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The Chorus (2004)

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Avicenna

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Ibn Sina (), commonly known as Avicenna in the West (; c.  980 - June 1037), was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, philosophers and writers of the Islamic Golden Age, and the father of early modern medicine. Sajjad H. Rizvi has called Avicenna "arguably the most influential philosopher of the pre-modern era". He was a Muslim Peripatetic philosopher influenced by Greek Aristotelian philosophy. Of the 450 works he is believed to have written, around 240 have survived, including 150 on philosophy and 40 on medicine.

His most famous works are The Book of Healing, a philosophical and scientific encyclopedia, and The Canon of Medicine, a medical encyclopedia which became a standard medical text at many medieval universities and remained in use as late as 1650. Besides philosophy and medicine, Avicenna's corpus includes writings on astronomy, alchemy, geography and geology, psychology, Islamic theology, logic, mathematics, physics and works of poetry.

is a Latin corruption of the Arabic patronym Ibn Sīnā (), meaning "Son of Sina". However, Avicenna was not the son but the great-great-grandson of a man named Sina. His formal Arabic name was Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn bin ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Ḥasan bin ʿAlī bin Sīnā al-Balkhi al-Bukhari (أبو علي الحسين بن عبد الله بن الحسن بن علي بن سينا البلخي البخاري ).

Avicenna created an extensive corpus of works during what is commonly known as the Islamic Golden Age, in which the translations of Byzantine Greco-Roman, Persian and Indian texts were studied extensively. Greco-Roman ( Mid- and Neo-Platonic, and Aristotelian) texts translated by the Kindi school were commented, redacted and developed substantially by Islamic intellectuals, who also built upon Persian and Indian mathematical systems, astronomy, algebra, trigonometry and medicine.

The Samanid dynasty in the eastern part of Persia, Greater Khorasan and Central Asia as well as the Buyid dynasty in the western part of Persia and Iraq provided a thriving atmosphere for scholarly and cultural development. Under the Samanids, Bukhara rivaled Baghdad as a cultural capital of the Islamic world. There, Avicenna had access to the great libraries of Balkh, Khwarezm, Gorgan, Rey, Isfahan and Hamadan.

Various texts (such as the 'Ahd with Bahmanyar) show that Avicenna debated philosophical points with the greatest scholars of the time. Aruzi Samarqandi describes how before Avicenna left Khwarezm he had met Al-Biruni (a famous scientist and astronomer), Abu Nasr Iraqi (a renowned mathematician), Abu Sahl Masihi (a respected philosopher) and Abu al-Khayr Khammar (a great physician). The study of the Quran and the Hadith also thrived, and Islamic philosophy, and theology () were all further developed by Avicenna and his opponents at this time.

Avicenna was born in c. 980 in the village of Afshana in Transoxiana to a family of Persian stock. The village was near the Samanid capital of Bukhara, which was his mother's hometown. His father Abd Allah was a native of the city of Balkh in Tukharistan. An official of the Samanid bureaucracy, he had served as the governor of a village of the royal estate of Harmaytan (near Bukhara) during the reign of Nuh II (). Avicenna also had a younger brother. A few years later, the family settled in Bukhara, a centre of learning, which attracted many scholars. It was there that Avicenna was educated, which early on was seemingly administered by his father. Although both Avicenna's father and brother had converted to Ismailism, he himself did not follow the faith. He was instead an adherent of the Hanafi school, which was also followed by the Samanids.

Avicenna was first schooled in the Quran and literature, and by the age of 10, he had memorised the entire Quran. He was later sent by his father to an Indian greengrocer, who taught him arithmetic. Afterwards, he was schooled in Jurisprudence by the Hanafi jurist Ismail al-Zahid. Some time later, Avicenna's father invited the physician and philosopher Abu Abdallah al-Natili to their house to educate Avicenna. Together, they studied the of Porphyry (died 305) and possibly the Categories of Aristotle (died 322 BC) as well. After Avicenna had read the of Ptolemy (died 170) and Euclid's Elements, Natili told him to continue his research independently. By the time Avicenna was eighteen, he was well-educated in Greek sciences. Although Avicenna only mentions Natili as his teacher in his autobiography, he most likely had other teachers as well, such as the physicians Abu Mansur Qumri and Abu Sahl al-Masihi.

At the age of seventeen, Avicenna was made a physician of Nuh II. By the time Avicenna was at least 21 years old, his father died. He was subsequently given an administrative post, possibly succeeding his father as the governor of Harmaytan. Avicenna later moved to Gurganj, the capital of Khwarazm, which he reports that he did due to "necessity". The date he went to the place is uncertain, as he reports that he served the Khwarazmshah (ruler) of the region, the Ma'munid Abu al-Hasan Ali. The latter ruled from 997 to 1009, which indicates that Avicenna moved sometime during that period. He may have moved in 999, the year which the Samanid state fell after the Turkic Qarakhanids captured Bukhara and imprisoned the Samanid ruler Abd al-Malik II. Due to his high position and strong connection with the Samanids, Avicenna may have found himself in an unfavorable position after the fall of his suzerain. It was through the minister of Gurganj, Abu'l-Husayn as-Sahi, a patron of Greek sciences, that Avicenna entered into the service of Abu al-Hasan Ali. Under the Ma'munids, Gurganj became a centre of learning, attracting many prominent figures, such as Avicenna and his former teacher Abu Sahl al-Masihi, the mathematician Abu Nasr Mansur, the physician Ibn al-Khammar, and the philologist al-Tha'alibi.

Avicenna later moved due to "necessity" once more (in 1012), this time to the west. There he travelled through the Khurasani cities of Nasa, Abivard, Tus, Samangan and Jajarm. He was planning to visit the ruler of the city of Gurgan, the Ziyarid Qabus ( r. 977-981, 997-1012), a cultivated patron of writing, whose court attracted many distinguished poets and scholars. However, when Avicenna eventually arrived, he discovered that the ruler had been dead since the winter of 1013. Avicenna then left Gurgan for Dihistan, but returned after becoming ill. There he met Abu 'Ubayd al-Juzjani (died 1070) who became his pupil and companion. Avicenna stayed briefly in Gurgan, reportedly serving Qabus' son and successor Manuchihr ( r. 1012-1031) and resided in the house of a patron.

In c. 1014, Avicenna went to the city of Ray, where he entered into the service of the Buyid (ruler) Majd al-Dawla ( r. 997-1029) and his mother Sayyida Shirin, the de facto ruler of the realm. There he served as the physician at the court, treating Majd al-Dawla, who was suffering from melancholia. Avicenna reportedly later served as the "business manager" of Sayyida Shirin in Qazvin and Hamadan, though details regarding this tenure are unclear. During his period, Avicenna finished his Canon of Medicine, and started writing his Book of Healing. In 1015, during Avicenna's stay in Hamadan, he participated in a public debate, as was custom for newly arrived scholars in western Iran at that time. The purpose of the debate was to examining one's reputation against a prominent local resident. The person whom Avicenna debated against was Abu'l-Qasim al-Kirmani, a member of the school of philosophers of Baghdad.

The debate became heated, resulting in Avicenna accusing Abu'l-Qasim of lack of basic knowledge in logic, while Abu'l-Qasim accused Avicenna of impoliteness. After the debate, Avicenna sent a letter to the Baghdad Peripatetics, asking if Abu'l-Qasim's claim that he shared the same opinion as them was true. Abu'l-Qasim later retaliated by writing a letter to an unknown person, in which he made accusations so serious, that Avicenna wrote to a deputy of Majd al-Dawla, named Abu Sa'd, to investigate the matter. The accusation made towards Avicenna may have been the same as he had received earlier, in which he was accused by the people of Hamadan of copying the stylistic structures of the Quran in his Sermons on Divine Unity. The seriousness of this charge, in the words of the historian Peter Adamson, "cannot be underestimated in the larger Muslim culture."

Not long afterwards, Avicenna shifted his allegiance to the rising Buyid amir Shams al-Dawla (the younger brother of Majd al-Dawla), which Adamson suggests was due to Abu'l-Qasim also working under Sayyida Shirin. Avicenna had been called upon by Shams al-Dawla to treat him, but after the latters campaign in the same year against his former ally, the Annazid ruler Abu Shawk ( r. 1010-1046), he forced Avicenna to become his vizier. Although Avicenna would sometimes clash with Shams al-Dawla's troops, he remained vizier until the latter died of colic in 1021. Avicenna was asked by Shams al-Dawla's son and successor Sama' al-Dawla ( r. 1021-1023) stay as vizier, but instead went into hiding with his patron Abu Ghalib al-Attar, to wait for better opportunities to emerge. It was during this period that Avicenna was secretly in contact with Ala al-Dawla Muhammad ( r. 1008-1041), the Kakuyid ruler of Isfahan and uncle of Sayyida Shirin.

During his stay at Attar's home that Avicenna completed his Book of Healing, writing fifty pages a day. The Buyid court in Hamadan, particularly the Kurdish vizier Taj al-Mulk, suspected Avicenna of correspondence with Ala al-Dawla, and as result had the house of Attar ransacked and Avicenna imprisoned in the fortress of Fardajan, outside Hamadan. Juzjani blames one of Avicenna's informers for his capture. Avicenna was imprisoned in four months, until Ala al-Dawla captured Hamadan, thus putting an end to Sama al-Dawla's reign.

Avicenna was subsequently released, and went to Isfahan, where he was well received by Ala al-Dawla. In the words of Juzjani, the Kakuyid ruler gave Avicenna "the respect and esteem which someone like him deserved." Adamson also says that Avicenna's service under Ala al-Dawla "proved to be the most stable period of his life." Avicenna served as the advisor, if not vizier of Ala al-Dawla, accompanying him in many of his military expeditions and travels. Avicenna dedicated two Persian works to him, a philosophical treatise named Danish-nama-yi Ala'i ("Book of Science for Ala"), and a medical treatise about the pulse.

During the brief occupation of Isfahan by the Ghaznavids in January 1030, Avicenna and Ala al-Dawla relocated to the southwestern Iranian region of Khuzistan, where they stayed until the death of the Ghaznavid ruler Mahmud ( r. 998-1030), which occurred two months later. It was seemingly when Avicenna returned to Isfahan that he started writing his Pointers and Reminders. In 1037, while Avicenna was accompanying Ala al-Dawla to a battle near Isfahan, he was hit by a severe colic, which he had been constantly suffering from throughout his life. He died shortly afterwards in Hamadan, where he was buried.

Avicenna wrote extensively on early Islamic philosophy, especially the subjects logic, ethics and metaphysics, including treatises named Logic and Metaphysics. Most of his works were written in Arabic-then the language of science in the Middle East-and some in Persian. Of linguistic significance even to this day are a few books that he wrote in nearly pure Persian language (particularly the Danishnamah-yi 'Ala', Philosophy for Ala' ad-Dawla'). Avicenna's commentaries on Aristotle often criticized the philosopher, encouraging a lively debate in the spirit of ijtihad.

Avicenna's Neoplatonic scheme of "emanations" became fundamental in the (school of theological discourse) in the 12th century.

His Book of Healing became available in Europe in partial Latin translation some fifty years after its composition, under the title Sufficientia, and some authors have identified a "Latin Avicennism" as flourishing for some time, paralleling the more influential Latin Averroism, but suppressed by the Parisian decrees of 1210 and 1215.

Avicenna's psychology and theory of knowledge influenced William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris and Albertus Magnus, while his metaphysics influenced the thought of Thomas Aquinas.

