Self-Awareness in Islamic Philosophy

Jari Kaukua begins this book by clarifying that we cannot simply map the Avicennan notion of self-awareness onto contemporary discussions in philosophy of mind, since in many respects we are dealing with different concepts, functions, and applications. Nevertheless, his study is not merely of historical interest. He begins by going over the pre-Islamic background of Aristotle and neo-Platonism. While many elements of Aristotle’s De Anima play a role in Avicennan philosophy of mind, perhaps the most significant is Aristotle’s claim that intellection is inherently immaterial in nature. Of course, the point of departure that makes this book a study on Islamic, and more specifically Avicennan, philosophy is the thought experiment of the flying man. Avicenna asks us to imagine a man created in midair, immune to gravity, and with all of his sensory faculties shut off, thus depriving him of any empirical knowledge of the world. This also cuts him off from imagination, estimation, and memory, since these depend on empirical experience to provide their content (p. 36). Yet despite his lack of resources for obtaining knowledge, the flying man can still know of his own existence. It needs to be borne in mind that Avicenna is not presenting the flying man as an argument per se, but as a pointer to or reminder of ‘something one is vaguely or inexplicitly aware of but which tends to elude one’s explicit attention’ (p. 33)

Aesthetics · Argument (complex analysis · Epistemology · Islam · Islamic Philosophy · Platonism · Theology · Families in Therapy and Culture · Islamic Thought and Society Studies · Medieval and Classical Philosophy · Psychology · Philosophy