Everything about Avicennism totally explained
Avicennism is a school of
early Islamic philosophy which flourished during the
Islamic Golden Age. The school was founded by
Avicenna (Ibn Sina), an 11th-century
Persian philosopher who attempted to redefine the course of
Islamic philosophy and channel it into new directions. His
metaphysical system is built on ingredients and conceptual building blocks which are largely
Aristotelian and
Neoplatonic, but the final structure is something other than the sum of its parts. Avicenna himself hints at this when introducing his magnum opus,
The Book of Healing, where he writes:
There is nothing in the books of the ancients but we've included in this our book. If something isn't found in a place where it's normally found, it would be found in another place where I judge it more fit to be in. I've added to this what I've apprehended with my thought and attained through my reflection, particularly in physics, metaphysics and logic.
Due to his successful reconciliation between Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism along with
Islamic theology, Avicennism eventually became the leading school of Islamic philosophy by the 12th century. Avicenna had become a central authority on philosophy by then, and several scholars in the 12th century commented on his strong influence at the time:
al-Ghazali, and philosophers such as
Averroes and
Sufis, Avicenna's writings spread like fire and continued until today to form the basis of philosophic education in the Islamic world. For to the extent that the post-Averroistic tradition remained philosophic, especially in the eastern Islamic lands, it moved in the directions charted for it by Avicenna in the investigation of both theoretical and practical sciences. Finally the tide of
Averroism was to submerge the effects of Avicennism in
Christianity.
Introduction
Ibn Sīnā wrote extensively on the subjects of
philosophy,
logic,
ethics,
metaphysics, and other disciplines, including treatises named
Logic and
Metaphysics. Most of his works were written in
Arabic - which was the
de facto scientific
language of that time, and some were written in the
Persian language. Of linguistic significance even to this day are a few books that he wrote in nearly pure Persian language (particularly the Danishnamah-yi 'Ala', Philosophy for Ala' ad-Dawla'). Ibn Sīnā's commentaries on Aristotle often corrected the philosopher, encouraging a lively debate in the spirit of
ijtihad.
Ibn Sīnā's philosophical tenets have become of great interest to critical Western scholarship and to those engaged in the field of Muslim philosophy, in both the West and the East. However, it's still the case that the West only pays attention to a portion of his philosophy known as the
Latin Avicennian School. Ibn Sīnā's philosophical contributions have been overshadowed by Orientalist scholarship (for example that of
Henri Corbin), which has sought to define him as a mystic rather than an
Aristotelian philosopher. The so-called
حكمت مشرقيه (
hikmat-al-mashriqqiyya) remains a source of huge irritation to contemporary Arabic scholars, in particular Reisman, Gutas, Street, and Bertolacci.
The original work, entitled
The Easterners (
al-mashriqiyun المشرقيون), was probably lost during Ibn Sīnā's lifetime;
Ibn Tufail (Abubacer) appended it to a romantic philosophical work of his own in the twelfth century, the
Hayy ibn Yaqzan, in order to validate his philosophical system, and, by the time that the work was transmitted into the West, appended as it was to a set of "mystical" opusculae and sundry essays, it was firmly accepted as a demonstration of Ibn Sīnā's "esoteric" orientation, which he concealed out of necessity from his peers.
Some argue that such interpretations of Ibn Sīnā's "true" state of mind ignore the vast corpus of work that he produced, from major treatises to slurs on his enemies and rivals, misrepresent him utterly. It also detracts attention from the fact that Muslim philosophy flourished during the ten centuries after Ibn Sīnā's death, emerging from Ibn Sīnā's inflammatory pronouncements on all matters within the world, whether physical or metaphysical; the works of the post-Avicennian Baghdadi Peripatetics and anti-Peripatetics, for example, remain to be studied in much greater detail.
Metaphysical doctrine
Early Islamic philosophy, imbued as it's with
Islamic theology, distinguishes more clearly than
Aristotelianism the difference between
essence and
existence. Whereas existence is the domain of the contingent and the accidental, essence endures within a being beyond the accidental. However, Ibn Sīnā's commentaries upon the
Metaphysics in particular demonstrate that he was much more clearly aligned with a philosophical comprehension of the metaphysical world rather than one that was grounded in theology. The philosophy of Ibn Sīnā, particularly that part relating to
metaphysics, owes much to
Aristotle and to
al-Farabi. The search for a truly definitive Islamic philosophy can be seen in what is left to us of his work.