Early Islamic philosophy and Islamic metaphysics, imbued as it is with Islamic theology, distinguishes more clearly than Aristotelianism between essence and existence. Whereas existence is the domain of the contingent and the accidental, essence endures within a being beyond the accidental. The philosophy of Avicenna, particularly that part relating to metaphysics, owes much to al-Farabi. The search for a definitive Islamic philosophy separate from Occasionalism can be seen in what is left of his work.

Following al-Farabi's lead, Avicenna initiated a full-fledged inquiry into the question of being, in which he distinguished between essence ( Mahiat) and existence ( Wujud). He argued that the fact of existence cannot be inferred from or accounted for by the essence of existing things, and that form and matter by themselves cannot interact and originate the movement of the universe or the progressive actualization of existing things. Existence must, therefore, be due to an agent-cause that necessitates, imparts, gives, or adds existence to an essence. To do so, the cause must be an existing thing and coexist with its effect.

Avicenna's consideration of the essence-attributes question may be elucidated in terms of his ontological analysis of the modalities of being; namely impossibility, contingency and necessity. Avicenna argued that the impossible being is that which cannot exist, while the contingent in itself ( mumkin bi-dhatihi) has the potentiality to be or not to be without entailing a contradiction. When actualized, the contingent becomes a 'necessary existent due to what is other than itself' ( wajib al-wujud bi-ghayrihi). Thus, contingency-in-itself is potential beingness that could eventually be actualized by an external cause other than itself. The metaphysical structures of necessity and contingency are different. Necessary being due to itself ( wajib al-wujud bi-dhatihi) is true in itself, while the contingent being is 'false in itself' and 'true due to something else other than itself'. The necessary is the source of its own being without borrowed existence. It is what always exists.

The Necessary exists 'due-to-Its-Self', and has no quiddity/essence ( mahiyya) other than existence ( wujud). Furthermore, It is 'One' ( wahid ahad) since there cannot be more than one 'Necessary-Existent-due-to-Itself' without differentia (fasl) to distinguish them from each other. Yet, to require differentia entails that they exist 'due-to-themselves' as well as 'due to what is other than themselves'; and this is contradictory. However, if no differentia distinguishes them from each other, then there is no sense in which these 'Existents' are not one and the same. Avicenna adds that the 'Necessary-Existent-due-to-Itself' has no genus ( jins), nor a definition ( hadd), nor a counterpart ( nadd), nor an opposite ( did), and is detached ( bari) from matter ( madda), quality ( kayf), quantity ( kam), place ( ayn), situation ( wad) and time ( waqt).

Avicenna's theology on metaphysical issues ( ilāhiyyāt) has been criticized by some Islamic scholars, among them al-Ghazali, Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim. While discussing the views of the theists among the Greek philosophers, namely Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in Al-Munqidh min ad-Dalal ("Deliverance from Error"), al-Ghazali noted that the Greek philosophers "must be taxed with unbelief, as must their partisans among the Muslim philosophers, such as Avicenna and al-Farabi and their likes." He added that "None, however, of the Muslim philosophers engaged so much in transmitting Aristotle's lore as did the two men just mentioned. [...] The sum of what we regard as the authentic philosophy of Aristotle, as transmitted by al-Farabi and Avicenna, can be reduced to three parts: a part which must be branded as unbelief; a part which must be stigmatized as innovation; and a part which need not be repudiated at all."

Argument for God's existence

Avicenna made an argument for the existence of God which would be known as the " Proof of the Truthful" ( Arabic: burhan al-siddiqin). Avicenna argued that there must be a "necessary existent" (Arabic: wajib al-wujud), an entity that cannot not exist and through a series of arguments, he identified it with the Islamic conception of God. Present-day historian of philosophy Peter Adamson called this argument one of the most influential medieval arguments for God's existence, and Avicenna's biggest contribution to the history of philosophy.

Correspondence between Avicenna (with his student Ahmad ibn 'Ali al-Ma'sumi) and Al-Biruni has survived in which they debated Aristotelian natural philosophy and the Peripatetic school. Abu Rayhan began by asking Avicenna eighteen questions, ten of which were criticisms of Aristotle's On the Heavens.

Avicenna was a devout Muslim and sought to reconcile rational philosophy with Islamic theology. His aim was to prove the existence of God and His creation of the world scientifically and through reason and logic. Avicenna's views on Islamic theology (and philosophy) were enormously influential, forming part of the core of the curriculum at Islamic religious schools until the 19th century. Avicenna wrote a number of short treatises dealing with Islamic theology. These included treatises on the prophets (whom he viewed as "inspired philosophers"), and also on various scientific and philosophical interpretations of the Quran, such as how Quranic cosmology corresponds to his own philosophical system. In general these treatises linked his philosophical writings to Islamic religious ideas; for example, the body's afterlife.

There are occasional brief hints and allusions in his longer works, however, that Avicenna considered philosophy as the only sensible way to distinguish real prophecy from illusion. He did not state this more clearly because of the political implications of such a theory, if prophecy could be questioned, and also because most of the time he was writing shorter works which concentrated on explaining his theories on philosophy and theology clearly, without digressing to consider epistemological matters which could only be properly considered by other philosophers.

Later interpretations of Avicenna's philosophy split into three different schools; those (such as al-Tusi) who continued to apply his philosophy as a system to interpret later political events and scientific advances; those (such as al-Razi) who considered Avicenna's theological works in isolation from his wider philosophical concerns; and those (such as al-Ghazali) who selectively used parts of his philosophy to support their own attempts to gain greater spiritual insights through a variety of mystical means. It was the theological interpretation championed by those such as al-Razi which eventually came to predominate in the madrasahs.

Avicenna memorized the Quran by the age of ten, and as an adult, he wrote five treatises commenting on suras from the Quran. One of these texts included the Proof of Prophecies, in which he comments on several Quranic verses and holds the Quran in high esteem. Avicenna argued that the Islamic prophets should be considered higher than philosophers.

Avicenna is generally understood to have been aligned with the Sunni Hanafi school of thought. Avicenna studied Hanafi law, many of his notable teachers were Hanafi jurists, and he served under the Hanafi court of Ali ibn Mamun. Avicenna said at an early age that he remained "unconvinced" by Ismaili missionary attempts to convert him. Medieval historian Ẓahīr al-dīn al-Bayhaqī (d. 1169) also believed Avicenna to be a follower of the Brethren of Purity.

While he was imprisoned in the castle of Fardajan near Hamadhan, Avicenna wrote his famous " floating man"-literally falling man-a thought experiment to demonstrate human self-awareness and the substantiality and immateriality of the soul. Avicenna believed his "Floating Man" thought experiment demonstrated that the soul is a substance, and claimed humans cannot doubt their own consciousness, even in a situation that prevents all sensory data input. The thought experiment told its readers to imagine themselves created all at once while suspended in the air, isolated from all sensations, which includes no sensory contact with even their own bodies. He argued that, in this scenario, one would still have self-consciousness. Because it is conceivable that a person, suspended in air while cut off from sense experience, would still be capable of determining his own existence, the thought experiment points to the conclusions that the soul is a perfection, independent of the body, and an immaterial substance. The conceivability of this "Floating Man" indicates that the soul is perceived intellectually, which entails the soul's separateness from the body. Avicenna referred to the living human intelligence, particularly the active intellect, which he believed to be the hypostasis by which God communicates truth to the human mind and imparts order and intelligibility to nature. Following is an English translation of the argument:

One of us (i.e. a human being) should be imagined as having been created in a single stroke; created perfect and complete but with his vision obscured so that he cannot perceive external entities; created falling through air or a void, in such a manner that he is not struck by the firmness of the air in any way that compels him to feel it, and with his limbs separated so that they do not come in contact with or touch each other. Then contemplate the following: can he be assured of the existence of himself? He does not have any doubt in that his self exists, without thereby asserting that he has any exterior limbs, nor any internal organs, neither heart nor brain, nor any one of the exterior things at all; but rather he can affirm the existence of himself, without thereby asserting there that this self has any extension in space. Even if it were possible for him in that state to imagine a hand or any other limb, he would not imagine it as being a part of his self, nor as a condition for the existence of that self; for as you know that which is asserted is different from that which is not asserted and that which is inferred is different from that which is not inferred. Therefore the self, the existence of which has been asserted, is a unique characteristic, in as much that it is not as such the same as the body or the limbs, which have not been ascertained. Thus that which is ascertained (i.e. the self), does have a way of being sure of the existence of the soul as something other than the body, even something non-bodily; this he knows, this he should understand intuitively, if it is that he is ignorant of it and needs to be beaten with a stick [to realize it].

However, Avicenna posited the brain as the place where reason interacts with sensation. Sensation prepares the soul to receive rational concepts from the universal Agent Intellect. The first knowledge of the flying person would be "I am," affirming his or her essence. That essence could not be the body, obviously, as the flying person has no sensation. Thus, the knowledge that "I am" is the core of a human being: the soul exists and is self-aware. Avicenna thus concluded that the idea of the self is not logically dependent on any physical thing, and that the soul should not be seen in relative terms, but as a primary given, a substance. The body is unnecessary; in relation to it, the soul is its perfection. In itself, the soul is an immaterial substance.

Avicenna authored a five-volume medical encyclopedia: The Canon of Medicine ( Al-Qanun fi't-Tibb). It was used as the standard medical textbook in the Islamic world and Europe up to the 18th century. The Canon still plays an important role in Unani medicine.

Liber Primus Naturalium

Avicenna considered whether events like rare diseases or disorders have natural causes. He used the example of polydactyly to explain his perception that causal reasons exist for all medical events. This view of medical phenomena anticipated developments in the Enlightenment by seven centuries.

Avicenna wrote on Earth sciences such as geology in The Book of Healing. While discussing the formation of mountains, he explained:

Either they are the effects of upheavals of the crust of the earth, such as might occur during a violent earthquake, or they are the effect of water, which, cutting itself a new route, has denuded the valleys, the strata being of different kinds, some soft, some hard ... It would require a long period of time for all such changes to be accomplished, during which the mountains themselves might be somewhat diminished in size.

In the Al-Burhan ( On Demonstration) section of The Book of Healing, Avicenna discussed the philosophy of science and described an early scientific method of inquiry. He discussed Aristotle's Posterior Analytics and significantly diverged from it on several points. Avicenna discussed the issue of a proper methodology for scientific inquiry and the question of "How does one acquire the first principles of a science?" He asked how a scientist would arrive at "the initial axioms or hypotheses of a deductive science without inferring them from some more basic premises?" He explained that the ideal situation is when one grasps that a "relation holds between the terms, which would allow for absolute, universal certainty". Avicenna then added two further methods for arriving at the first principles: the ancient Aristotelian method of induction ( istiqra), and the method of examination and experimentation ( tajriba). Avicenna criticized Aristotelian induction, arguing that "it does not lead to the absolute, universal, and certain premises that it purports to provide." In its place, he developed a "method of experimentation as a means for scientific inquiry."

An early formal system of temporal logic was studied by Avicenna. Although he did not develop a real theory of temporal propositions, he did study the relationship between temporalis and the implication. Avicenna's work was further developed by Najm al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī al-Kātibī and became the dominant system of Islamic logic until modern times. Avicennian logic also influenced several early European logicians such as Albertus Magnus and William of Ockham. Avicenna endorsed the law of non-contradiction proposed by Aristotle, that a fact could not be both true and false at the same time and in the same sense of the terminology used. He stated, "Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned."

