Avicenna [Ibn Sīnā] (c. 980-1037)

Shif, a-abyt, Kitb an-Nafs [Psychology, from Avicenna's De Anima]

c. 1016-1021

"So, initially coming to know something is like treating the eye, but then when the eye is healthy, whenever it wants it looks at something from which a given form is taken, while when it turns from that thing, that [thing] comes to be in potency proximate to act."

Coming to know something is seeking the complete disposition (isti dād) for conjunction so that from it there is the intellection that is simple, and then from it the forms are emanated, being separated in the soul by means of discursive reasoning. So the disposition before coming to know something is deficient, whereas the disposition after coming to know something is complete. Consequently, it is characteristic of knowing something that when what is connected with the sought intelligible comes to mind, and the soul turns to look—where “looking” is to return to the principle that gives intellection [namely, the Active Intellect]—there is a conjunction with it. There then emanates from it the power of abstract intellection (qūwa l-aql al-mujarrid) that follows the emanation that produces separation. When [one] turns away from it, [the power] recedes, in which case that form comes to be in potency, however, a potency in close proximity to act. So, initially coming to know something is like treating the eye, but then when the eye is healthy, whenever it wants it looks at something from which a given form is taken, while when it turns from that thing, that [thing] comes to be in potency proximate to act. Now, so long as the human soul taken [more] generally [than just the intellect] is in the body it cannot receive the Active Intellect all at once, and instead its state is as we said.
(Psychology, V.6, 247.3–15).

Body::Eye

Reading Jon McGinnis's Avicenna (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010): 138-9

Avicenna. Shif, a-abyt, Kitb an-Nafs (Psychology). In Avicenna’s De Anima (Arabic Text): Being the Psychological Part of Kitb al-Shif. Edited by Fazlur Rahman. London: Oxford University Press, 1959.

12/30/2010