Work · Philosophy in the Islamic World
Remarks and Admonitions (al-Isharat wa-l-tanbihat)
His last summa in brief, allusive form – logic, physics and metaphysics, ending with the stations of the mystics; the object of a long tradition of commentary.
Introduction
Avicenna wrote this Arabic work towards the end of his life, probably in Isfahan around 1030. Unlike the encyclopedic Book of Healing, it is terse: short “remarks” and “admonitions” that leave the reader to complete the argument, and Avicenna asks that it not be shown to those unfit for it. A first part treats logic; a second, in ten chapters (namat), treats physics and metaphysics – including a version of the “floating man” and the proof of the Necessary Existent – and ends with three chapters on happiness, on the stations of the knowers (arifun) and on the secrets of signs. From the late 12th century it became one of the main texts through which Avicenna was studied. Fakhr al-Din al-Razi wrote a critical commentary – later readers called it a “wounding” (jarh) rather than an explanation (sharh) – and Nasir al-Din al-Tusi answered it in the 13th century with a defence of Avicenna.
Connections
Builds on
- The Book of Healing (Kitab al-Shifa)c. 1027 · Ibn Sina (Avicenna)
More works by Ibn Sina (Avicenna)
- c. 1025The Canon of Medicine
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