1961 Metaphysica Sive Prima Philosophia (Venise, 1495)

Description

Folding Plates, Original Binding, Publishers' Original Binding

Latin. With two folding plates, one to each end of the text. Collated complete. An enlarged facsimile reprint of the original work with a key to the abbreviations. A translation of this work by Ibn Sina, commonly known in the West as Avicenna, a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age. Sina served in the courts of various Iranian rulers and is often described as the father of early modern medicine. Avicenna wrote extensively on early Islamic philosophy, especially the subjects logic, ethics and metaphysics. His philosophy was of the Peripatetic school derived from Aristotelianism, with most of his works being written in Arabic, then the language of science in the Muslim world. In this study, Avicenna fuses the Aristotelian tradition with the Neo-Platonic idea of emanation, building a new system of metaphysics that includes theology, cosmology and angelology. He also draws on the work of Muslim philosopher Al-Farabi and his argument that the causation of the universe emanated in concentric circles from God through acts of contemplation. Sina's thesis provides a foundation for physics, psychology, prophetology and eschatology. Previously held in the General Theological Seminary Library in New York, in the Rare Book Room.