CRITICAL THINKING AND PHILOSOPHY

TOPIC: IBN-E-SINA - AVICENNA

GROUP MEMBERS NAME AND STUDENT ID

NAME STUDENT ID

Ali 45723
Nadia Nazeer 46437
Sidra Bashir 46189
Ambreen Raza 45785
Kamil Riaz 46423
Ali Zain Samnani 46695

INTRODUCTION:

Islam's most renowned philosopher-scientist (980-1037), Ibn-

Sina was a court physician in Persia, and wrote two of history's
greatest works, The Book of Healing, a compendium of science
and philosophy, and The Canon of Medicine, an encyclopedia
based on the teachings of Greek physicians. The latter was
widely used in the West, where Ibn-Sina, known as Avicenna,
was called the "prince of physicians."

Born in Afshana in the district of Bukhara, Avicenna, or Abu Ali

al-Husain ibn Addullah ibn Sina, was the son of a government
official. The family soon moved to the city of Bukhara, the
capital of the province, and known throughout the Islamic
world as a center of learning and culture. There Avicenna began
his studies and by the age of 16 had mastered not only natural
science and rudimentary metaphysics but also medical theory,
having read, by his own account, all the books written on this
subject. Not satisfied with merely a theoretical understanding
of medicine, he began to treat the sick, obtaining empirical
knowledge in this manner and also effecting remarkable cures.

THE SOUL:
ARISTOTLE’S IDEA: Human possessed three types of souls.
1. The vegetative.
2. Animal
3. Rational
These three psyche connect them to God.

AVICENNA’S IDEA: He believed that the five senses, shared with

animals, were bound to Earth. He believed that the ability to reason
gave humanity a unique connection to the divine. Humans have seven
inner senses to complete the outer senses.
THE CONCEPT OF NATURE:
ARISTOTLE’S IDEA:
He believed that Earth, water, air and fire as part of natural world.
His contra poses Nature to Art. Among the natural substances are
plants and animals, and also simple bodies such as the ELEMENTS.
Nature is a principle of innate motion and rest in substances, which
move or become stationery by themselves and not through an external
cause or accidentally.
Nature is an inner, not external, principle of motion and rest in
substances.

AVICENNA’S IDEA: Nature as something entailing order and

regularity is apparent from the distinction between nature and
accidental motion. Certain natural action always obtain if there is no
obstacles. A stone falls downward if it encounters no obstacles.

SUBSTANCE AND FORM:

Aristotle said, Substance and form are two different things.

Similarly Avicenna uses the form, existence and essence.

Existence is what tangible things you see in the world.
In existence life is mortal things come and go.
Essence is the different world.

Avicenna said, Essence always remains whereas Existence may

finish.
Existence = Matter Essence = Form
The combination of Form and substance, Form and matter can’t stick
together.

AVICENNA SAID:
Existence and Essence cannot combine by themselves to create the
universe.
Something joins them together.
Existence and Essence combine together because of Agent cause or
God.

BODY AND SOUL:

ARISTOTLE’S ARGUMENTS:
Aristotle used to say that Essence is connected firmly with material
being. Human soul is his essence. He said they can not be detached.
Aristotle used to say that human soul finishes also when a human dies.

AVICENNA ARGUMENTS:
Avicenna criticized Aristotle’s belief that the soul can not be separated
from the body. He used to say NAFS is the person’s characteristic
identity that is not identical to its body.

Metaphysical doctrine

Islamic philosophy, imbued as it is with 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.

Ibn Sina makes another distinction between essence and

existence, one that applies to everything except God. Essence
and existence are distinct in that we cannot infer from the
essence of something that it must exist. Essences exist in supra-
human intelligences and also in the human mind. Further, if
essence is distinct from existence in the way Ibn Sina is
proposing, then both the existence and the nonexistence of the
essence may occur, and each may call for explanation.

The Existence of God

The above distinctions enter into the central subject matter of

metaphysics, that is, God and the proof of his existence. We
know from the Categories of Aristotle that existence is either
necessary or possible. If an existence were only possible, then
we could argue that it would presuppose a necessary existence,
for as a merely possible existence, it need not have existed and
would need some additional factor to bring about its existence
rather than its non-existence From his proof of God’s existence.
Ibn Sina goes on to explain how the world and its order
emanates from God. Whereas ARISTOTLE identified the two,
making the Active Intellect, the principle that brings about the
passage of the human intellect from possibility to actuality, into
the first cause of the universe. Together with this is the proof of
God’s existence that sees him not only as the prime mover but
also as the first existent. God’s self-knowledge consists in an
eternal act that results in or brings about a first intelligence or
awareness. This first intelligence conceives or cognizes the
necessity of God’s existence, the necessity of its own existence,
and its own existence as possible.

The Ten Intellects

For Avicenna, 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.
The Angel and the minds of humans
The final stage of human life, according to Avicenna, is reunion
with the emanation of the Angel. Thus, the Angel confers upon
those imbued with its intellect the certainty of life after death.
Astronomy and astrology

Avicenna believed that each planet had some influence on the

earth, but argued against astrologers being able to determine the
exact effects.

One important feature of Avicenna's writing is that he considers

mathematical astronomy as a separate discipline to astrology. He
criticized Aristotle's view of the stars receiving their light from
the Sun, stating that the stars are self-luminous, and believed
that the planets are also self-luminous

REASON AND SENSE PERCEPTION:

AVICENNA SAID:
Sensation prepares the soul to receive rational concepts from the
universal agent intellect.

The sensation that we feel prepares our soul to accept the

reasons through our intellect. We tend to rationalize and accept
fact through reasoning and divinity.
Avicenna used to criticized upon Astrology in the light of
Quran. He proved that astrology was incorrect. There was a
notion that due to stars our lives are greatly affected. Avicenna
proved this notion wrong. He used to join Astrology with
Metaphysics in the similar way as Al-Farabi.