Customer Reviews

Avicenna on Theology

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This is the first time that I have actually sat down to read Avicenna, as there appear to be very few english translations from the original arabic, hence my tardiness in reading his words.

I am a little disappointed in that I hoped for more original thought from such a giant of philosophy. Whereas one can read both the logic and the reasoning of Aristotle in almost every word. Realising that the great greek libraries were taken back into the middle east, under the onslaught of firstly roman and then christian thought, it appears that Avicenna has in fact done very little to further thinking in this area of philosophy. I was hoping to see a distinct delelopment of Aristotles and/or Platos thinking in terms of the muslim religion and it's (and I use the word in a purely philosophical context) dogma.

More along the lines of Thomas Aquinaes' efforts with Aristotlian thought to graft or bolt them onto christianity.

It has left me with the impression that in fact Avicenna was himself better read than reasoned.

A pity, he has gone down a little in my estimation. In this most important area of philosophy of religion.