Avicenna's Metaphysics in Context [Hardcover]

Robert Wisnovsky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2003

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 focuses 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. The author concludes that Avicenna's innovations are a turning point in the history of metaphysics. Avicenna's metaphysics is the culmination of one period of synthesis, during which philosophers fused together the Neoplatonic project of reconciling Plato with Aristotle, with the Peripatetic project of reconciling Aristotle with himself. Yet Avicenna also stands at the beginning of another period of synthesis, 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, where the philosophical problems and opportunities associated with the Avicennian synthesis were to be debated up to the end of the 19th century.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Robert Wisnovsky is Associate Professor of Islamic Intellectual History in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Duckworth Publishing (October 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0715632213
• ISBN-13: 978-0715632215
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,092,155 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A profound study of a profound mind, September 27, 2003

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Philip Jeyaratnam "Philip Jeyaratnam" (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Avicenna's Metaphysics in Context (Hardcover)

Avicenna (a Latinised version of Ibn Sina) was born in 980 A.D. in Central Asia. He died in 1037 in Persia. A child prodigy who memorised the Koran by age 10, Ibn Sina also taught himself medicine and treated patients as a teenager.
Arguably the greatest mind of Islamic civilisation, his intellectual achievements stand out all the more when you examine the context of his prodigious output. He produced about 450 works on philosophy, medicine, psychology, to name a few areas.
Wisnovsky, an accomplished historian of philosophy and classical Arabist, has provided a precise and painstaking study of Avicenna's philosophy in context. The 'contextualism' championed by Wisnovsky, which owes a debt to the pioneering work of the philosopher of science, AI Sabra, seeks to recreate the situation and context in which Avicenna's ideas were generated. Wisnovsky has mastered a difficult topic and rendered the work of a complext mind with aplomb. He eschews reductionism (simplfying stuff)or precursorism (glorifying achievements) to produce a balanced, sympathetic but level-headed study of the work of a great Islamic and world thinker.
Wisnovsky writes well, but the subject matter is heavy-going. Not for the lay reader but certainly very useful for students of the subject, whether professional or the garden variety, like myself. I look forward to future works of Wisnovsky.