77
See also: Plato 50–55 ■ Aristotle 56–63 ■ Al-Kindî 332 ■ Al-Fârâbî 332 ■
Thomas Aquinas 88–95 ■ René Descartes 116–23 ■ Gilbert Ryle 337
Avicenna
Ibn Sînâ, or Avicenna as the
Europeans called him, was
born in 980 in a village near
Bukhara, now in Uzbekhistan.
Although he wrote mainly in
Arabic, the language of
learning throughout the
Islamic world, he was a native
Persian speaker. Avicenna
was a child prodigy, rapidly
surpassing his teachers not
only in logic and philosophy,
but also in medicine. While
still in his teens, he became
known to the Samanid ruler
Nuh ibn Mansur as a brilliant
physician, and was given the
use of his magnificent library.
Avicenna’s life was spent
in the service of various
princes, both as physician and
political adviser. He started
writing at the age of 21, and
went on to write more than
200 texts, on subjects as
diverse as metaphysics,
animal physiology, mechanics
of solids, and Arabic syntax.
He died when his medications
for colic were altered, possibly
maliciously, while on campaign
with his patron Alâ al-Dawla.Key worksc.1014–20 Book of Healing
c.1015 Canon of Medicine
c.1030 Pointers and Reminderssome doctrines, such as the idea
that the universe has always existed,
Avicenna kept to the Aristotelian
view despite the fact that it clashed
with Islamic orthodoxy, but in other
areas he felt free to depart radically
from Aristotle. One striking example
is his explanation of the relationship
between mind (self or soul) and body.
Mind and body are distinct
Aristotle claims that the body and
mind of humans (and other animals)
are not two different things (or
“substances”), but one unit, and that
the mind is the “form” of the human
body. As such, it is responsible for
all the activities a human being can
perform, including thinking. For this
reason Aristotle does not seem to
think it possible for anything to
survive the death of the body.
By contrast, Avicenna is one of
the most famous “dualists” in the
history of philosophy—he thinks
that the body and the mind are two
distinct substances. His great
predecessor in this view was Plato,
who thought of the mind as a
distinct thing that was imprisoned
in the body. Plato believed that at
the point of death, the mind would
be released from its prison, to be
later reincarnated in another body.
In seeking to prove the divided
nature of mind and body, Avicenna
devised a thought-experiment
known as the “Flying Man”. This ❯❯THE MEDIEVAL WORLD
The soul is
distinct from
the body.If I were blindfolded
and suspended in the
air, touching nothing......I would not know
that I have a body.But I would know
that I—my “self”
or “soul”—exists.So my soul is not
a body, but something
different.