intellectuelle L'oeuvre écrite de ʽAbd al-Raʼūf al-Munāwī (m. 1031/1622) est sans conteste l'une des plus riches et des plus importantes du XIe/XVIIe siècle, en langue arabe. Il s'intéressa à toutes les sciences islamiques de son époque qu'il maîtrisa de façon exceptionnelle. À ce titre, il incarne parfaitement l'idéal

سنت های علمی و فلسفی پویا همواره با بررسی و نقد اندیشه پیشینیان و هم اندیشی و مباحثات علمی با معاصران همراه است. فلسفه اسلامی نیز به عنوان یکی سنت دانشی در جهان اسلام با نقد و ارزیابی دیدگاه های پیشینیان شکل گرفته و در این راستا، در دوره هایی معاصران علمی نیز به نقد و بررسی دیدگاه های یکدیگر پرداخته اند.
در این مسیر ابن سینا به عنوان شاخص ترین چهره فلسفی علمی جهان اسلام با پدید آوردن آثار متعدد در شاخه های مختلف دانش و به ویژه فلسفه و پزشکی جایگاه مهمی در سنت علمی و فلسفی تمدن اسلامی دارد. آثار و اندیشه های او با نقد و ارزیابی دیدگاه های فلسفی پیشین همراه بوده و خود نیز توسط معاصران و پسینیان مورد بررسی و نقد قرار گرفته است و از این رو، آثار سینوی مواد خوبی را در عرصه مطالعات نقد در اختیار پژوهشگران می گذارد.
امروزه با گسترش یافتن مسئله نقد و نقادی به عنوان یکی از زمینه های علم ورزی و نگارش آثار تحقیقی عرصه ای با عنوان فرانقد پدید آمده که از جمله به اصول اخلاقی نقد می پردازد. در این مقاله کوشش شده است با تأکید بر یکی از آثار ابن سینا –المباحثات- که در آن بررسی و نقدهای بوعلی و معاصران وی انعکاس یافته است، مباحث اخلاق نقد از دیدگاه بوعلی بازخوانی شود. با بررسی عبارت های بوعلی ویژگی هایی چون نقدپذیری، اعتراف به عجز علمی و تضرع به باری تعالی در یافتن مسائل، انتخاب مسؤولانه، مطالعه جدی و کوشش در صدد فهم و تفسیر صحیح متن مورد نقد و ارائه تصویر درست از دیدگاه ها با رعایت اصل خیرخواهی، دقت و شفافیت در بیان با توجه به اصل صداقت، امانت و شجاعت  و همینطور انديشه گستري و جستجوی علمی مُجدّانه به عنوان برخی اصول اخلاقی نقد یافت می شود.

The article discusses how it is possible for two Islamic philosophers to claim that the generation of the body is necessary for the soul to arise, and, at the same time, to affirm that the latter can separate from the body, whether by becoming an immaterial intellect ‒in the case of al-Fārābī‒, or an immortal, individual soul ‒in the case of Avicenna. While the former is close to Peripatetic hylemorphism, the latter adopts a robust dualism. The paper argues that the integration of cosmology, biology, and noetics leads, in both cases, to a coherent reconciliation between the natural origin of the soul and its immaterial nature.

This paper examines the relationship between intellectuals and the rulers in reference to securing human resources. Intellectuals made use of their specialised disciplines and skills to serve the caliphs and warlords, but they also often served outside their own areas of specialisation. Thus, the act of gathering intellectuals, providing allowances, protecting them and supporting their work meant that the rulers, when they encountered political, diplomatic or administrative needs, were able to use the abilities of specialists both within and outside their fields of specialisation and their personal connections to address the issues they were facing. And this paper indicates that the majlis were used to secure such human resources. It was a place or an opportunity where monarchs, high officials, academics with various specialisations and other influential people gathered, discussed specific topics, indulged in table-talk and exchanged information. In this way, talented people were found and recruited. The results of this paper were obtained by deciphering historical materials such as chronicles, biographies, and anecdotes. Much of the information on the relationship between intellectuals and rulers preserved in various historical materials may not yet be available. This paper provides a starting point for collecting such information.

Making Room for the Existence of Individual: Foundation and Definition of Soul in Aristotle and Ibn Sīnā
Ibn Sīnā adopts a dualist understanding about human beings, in other words, human is composed of two separate substances as soul and body. However, in his examination, the human being is considered in point of the soul rather than the body. Aristotle’s position on the same subject is a bit closer to the physicalists. So, in his philosophy, the human being is respected in terms of body. However, in his examination of the soul, there are statements that would enervate his stance. In this study, I will try to reveal how the soul is defined by both philosophers and how this definition is based. Here, I will try to analyze the similarities and differences between the two philosophers on the basis of their definition of soul. Also, I will focus on the reasons and results of the acceptance of the soul as an entelechy by both philosophers. Another matter that I will deal within the context of the definition is how the individual existence of the soul emerges and shapes. As a matter of fact that the existence of the individual becomes problematic when the soul considered as a universal. I will try to focus on how to room for the existence of an individual in the contex of this problem.
Key Words: Islamic Philosophy, soul, individual, Aristotle, Ibn Sīnā

