Avicenna and the Liber de Causis: a contribution to the dossier

Abstract

Taking as a starting point the knowledge that the Arab world had of the Neoplatonic texts ascribed to Aristotle, such as the Pseudo-Theology and the Liber de Causis, the author of this study investigates the possible knowledge that Avicenna had of this under book, well-known in the Arab world under the title of Kalam fi mahd al hayr. In order to demonstrate this, she provides an analysis of four passages that belong to the Metaphysics of the great philosophical encyclopaedia Al-Sifa' («The cure»).