Chapter 12 Doxography and Philosophical Method: Avicenna’s Treatment of Presocratic Opinions
In: Received Opinions: Doxography in Antiquity and the Islamic WorldSearch for other papers by Andreas Lammer in
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Abstract
In the preface to his Lecture on Nature, Avicenna professed that he intends to follow “the order according to which the philosophy of the Peripatetics proceeds.” While it, accordingly, does not come as a surprise that Avicenna—like Aristotle and his commentators—then discussed Presocratic theories in chapter I.4 of his Lecture on Nature, it is striking that he—unlike Aristotle and his commentators—did so only briefly and apparently with much less respect. This paper intends to provide an explanation for Avicenna’s 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 Avicenna’s remarks on the Presocratics in two other works which are both central to Avicenna’s thought and contain in their Aristotelian counterparts lengthy discussion of the Presocratics, namely his Book on the Soul and his Metaphysics.