In mechanics, Avicenna, in The Book of Healing, developed a theory of motion, in which he made a distinction between the inclination (tendency to motion) and force of a projectile, and concluded that motion was a result of an inclination ( mayl) transferred to the projectile by the thrower, and that projectile motion in a vacuum would not cease. He viewed inclination as a permanent force whose effect is dissipated by external forces such as air resistance.

The theory of motion presented by Avicenna was probably influenced by the 6th-century Alexandrian scholar John Philoponus. Avicenna's is a less sophisticated variant of the theory of impetus developed by Buridan in the 14th century. It is unclear if Buridan was influenced by Avicenna, or by Philoponus directly.

In optics, Avicenna was among those who argued that light had a speed, observing that "if the perception of light is due to the emission of some sort of particles by a luminous source, the speed of light must be finite." He also provided a wrong explanation of the rainbow phenomenon. Carl Benjamin Boyer described Avicenna's ("Ibn Sīnā") theory on the rainbow as follows:

Independent observation had demonstrated to him that the bow is not formed in the dark cloud but rather in the very thin mist lying between the cloud and the sun or observer. The cloud, he thought, serves simply as the background of this thin substance, much as a quicksilver lining is placed upon the rear surface of the glass in a mirror. Ibn Sīnā would change the place not only of the bow, but also of the color formation, holding the iridescence to be merely a subjective sensation in the eye.

In 1253, a Latin text entitled Speculum Tripartitum stated the following regarding Avicenna's theory on heat:

Avicenna says in his book of heaven and earth, that heat is generated from motion in external things.

Avicenna's legacy in classical psychology is primarily embodied in the Kitab al-nafs parts of his Kitab al-shifa ( The Book of Healing) and Kitab al-najat ( The Book of Deliverance). These were known in Latin under the title De Anima (treatises "on the soul").[dubious ] Notably, Avicenna develops what is called the Flying Man argument in the Psychology of The Cure I.1.7 as defence of the argument that the soul is without quantitative extension, which has an affinity with Descartes's cogito argument (or what phenomenology designates as a form of an " epoche").

Avicenna's psychology requires that connection between the body and soul be strong enough to ensure the soul's individuation, but weak enough to allow for its immortality. Avicenna grounds his psychology on physiology, which means his account of the soul is one that deals almost entirely with the natural science of the body and its abilities of perception. Thus, the philosopher's connection between the soul and body is explained almost entirely by his understanding of perception; in this way, bodily perception interrelates with the immaterial human intellect. In sense perception, the perceiver senses the form of the object; first, by perceiving features of the object by our external senses. This sensory information is supplied to the internal senses, which merge all the pieces into a whole, unified conscious experience. This process of perception and abstraction is the nexus of the soul and body, for the material body may only perceive material objects, while the immaterial soul may only receive the immaterial, universal forms. The way the soul and body interact in the final abstraction of the universal from the concrete particular is the key to their relationship and interaction, which takes place in the physical body.

The soul completes the action of intellection by accepting forms that have been abstracted from matter. This process requires a concrete particular (material) to be abstracted into the universal intelligible (immaterial). The material and immaterial interact through the Active Intellect, which is a "divine light" containing the intelligible forms. The Active Intellect reveals the universals concealed in material objects much like the sun makes colour available to our eyes.

Avicenna wrote an attack on astrology titled Resāla fī ebṭāl aḥkām al-nojūm, in which he cited passages from the Quran to dispute the power of astrology to foretell the future. He believed that each planet had some influence on the earth, but argued against astrologers being able to determine the exact effects.

Avicenna's astronomical writings had some influence on later writers, although in general his work could be considered less developed than Alhazen or Al-Biruni. One important feature of his writing is that he considers mathematical astronomy as a separate discipline to astrology. He criticized Aristotle's view of the stars receiving their light from the Sun, stating that the stars are self-luminous, and believed that the planets are also self-luminous. He claimed to have observed Venus as a spot on the Sun. This is possible, as there was a transit on 24 May 1032, but Avicenna did not give the date of his observation, and modern scholars have questioned whether he could have observed the transit from his location at that time; he may have mistaken a sunspot for Venus. He used his transit observation to help establish that Venus was, at least sometimes, below the Sun in Ptolemaic cosmology, i.e. the sphere of Venus comes before the sphere of the Sun when moving out from the Earth in the prevailing geocentric model.

He also wrote the Summary of the Almagest, (based on Ptolemy's ), with an appended treatise "to bring that which is stated in the Almagest and what is understood from Natural Science into conformity". For example, Avicenna considers the motion of the solar apogee, which Ptolemy had taken to be fixed.

Avicenna was first to derive the attar of flowers from distillation and used steam distillation to produce essential oils such as rose essence, which he used as aromatherapeutic treatments for heart conditions.

Unlike al-Razi, Avicenna explicitly disputed the theory of the transmutation of substances commonly believed by alchemists:

Those of the chemical craft know well that no change can be effected in the different species of substances, though they can produce the appearance of such change.

Four works on alchemy attributed to Avicenna were translated into Latin as:

Liber Aboali Abincine de Anima in arte Alchemiae

Declaratio Lapis physici Avicennae filio sui Aboali

Avicennae de congelatione et conglutinatione lapidum

Avicennae ad Hasan Regem epistola de Re recta

Liber Aboali Abincine de Anima in arte Alchemiae was the most influential, having influenced later medieval chemists and alchemists such as Vincent of Beauvais. However, Anawati argues (following Ruska) that the de Anima is a fake by a Spanish author. Similarly the Declaratio is believed not to be actually by Avicenna. The third work ( The Book of Minerals) is agreed to be Avicenna's writing, adapted from the Kitab al-Shifa ( Book of the Remedy). Avicenna classified minerals into stones, fusible substances, sulfurs and salts, building on the ideas of Aristotle and Jabir. The epistola de Re recta is somewhat less sceptical of alchemy; Anawati argues that it is by Avicenna, but written earlier in his career when he had not yet firmly decided that transmutation was impossible.

Almost half of Avicenna's works are versified. His poems appear in both Arabic and Persian. As an example, Edward Granville Browne claims that the following Persian verses are incorrectly attributed to Omar Khayyám, and were originally written by Ibn Sīnā:

از قعر گل سیاه تا اوج زحل
کردم همه مشکلات گیتی را حل
بیرون جستم زقید هر مکر و حیل
هر بند گشاده شد مگر بند اجل

From the depth of the black earth up to Saturn's apogee,
All the problems of the universe have been solved by me.
I have escaped from the coils of snares and deceits;
I have unraveled all knots except the knot of Death.

Robert Wisnovsky, a scholar of Avicenna attached to McGill University, says that "Avicenna was the central figure in the long history of the rational sciences in Islam, particularly in the fields of metaphysics, logic and medicine" but that his works didn't only have an influence in these "secular" fields of knowledge alone, as "these works, or portions of them, were read, taught, copied, commented upon, quoted, paraphrased and cited by thousands of post-Avicennian scholars-not only philosophers, logicians, physicians and specialists in the mathematical or exact sciences, but also by those who specialized in the disciplines of ʿilm al-kalām (rational theology, but understood to include natural philosophy, epistemology and philosophy of mind) and usūl al-fiqh (jurisprudence, but understood to include philosophy of law, dialectic, and philosophy of language)."

As early as the 14th century when Dante Alighieri depicted him in Limbo alongside the virtuous non-Christian thinkers in his Divine Comedy such as Virgil, Averroes, Homer, Horace, Ovid, Lucan, Socrates, Plato and Saladin. Avicenna has been recognized by both East and West, as one of the great figures in intellectual history. Johannes Kepler cites Avicenna's opinion when discussing the causes of planetary motions in Chapter 2 of Astronomia Nova

George Sarton, the author of The History of Science, described Avicenna as "one of the greatest thinkers and medical scholars in history" and called him "the most famous scientist of Islam and one of the most famous of all races, places, and times". He was one of the Islamic world's leading writers in the field of medicine.

Along with Rhazes, Abulcasis, Ibn al-Nafis and al-Ibadi, Avicenna is considered an important compiler of early Muslim medicine. He is remembered in the Western history of medicine as a major historical figure who made important contributions to medicine and the European Renaissance. His medical texts were unusual in that where controversy existed between Galen and Aristotle's views on medical matters (such as anatomy), he preferred to side with Aristotle, where necessary updating Aristotle's position to take into account post-Aristotelian advances in anatomical knowledge. Aristotle's dominant intellectual influence among medieval European scholars meant that Avicenna's linking of Galen's medical writings with Aristotle's philosophical writings in the Canon of Medicine (along with its comprehensive and logical organisation of knowledge) significantly increased Avicenna's importance in medieval Europe in comparison to other Islamic writers on medicine. His influence following translation of the Canon was such that from the early fourteenth to the mid-sixteenth centuries he was ranked with Hippocrates and Galen as one of the acknowledged authorities, princeps medicorum ("prince of physicians").

In present-day Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, he is considered a national icon, and is often regarded as among the greatest Persians. A monument was erected outside the Bukhara museum. The Avicenna Mausoleum and Museum in Hamadan was built in 1952. Bu-Ali Sina University in Hamadan (Iran), the biotechnology Avicenna Research Institute in Tehran (Iran), the ibn Sīnā Tajik State Medical University in Dushanbe, Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences at Aligarh, India, Avicenna School in Karachi and Avicenna Medical College in Lahore, Pakistan, Ibn Sina Balkh Medical School in his native province of Balkh in Afghanistan, Ibni Sina Faculty Of Medicine of Ankara University Ankara, Turkey, the main classroom building (the Avicenna Building) of the Sharif University of Technology, and Ibn Sina Integrated School in Marawi City (Philippines) are all named in his honour. His portrait hangs in the Hall of the Avicenna Faculty of Medicine in the University of Paris. There is a crater on the Moon named Avicenna and a mangrove genus.

In 1980, the Soviet Union, which then ruled his birthplace Bukhara, celebrated the thousandth anniversary of Avicenna's birth by circulating various commemorative stamps with artistic illustrations, and by erecting a bust of Avicenna based on anthropological research by Soviet scholars. Near his birthplace in Qishlak Afshona, some 25 km (16 mi) north of Bukhara, a training college for medical staff has been named for him. On the grounds is a museum dedicated to his life, times and work.

The Avicenna Prize, established in 2003, is awarded every two years by UNESCO and rewards individuals and groups for their achievements in the field of ethics in science. The aim of the award is to promote ethical reflection on issues raised by advances in science and technology, and to raise global awareness of the importance of ethics in science.

The Avicenna Directories (2008-15; now the World Directory of Medical Schools) list universities and schools where doctors, public health practitioners, pharmacists and others, are educated. The original project team stated "Why Avicenna? Avicenna ... was ... noted for his synthesis of knowledge from both east and west. He has had a lasting influence on the development of medicine and health sciences. The use of Avicenna's name symbolises the worldwide partnership that is needed for the promotion of health services of high quality."

In June 2009, Iran donated a " Persian Scholars Pavilion" to United Nations Office in Vienna which is placed in the central Memorial Plaza of the Vienna International Center. The "Persian Scholars Pavilion" at United Nations in Vienna, Austria is featuring the statues of four prominent Iranian figures. Highlighting the Iranian architectural features, the pavilion is adorned with Persian art forms and includes the statues of renowned Iranian scientists Avicenna, Al-Biruni, Zakariya Razi (Rhazes) and Omar Khayyam.

The 1982 Soviet film Youth of Genius (Russian: Юность гения, romanized: Yunost geniya) by Elyor Ishmukhamedov recounts Avicenna's younger years. The film is set in Bukhara at the turn of the millennium.