Distinction between essence and existence
Following
al-Farabi's lead, Avicenna initiated a full-fledged inquiry into the question of
being, in which he distinguished between
essence (
Mahiat) and
existence (
Wujud). He argued that the fact of existence can not be inferred from or accounted for by the essence of existing things and that form and matter by themselves can't interact and originate the movement of the universe or the progressive actualization of existing things. Existence must, therefore, be due to an
agent-cause that necessitates, imparts, gives, or adds existence to an essence. To do so, the cause must be an existing thing and coexist with its effect.
The significance of the issue is that there's no issue more central for
Islamic philosophy than Wujud (at once being and existence) and its relation to essence. The major
ontological distinction made by Avicenna between these two is so central to the whole structure of Islamic philosophy for the past millennium and finally led to division of the philosophers into two groups, one believe in
Existentialism or the principiality of existence like
Mulla Sadra and the other believe in
Essentialism or the principiality of essence like
Suhrawardy.
Avicenna was the first to view existence as an accident and make a real distinction between essence and existence, and was also an early proponent of the concept of
essentialism. Avicenna anticipated
Frege and
Bertrand Russell in "holding that existence is an accident of accidents" and also anticipated
Alexius Meinong's "view about nonexistent objects." He also provided early arguments for "a '
necessary being' as cause of all other existents."
Avicenna was also the first to argue that existence isn't a
predicate. The idea of "essence precedes existence" is a concept which also dates back to Avicenna and his school of Avicennism, and was further developed by
Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi and his
Illuminationist philosophy. The opposite idea of "
existence precedes essence" was thus developed in the works of
Averroes as a reaction to this idea and is a key foundational concept of
existentialism.
God as the first cause of all things
Before Avicenna the discussions among Muslim philosophers were about the unity of God as divine creator and his relationship with the world as creation. The earlier philosophers were affected by the
Plotinus ideas.
According to Avicenna, the universe consists of a chain of actual beings, each giving existence to the one below it and responsible for the existence of the rest of the chain below. Because an actual infinite is deemed impossible by Avicenna, this chain as a whole must terminate in a being that's wholly simple and one, whose essence is its very existence, and therefore is self-sufficient and not in need of something else to give it existence. Because its existence isn't contingent on or necessitated by something else but is necessary and eternal in itself, it satisfies the condition of being the necessitating cause of the entire chain that constitutes the eternal world of contingent existing things.
This view has a profound impact on the
monotheistic concept of creation. Existence isn't seen by Ibn Sīnā as the work of a capricious deity, but of a divine, self-causing thought process. The movement from this to existence is necessary, and not an act of will per se. The world emanates from God by virtue of his abundant intellect - an immaterial cause as found in the
neoplatonic concept of emanation.
Ibn Sīnā found inspiration for this metaphysical view in the works of
Al-Farabi, but his innovation is in his account a single and
necessary first cause of all existence. Whether this view can be reconciled with
Islam, particularly given the question of what role is left for God's will, was to become a subject of considerable controversy within intellectual Islamic discourse.
Avicenna's proof for the
existence of God was the first
ontological argument, which he proposed in the
Metaphysics section of
The Book of Healing. Another argument Avicenna presented for God's existence was the problem of the
mind-body dichotomy.
The Ten Intellects
In Ibn Sīnā's account of creation (largely derived from
Al-Farabi), from this first cause (or First Intellect) proceeds the creation of the material world.
The First Intellect, in contemplating the necessity of its existence, gives rise to the Second Intellect. In contemplating its emanation from God, it then gives rise to the First Spirit, which animates the Sphere of Spheres (the universe). In contemplating itself as a self-caused essence (that is, as something that could potentially exist), it gives rise to the matter that fills the universe and forms the Sphere of the Planets (the First Heaven in al-Farabi).
This triple-contemplation establishes the first stages of existence. It continues, giving rise to consequential intellects which create between them two
celestial hierarchies: the Superior Hierarchy of
Cherubim (
Kerubim) and the Inferior Hierarchy, called by Ibn Sīnā "
Angels of Magnificence". These angels animate the heavens, but are deprived of all sensory perception, but have imagination which allows them to desire the intellect from which they came. Their vain quest to join this intellect causes an eternal movement in heaven. They also cause prophetic visions in humans.
