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.

1. Aristotle / Perfection in the definitions of the soul and of change -- 2. Alexander and Themistius / Attempts at reconciliation -- 3. Proclus, Ammonius and Asclepius / The neoplatonic turn to causation -- 4. Proclus, Ammonius and Asclepius / Neoplatonic perfection and Aristotelian soul -- 5. Greek into Arabic / The Greco-Arabic translations and the early Arabic philosophers -- 6. Avicenna on perfection and the soul / The issue of separability -- 7. Essence and existence (A) / Materials from the Kalam and al-Farabi -- 8. Essence and existence (B) / Shay'iyya or Sababiyya? -- 9. Essence and existence (C) / The question of evolution -- 10. Causal self-sufficiency vs. causal productivity -- 11. Necessity and possibilty (A) / Materials from the Arabic Aristotle -- 12. Necessity and possibility (B) / Materials from al-Farabi -- 13. Necessity and possibility (C) / Materials from the Kalam -- 14. Necessity and possibility (D) / The question of evolution -- Conclusion -- Appendix I : Tables of Greco-Arabic translation -- Appendix II : transcriptions of Lemmata from MS Uppsala Or. 364.

An analysis of the sources and evolution of the metaphysics of Abu Ali ibn Sina (d. 1037 AD) - known in the West by his Latinized name Avicenna - this book fucuses on the answers Avicenna and his predecessors gave to two fundamental 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.

In Necessary Existence and the Doctrine of Being in Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Healing Daniel De Haan examines the primary notions being, thing, one, and necessary and their roles in the central argument of Avicenna’s metaphysical masterpiece.

This collection of essays covers the classical heritage and Islamic culture, classical Arabic science and philosophy, and Muslim religious sciences, showing continuation of Greek and Persian thought as well as original Muslim contributions to the sciences, philosophy, religion, and culture of Islam.

Within this emanative scheme we encounter some of the basic ideas of Avicenna's religious and political philosophy, including his discussion of the divine attributes, divine providence, the Hereafter, and the ideal, "virtuous" city with its philosopher-prophet as the recipient and conveyer of the revealed law, a human link between the celestial and the terrestrial worlds."--BOOK JACKET.

By addressing some of the most fundamental issues in Avicenna's psychology, epistemology, natural philosophy and metaphysics, this work aims to make Avicenna's thought more accessible to Latinists and Islamicists alike.