In Louis L'Amour's 1985 historical novel The Walking Drum, Kerbouchard studies and discusses Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine.

In his book The Physician (1988) Noah Gordon tells the story of a young English medical apprentice who disguises himself as a Jew to travel from England to Persia and learn from Avicenna, the great master of his time. The novel was adapted into a feature film, The Physician, in 2013. Avicenna was played by Ben Kingsley.

The treatises of Avicenna influenced later Muslim thinkers in many areas including theology, philology, mathematics, astronomy, physics and music. His works numbered almost 450 volumes on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived. In particular, 150 volumes of his surviving works concentrate on philosophy and 40 of them concentrate on medicine. His most famous works are The Book of Healing, and The Canon of Medicine.

Avicenna wrote at least one treatise on alchemy, but several others have been falsely attributed to him. His Logic, Metaphysics, Physics, and De Caelo, are treatises giving a synoptic view of Aristotelian doctrine, though Metaphysics demonstrates a significant departure from the brand of Neoplatonism known as Aristotelianism in Avicenna's world; Arabic philosophers have hinted at the idea that Avicenna was attempting to "re-Aristotelianise" Muslim philosophy in its entirety, unlike his predecessors, who accepted the conflation of Platonic, Aristotelian, Neo- and Middle-Platonic works transmitted into the Muslim world.

The Logic and Metaphysics have been extensively reprinted, the latter, e.g., at Venice in 1493, 1495 and 1546. Some of his shorter essays on medicine, logic, etc., take a poetical form (the poem on logic was published by Schmoelders in 1836). Two encyclopedic treatises, dealing with philosophy, are often mentioned. The larger, ( Sanatio), exists nearly complete in manuscript in the Bodleian Library and elsewhere; part of it on the De Anima appeared at Pavia (1490) as the Liber Sextus Naturalium, and the long account of Avicenna's philosophy given by Muhammad al-Shahrastani seems to be mainly an analysis, and in many places a reproduction, of the Al-Shifa'. A shorter form of the work is known as the An-najat ( Liberatio). The Latin editions of part of these works have been modified by the corrections which the monastic editors confess that they applied. There is also a حكمت مشرقيه ( hikmat-al-mashriqqiyya, in Latin Philosophia Orientalis), mentioned by Roger Bacon, the majority of which is lost in antiquity, which according to Averroes was pantheistic in tone.

Sirat al-shaykh al-ra'is (The Life of Avicenna), ed. and trans. WE. Gohlman, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1974. (The only critical edition of Avicenna's autobiography, supplemented with material from a biography by his student Abu 'Ubayd al-Juzjani. A more recent translation of the Autobiography appears in D. Gutas, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition: Introduction to Reading Avicenna's Philosophical Works, Leiden: Brill, 1988; second edition 2014.)

Al-isharat wa al-tanbihat (Remarks and Admonitions), ed. S. Dunya, Cairo, 1960; parts translated by S.C. Inati, Remarks and Admonitions, Part One: Logic, Toronto, Ont.: Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies, 1984, and Ibn Sina and Mysticism, Remarks and Admonitions: Part 4, London: Kegan Paul International, 1996.

Al-Qanun fi'l-tibb (The Canon of Medicine), ed. I. a-Qashsh, Cairo, 1987. (Encyclopedia of medicine.) manuscript, Latin translation, Flores Avicenne, Michael de Capella, 1508, Modern text. Ahmed Shawkat Al-Shatti, Jibran Jabbur.

Risalah fi sirr al-qadar (Essay on the Secret of Destiny), trans. G. Hourani in Reason and Tradition in Islamic Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Danishnama-i 'ala'i (The Book of Scientific Knowledge), ed. and trans. P. Morewedge, The Metaphysics of Avicenna, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973.

Kitab al-Shifa' (The Book of Healing). (Avicenna's major work on philosophy. He probably began to compose al-Shifa' in 1014, and completed it in 1020.) Critical editions of the Arabic text have been published in Cairo, 1952-83, originally under the supervision of I. Madkour.

Kitab al-Najat (The Book of Salvation), trans. F. Rahman, Avicenna's Psychology: An English Translation of Kitab al-Najat, Book II, Chapter VI with Historical-philosophical Notes and Textual Improvements on the Cairo Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952. (The psychology of al-Shifa'.) (Digital version of the Arabic text)

Risala fi'l-Ishq (A Treatise on Love). Translated by Emil L. Fackenheim.

Avicenna's most important Persian work is the Danishnama-i 'Alai (دانشنامه علائی , "the Book of Knowledge for [Prince] 'Ala ad-Daulah"). Avicenna created new scientific vocabulary that had not previously existed in Persian. The Danishnama covers such topics as logic, metaphysics, music theory and other sciences of his time. It has been translated into English by Parwiz Morewedge in 1977. The book is also important in respect to Persian scientific works.

Andar Danesh-e Rag (اندر دانش رگ , "On the Science of the Pulse") contains nine chapters on the science of the pulse and is a condensed synopsis.

Persian poetry from Avicenna is recorded in various manuscripts and later anthologies such as Nozhat al-Majales.

Al-Qumri (possibly Avicenna's teacher)

Abdol Hamid Khosro Shahi (Iranian theologian)

Mummia (Persian medicine)

Namesakes of Ibn Sina

Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences in Aligarh

Avicenna Bay in Antarctica

Avicenna (crater) on the far side of the Moon

Avicenna Cultural and Scientific Foundation

Avicenna Research Institute in Tehran, Iran

Bu-Ali Sina University in Hamedan, Iran

Ibn Sina Foundation in Houston, Texas

Ibn Sina Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey

Ibne Sina Hospital, Multan, Punjab, Pakistan

International Ibn Sina Clinic, Dushanbe, Tajikistan

Philosophy

Science in the medieval Islamic world

Science and technology in Iran

1. ^

2. ^ Ramin Jahanbegloo, In Search of the Sacred : A Conversation with Seyyed Hossein Nasr on His Life and Thought, ABC-CLIO (2010), p. 59

3. ^ Corbin, Henry (19 April 2016). Avicenna and the Visionary Recital. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-63054-0. In this work a distinguished scholar of Islamic religion examines the mysticism and psychological thought of the great eleventh-century Persian philosopher and physician Avicenna (Ibn Sina), author of over a hundred works on theology, logic, medicine, and mathematics.

4. ^ Daly, Jonathan (19 December 2013). The Rise of Western Power: A Comparative History of Western Civilization. A&C Black. p. 18. ISBN 978-1-4411-1851-6. The Persian polymath Ibn Sina(981-1037)

5. ^

Adamson 2016, pp. 113, 117, 206.
(page 113) "For one thing, it means that he[Avicenna] had a Persian cultural background...he spoke Persian natively and did use it to write philosophy."
(page 117) "But for the time being, it was a Persian from Khurasan who would have commentaries lavished upon him. Avicenna would be known by the honorific of "leading master" (al-shaykh al-raʾis)."
(page 206) "Persians like Avicenna"

Bennison, Amira K. (2009). The great caliphs: the golden age of the 'Abbasid Empire. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 195. ISBN 978-0-300-15227-2. Avicenna was a Persian whose father served the Samanids of Khurasan and Transoxania as the administrator of a rural district outside Bukhara.

Paul Strathern (2005). A brief history of medicine: from Hippocrates to gene therapy. Running Press. p. 58. ISBN 978-0-7867-1525-1.

Brian Duignan (2010). Medieval Philosophy. The Rosen Publishing Group. p. 89. ISBN 978-1-61530-244-4.

Michael Kort (2004). Central Asian republics. Infobase Publishing. p. 24. ISBN 978-0-8160-5074-1.

"He was born in 370/980 in Afshana, his mother's home, near Bukhara. His native language was Persian" (from "Ibn Sina ("Avicenna")", Encyclopedia of Islam, Brill, second edition (2009). Accessed via Brill Online at http://www.encislam.brill.nl).

"Avicenna was the greatest of all Persian thinkers; as physician and metaphysician ..." (excerpt from A.J. Arberry, Avicenna on Theology, Kazi Publications Inc, 1995).

"Whereas the name of Avicenna (Ibn Sina, died 1037) is generally listed as chronologically first among noteworthy Iranian philosophers, recent evidence has revealed previous existence of Ismaili philosophical systems with a structure no less complete than of Avicenna" (from p. 74 of Henry Corbin, The Voyage and the messenger: Iran and philosophy, North Atlantic Books, 1998.)

6. ^ Saffari, Mohsen; Pakpour, Amir (1 December 2012). "Avicenna's Canon of Medicine: A Look at Health, Public Health, and Environmental Sanitation". Archives of Iranian Medicine. 15 (12): 785-9. PMID 23199255. Avicenna was a well-known Persian and a Muslim scientist who was considered to be the father of early modern medicine.

7. ^ Colgan, Richard (19 September 2009). Advice to the Young Physician: On the Art of Medicine. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 33. ISBN 978-1-4419-1034-9. Avicenna is known as the father of early modern medicine.

8. ^ Roudgari, Hassan (28 December 2018). "Ibn Sina or Abu Ali Sina (ابن سینا c. 980 -1037) is often known by his Latin name of Avicenna (ævɪˈsɛnə/)". Journal of Iranian Medical Council. 1 (2). ISSN 2645-338X. Avicenna was a Persian polymath and one of the most famous physicians from the Islamic Golden Age. He is known as the father of early modern medicine and his most famous work in Medicine called "The Book of Healing", which became a standard medical textbook at many European universities and remained in use up to the recent centuries.

9. ^ "Avicenna (Ibn Sina) | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy".

10. O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Avicenna", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews

11. ^ Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (2007). "Avicenna". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Archived from the original on 31 October 2007.

12. Edwin Clarke, Charles Donald O'Malley (1996), ^ The human brain and spinal cord: a historical study illustrated by writings from antiquity to the twentieth century, Norman Publishing, p. 20 (ISBN 0-930405-25-0).

13. Iris Bruijn (2009), ^ Ship's Surgeons of the Dutch East India Company: Commerce and the progress of medicine in the eighteenth century, Amsterdam University Press, p. 26 (ISBN 90-8728-051-3).

14. ^ "Avicenna 980-1037". Hcs.osu.edu. Archived from the original on 7 October 2008.

15. e.g. at the universities of ^ Montpellier and Leuven (see "Medicine: an exhibition of books relating to medicine and surgery from the collection formed by J.K. Lilly". Indiana.edu. 31 August 2004. Archived from the original on 14 December 2009.).

16. ^ "Avicenna", in Encyclopædia Iranica, Online Version 2006". Iranica.com.

17. ^ Byrne, Joseph Patrick (2012), "Avicenna", Encyclopedia of the Black Death, Vol. I, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, ISBN 978-1-59884-253-1 .

18. ^ Van Gelder, Geert Jan, ed. (2013), "Introduction", Classical Arabic Literature, Library of Arabic Literature, New York: New York University Press, p. xxii, ISBN 978-0-8147-7120-4

19. ^

20. ^ Avicenna (1935), "Majmoo' rasaa'il al-sheikh al-ra'iis abi Ali al-Hussein ibn Abdullah ibn Sina al-Bukhari" مجموع رسائل الشيخ الرئيس اب علي الحسين ابن عبدالله ابن سينا البخاري [The Grand Sheikh Ibn Sina's Collection of Treatises], World Digital Library (first ed.), Haydarabad Al-Dakan: Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Press

21. ^ "Major periods of Muslim education and learning". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2007. Archived from the original on 12 December 2007.

22. ^ Afary, Janet (2007). "Iran". Encyclopædia Britannica Online.

