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.
Robert Wisnovsky is Associate Professor and Director of the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University.
What People are Saying About This
Dimitri Gutas
Robert Wisnovsky's judgments in Avicenna's Metaphysics in Context are based on a keen critical sense and sound knowledge of all the relevant texts, Greek and Arabic alike. The combination of historical and philological accuracy and philosophical insight make this book relatively rare among its kind in Arabic philosophy. Wisnovsky belongs to a new generation of scholars of Arabic philosophy who approach the subject with the seriousness, diligence, and expertise it deserves.
Everett Rowson
Robert Wisnovsky has tackled some of the most central and controversial issues involved in the interpretation of Avicenna's philosophy. The result is an original, illuminating, and extremely lucid exposition of Avicenna's views and how he arrived at them.
