Avicenna's Al-Shifā': Oriental Philosophy (Routledge Studies in Islamic Philosophy)

Description

This book deals with the philosophy of Ibn Sina - Avicenna as he was known in the Latin West- a Persian Muslim who lived in the eleventh century, considered one of the most important figures in the history of philosophy. Although much has been written about Avicenna, and especially about his major philosophical work, Al-Shifa, this book presents the rationalist Avicenna in an entirely new light, showing him to have presented a theory where our claims of knowledge about the world are in effect just that, claims, and must therefore be underwritten by our faith in God. His project enlists arguments in psychology as well as in language and logic. In a sense, the ceiling he puts on the reach of reason can be compared with later rationalists in the Western tradition, from Descartes to Kant –though, unlike Descartes, he does not deem it necessary to reconstruct his theory of knowledge via a proof of the existence of God. Indeed, Avicenna’s theory presents the concept of God as being necessarily presupposed by our theory of knowledge, and God as the Necessary Being who is presupposed by an existing world where nothing of itself is what it is by an intrinsic nature, and must therefore be as it is due to an external cause. The detailed and original analysis of Avicenna’s work here is presented as what he considered to be his own, or ‘oriental’ philosophy. Presenting an innovative interpretation of Avicenna’s thought, this book will appeal to scholars working on classical Islamic philosophy, kalām and the History of Logic. Cover Title Copyright Contents An apologia: a preface . . . in retrospect Introduction Background Method 1 Language and truth Section 1: sentences and truth-values Section 2: preliminary categorizations Section 3: conception and judgement Section 4: affirmation and negation Section 5: identities and definitions 2 Statements and the logical system Section 1: categorical statements Section 2: the Square of Opposition Section 3: conversion Section 4: necessary statements Section 5: contingent statements Appendices to chapter 2 Appendix 1: categorization of statements Appendix 2: Syllogisms Appendix 3: Selections from Avicenna 3 Object and construct Section 1: introductory notes Section 2: objects and constructs Section 3: the tripartite distinction Section 4: from incompleteness to completeness Section 5: knowledge and truth Appendix to chapter 3 Selections from Avicenna (from the Introduction, Metaphysics, and On Demonstration) 4 Quantifiers, operators and conditionals Section 1: quantifiers and predicates Section 2: syntax of operators Section 3: modalities Section 4: de re and essentialism – modern misgivings Section 5: objects and essentialism Section 6: quantification and modality of conditionals 5 Metaphysics Section 1: what is and what might have been: Physics Section 2: what is and what it is construed as: logic Section 3: the best of all possible worlds: Providence Conclusion Bibliography Index