Science of the Soul in Ibn Sīnā’s Pointers and Reminders

Michael A. Rapoport, Ph.D. (2018), Yale University, is Assistant Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida. His research on Ibn Sīnā and Arabic philosophy has appeared in Oriens and Nazariyat.

Acknowledgements

Chronology of Ibn Sīnā’s Works

Notes on Sources, Presentation, Transliteration, and Translation



Introduction

 1 Ibn Sīnā and Mysticism

 2 Metaphysics of the Rational Soul

 3 The Uniqueness of the Pointers

 4 Editions and Translations of the Pointers and Reminders

 5 Objectives, Methodology, and Structure

 6 Overview of Ibn Sīnā’s Internal Faculties



1 The Soul’s Independence from the Body

 1 The Rational Soul’s Independence from the Body

 2 Intellect and Intelligible Do Not Unite

 3 God’s Knowledge of Particulars

 4 Evil and the Order of the Good

 5 Ibn Sīnā, Optimist



2 The Soul’s Ultimate Destination

 1 Internal Pleasures Are Superior to External Pleasures

 2 The Nature of Pleasure and Pain

 3 Awareness of Pleasure and Pain

 4 Pleasure and Pain in the Afterlife

 5 Ranking Beings in Terms of Joy

 6 Returning to the Final Destination



3 The Soul’s Intellectual Development

 1 Differentiating Knowers from Non-knowers

 2 The “Stages” (darajāt) of the Human Intellect in Relation to Secondary Intelligibles

 3 Knowledge (ʿirfān) and the Highest Stages

 4 Characteristics of the Knower

 5 A New Metaphor for a Familiar Epistemology



4 The Soul, Science, and the Supernatural

 1 Marvelous Feats

 2 Imaginative Knowledge

 3 Motive Power

 4 Naturalizing the Supernatural



5 Returning to Ibn Sīnā’s Mysticism/Sufism

 1 Non-standard Epistemology

 2 Union with the Divine

 3 The Impossibility of Union for Ibn Sīnā



Conclusion

 1 If Not Sufism or Mysticism, then What?

 2 Concluding Remarks



Appendix 1: Comparison between Pointers and Ibn Sīnā’s Summae

Appendix 2: Comparison between Pointers and Ibn Sīnā’s Monographs

Bibliography

Index