Doxography and Philosophical Method: Avicennaâs Treatment of Presocratic Opinions

Andreas Lammer

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Chapter 12 Doxography and Philosophical Method: Avicennaâs Treatment of Presocratic Opinions

In: Received Opinions: Doxography in Antiquity and the Islamic World

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Andreas Lammer

Andreas Lammer
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 302â332

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004504455_014

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Abstract

In the preface to his Lecture on Nature, Avicenna professed that he intends to follow âthe order according to which the philosophy of the Peripatetics proceeds.â While it, accordingly, does not come as a surprise that Avicennaâlike Aristotle and his commentatorsâthen discussed Presocratic theories in chapterÂ I.4 of his Lecture on Nature, it is striking that heâunlike Aristotle and his commentatorsâdid so only briefly and apparently with much less respect. This paper intends to provide an explanation for Avicennaâs critical, if not harsh, attitude towards his ancient predecessors in that chapter. It will be shown that, his statement in the preface notwithstanding, Avicenna wrote this chapter only upon direct request by his disciples and that, moreover, he did so only reluctantly, especially because a discussion or refutation of Presocratic theories neither fits his agenda in the Lecture on Nature nor concords with the scientific methodology he has developed elsewhere. This interpretation has further ramifications for the assessment of Avicennaâs remarks on the Presocratics in two other works which are both central to Avicennaâs thought and contain in their Aristotelian counterparts lengthy discussion of the Presocratics, namely his Book on the Soul and his Metaphysics.

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Received Opinions: Doxography in Antiquity and the Islamic World

Series:Â Philosophia Antiqua, Volume: 160

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004504455

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 05 Jan 2022

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Chapter 12 Doxography and Philosophical Method: Avicennaâs Treatment of Presocratic Opinions

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Received Opinions: Doxography in Antiquity and the Islamic World

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Chapter 12 Doxography and Philosophical Method: Avicennaâs Treatment of Presocratic Opinions