23. According to ^ El-Bizri 2006, p. 369, Avicenna was "of Persian descent". According to Khalidi 2005, p. xviii, Avicenna was "born of Persian parentage". According to Copleston 1993, p. 190, Avicenna was "Persian by birth". Gutas 2014, pp. xi, 310, mentions Avicenna as an example for "Persian-born authors" and speaks of "presumed Persian origins" for Avicenna. Glick, Livesey & Wallis 2005, p. 256, states "An ethnic Persian, he[Avicenna] was born in Kharmaithen, near Bukhara".

24. Nahyan A.G. Fancy (2006), pp. 80-81, "Pulmonary Transit and Bodily Resurrection: The Interaction of Medicine, Philosophy and Religion in the Works of Ibn al-Nafīs (d. 1288)", ^ Electronic Theses and Dissertations, University of Notre Dame[page needed ]

25. c.f. e.g. Henry Corbin, ^ History of Islamic Philosophy, Routledge, 2014, p. 174. Henry Corbin,Avicenna and the Visionary Recital, Princeton University Press, 2014, p. 103.

26. ^ "Islam". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2007. Archived from the original on 22 December 2007.

27. Nader El-Bizri, The Phenomenological Quest between Avicenna and Heidegger (Binghamton, N.Y.: Global Publications SUNY, 2000)

28. ^ Ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad (1980). al-Munqidh min al-Dalal (PDF). Boston: American University of Beirut. p. 10. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016.

29. Lenn Evan Goodman (2003), ^ Islamic Humanism, pp. 8-9, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-513580-6.

30. James W. Morris (1992), "The Philosopher-Prophet in Avicenna's Political Philosophy", in C. Butterworth (ed.), ^ The Political Aspects of Islamic Philosophy, ISBN 978-0-932885-07-4, Chapter 4, Cambridge Harvard University Press, pp. 152-198 [p. 156].

31. James W. Morris (1992), "The Philosopher-Prophet in Avicenna's Political Philosophy", in C. Butterworth (ed.), ^ The Political Aspects of Islamic Philosophy, Chapter 4, Cambridge Harvard University Press, pp. 152-198 [pp. 160-161].

32. James W. Morris (1992), "The Philosopher-Prophet in Avicenna's Political Philosophy", in C. Butterworth (ed.), ^ The Political Aspects of Islamic Philosophy, Chapter 4, Cambridge Harvard University Press, pp. 152-198 [pp. 156-158].

33. Janssens, Jules L. (1991). An annotated bibliography on Ibn Sînâ (1970-1989): including Arabic and Persian publications and Turkish and Russian references. Leuven University Press. pp. 89-90. ISBN 978-90-6186-476-9. excerpt: "... Dimitri Gutas's Avicenna's maḏhab convincingly demonstrates that I.S. was a sunnî-Ḥanafî."[1]

34. ^ DIMITRI GUTAS (1987), "Avicenna's "maḏhab" with an Appendix on the Question of His Date of Birth", Quaderni di Studi Arabi, Istituto per l'Oriente C. A. Nallino, 5/6: 323-336, JSTOR 25802612

35. Ibn Sina, ^ الفن السادس من الطبيعيات من كتاب الشفاء القسم الأول (Beirut, Lebanon.: M.A.J.D Enterprise Universitaire d'Etude et de Publication S.A.R.L)

يجب أن يتوهم الواحد منا كأنه خلق دفعةً وخلق كاملاً لكنه حجب بصره عن مشاهدة الخارجات وخلق يهوى في هواء أو خلاء هوياً لا يصدمه فيه قوام الهواء صدماً ما يحوج إلى أن يحس وفرق بين أعضائه فلم تتلاق ولم تتماس ثم يتأمل هل أنه يثبت وجود ذاته ولا يشكك في إثباته لذاته موجوداً ولا يثبت مع ذلك طرفاً من أعضائه ولا باطناً من أحشائه ولا قلباً ولا دماغاً ولا شيئاً من الأشياء من خارج بل كان يثبت ذاته ولا يثبت لها طولاً ولا عرضاً ولا عمقاً ولو أنه أمكنه في تلك الحالة أن يتخيل يداً أو عضواً آخر لم يتخيله جزء من ذاته ولا شرطاً في ذاته وأنت تعلم أن المثبت غير الذي لم يثبت والمقربه غير الذي لم يقربه فإذن للذات التي أثبت وجودها خاصية على أنها هو بعينه غير جسمه وأعضائه التي لم تثبت فإذن المثبت له سبيل إلى أن يثبته على وجود النفس شيئاً غير الجسم بل غير جسم وأنه عارف به مستشعر له وإن كان ذاهلاً عنه يحتاج إلى أن يقرع عصاه.

-  Ibn Sina, Kitab Al-Shifa, On the Soul

36. Nader El-Bizri, The Phenomenological Quest between Avicenna and Heidegger (Binghamton, NY: Global Publications SUNY, 2000), pp. 149-171.

37. Nader El-Bizri, "Avicenna's De Anima between Aristotle and Husserl," in The Passions of the Soul in the Metamorphosis of Becoming, ed. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003), pp. 67-89.

38. ^ Nasr, Seyyed Hossein; Leaman, Oliver (1996). History of Islamic philosophy. Routledge. pp. 315, 1022-1023. ISBN 978-0-415-05667-0.

39. ^ McGinnis, Jon (2010). Avicenna. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 227. ISBN 978-0-19-533147-9.

40. ^ A.C. Brown, Jonathan (2014). Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy. Oneworld Publications. p. 12. ISBN 978-1-78074-420-9.

41. Axel Lange and ^ Gerd B. Müller. Polydactyly in Development, Inheritance, and Evolution. The Quarterly Review of Biology Vol. 92, No. 1, Mar. 2017, pp. 1-38. doi:10.1086/690841.

42. Stephen Toulmin and June Goodfield (1965), The Ancestry of Science: The Discovery of Time, p. 64, University of Chicago Press (cf. The Contribution of Ibn Sina to the development of Earth sciences Archived 14 March 2010 at the Wayback Machine)

43. ^ McGinnis, Jon (July 2003). "Scientific Methodologies in Medieval Islam". Journal of the History of Philosophy. 41 (3): 307-327. doi:10.1353/hph.2003.0033. S2CID 30864273.

44. ^ History of logic: Arabic logic, Encyclopædia Britannica.

45. ^ Street, Tony (2000), "Toward a History of Syllogistic After Avicenna: Notes on Rescher's Studies on Arabic Modal Logic", Journal of Islamic Studies, 11 (2): 209-228, doi:10.1093/jis/11.2.209

46. ^ Street, Tony (1 January 2005). "Logic". In Peter Adamson & Richard C. Taylor (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. pp. 247-265. ISBN 978-0-521-52069-0.

47. Jack Zupko, "John Buridan" in ^ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2014 (fn. 48) "We do not know precisely where Buridan got the idea of impetus, but a less sophisticated notion of impressed forced can be found in Avicenna's doctrine of mayl (inclination). In this he was possibly influenced by Philoponus, who was developing the Stoic notion of hormé (impulse). For discussion, see Zupko (1997) ['What Is the Science of the Soul? A Case Study in the Evolution of Late Medieval Natural Philosophy,' Synthese, 110(2): 297-334]."

48. ^ Gutman, Oliver (1997). "On the Fringes of the Corpus Aristotelicum: the Pseudo-Avicenna Liber Celi Et Mundi". Early Science and Medicine. 2 (2): 109-128. doi:10.1163/157338297X00087.

49. ^ George Saliba (1994), A History of Arabic Astronomy: Planetary Theories During the Golden Age of Islam, pp. 60, 67-69. New York University Press, ISBN 0-8147-8023-7.

50. ^ Saliba, George (2011). "Avicenna". Encyclopædia Iranica, Online Edition.

51. ^ Ariew, Roger (March 1987). "The phases of venus before 1610". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A. 18 (1): 81-92. Bibcode:1987SHPSA..18...81A. doi:10.1016/0039-3681(87)90012-4.

52. ^ Goldstein, Bernard R. (1969). "Some Medieval Reports of Venus and Mercury Transits". Centaurus. 14 (1): 49-59. Bibcode:1969Cent...14...49G. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0498.1969.tb00135.x.

53. ^ Goldstein, Bernard R. (March 1972). "Theory and Observation in Medieval Astronomy". Isis. 63 (1): 39-47 [44]. Bibcode:1972Isis...63...39G. doi:10.1086/350839. S2CID 120700705.

54. ^

55. Marlene Ericksen (2000). ^ Healing with Aromatherapy, p. 9. McGraw-Hill Professional. ISBN 0-658-00382-8.

56. ^ Ghulam Moinuddin Chishti (1991). The Traditional Healer's Handbook: A Classic Guide to the Medicine of Avicenna. p. 239. ISBN 978-0-89281-438-1.

57. ^ Leicester, Henry Marshall (1971), The Historical Background of Chemistry, Courier Dover Publications, p. 70, ISBN 978-0-486-61053-5, There was one famous Arab physician who doubted even the reality of transmutation. This was 'Abu Ali al-Husain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina (980-1037), called Avicenna in the West, the greatest physician of Islam. ... Many of his observations on chemistry are included in the Kitab al-Shifa, the "Book of the Remedy". In the physical section of this work he discusses the formation of minerals, which he classifies into stones, fusible substances, sulfurs, and salts. Mercury is classified with the fusible substances, metals

58. ^ E.G. Browne, Islamic Medicine (sometimes also printed under the title Arabian medicine), 2002, Goodword Pub., ISBN 81-87570-19-9, p61

59. E.G. Browne, ^ Islamic Medicine (sometimes also printed under the title Arabian medicine), 2002, Goodword Pub., ISBN 81-87570-19-9, pp. 60-61)

60. , Johannes Kepler, ^ New Astronomy, translated by William H. Donahue, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1992. ISBN 0-521-30131-9

61. ^ George Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science.
(cf. Dr. A. Zahoor and Dr. Z. Haq (1997). Quotations From Famous Historians of Science, Cyberistan.)

62. ^

63. ^ [self-published source ]

64. ^ "UNESCO: The Avicenna Prize for Ethics in Science". 4 September 2019.

65. ^ "Monument to Be Inaugurated at the Vienna International Centre, 'Scholars Pavilion' donated to International Organizations in Vienna by Iran". unvienna.org.

66. ^ "Permanent mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations office - Vienna". mfa.ir. Archived from the original on 14 September 2019.

67. ^

68. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Avicenna". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 62-63.

69. ^ "Ibn Sina Abu 'Ali Al-Husayn". Muslimphilosophy.com. Archived from the original on 2 January 2010.

70. ^ "The Canon of Medicine". Wdl.org. 1 January 1597.

71. ^ Flowers of Avicenna. Wdl.org. Printed by Claude Davost alias de Troys, for Bartholomeus Trot. 1 January 1508.

72. ^ "The Book of Simple Medicine and Plants" from "The Canon of Medicine". Wdl.org. Knowledge Foundation. 1 January 1900.

Bosworth, Clifford Edmund (1978). "K̲h̲wārazm-S̲h̲āhs". In van Donzel, E.; Lewis, B.; Pellat, Ch. & Bosworth, C. E. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, Volume IV: Iran-Kha. Leiden: E. J. Brill. OCLC 758278456.

Bosworth, Clifford Edmund (1984a). "Āl-e Maʾmūn". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. I, Fasc. 7. pp. 762-764.

Bosworth, Clifford Edmund (1984b). "ʿAlāʾ-al-dawla Moḥammad". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. I, Fasc. 7. pp. 773-774.

