Avicenna, ›The Healing, Logic: Isagoge‹ : a new edition, English translation and commentary of the Kitāb al-Madḫal of Avicenna's Kitāb al-Šifāʾ

This book offers a new edition, with English translation and commentary, of the Kitāb al-Madḫal, which opens Avicenna’s (d. 1037) most comprehensive summa of Peripatetic philosophy, namely the Kitāb al-Šifāʾ. For the first time, the text is established together with a stemma codicum showing the genealogical relations among 34 manuscripts, the twelfth-century Latin translation, and the literal quotations by Avicenna’s first and second-generation students. In this book, Avicenna’s reappraisal of Porphyry’s Isagoge is examined from both a historical and a philosophical point of view. The key-features of Avicenna’s theory of predicables are analyzed in the General Introduction and in the Commentary both in their own right and against the background of the Greek and Arabic exegetical tradition. Readers shall find in this book the first systematic study of the Madḫal which, in addition to being the only logical work of the Šifāʾ ever transmitted in its entirety both in Arabic and in Latin, is crucial for understanding Avicenna’s conception of universal predicables at the crossroads between logic and metaphysics. "The Kitāb al-Madḫal ("Book of the Isagoge") is crucial for anyone who aims to fully understand (Avicenna's (d. 1037) theory of universal predicables at the crossroads between logic and metaphysics. Also, it is the only work of the Šifā' to have been entirely available in Latin by the twelfth century. This book offers a new edition of the Arabic text, accompanied by an English translation and by the first commenentary on the whole work."-- From the back cover The Series Is Devoted To The Study Of Scientific And Philosophical Texts From The Classical And The Islamic World Handed Down In Arabic. Through Critical Text Editions And Monographs, It Provides Access To Ancient Scientific Inquiry As It Developed In A Continuous Tradition From Antiquity To The Modern Period. All Editions Are Accompanied By Translations And Philological And Explanatory Notes. Preface 5 Acknowledgements 7 Contents 9 Editing Avicenna’s Madḫal: Introduction to the Edition 13 Edition and Translation 179 Commentary 433 Treatise I 433 Treatise II 536 Appendix A 563 Appendix B: Unedited texts of the school of Baġdād 566 Bibliographical references 571 Index of Names 589 Index of the Arabic Technical Terms and Expressions 592