Search results for "Avicenna"
showing 10 items of 21 documents
Avicenna on Negative Judgement
2016
Avicenna’s logical theory of negative judgement can be seen as a systematic development of the insights Aristotle had laid out in the De interpretatione. However, in order to grasp the full extent of his theory one must extend the examination from the logical works to the metaphysical and psychological bases of negative judgement. Avicenna himself often refrains from the explicit treatment of the connections between logic and metaphysics or psychology, or treats them in a rather oblique fashion. Time and again he is satisfied with noting that this or that question is not proper for a logician and should be dealt with in metaphysics or psychology—without bothering to refer his reader to the …
Ma‘dûle Önermelerde Varlıksal İçerik Sorunu: Fahreddin er-Râzî-Kutbüddin et-Tahtânî Tartışması
2019
This paper addresses discussions in post-Avicennan Arabic logic on the definition of metathetic propositions and their status in relation to existential import requirements, focusing on the arguments made by Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210) and the counter-arguments by Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī al-Taḥtānī (d. 766/1365), who both establish their positions in the framework drawn by the most prominent figure in the tradition of classical Arabic logic, Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, d. 428/1037). In the latter’s works, the problem of the existential import requirement in metathetic propositions (ma‘dūla) are thoroughly discussed and Avicenna seems to have presumed the existential import as a truth-condition f…
Book Review : Damien Janos. Avicenna on the Ontology of Pure Quiddity
2022
A Closed Book: Opacity of the Human Self in Mullā Ṣadrā
2014
Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī (d. 1636) subscribes at large to the Avicennian view according to which the human subject is always and fully aware of herself. At the same time, his eschatology hinges on the Qur’ānic motive of the soul as a closed book that is first opened on the Final Day, that is, on the idea that each soul’s share in the afterlife should be understood as the full revelation of the soul’s true nature to itself. The two ideas thus have seemingly contradictory entailments: the soul is fully aware of and transparent to itself, but at the same time it has aspects that can remain opaque to it, at least in this life. The task of this paper is to investigate whether Ṣadrā can coherently hol…
Metafisica ed eidetica: su un particolare aspetto della funzione meta
2012
Contemporary research on the meta-function, closely associated with names like Breton, Ricœur, Greisch, is continuous with the traditional question on metaphysics, which metaphysics itself raised in its historical development starting from Aristotle, followed by the exegetical readings in late antiquity, in Arabic philosophy and in Scholasticism. The analysis of meta-function as a peculiar characteristic of metaphysics highlights the double movement of transcendence and immanence, of going beyond and coming back. It shows how metaphysics overcomes physis to rediscover it in a formal way on a deeper ontological level by posing the question about “being as being”, which is not a natural objec…
Avicenna on subjectivity : a philosophical study
2007
Ab? cAl? Ibn S?n? (980–1037 jaa., lat. Avicenna) oli keskiajan arabifilosofeista kenties tärkein. Hänen ajattelunsa yhdisti omaperäisellä tavalla uusplatonistisen ja aristoteelisen perinteen aineksia. Ibn S?n?n vaikutus keskiajan latinankieliseen filosofiaan oli varsinkin psykologian alalla merkittävä, koska hänen psykologinen pääteoksensa käännettiin ennen Aristoteleen tutkielmaa Sielusta, ja se määritti olennaisella tavalla ymmärrystä Aristoteleen psykologiasta. Islamilaisessa filosofisessa perinteessä Ibn S?n? on merkitykseltään Aristoteleen veroinen hahmo.Kaukuan tutkimus käsittelee Ibn S?n?n teoriaa subjektiivisuudesta. Hän käsittelee Ibn S?n?n teoriaa intentionaalisesta tietoisuudesta…
Freedom and responsibility in Avicenna
2022
It is still a matter of some debate whether Avicenna grounds moral responsibility in a robust notion of free will. In this contribution, I will first delve into Avicenna’s theory of voluntary agency, arguing that he holds voluntary agency to be responsive to reasons but also thoroughly determined by the agent’s beliefs concerning the relevant goals, instruments, and qualifying circumstances. Since these beliefs in turn are caused, it seems that there is little room for a causally undetermined will in Avicenna’s theory. I will conclude by considering the question of whether Avicenna is some kind of compatibilist concerning the relation between determinism and responsibility. peerReviewed
The Flying and the Masked Man, One More Time: Comments on Peter Adamson and Fedor Benevich, ‘The Thought Experimental Method: Avicenna's Flying Man A…
2020
AbstractThis is a critical comment on Adamson and Benevich (2018), published in issue 4/2 of the Journal of the American Philosophical Association. I raise two closely related objections. The first concerns the objective of the flying man: instead of the question of what the soul is, I argue that the argument is designed to answer the question of whether the soul exists independently of the body. The second objection concerns the expected result of the argument: instead of knowledge about the quiddity of soul, I claim the argument yields knowledge about the soul's existence independently of the body. After the objections, I turn to the masked man fallacy, claiming that although the Adamson-…
Rule of the One: Avicenna, Bahmanyār, and al-Rāzī on the Argument from the Mubāḥathāt
2020
Avicenna is a strong proponent of what some of the later ones call qāʻidat al-wāḥid or ‘rule of the one’ (RO). The gist of RO states: from the one only one directly proceeds. In the secondary literature, discussion of this Avicennian rule is usually limited to a particular application of it i.e., the issue of emanation. As result, it’s not really clear what RO means, nor why Avicenna endorsed it. In this paper, I try and remedy this situation by doing two things – one on the taṣawwur front, the other on the tasdīq. First, explain just what the terms of RO amount to – that is, its subject and predicate. In doing this, I distinguish between a narrow and a broad understanding of RO, and the sh…
Iʿtibārī Concepts in Suhrawardī : The Case of Substance
2020
Abstract Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī (d. 587/1191) famously criticised the central concepts of Avicennian metaphysics as merely mind-dependent (or iʿtibārī) notions. This paper aims to show that despite his critique, Suhrawardī held that these concepts are meaningful, indeed necessary for human cognition. By the same token, it is argued that their re-emergence in Suhrawardī’s ishrāqī metaphysics is not a matter of incoherence. Although the paper’s findings can be generalised to hold of all iʿtibārī concepts, mutatis mutandis, our focus is on the concept of substance, mainly because of the importance of the concept of ‘dusky substance’ in ishrāqī metaphysics.