One of the issues discussed in Islamic philosophy is the soul. This subject has been mostly studied in the axis of soul-nafs concepts. Whether the concepts of soul and nafs are the same is still a
matter of debate. In this article, a step has been taken towards eliminating the existing conceptual confusion by including the evaluations of Ibn Sînâ on these two concepts. In addition, the
relationship between soul and body was also discussed in the context of his work titled alKasīdetū'l-Ayniyyetū'r-Rūhiyye fi'n-Nafs (Spirit Ode), which directly addressed this issue and
has many commentaries. Avicenna points out both the temporal relationship of the soul with
the body and reveals that death is not the extinction in this ode. It can be said that Ibn Sînâ's explanations on the concepts of soul and nafs, her comments on the relationship between soul and
body are in a certain extent responsive to the questions of today's human being about the soul.
Key Words: : Islamic Philosophy, Avicenna, Soul, Body, Death.

The present volume hosts the proceedings of the conference “A Crossroad between East and West: The Latin Medieval Translations of the Kitāb al-Šifāʾ (Book of the Cure) of Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna)”, which took place in Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore, on 1-3 July 2015 in the framework of the project “Philosophy on the Border of Civilizations and Intellectual Endeavours: Towards a Critical Edition of the Metaphysics (Ilāhiyyāt of Kitāb al-Šifāʾ) of Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā)”, financed by the European Research Council (ERC Advanced Grant, 2014-2019, www.avicennaproject.eu). Some additional articles (N. Caminada, A. Astesiano, N. Polloni, I. Panzeca) complement the papers first presented at the conference. The decision to devote a conference expressly to the Latin translations of the various parts of Avicenna’s philosophical masterpiece produced during the Middle Ages, and, now, to publish the papers of the meeting in a self-standing volume that deals comprehensively with the topic – in both cases for the first time, to the best of our knowledge – finds its justification in the necessity of approaching this key event of the Arabic-into-Latin transmission of philosophical culture in a comprehensive rather than piecemeal way.

DOCUMENTI E STUDI SULLA TRADIZIONE FILOSOFICA MEDIEVALE XXVIII, 2017:
AMOS BERTOLACCI, TOMMASO ALPINA, Introduction — FRANÇOISE HUDRY, La traduction latine de la Logica Avicennae et son auteur — SILVIA DI VINCENZO, Is There a versio vulgata of Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Šifāʾ ? On the Hypothesis of a Double Recension of Kitāb al-Madḫal — NICCOLÒ CAMINADA, A Latin Translation ? The Reception of Avicenna in Albert the Great’s De praedicamentis — RICCARDO STROBINO, Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Burhān, II.7 and its Latin Translation by Gundissalinus : Content and Text — GAIA CELLI, The Rhetoric Section of the Kitāb al-Šifāʾ : Hermannus Alemannus’ Latin Translation and the Arabic Witnesses — FRÉDÉRIQUE WOERTHER, Citer/traduire. La traduction arabo-latine de la Rhétorique d’Aristote par Hermann l’Allemand et les citations d’al-Fārābī et Averroès — JULES JANSSENS, The Liber primus naturalium, i.e., the Physics of the Avicenna latinus — ALESSIA ASTESIANO, L’inizio di un movimento nella fisica del continuo : Avicenna lettore di Aristotele (Libro della guarigione, Fisica, III, 6) — CRISTINA CERAMI, The De Caelo et Mundo of Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Šifāʾ : An Overview of its Structure, its Goal and its Polemical Background — SILVIA DI DONATO, Les trois traductions latines de la Météorologie  d’Avicenne : notes pour l’histoire du texte — ELISA RUBINO, The Commentary of Alfred of Shareshill on the pseudo-Aristotelian De mineralibus — TOMMASO ALPINA, Al‐Ǧūzǧānī Insertion of On Cardiac Remedies in Avicenna’s Book of the Soul : the Latin Translation as a Clue to his Editorial Activity on the Book of the Cure ? — AAFKE VAN OPPENRAAY, Avicenna’s Liber de animalibus (‘Abbreviatio Avicennae’). Preliminaries and State of Affairs — RÜDIGER ARNZEN, Double Translations in the Latin Version of the Metaphysics of Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Šifāʾ — ALFONSO QUARTUCCI, Avicenna’s Notion of al-mawḍūʿ al-awwal (‘first subject’) in Ilāhiyyāt, I, 1-2 and its Latin Reception — AMOS BERTOLACCI, The Latin Translation and the Original Version of the Ilāhiyyāt (Science of Divine Things) of Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Šifāʾ — NICOLA POLLONI, Gundissalinus and Avicenna : Some Remarks on an Intricate Philosophical Connection  — IVANA PANZECA, On the Persian Translations of Avicenna’s Ilāhiyyāt — INDICE DEI MANOSCRITTI  — INDICE DEI NOMI