Frasi di Avicenna
Avicenna
Data di nascita: 16. Agosto 980
Data di morte: 18. Giugno 1037
Altri nomi: Ibn Síná
Ibn Sinā, alias Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā o Pur-Sina più noto in occidente come Avicenna , è stato un medico, filosofo, matematico e fisico persiano.
I suoi lavori più famosi sono Il libro della guarigione e Il canone della medicina, anche conosciuto come Qānūn . Il suo nome latinizzato è un'alterazione di Ibn Sīnā, il suo nasab .
Fu una delle figure più note nel mondo islamico. In Europa Avicenna diventò un'importante figura medica a partire dal 1000, scrivendo importantissime opere rimaste incontrastate nello studio per più di sei secoli.
È considerato da molti come "il padre della medicina moderna". George Sarton, storico della scienza, ha indicato Avicenna come: "il più famoso scienziato dell'Islam e uno dei più famosi di tutte le razze, luoghi e tempi".
Frasi Avicenna
„[…] dello sguardo malvagio o dell'immaginazione, proprio quando l'anima è costante, sublime, affine ai principi, allora le obbedisce la materia che è nel mondo esterno e da essa viene influenzata, e si troverà nella materia del mondo esterno ciò che si forma sempre nell'anima, e ciò accade poiché l'anima umana non è prigioniera della materia, ma al contrario la governa.“
— Avicenna
da Liber de anima sive liber sextus de naturalibus
Origine: Citato in Marie-Louise von Franz, Psiche e materia, Bollati Boringheri, pp. 144-145. ISBN 978-88-339-0712-3
„Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials.“
— Avicenna
"On Medicine, (c. 1020) http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1020Avicenna-Medicine.html
Contesto: The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes. Therefore in medicine we ought to know the causes of sickness and health. And because health and sickness and their causes are sometimes manifest, and sometimes hidden and not to be comprehended except by the study of symptoms, we must also study the symptoms of health and disease. Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials. Of these causes there are four kinds: material, efficient, formal, and final.
„An ignorant doctor is the aide-de-camp of death.“
— Avicenna
As quoted in Familiar Medical Quotations (1968) by Maurice B. Strauss
„The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes.“
— Avicenna
"On Medicine, (c. 1020) http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1020Avicenna-Medicine.html
Contesto: The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes. Therefore in medicine we ought to know the causes of sickness and health. And because health and sickness and their causes are sometimes manifest, and sometimes hidden and not to be comprehended except by the study of symptoms, we must also study the symptoms of health and disease. Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials. Of these causes there are four kinds: material, efficient, formal, and final.
„God, the supreme being, is neither circumscribed by space, nor touched by time; he cannot be found in a particular direction, and his essence cannot change.“
— Avicenna
As quoted in 366 Readings From Islam (2000), edited by Robert Van der Weyer
Contesto: God, the supreme being, is neither circumscribed by space, nor touched by time; he cannot be found in a particular direction, and his essence cannot change. The secret conversation is thus entirely spiritual; it is a direct encounter between God and the soul, abstracted from all material constraints.
„The world is divided into men who have wit and no religion and men who have religion and no wit.“
— Avicenna
This was declared without citation to have been attributed to Avicenna in A Rationalist Encyclopaedia : A Book of Reference on Religion, Philosophy, Ethics, and Science (1950), by Joseph McCabe, p. 43; it was also later wrongly attributed to Averroes in The Atheist World (1991) by Madalyn Murray O'Hair, p. 46. It actually originates as a statement by the atheist Al-Maʿarri, earlier translated into English in A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern (1906) by John Mackinnon Robertson, Vol. I, Ch. VIII : Freethought under Islam, p. 269, in the form: "The world holds two classes of men ; intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence."
Misattributed
„I [prefer] a short life with width to a narrow one with length.“
— Avicenna
As quoted in Avicenna (Ibn Sina): Muslim Physician And Philosopher of the Eleventh Century http://books.google.com.bh/books?id=B8k3fsvGRyEC&lpg=PA85&dq=I%20prefer%20a%20short%20life%20with%20width%20to%20a%20narrow%20one%20with%20length&pg=PA85#v=onepage&q=I%20prefer%20a%20short%20life%20with%20width%20to%20a%20narrow%20one%20with%20length&f=false (2006), by Aisha Khan p. 85, which cites Genius of Arab Civilizations by M.A. Martin.
„Medicine considers the human body as to the means by which it is cured and by which it is driven away from health.“
— Avicenna
As quoted in The Pursuit of Learning in the Islamic World, 610-2003 http://books.google.com.bh/books?id=KTWDxDEY-Q0C&lpg=PA75&dq=Medicine%20considers%20the%20human%20body%20as%20to%20the%20means%20by%20which%20it%20is%20cured%20and%20by%20which%20it%20is%20driven%20away%20from%20health.&pg=PA75#v=onepage&q=Medicine%20considers%20the%20human%20body%20as%20to%20the%20means%20by%20which%20it%20is%20cured%20and%20by%20which%20it%20is%20driven%20away%20from%20health.&f=false (2006), by Hunt Janin, p. 75.