Goichon, A.M (1971). . In Lewis, B.; Ménage, V. L.; Pellat, Ch. & Schacht, J. (eds.). The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, Volume III: H-Iram. Leiden: E. J. Brill. OCLC 495469525.

Gutas, Dimitri (1987). "Avicenna ii. Biography". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). Encyclopædia Iranica, Volume III/1: Ātaš-Awāʾel al-Maqālāt. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 67-70. ISBN 978-0-71009-113-0.

(Gutas, Dimitri (1988). "Avicenna's Maḏhab with an appendix on the question of his date of Birth". Quaderni di Studi Arabi. 6: 323-336. JSTOR 25802612. registration required)

Madelung, Wilferd (1975). "The Minor Dynasties of Northern Iran". In Frye, Richard N. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 4: From the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 595-633. ISBN 0-521-20093-8.

Khalidi, Muhammad Ali (2005). Medieval Islamic Philosophical Writings. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-82243-5.

Pasnau, Robert; Dyke, Christina Van (2010). Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy, Volume 1. Cambridge University Press.

Syed Iqbal, Zaheer (2010). An Educational Encyclopedia of Islam (2nd ed.). Bangalore: Iqra Publishers. p. 1280. ISBN 978-603-90004-4-0.

Flannery, Michael. "Avicenna". Encyclopædia Britannica.

Goichon, A.-M. (1999). "Ibn Sina, Abu 'Ali al-Husayn b. 'Abd Allah b. Sina, known in the West as Avicenna". Encyclopedia of Islam. Brill Publishers.

Mahdi, M.; Gutas, D; Abed, Sh.B.; Marmura, M.E.; Rahman, F.; Saliba, G.; Wright, O.; Musallam, B.; Achena, M.; Van Riet, S.; Weisser, U. (1987). "Avicenna". Encyclopædia Iranica.

Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Abu Ali al-Husain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina (Avicenna)", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews

Ragep, Sally P. (2007). "Ibn Sīnā: Abū ʿAlī al‐Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbdallāh ibn Sīnā". In Hockey, Thomas; et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. New York: Springer. pp. 570-572. ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0. (PDF version)

Avicenna entry by Sajjad H. Rizvi in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

For an old list of other extant works, C. Brockelmann's Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur (Weimar 1898), vol. i. pp. 452-458. (XV. W.; G. W. T.)

For a current list of his works see A. Bertolacci (2006) and D. Gutas (2014) in the section "Philosophy".

Avicenna (2005). The Metaphysics of The Healing. A parallel English-Arabic text translation. Michael E. Marmura (trans.) (1 ed.). Brigham Young University. ISBN 978-0-934893-77-0.

Avicenna (1999). The Canon of Medicine (al-Qānūn fī'l-ṭibb), vol. 1. Laleh Bakhtiar (ed.), Oskar Cameron Gruner (trans.), Mazhar H. Shah (trans.). Great Books of the Islamic World. ISBN 978-1-871031-67-6.

Avicenne: Réfutation de l'astrologie. Edition et traduction du texte arabe, introduction, notes et lexique par Yahya Michot. Préface d'Elizabeth Teissier (Beirut-Paris: Albouraq, 2006) ISBN 2-84161-304-6.

William E. Gohlam (ed.), The Life of Ibn Sina. A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation, Albany, State of New York University Press, 1974.

For Ibn Sina's life, see Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary, translated by de Slane (1842); F. Wüstenfeld's Geschichte der arabischen Aerzte und Naturforscher (Göttingen, 1840).

Madelung, Wilferd and Toby Mayer (ed. and tr.), Struggling with the Philosopher: A Refutation of Avicenna's Metaphysics. A New Arabic Edition and English Translation of Shahrastani's Kitab al-Musara'a.

This is, on the whole, an informed and good account of the life and accomplishments of one of the greatest influences on the development of thought both Eastern and Western. ... It is not as philosophically thorough as the works of D. Saliba, A.M. Goichon, or L. Gardet, but it is probably the best essay in English on this important thinker of the Middle Ages. (Julius R. Weinberg, The Philosophical Review, Vol. 69, No. 2, Apr. 1960, pp. 255-259)

This is a distinguished work which stands out from, and above, many of the books and articles which have been written in this century on Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā) (980-1037). It has two main features on which its distinction as a major contribution to Avicennan studies may be said to rest: the first is its clarity and readability; the second is the comparative approach adopted by the author. ... (Ian Richard Netton, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Third Series, Vol. 4, No. 2, July 1994, pp. 263-264)

Gutas, Dimitri (1987). "Avicenna's maḏhab, with an Appendix on the question of his date of birth". Quaderni di Studi Arabi. 5-6: 323-336.

Y.T. Langermann (ed.), Avicenna and his Legacy. A Golden Age of Science and Philosophy, Brepols Publishers, 2010, ISBN 978-2-503-52753-6

For a new understanding of his early career, based on a newly discovered text, see also: Michot, Yahya, Ibn Sînâ: Lettre au vizir Abû Sa'd. Editio princeps d'après le manuscrit de Bursa, traduction de l'arabe, introduction, notes et lexique (Beirut-Paris: Albouraq, 2000) ISBN 2-84161-150-7.

Strohmaier, Gotthard (2006). Avicenna (in German). C.H. Beck. ISBN 978-3-406-54134-6.

This German publication is both one of the most comprehensive general introductions to the life and works of the philosopher and physician Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, d. 1037) and an extensive and careful survey of his contribution to the history of science. Its author is a renowned expert in Greek and Arabic medicine who has paid considerable attention to Avicenna in his recent studies. ... (Amos Bertolacci, Isis, Vol. 96, No. 4, December 2005, p. 649)

Rahman, Hakim Syed Zillur. Resalah Judiya of Ibn Sina (First edition 1971), Literary Research Unit, CCRIH, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh; (Second edition 1981) Central Council for Research in Unani Medicine, Govt. of India, New Delhi; (Fourth edition 1999), Central Council for Research in Unani Medicine, Govt. of India, New Delhi.

Rahman, Hakim Syed Zillur (1996). AI-Advia al-Qalbia of Ibn Sina. Publication Division, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh.

Rahman, Hakim Syed Zillur. Ilmul Amraz of Ibn Sina (First edition 1969), Tibbi Academy, Delhi (Second edition 1990), (Third edition 1994), Tibbi Academy, Aligarh.

Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman (1986). Qanoon lbn Sina Aur Uskey Shareheen wa Mutarjemeen. Publication Division, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh.

Rahman, Hakim Syed Zillur (1986), Qānūn-i ibn-i Sīnā aur us ke shārḥīn va mutarajimīn, ʻAlīgaṛh: Pablīkeshan Dīvīzan, Muslim Yūnīvarsiṭī, OL 1374509M

Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman (2004). Qanun Ibn Sina and its Translation and Commentators (Persian Translation; 203pp). Society for the Appreciation of Cultural Works and Dignitaries, Tehran, Iran.

Shaikh al Rais Ibn Sina (Special number) 1958-59, Ed. Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman, Tibbia College Magazine, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India.

Browne, Edward G. Islamic Medicine. Fitzpatrick Lectures Delivered at the Royal College of Physicians in 1919-1920, reprint: New Delhi: Goodword Books, 2001. ISBN 81-87570-19-9

Pormann, Peter & Savage-Smith, Emilie. Medieval Islamic Medicine, Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2007.

Prioreschi, Plinio. Byzantine and Islamic Medicine, A History of Medicine, Vol. 4, Omaha: Horatius Press, 2001.

Syed Ziaur Rahman. Pharmacology of Avicennian Cardiac Drugs (Metaanalysis of researches and studies in Avicennian Cardiac Drugs along with English translation of Risalah al Adwiya al Qalbiyah), Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences, Aligarh, India, 2020 ISBN 978-93-80610-43-6

Amos Bertolacci, The Reception of Aristotle's Metaphysics in Avicenna's Kitab al-Sifa'. A Milestone of Western Metaphysical Thought, Leiden: Brill 2006, (Appendix C contains an Overview of the Main Works by Avicenna on Metaphysics in Chronological Order).

Dimitri Gutas, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition: Introduction to Reading Avicenna's Philosophical Works, Leiden, Brill 2014, second revised and expanded edition (first edition: 1988), including an inventory of Avicenna' Authentic Works.

Andreas Lammer: The Elements of Avicenna's Physics. Greek Sources and Arabic Innovations. Scientia graeco-arabica 20. Berlin / Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2018.

Jon McGinnis and David C. Reisman (eds.) Interpreting Avicenna: Science and Philosophy in Medieval Islam: Proceedings of the Second Conference of the Avicenna Study Group, Leiden: Brill, 2004.

(in French) Michot, Jean R., La destinée de l'homme selon Avicenne, Louvain: Aedibus Peeters, 1986, ISBN 978-90-6831-071-9.

Nader El-Bizri, The Phenomenological Quest between Avicenna and Heidegger, Binghamton, N.Y.: Global Publications SUNY, 2000 (reprinted by SUNY Press in 2014 with a new Preface).

Nader El-Bizri, "Avicenna and Essentialism," Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 54 (June 2001), pp. 753-778.

Nader El-Bizri, "Avicenna's De Anima between Aristotle and Husserl," in The Passions of the Soul in the Metamorphosis of Becoming, ed. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003, pp. 67-89.

Nader El-Bizri, "Being and Necessity: A Phenomenological Investigation of Avicenna's Metaphysics and Cosmology," in Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology on the Perennial Issue of Microcosm and Macrocosm, ed. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2006, pp. 243-261.

Nader El-Bizri, 'Ibn Sīnā's Ontology and the Question of Being', Ishrāq: Islamic Philosophy Yearbook 2 (2011), 222-237

Nader El-Bizri, 'Philosophising at the Margins of 'Sh'i Studies': Reflections on Ibn Sīnā's Ontology', in The Study of Sh'i Islam. History, Theology and Law, eds. F. Daftary and G. Miskinzoda (London: I.B. Tauris, 2014), pp. 585-597.

Reisman, David C. (ed.), Before and After Avicenna: Proceedings of the First Conference of the Avicenna Study Group, Leiden: Brill, 2003.

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Ibn Sina (), commonly known as Avicenna in the West (; c.  980 - June 1037), was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, philosophers and writers of the Islamic Golden Age, and the father of early modern medicine. Sajjad H.

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Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

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Outliers: The Story of Success [Gladwell, Malcolm] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Outliers: The Story of Success

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The Explosive Origins of the Nobel Prizes

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For nearly a millennium, gunpowder reigned supreme as the world's premium explosive. Stable and safe, it was ideal for munitions. But after the industrial revolution in the 19th century, activities such as mining increasingly necessitated far more explosive power.

In 1847 a breakthrough came with the development of nitroglycerin, an extraordinarily strong-and terribly dangerous-compound. Its volatility gave it power but led to deadly accidents. The challenge for inventors was to marry the power of nitroglycerin to the stability of gunpowder. The man who did it was Alfred Nobel. It was an achievement that made him not only rich but also troubled. Nobel's complex mix of genius, business acumen, and conscience led to the creation of the world's most famous awards for positive contributions to humanity.

Alfred's father, Immanuel Nobel, was a Swedish businessman and inventor who set himself up in Russia in the service of the tsars. His factory provided arms for the Russian Army during the Crimean War in the 1850s. But in 1859, a few years after the war ended and the demand for arms fell away, the business went bankrupt. Alfred, who was living with his parents in St. Petersburg and had begun his chemistry studies there, now returned to Stockholm, where he pursued research into explosives, including work with nitroglycerin.