The angels created by each of the next seven Intellects are associated with a different body in the Sphere of the Planets. These are:
Saturn,
Jupiter,
Mars, the
Sun,
Venus,
Mercury and the
Moon. The last of these is of particular importance, since its association is with the Angel Gabriel ("The Angel").
This Ninth Intellect occurs at a step so removed from the First Intellect that the emanation that then arises from it explodes into fragments, creating not a further celestial entity, but instead creating human souls, which have the sensory functions lacked by the Angels of Magnificence.
The Angel and the minds of humans
For Ibn Sīnā, human minds were not in themselves formed for abstract thought. Humans are intellectual only potentially, and only illumination by the Angel confers upon them the ability to make from this potential a real ability to think. This is the Tenth Intellect, identified with the "active intellect" of Aristotle's
De Anima.
The degree to which minds are illuminated by the Angel varies.
Prophets are illuminated to the point that they possess not only rational intellect, but also an imagination and ability which allows them to pass on their superior wisdom to others. Some receive less, but enough to write, teach, pass laws, and contribute to the distribution of knowledge. Others receive enough for their own personal realisation, and others still receive less.
On this view, all humanity shares a single agent intellect - a collective consciousness. The final stage of human life, according to Ibn Sīnā, is reunion with the emanation of the Angel. Thus, the Angel confers upon those imbued with its intellect the certainty of life after death. For Ibn Sīnā, as for the
neoplatonists who influenced him, the immortality of the soul is a consequence of its nature, and not a purpose for it to fulfill.
Definition of truth
Avicenna defined
truth as:
Metaphysics:
Quodlibeta,
Thomas Aquinas wrote a commentary on Avicenna's definition of truth in his
Metaphysics and explained it as follows:
deductive logic to
theology, in contrast to al-Ghazali who was opposed to the application of philosophy to theology but didn't oppose the use of deductive logic in theology.
In the 12th century, the
Andalusian-
Arabian philosopher and novelist
Ibn Tufail (known as "Abubacer" or "Ebn Tophail" in the West) first demonstrated Avicenna's theory of tabula rasa as a
thought experiment in his
Arabic novel,
Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, in which he depicted the development of the mind of a
feral child "from a tabula rasa to that of an adult, in complete isolation from society" on a
desert island. The
Latin translation of his work, entitled
Philosophus Autodidactus, published by
Edward Pococke the Younger in 1671, had an influence on
John Locke's formulation of tabula rasa in
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, which went on to become one of the principal sources of
empiricism in modern Western philosophy, and influenced many Enlightenment
philosophers, such as
David Hume and
George Berkeley.
Neuropsychiatry, psychophysiology, psychosomatic medicine
In
The Canon of Medicine, Ibn Sina noted the close relationship between
emotions and the physical condition and felt that
music had a definite physical and psychological effect on patients. Of the many
mental disorders that he described in the
Qanun, one is of unusual interest:
love sickness. Ibn Sina is reputed to have diagnosed this condition in a Prince in Jurjan who lay sick and whose malady had baffled local doctors. Ibn Sina noted a fluttering in the Prince's pulse when the address and name of his beloved were mentioned. The great doctor had a simple remedy: unite the sufferer with the beloved.
Ibn Sina was the pioneer of
neuropsychiatry. He first described numerous neuropsychiatric conditions, including
hallucination,
insomnia,
mania,
nightmare,
melancholia,
dementia,
epilepsy,
paralysis,
stroke,
vertigo and
tremor.
Ibn Sina was also a pioneer in
psychophysiology and
psychosomatic medicine, and the firs to recognize '
physiological psychology' in the treatment of illnesses involving
emotions, and developed a system for associating changes in the
pulse rate with inner feelings, which is seen as an anticipation of the
word association test attributed to
Carl Jung. Avicenna identified
love sickness when he was treating a very ill patient by "feeling the patient's pulse and reciting aloud to him the names of provinces, districts, towns, streets, and people." He noticed how the patient's pulse increased when certain names were mentioned, from which Avicenna deduced that the patient was in love with a girl whose home Avicenna was "able to locate by the digital examination." Avicenna advised the patient to marry the girl he's in love with, and the patient soon recovered from his illness after his marriage.
