Ibn Sina (Avicenna)
The physician-philosopher of the Islamic golden age whose Canon taught medicine for six centuries and whose 'floating man' argued the soul knows itself directly.
Core ideas
- The soul is aware of itself even suspended from all sensation
- Necessity and existence must be distinguished — essence is not existence
- Medicine is a science of principles, not a bag of recipes
Historical context
A polymath courtier in the turbulent Iranian principalities — writing between patrons, in hiding, and in prison, dying at 57 with the medieval world's textbooks in hand.
Key works
The Canon of Medicine · The Book of Healing
Questions they speak to
Minds in conversation
- AristotleStagira, Athens
- Al-GhazaliTus, Persia
- SuhrawardiSohrevard → Aleppo
Sources
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Avicenna