In the western world we have heard a lot about great Greek philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato, as well as many more modern ones such as René Descartes, John Locke or Baruch Spinoza.
All of them have contributed impressively to world thought, offering very interesting reflections on the most varied subjects that they could speak about in their respective times.
Who was Ibn Sina (Avicenna)?
However, whether through cultural bias or simple carelessness, we forget that not only the West has offered a meditated vision of how to see the world around us.
While Europe suffered a momentary but at the same time serious loss of Hellenistic knowledge, the Islamic civilization kept them treating them as the great treasures they were, allowing them to be studied by the philosophers of the Muslim countries.
This is where Ibn Siná, called Avicena’s Latin word, comes into the picture.one of the greatest Islamic philosophers and great followers of Aristotelian thought, who laid the foundations for the philosophy of people much later than his time, such as Descartes.
Biography of Avicenna
Let’s look at Avicenna’s interesting life, let’s get to know his great feats when he was just a child, as well as the tense situation in which he had to live, becoming almost an exile in his own country.
Early years
Avicenna, whose original name was Abū ‘Ali al-Husayn ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Ali ibn Sinā, was born in Afshana, present-day Uzbekistan, in the year 980. His father was a Sunni regional government official under the Samanid dynasty in the Great Khorasan.
From an early age, the young Ibn Siná showed certain strengths that would be highlighted in later years. When he was only 10 years old he memorized the whole Qur’an, besides learning Hindu arithmetic..
In later years he studied fiqh or Islamic law under the tutelage of the Sunni scholar Ismail al-Zahid. In addition, he had the opportunity to study the Isagoge of the Greek philosopher Porphyry, the Elements of Euclid and the Almagesto of Claudius Ptolemy.
As a teenager, he had the opportunity to read Aristotle’s Metaphysics without fully understanding it. In fact, Avicenna said during her life that she read this work more than 40 times without understanding what the Greek philosopher wanted to transmit with it.
At 16 he began his studies in medicine. Not only did he learn theoretical knowledge about this discipline, but he also had the opportunity to invent new methods and treatments while dealing with the sick.
By the time he was 18 years old, Avicenna already had a reputation for being a good doctor, which made him quite famous in Ancient Persia because, in addition to attending to an infinite number of patients, he did not usually ask for financial reward for it.
Adult life
Avicenna’s first major milestone was to treat Amir Nuh II, who was able to recover in 997 from a serious illness. As a prize, Avicenna had access to the royal Samanid library.
He could not enjoy much of his newly won privilege, as the library was burned and, unfortunately for Avicenna, his enemies accused him of being the perpetrator of the fire. At the age of 22, Ibn Siná suffered the loss of his father. Added to this, the Samanid dynasty came to an end in 1004.
As a result, he was forced to travel through the Persian territories in the face of the new political situation and changes in the regime. In several cities he worked as a schoolboy as well as a poet, doctor, philosopher and student of many fields of knowledge. of medieval Islamic society.
The political rivalries between the new leaders of the Persian emirates hovered over Avicenna, who was apprehended by one of them as an act of revenge and provocation towards the other.
Fortunately, Avicenna managed to flee and return to Isfahan, where he was warmly greeted by the new prince of the region.
Last years and death
The last decade of the Persian physician’s life was spent serving Kakuyida ruler Muhammad ibn Rustam Dushmanziyar.
During these years, Avicenna was suffering from stronger and stronger colics, associated with her years in which she was in constant flight to preserve her life.
Although he was recommended, following his new illness, to maintain a quiet lifestyle, he himself assured, more or less with these words, that he preferred to have a short and active life rather than a long but unexciting one..
He died in June 1037 in Hamadan at the age of fifty-eight.
Work
Avicenna’s work is very extensive and covers a wide range of subjects. He studied practically everything that could be found in the Islamic countries of the Middle Ages: grammar, mysticism, music, religion, law, geometry… are only a few of the knowledge that the famous Persian philosopher and scientist approached.
Among all these subjects, his visions of metaphysics and also of psychology are noteworthy, which, in a certain way, represented an advance for his time, especially if his thought is related to that of a very later philosopher such as René Descartes.
Metaphysics
For Avicenna, the noblest science was theology. According to the thought of the philosopher, theology is the discipline that is in charge of the study of the necessary being: God. The rest of beings are not necessary, but contingent.
For Avicenna, God is a being who is most simple, most perfect, ineffable and immutable, something that is unique. and therefore indivisible and cannot be multiplied.
From here on, and ahead of Cartesian thought, Avicenna holds that God cannot conceive of himself any other way than by existing.
The notion of being is the first to appear in the human mind, when we begin to ask ourselves from our childhood the why of things. We perceive ourselves, then we exist.
Psychology
Avicenna was a notable scholar of Aristotelian thought, which is why his vision of psychology, understood in a more spiritual sense, leads him to the Treatise on the Soul of Aristotle. Avicenna understands the soul as the operating principle of an organized body. The soul is the perfection of something, and that something is the body itself.
Nevertheless, Avicenna differs slightly from Aristotle in that it conceives a somewhat platonic vision of the soul.attributing priority to it over one’s own body.
For him, this was so because the body, regardless of whether it exists or not, necessarily needs a soul in order to carry out such basic functions as nutrition or interaction, that is, what he called ‘acts of life’.
In his work, the soul acquires such a central role that there comes a time when he affirms that the ‘I’ and the soul are the same thing.
Also, Avicenna considered that a person can realize the existence of his own soul intuitively and immediately, since we human beings are able to reflect about ourselves, without having to resort to the senses to achieve that end.
As an example, the philosopher explains the case of the flying man: if we imagine a man who is flying, without touching the ground, without seeing or hearing, even if he does not receive any sensory stimulation, he will know that he exists and will be aware of it.
In the same line as Aristotelian thought, Avicenna chooses to divide the human soul into three species, according to the operations it carries out: the vegetative, the sensitive and the rational..
The vegetative soul is in charge of the most basic in physiological terms, such as nutrition, reproduction and growth. The sensitive part is in charge of perception and movement, while the third is more related to cognitive abilities and will.
Bibliographic references
- Adamson, P. & Taylor, R. C. (2005.), The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
- Bertolacci, A., (2006) The Reception of Aristotle’s Metaphysics in Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Šifā’, Brill, Leiden,.
- Gutas, D., (1988) Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition: Introduction to Reading Avicenna’s Philosophical Works, Brill, Leiden,.
- Hasse, D. (2000), Avicenna’s De Anima in the Latin West, Warburg Institute, London,
- Wisnovsky, R. (2001.), Aspects of Avicenna, Markus Weiner Press, Princeton.