Life And Work Of Abu Ali Ibn Sina

Ibn Sina, Abu Ali (Latin Avicenna) (980-1037), a scholar of encyclopedic, physician and philosopher. He was born near Bukhara in Afshane 16 August 980. The father of Ibn Sina, Bukhara officer, a native of Balkh, while the capital of Greco-Bactrian kingdom, gave his son a systematic education at home, awakened in him at an early age the desire for knowledge. Soon, Abu Ali has surpassed his teacher and started an independent study of physics, metaphysics and medicine, referring to the works of Euclid, Ptolemy and Aristotle. If Euclid and Ptolemy’s Almagest did not give the young Ibn Sina the great difficulties that the Aristotelian Metaphysics demanded from him a lot of effort. Up to forty times he took a reading, but I could not comprehend the depth of its content has not encountered a book seller in writing of al-Farabi on to metaphysics, the commentary on the works of Aristotle.

As a philosopher Ibn Sina belonged to the direction of “Falsafah, eastern peripatetizma. Did much to develop the philosophical vocabulary in Arabic and Persian languages. Defending and developing the philosophical system of Aristotle, Ibn Sina gave in his writings, considerable attention logic, the doctrine of causality, the first reason, matter and form of knowledge, categories, principles of organization of thought and knowledge. In the teachings of Ibn Sina are constantly present two approaches to the description of the world: the physical and metaphysical. When he talks as a “physicist”, it paints a picture of things in terms of movement, space, time and natural determinism, has things in order from simple to complex, from the inanimate to the living and completes the most complex organism, endowed with reason, – a man. In this picture, the mind is regarded as closely connected with the body, to matter: “Soul arise when there is a corporeal substance, suitable to use it the soul” (Book of the soul). This matter – the brain, various departments which correspond to different mental processes. “Storage is a general feeling of power performance, and it is located in front of the brain. That is why, when this part is damaged, the scope of representation is violated. Store that accepts the idea is a force called memory, and it is located in the back of the brain. The middle part of the brain was created as a place of power of imagination. ” Considering the different mental states and events: sleep, dreams, power of suggestion, predictions, prophecies, pondering the mysteries and miracles, called Ibn Sina “reveal the cause of all this, based on the laws of nature.”

The concept of a strictly ordered world, the slave laws of determinism, is one of the central points of the philosophy of Avicenna. A number of causal dependence, rising to one another generating reasons for ending the first cause, which, being the active principle (the will), releases its potentiality, which mediated a number of steps, there is a multiple created world. Solving the problem of not only the reality of the world, but its independence from the Creator, Ibn Sina has focused on the topic of the possible and necessary. The basic idea of Arabic peripatetics – the idea of the world, opportunities are already contained in the Uniform and therefore sovechnogo Creator. Adhering to the Peripatetic tradition in his doctrine of causality, Ibn Sina gave up hard determinism: the existence of vozmozhnosuschego is not necessary in itself and becomes such a result will change neobhodimosuschego as the first cause, giving rise to the subsequent series and own who were making them necessary. First, first principle – is the only thing originally to itself. Everything else derives from it, and therefore only possible. But since there is a reason, the possibility, the latter is in turn a necessity and as such – a necessary cause of the next generation. Thus, the first reason is just the first jolt, in the future world of things is determined by causal dependence within himself.

Another important point is the philosophy of Ibn Sina’s doctrine of the soul. Noting the indispensable bond of mind with bodily matter, Ibn Sina, in contrast to Aristotle’s interest in mind as well as a special, netelesnoy substance that existing in the body, differs from him and dominates him, it is not simply a form that exists in a solid substrate, it does not attach to the body, and (in the terminology peripatetizma) creates the human body as a creator, is the cause of the body. “Potential” mind through learning, mastery of knowledge is “urgent.” Reaching the top step, grasping the abstract forms, purchasing power of the “active” intellect, he is “acquired.” At this stage of the work of the mind can no longer depend on external impressions, and even the state of the body, thinking about thinking connection with the body, with matter rather a hindrance. Such a mind does not need to own who were studying intelligible – he understands them directly, intuitively. “In the acquired human mind is likened to the potency of the first principles of all things” (On the soul). The man – a free, sovereign being. His mind is not only the recipients of external impressions, but also a focused subject, projecting the idea. Independence of mind from the body of Ibn Sina argued its indivisibility, as well as the ability to work and even its gain with the weakening of the body, feelings, etc. A good argument in favor of netelesnosti mind is described by Ibn Sina introspective experience, the image of the so-called “floating people”. “If you think that your entity once created with common sense and perfect form, and we assume that parts of it are hidden from view and shall not come into contact, and separated from each other and hang some time in the outdoors, then you will find that it forgets everything except the assertion of individuality “, which consists in the mind (hints and instructions). In this experience the person is aware that “I am I, even if I do not know that I have an arm, leg or any other authority”, “I stayed I would have, even if they were not there” (On the Soul) . As netelesnoy soul is immortal, as vnutritelesnoy – individually, and, moreover, forever (the concept of individual immortality). Accordingly, the man’s knowledge of itself (introspection) unremovably individually. On this understanding of Ibn Sina mind and forms of knowledge influenced Sufism and personal experience “Tariqah (Sufi way to God). This is reflected in its pure “Sufi” works: A Treatise on the Haya, son of Yakzana, the Epistle of the Birds, Salman and Absalom, etc.