PhilosophersAvicenne (Ibn Sina)

Avicenne (Ibn Sina)

The soul knows it exists before any body: the flying man.

Falsafa (Arabic Aristotelianism)vers 980 – 1037 IranPhilosopher (falsafa)MetaphysicianPhysicianLogician

Inspirations

Aristote the master he comments on and transforms

Al-Farabiwhose commentary finally made him understand Aristotle's Metaphysics

Plotinemanation, known in Arabic as the "Theology of Aristotle"

Heirs

Al-Ghazali The Incoherence of the Philosophers, against the eternal world and the naturally immortal soul

Averroès accuses him of departing from Aristotle

Thomas d'Aquin essence and existence; the third way

Descartes the flying man and the cogito (a comparison, influence not proven)

Mulla Sadrathe philosophy of existence in Iran

how it is computed

Closest

Étienne de La Boétie Young magistrate and friend of Montaigne: at about eighteen he asks why millions of people serve one tyrant, and answers that it is they who support him.

Raymond Lulle He imagines an art of combining basic ideas mechanically, with rotating discs, to discover truths.

Marsile Ficin Translated Plato for Europe and made love a desire for beauty that rises from the body to God.

Averroes Truth cannot contradict truth: philosophy and faith agree.

Furthest

Richard Rorty Talk of sensations might one day disappear, replaced by the language of neuroscience.

Rudolf Carnap Member of the Vienna Circle: a statement that can be neither verified nor reduced to a rule of logic has no meaning, and metaphysics is full of them.