Thought experiments on self-consciousness
"Floating Man" thought experiment
While he was imprisoned in the castle of Fardajan near Hamadhan, Avicenna described the earliest known thought experiment, now famously known as the "Floating Man" thought experiment, to demonstrate human self-awareness and the substantiality of the soul. He referred to the living human intelligence, particularly the active intellect, which he believed to be the hypostasis by which God communicates truth to the human mind and imparts order and intelligibility to nature. His "Floating Man" thought experiment tells its readers to imagine themselves suspended in the air, isolated from all sensations, which includes no sensory contact with even their own bodies. He argues that, in this scenario, one would still have self-consciousness. He thus concludes that the idea of the self isn't logically dependent on any physical thing, and that the soul shouldn't be seen in relative terms, but as a primary given, a substance. This idea was in contrast with Muslim theologians including Mu'tazili and Ash'ari ones. Avicenna summarized his thought experiment as follows:
Later Muslim philosophers and theologians such as Suhrawardi and Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī attempted to further develop this idea. This argument was then later refined and simplified by René Descartes in epistemic terms when he stated: "I can abstract from the supposition of all external things, but not from the supposition of my own consciousness." There's another viewpoint that Descartes's quotation is a misunderstanding when he said "I think, therefore I am." On the basis of Avicenna's discussion, a human knows himself without any internal or external effect and before any thought and if somebody tries to prove himself on the basis of an effect like his own consciousness, then he's just misleading himself.
This experiment was well-known in medieval Europe and had an influence on Christian philosophers such as Saint Bonaventure and Albertus Magnus.
In The Canon of Medicine, Avicenna was the first to describe the methods of agreement, difference and concomitant variation which are critical to inductive logic and the scientific method. However, unlike his contemporary Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī who developed scientific methods where "universals came out of practical, experimental work" and "theories are formulated after discoveries", Avicenna developed a scientific method where "general and universal questions came first and led to experimental work."
Natural philosophy
Ibn Sina and
Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, who are both regarded as two of the greatest
polymaths in Persian history, engaged in a written debate, with al-Biruni mostly criticizing
Aristotelian natural philosophy and the
Peripatetic school, while Avicenna and his student Ahmad ibn 'Ali al-Ma'sumi respond to al-Biruni's criticisms in writing. Al-Biruni began by asking Avicenna eighteen questions, ten of which were criticisms of
Aristotle's
On the Heavens, with his first question criticizing Aristotle's reasons for denying the existence of
levity or
gravity in the
celestial spheres and the Aristotelian notion of
circular motion being an
innate property of the
heavenly bodies.
Biruni's second question criticizes Aristotle's over-reliance on more ancient views concerning the
heavens, while the third criticizes the Aristotelian view that
space has only six directions. The fourth question deals with the continuity and discontinuity of
physical bodies, while the fifth criticizes the
Peripatetic school's denial of the possibility of there existing another
world completely different from the world known to them.
In his sixth question, Biruni rejects Aristotle's view on the
celestial spheres having
circular orbits rather than
elliptic orbits. In his seventh question, he rejects Aristotle's notion that the motion of the heavens begins from the right side and from the
east, while his eighth question concerns Aristotle's view on the
fire element being
spherical. The ninth question concerns the movement of
heat, and the tenth question concerns the transformation of
elements.
The eleventh question concerns the burning of bodies by
radiation reflecting off a
flask filled with
water, and the twelfth concerns the natural tendency of the
classical elements in their upward and downward movements. The thirteenth question deals with
vision, while the fourteenth concerns
habitation on different parts of
Earth. His fifteenth question asks how two opposite
squares in a square divided into four can be
tangential, while the sixteenth question concerns
vacuum. His seventeenth question asks "if things expand upon heating and contract upon cooling, why does a flask filled with water break when water freezes in it?" His eighteenth and final question concerns the observable phenomenon of
ice floating on water.
After Avicenna responded to the questions, Biruni was unsatisfied with some of the answers and wrote back commenting on them, after which Avicenna's student Ahmad ibn 'Ali al-Ma'sumi wrote back on behalf of Avicenna.
The Latin followers of Avicenna, known as the "Avicennian left" in Europe, also came close to materialism in the 13th century, according to
Ernest Mandel.
Theology
Avicenna was a devout Muslim and sought to reconcile rational philosophy with
Islamic theology. His aim was to prove the existence of God and his creation of the world scientifically and through
reason and
logic.
Avicenna wrote a number of treatises dealing with Islamic theology. These included treatises on the
Islamic prophets, who he viewed as "inspired philosophers", and on various scientific and philosophical interpretations of the
Qur'an, such as how Quranic
cosmology corresponds to his own philosophical system. He attempted to use philosophy in order to prove the realities established by the Islamic prophetic tradition.