The Nobels experienced nitroglycerin's devastating power in 1864. An explosion at the Nobel factory in Stockholm killed several people, among them Alfred's younger brother, Emil. Far from discouraging Nobel, the tragedy may even have galvanized him in his research and strengthened his resolve to find a safer alternative.

Three years later, in 1867, Nobel stumbled on the discovery that would make him a household name. Purely by chance, he observed that the porous sedimentary rock known as diatomaceous earth has the property of absorbing nitroglycerin. On testing the resulting mixture he found, to his excitement, that it was an effective explosive but far more stable than pure nitroglycerin. Nobel termed the compound "dynamite" from the Greek dynamis, meaning "power."

The discovery brought him immediate wealth and recognition. While others might have rested on their laurels, Nobel continued researching more effective weapons. In 1875 he invented a mixture of nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose that was more resistant to water and even more powerful than the original formulation of dynamite.

Alfred Nobel was only 63 when died at a villa in San Remo, Italy, in 1896. When his will was read to his relatives, there was, understandably, a huge interest in who would inherit his fortune. To their astonishment and anger, they were left only a fraction of it. Nobel had bequeathed the lion's share to endow a new foundation that would, every year, award prizes to outstanding figures in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace.

What was it that prompted Alfred Nobel to create the endowment and the prestigious prizes? The answer may lie in a case of mistaken identity. In 1888 his brother Ludvig died. A French journalist mistakenly believed that it was Alfred who had died and wrote the headline: " Le marchand de la mort est mort" -The merchant of death is dead. It has been suggested that Nobel was deeply affected by this incident, and it caused him to reflect on his legacy.

The Nobel family's links to the arms trade were undeniable. Shortly before his death, Nobel acquired the Bofors foundry (today a major Swedish defense firm). Nor did Nobel harbor especially progressive views. He opposed women's right to vote and acted in a notably paternalistic manner toward his factory workers.

At the same time, he had always made an effort to be a patron of the sciences and a supporter of numerous causes. His posthumous prizes can be understood in the context of the age. Nobel, it seemed, was influenced by thinkers such as his acquaintance Baroness Bertha von Suttner-later, a recipient of a Nobel Peace Prize-whose 1889 pacifist novel Lay Down Your Arms was a best seller. There is some evidence that Nobel believed that dynamite would be instrumental in bringing about world peace. He once wrote to von Suttner: "Perhaps my factories will put an end to war sooner than your congresses: on the day that two army corps can mutually annihilate each other in a second, all civilized nations will surely recoil with horror and disband their troops."

Nobel's will named a series of institutions as responsible for awarding the prizes in his name. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences was to take charge of the physics and chemistry prizes, the Karolinska Institute would award the medicine prize, the Swedish Academy would give the literature prize, and the peace prize was to be decided by the Norwegian Storting (Parliament of Norway).

Designating Norway as awarders of the signature peace prize turned out to be a controversial decision. The country was, at the time, under Swedish sovereignty, although a burgeoning secessionist movement would eventually achieve Norwegian independence in 1905. This, and other factors, clouded Nobel's scheme in controversy. King Oscar II of Sweden considered the prizes an extravagance that would mean large sums of money leaving his country every year.

Nobel's relatives, who had been all but disinherited, were also unhappy. They certainly didn't have any financial difficulties themselves-among other businesses, they owned lucrative oil wells in the Caucasus-but as Alfred's businesses were closely linked with those of his relatives, they could legitimately claim that the liquidation of the deceased's assets did jeopardize them. These objections and pressures could have easily scuppered Nobel's honorable, but complex, bequest. If just one of the institutions designated by Nobel had declined the unsought honor, for instance, the whole project could have been undermined. Neither the will nor any of the accompanying documents specified how the new foundation should be set up or how the money should be managed.

In the end, Nobel's vision became reality thanks to Ragnar Sohlman, a young engineer whom he commissioned in his will to set up the Nobel Foundation. Along with his colleague, Rudolf Lilljequist, Sohlman traveled widely to locate and secure Nobel's assets in the name of the bequest-shares, bonds, cash, and documents-and, bit by bit, move them to Sweden before they could be blocked. Sohlman was particularly concerned that the French authorities might try to stop the funds from leaving the country, so he packed up boxes with the documents and sent them to Sweden as registered post to make sure they were secure.

In 1901, after five years of planning, the first Nobel Prizes were awarded. Since then, the impact of the awards has been colossal. Every fall, the decisions are eagerly awaited, intensely analyzed, and applauded or savaged.

The Nobel Peace Prize has often courted particular controversy. Among the nominees for the prize in 1939, for example, was Adolf Hitler-in the end, because of the outbreak of the Second World War, no prize was awarded that year. Other winners-such as Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, and Nelson Mandela-were largely hailed. They, and recipients of the other Nobel Prizes, conformed to the lofty intention that the prizes be awarded to: "Those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind."

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The Explosive Origins of the Nobel Prizes

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For nearly a millennium, gunpowder reigned supreme as the world's premium explosive. Stable and safe, it was ideal for munitions. But after the industrial revolution in the 19th century, activities such as mining increasingly necessitated far more explosive power. In 1847 a breakthrough came with the development of nitroglycerin, an extraordinarily strong-and terribly dangerous-compound.

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What Science Tells Us About Leadership Potential

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Although the scientific study of leadership is well established, its key discoveries are unfamiliar to most people, including an alarmingly large proportion of those in charge of evaluating and selecting leaders.

This science-practitioner gap explains our disappointing state of affairs. Leaders should drive employee engagement, yet only 30% of employees are engaged, costing the U.S. economy $550 billion a year in productivity loss. Moreover, a large global survey of employee attitudes toward management suggests that a whopping 82% of people don't trust their boss. You only need to google "my boss is..." or "my manager is..." and see what the autocomplete text is to get a sense of what most people think of their leaders.

Unsurprisingly, over 50% of employees quit their job because of their managers. As the old saying goes, "people join companies, but quit their bosses." And the rate of derailment, unethical incidents, and counterproductive work behaviors among leaders is so high that it is hard to be shocked by a leader's dark side. Research indicates that 30%-60% of leaders act destructively, with an estimated cost of $1-$2.7 million for each failed senior manager.

Part of the problem is that many widely held beliefs about leadership are incongruent with the scientific evidence. As Mark Twain allegedly noted, "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." For example, it is quite common for people to believe that leadership is largely dependent on the situation, that it's hard to predict whether someone will be a good (or bad) leader, and that any person can be a leader. In reality, some people have a much higher probability of becoming leaders, regardless of the context, and this probability can be precisely quantified with robust psychological tools.

What do we really know about the measurement of leadership potential? Here are some critical findings:

Who becomes a leader? Although leaders come in many shapes, a few personality characteristics consistently predict whether someone is likely to emerge as a leader. As the most widely cited meta-analysis in this area shows, people who are more adjusted, sociable, ambitious, and curious are much more likely to become leaders. (53% of the variability in leadership emergence is explained by these personality factors.) Unsurprisingly, higher levels of cognitive ability (IQ) also increase an individual's likelihood to emerge as a leader, though by less than 5%. Of course, emergence doesn't imply effectiveness, but one has to emerge in order to be effective.

What are the key qualities of effective leaders? The ultimate measure of leader effectiveness is the performance of the leader's team or organization, particularly vis-à-vis competitors. Leadership is a resource for the group, and effective leaders enable a group to outperform other groups. While the same personality and ability traits described above help leaders become more effective - they are not just advantageous for emergence - the best leaders also show higher levels of integrity, which enables them to create a fair and just culture in their teams and organizations. In addition, effective leaders are generally more emotionally intelligent, which enables them to stay calm under pressure and have better people skills. Conversely, narcissistic leaders are more prone to behaving in unethical ways, which is likely to harm their teams.

How will the person lead? Not everyone leads in the same way. Leadership style is largely dependent on personality. Ambitious, thick-skinned leaders tend to be more entrepreneurial, so they are focused on growth and innovation. Curious, sociable, and sensitive leaders tend to be more charismatic, though charisma often reflects dark side traits, such as narcissism and psychopathy. Studies also highlight gender differences in leadership styles, with men being more transactional and women more transformational. However, gender roles are best understood as a psychological and normally distributed variable, as people differ in masculinity and femininity regardless of their biological sex.

Are leaders born or made? Any observable pattern of human behaviors is the byproduct of genetic and environmental influences, so the answer to this question is "both." Estimates suggest that leadership is 30%-60% heritable, largely because the character traits that shape leadership - personality and intelligence - are heritable. While this suggests strong biological influences on leadership, it does not imply that nurture is trivial. Even more-heritable traits, such as weight (80%) and height (90%), are affected by environmental factors. Although there is no clear recipe for manipulating the environment in order to boost leadership potential, well-crafted coaching interventions boost critical leadership competencies by about 20%-30%.

What is the role of culture? Culture is key because it drives employee engagement and performance. However, culture isn't the cause of leadership so much as the result of it. Thus leaders create the explicit and implicit rules of interaction for organizational members, and these rules affect morale and productivity levels. When people's values are closely aligned with the values of the organization (and leadership), they will experience higher levels of fit and purpose.

How early can we predict potential? Any prediction is a measure of potential or the probability of something happening. Because leadership is partly dependent on genetic and early childhood experiences, predicting it from an early age is certainly possible. Whether doing so is ethical or legal is a different question. However, most of the commonly used indicators to gauge leadership potential - educational achievement, emotional intelligence, ambition, and IQ - can be predicted from a very early age, so it would be naïve to treat them as more malleable. Perhaps in the future, leadership potential will be assessed at a very early age by inspecting people's saliva.

Does gender matter? Less than we think. The fact that so many leaders are male has much more to do with social factors (people's expectations, cultural norms, and opportunities) than actual gender differences in leadership potential, which are virtually nonexistent. In fact, some studies have shown that women are slightly more effective as leaders on the job, but this may be because the standards for appointing women to leadership positions are higher than those for appointing men, which creates a surplus of incompetent men in leadership positions. The solution is not to get women to act more like men, but to select leaders based on their actual competence.

Why do leaders derail? We cannot ignore the wide range of undesirable and toxic outcomes associated with leadership. It is not the absence of bright side qualities, but rather their coexistence with dark side tendencies, that makes leaders derail. Indeed, as Sepp Blatter, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and Bernie Madoff demonstrate, technical brilliance often coexists with self-destructive and other destructive traits. This is just one reason why it is so important for leadership development and executive coaching interventions to highlight leaders' weaknesses, and help them keep their toxic tendencies in check.

Although these findings have been replicated in multiple studies, a skeptic could ask, "Now that we're (allegedly) living in an era of unprecedented technological change, could some of these findings be outdated?"

Not really.

Leadership evolved over millions of years, enabling us to function as group-living animals. It is therefore unlikely that the core foundations of leadership will change. That said, the specific skills and qualities that enable leaders and their groups to adapt to the world are certainly somewhat context dependent. For example, just as physical strength mattered more, and intellectual ability less, in the past, it is conceivable that human differentiators such as curiosity, empathy, and creativity will become more important in a world of ever-growing technological dependence and ubiquitous artificial intelligence.

In short, the science of leadership is well established. There is no real need to advance it in order to improve real-world practices. We should focus instead on applying what we already know, and ignoring what we think we know that isn't true.

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What Science Tells Us About Leadership Potential

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Although the scientific study of leadership is well established, its key discoveries are unfamiliar to most people, including an alarmingly large proportion of those in charge of evaluating and selecting leaders. This science-practitioner gap explains our disappointing state of affairs. Leaders should drive employee engagement, yet only 30% of employees are engaged, costing the U.S.

