Ibn Sina's <i>Remarks and Admonitions</i>: <i>Physics</i> and <i>Metaphysics</i>: An Analysis and Annotated TranslationAl-Isharat wat-Tanbihat (Remarks and Admonitions) is one of the most mature and comprehensive philosophical works of Ibn Sina (Avicenna, 980–1037). Grounded in an exploration of logic (which Ibn Sina described as the gate to knowledge) and happiness (the ultimate human goal), the text illuminates the divine, the human being, and the nature of things through a wide-ranging discussion of topics. The sections of Physics and Metaphysics deal with the nature of bodies and souls as well as existence, creation, and knowledge. Especially important are Ibn Sina’s views of God’s knowledge of particulars, which generated much controversy in medieval Islamic and Christian philosophical and theological circles and provoked a strong rejection by eleventh-century philosopher al-Ghazali. This book provides the first annotated English translation of Physics and Metaphysics and edits the original Arabic text on which the translation is based where it is corrupt or incomprehensible. It begins with a detailed analysis of the text, followed by a translation of the three classes or groups of ideas in the Physics (On the Substance of Bodies; On the Directions and Their Primary and Secondary Bodies; and On the Terrestrial and Celestial Souls) and the four in the Metaphysics (On Existence and Its Causes; Creation Ex Nihilo and Immediate Creation; On Ends, on Their Principles, and on the Arrangement [of Existence]; and On Abstraction. The Metaphysics closes with a significant discussion of the concepts of providence, good, and evil, which Ibn Sina uses to introduce a theodicy. Researchers, faculty, and students in philosophy, theology, religion, and intellectual history will find in this work a useful and necessary source for understanding Ibn Sina’s philosophical thought and more generally the medieval Islamic and Christian study of nature, the world beyond, psychology, God, and the concept of evil. |
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actual agent intellect al-Farabi al-Ilāhiyyāt Al-Ishārāt al-Najāt Al-Razi al-Shifāʾ al-Tusi apprehend Aristotle asserts attribute becomes belongs bodily celestial bodies celestial intellects celestial souls celestial sphere Chapter circular concept Concerning container corporeal form corruption Delusion and Admonition depends determined division effect Enneads enveloping sphere essence essential evil exis existence is necessary finite Follow-up follows genus God’s Hence human Ibid Ibn Sina’s imagination impossible inasmuch individual indivisible infinite instruments intel intellectual substance intelligible forms knowledge manner matter means mediation Metaphysics move movement mover multiplicity nature necessarily accompanies Necessary in Existence necessitated object occurs particular perfection permissible Plotinus position posterior preceded by nonexistence principle priority Problem of Evil produces propensity quiddity Qur’an rational power rational soul receptive relation Remarks and Admonitions resemblance seek sensible separate intellects simple body simultaneously soul’s specific sublunary sphere subsist tence Text theodicy thing tion universal virtue void volition