Quranic commentaries
Ibn Sīnā
memorized the Qur'an by the age of seven, and as an adult, he wrote five treatises commenting on
suras from the
Qur'an. One of these texts included the
Proof of Prophecies, in which he comments on several Quranic verses and holds the Qur'an in high esteem. Avicenna argued that the
Islamic prophets should be considered higher than philosophers, and in his
Autobiography, he considered both religion and philosophy as necessary parts of the entire
truth.
Avicennism in Islamic philosophy
Avicenna's immediate followers were of the highest standing. There was, first and foremost, the faithful
Abu Ubayd al-Juzjani, who wrote a
Persian version and commentary on the
Hayy ibn Yaqdhan;
Ibn Tufail (Abubacer) wrote a philosophical
novel, also entitled
Hayy ibn Yaqzan; Husayn ibn Zayla of
Isfahan, who wrote a commentary on it in
Arabic; and
Bahmanyar, a
Zoroastrian whose important work remains unedited.
However Avicennism affected the critics too. Just two generations after Avicenna,
al-Ghazali testifies to the fact that no serious Muslim thinker could ignore the claim of philosophy as a way to the highest and most comprehensive knowledge available to man and as a way to the Truth. He also testifies to the fact that philosophy for all practical purposes meant Avicenna's philosophy. When he tried to present the intentions of the philosophers, he wrote a summary of Avicenna's philosophy. And when he tried to show
the incoherence of the philosophers, he wrote a refutation of Avicennism. Similarly, when
Al-Shahrastani came to give an account of the doctrines of “
the philosophers of Islam” as distinguished from the doctrines of Greek or Indian philosophers, he simply summarized the doctrines of “the most distinguished ... Avicenna”. Most of the later Muslim theologians and mystics who tried to harmonize philosophy and theology, like
Nasir al-Din Tusi, or philosophy and mysticism, like
Suhrawardi, and later on, philosophy and theology and mysticism, like
Mulla Sadra, also made use of Avicenna.
He accused Avicenna of disbelief in Islam and even argued that it was
fard to consider him a
Kafir, despite the fact that Avicenna accepted the shortage of his own philosophy in several works, including
The Book of Healing, where he confessed that he can not prove bodily resurrection but accepts it on the basis of
faith. In the following period, in the wake of Avicenna's
Peripatetic philosophy in the 11th and 12th centuries,
Ash'ari theology was predominant in the eastern Islamic lands. Of course, as
Henry Corbin mentions, Avicennism didn't fade away by such criticisms in the Muslim world, especially in
Iran.
Besides the Ash'ari theologians, Sufis usually criticized Avicenna on the basis of
Sufi metaphysics. For example
Farid-al-Din Attar criticized him while describes
Tawhid in
Conference of the Birds. The basis of the criticism is "
Wahdat-ul-Wujood" or Unity of Being which means there isn't any true being but God. This idea contradicts with the Avicennan cosmology which considers God as the first cause of all things. According to Sufism there isn't any real cause but God.
Among Muslim philosophers
Averroes criticized Avicenna due to his divergence from
Aristotle. He rejected the theory of the celestial Souls,
and consequently the theory of an imagination which is independent
of the corporeal senses. The tide of
Averroism was to submerge the effects of Avicennism in
Christianity, quite a different fate awaited
it in the East. There Averroism was unknown, and al-Ghazali's critique didn't have great effect.
In the eastern part of Muslim lands
Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi followed Avicenna's attempts to build an "Oriental philosophy" (Hikmat al-Mashriqia), a project which according to Suhrwardi, could never have been completed because he was ignorant of true Oriental sources such as
Persian philosophy. His
essentialistic approach led to a new philosophy which is known as the
School of Illumination. As Suhrwardi wrote in the beginning of
Story of Western Loneliness, he starts the story from where Avicenna ended the story of
Hayy ibn Yaqdhan.
In the 13th century, Avicennism was revived by the efforts of
Nasir al-Din Tusi, though the interpretation of this Avicennism was based on the ideas of Suhrwardi and
Ibn Arabi, and differed from the rationalist Avicennism known in Europe. In the 16th century,
Mulla Sadra innovated a new philosophical system which combined the vision of
Sufi metaphysics and the rationalistic Peripatetic approach of Avicenna. He also solved some of the major problems in Avicennism such as bodily
resurrection.
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