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Novel fabric could turn perspiration into power

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PHOENIZ, Ariz. - When sweat is dripping down your face (or armpits), you might think it's just a sign of hard work. But as sweat dries, it removes some heat with it, cooling you down. A young researcher now wants to empower sweat to do even more. He wants it to help athletic wear further cool the bodies of hard-working athletes. Its name? The sweatshirt, of course.

Rohit Nemani, 17, has been on the Cox Mill High School varsity cross-country team for three years. Running in the hot, sticky summers of Concord, N.C., will make anyone aware of just how much the human body can perspire. Sweat cools the skin, of course. But sometimes it's not enough. "Every year, tons of athletes put themselves at risk from overheating, dehydration and heatstroke from working out in hot climates," Rohit says.

One day while running (of course), the teen came up with an idea to use sweat itself to power an improved cooling system.

Sweat isn't just water and smell. It has salts, too. Those salts are electrically charged particles that can produce electricity when they contact an electrode - a device that conducts electricity. If Rohit could weave electrodes into the fabric of a shirt, he reasoned, he could use those salts to generate electricity.

He'd then use that electricity to power an actively cooling fabric that he will put into the body of the sweatshirt. When it receives a little electric power, this fabric pulls sweat up from the skin and spreads it out. That increases the amount of water that evaporates to keep someone cool. Start sweating and that salty moisture powers the super-cooling fabric, Rohit says. "When it cools you down, you sweat less." That, in turn, will turn off power to the fabric. Then, as someone sweats more again, the electricity returns and the cooling fabric goes back to work.

Building a better sweatshirt

The first trick to creating his better sweatshirt was figuring out how to weave materials such as carbon and zinc into a shirt. They would transfer any of the electricity created by the sweat. It turns out that this isn't easy. So Rohit emailed universities near him in search of a scientist who would let him have access to special 3-D printers. He finally heard back from Jesse Jur at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Jur let the student use his equipment to print carbon and to attach zinc washers onto his fabric - allowing the fabric to conduct electricity.

Now Rohit has fabric that can make electricity from sweat. The inner cotton layer soaks up this moisture from the skin by what's known as capillary action. The next layer is polyester. Being hydrophobic (Hy-droh-FOH-bik) - it repels water. That spreads the sweat out, allowing it to come into contact with the carbon and zinc electrodes. Salts in the sweat react with the carbon and zinc pressed into the shirt, producing tiny amounts of electricity.

By pouring artificial sweat (salt and water) onto a prototype shirt sleeve, Rohit found that half a milliliter of sweat (a tenth of a teaspoon) can produce about 0.6 to 0.7 volt of electricity.

By linking electrodes in this sleeve together with metallic yarn - strands that can conduct electricity - those partial volts added up. Right now, Rohit gets about 1.7 volts off his sleeve. It's just enough to power the actively cooling fabric.

Rohit brought a sample of his new sweatshirt system here to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. This competition was created by Society for Science & the Public in 1950 and is still run by this organization. (The Society also publishes Science News for Students.) This year's fair was sponsored by Intel. It brought together more 1,800 students from 80 countries to share their award-winning science fair projects.

To date, Rohit has built only the one sleeve. Eventually, he hopes to weave together the electricity-conducting sleeve and active-cooling fabric into a full, prototype shirt. He has already changed the fabric's design to make it flexible and stretchy - ideal for athletic wear. To keep the shirt lightweight, he also wants to reduce how much carbon and zinc it uses to produce electricity. And don't worry, the shirt is already washable.

The teen can think of lots of people who might want such a super-cool sweatshirt. "There's obviously athletes trying to increase their performance," he notes. He also points to "people in the military and anyone who works outside in [hot] conditions" that could put them at risk of heatstroke. Rohit hopes his shirt can help them by squeezing just a little more cooling out of every drop of sweat.

Power Words
More About Power Words

capillary action This is the force that governs the movement of a liquid along the surface of a solid. Because molecules of the liquid are attracted to the surface and to each other, they can pull each other along. Capillary action explains how sponges wick up liquids.

carbon The chemical element having the atomic number 6. It is the physical basis of all life on Earth. Carbon exists freely as graphite and diamond. It is an important part of coal, limestone and petroleum, and is capable of self-bonding, chemically, to form an enormous number of chemically, biologically and commercially important molecules.

climate The weather conditions that typically exist in one area, in general, or over a long period.

conductor (in physics and engineering) A material through which an electrical current can flow.

electricity A flow of charge, usually from the movement of negatively charged particles, called electrons.

electrode A device that conducts electricity and is used to make contact with non-metal part of an electrical circuit, or that contacts something through which an electrical signal moves. (in electronics) Part of a semiconductor device (such as a transistor) that either releases or collects electrons or holes, or that can control their movement.

engineering The field of research that uses math and science to solve practical problems.

evaporate To turn from liquid into vapor.

fabric Any flexible material that is woven, knitted or can be fused into a sheet by heat.

high school A designation for grades nine through 12 in the U.S. system of compulsory public education. High-school graduates may apply to colleges for further, advanced education.

hydrophobic Repelling (or not absorbing) water.

Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) Initially launched in 1950, this competition is one of three created (and still run) by the Society for Science & the Public. Each year now, approximately 1,800 high school students from more than 80 countries, regions, and territories are awarded the opportunity to showcase their independent research at Intel ISEF and compete for an average of almost $5 million in prizes.

ion (adj. ionized) An atom or molecule with an electric charge due to the loss or gain of one or more electrons. An ionized gas, or plasma, is where all of the electrons have been separated from their parent atoms.

polyester A synthetic material used chiefly to make fabrics. The actual chemical name for the material used is polyethylene terephthalate.

prototype A first or early model of some device, system or product that still needs to be perfected.

salt A compound made by combining an acid with a base (in a reaction that also creates water). The ocean contains many different salts - collectively called "sea salt." Common table salt is a made of sodium and chlorine.

zinc A metallic element that in its pure form is ductile (easily deformed) and that is an essential micronutrient in plants and animals.

Bethany Brookshire was a longtime staff writer at Science News for Students. She has a Ph.D. in physiology and pharmacology and likes to write about neuroscience, biology, climate and more. She thinks Porgs are an invasive species.

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Novel fabric could turn perspiration into power

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PHOENIZ, Ariz. - When sweat is dripping down your face (or armpits), you might think it's just a sign of hard work. But as sweat dries, it removes some heat with it, cooling you down. A young researcher now wants to empower sweat to do even more.

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Why Scientists Should Have Leadership Skills

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Science has a vital role in shaping our society and economy. The impact of science can continue to grow provided our scientists and science professionals are equipped with skills to create an innovative, sustainable and prosperous future.

Too frequently, leadership skills are mistakenly equated with management skills; many only see value in leadership education when people reach senior positions and are managing teams. When leadership education is conceptualized as an action undertaken by many rather than a title held by few, it can increase the quality of people's contribution to their sector. This is because leadership education can provide a pathway for building self-awareness, self-efficacy, interpersonal skills, resilience and adaptability.

Providing leadership education could be a way to extend science graduates' outlook and capacity beyond the traditions of academia. This will, in turn, create scope for changing the culture of science. A science education with leadership could enable those trained in the discipline to be as proactive in implementing and integrating science and scientific thinking across sectors as they are in researching it.

Science graduates of the future: Employable in any organization

If the current requirements of employers are considered, studies indicate a mismatch in the skills desired by employers and those that science graduates enter the workforce with. For example, when comparing skills in non-STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) employees and STEM employees, those from a STEM background are perceived to lack interpersonal skills and time management. The perception from students and employers is that these skills are often poorly developed in a traditional science curriculum.

Addressing the present skills gap is even more critical because the science workforce is changing. In this regard, the need for a highly skilled scientific workforce is increasing because of the acceleration of emerging technologies (eg, artificial intelligence, robotics and biotechnology). These disruptive trends are occurring in concert with a critical need to address global challenges (eg, water and food security, biodiversity loss and climate change).

Along with these technological shifts, there is a change occurring in the skills desired in the workplace. Specifically, a Future of Jobs report by the World Economic Forum indicates that, by 2020, the skills most sought after by employers will include problem solving, creative thinking, emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills. Such skills can be directly gained through leadership education.

Leadership education will help with research

Research skills are, understandably, a top priority for the fledgling scientist, but what is often overlooked by the science community is the importance of leadership skills for establishing and running a research team.

The increasing globalization of science heralds the growth of research teams with greater international diversity and multidisciplinary composition. Diverse scientific teams have been demonstrated to produce better research and more broadly diverse teams are considered more innovative. Our emerging laboratory heads need to be equipped to lead these teams for innovation by learning to harness this diversity.

Finally the interpersonal skills developed through leadership education may be helpful for emerging researchers. An early career researcher, Jessica Seeliger, outlined how transitioning from a science education with a focus on rational scientific methodology leaves young research scientists short when faced with the challenges of growing a team and delivering results. She suggested that leadership education might help with interpersonal dynamics such as "dealing with a difficult co-worker, or motivating students." These skills, which are grounded in teamwork, communication and emotional intelligence, are foundational skills in most leadership courses.

Leadership education for science professionals

We mustn't forget that science graduates have diverse career destinations. A rigorous science education should prepare all students for the workforce, not just those destined for a scientific career. Leadership education can directly enhance the employability of science graduates, as leadership skills are often the same transferable skills sought by employers.

Exposing students early to leadership skills will help them bridge the gap between research and implementation, or utilize the scientific mindset cultivated over many years of study into their work (eg, in government or industry).

Science students themselves also appear to want a broader set of skills from their degree. Almost any science graduate preparing to leave university will speak about the anxiety of facing an uncertain job market. We have recently found that science students choose to enhance their science degree with leadership education specifically to increase their employability and job opportunities outside of science.

The benefit of equipping more science graduates with leadership skills is that this approach can serve many masters in a climate of innovation. When we teach individuals how to have impact, think strategically, understand themselves and work with others, this can benefit multiple career trajectories. These benefits can flow across the spectrum of societal and economic needs from the grassroots eco-warrior to CEOs of global biotechnology business.

Leadership principles incorporated with scientific education can elevate the discipline to challenges across a range of sectors, not just within research. As one of our science undergraduate students states, " Scientific leaders are needed to drive the integration of science into the wider world in a way that places science in a more influential position to help change the world for the better."

Bob Wong is an evolutionary and behavioral ecologist. He is currently the Deputy Head of the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University and the coordinator of the Science Faculty's leadership program for undergraduate students.

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Why Scientists Should Have Leadership Skills

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Science has a vital role in shaping our society and economy. The impact of science can continue to grow provided our scientists and science professionals are equipped with skills to create an innovative, sustainable and prosperous future.

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How Great Leaders Inspire Action

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Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership -- starting with a golden circle and the question: “Why?” His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Wright brothers…

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The Neuroscience of Leadership: Thomas Maak

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The Neuroscience of Leadership: Thomas Maak at TEDxESADE

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Speech at the Congress of Future Science and Technology Leaders

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Speech at the Congress of Future Science and Technology Leaders

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How Art, Technology and Design Inform Creative Leaders

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John Maeda: How art, technology and design inform creative leaders

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John Maeda, former President of the Rhode Island School of Design, delivers a funny and charming talk that spans a lifetime of work in art, design and technology, concluding with a picture of creative leadership in the future. Watch for demos of Maeda's earliest work -- and even a computer made of people.