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Ibn Sina has been the object of many contemporary studies, all of which have attempted to examine various angles of the possible connection between Ibn Sina and mysticism. These studies, however, have not fully explored Ibn Sina's understanding of mysticism; he is generally seen as the most rational philosopher who ever lived and, therefore, unlikely to have been a mystic in any sense. In response to this claim, the present study aims to reconsider Ibn Sina's connection with mysticism and to examine his own perception of this tradition. / This thesis first looks at the various factors which may possibly have contributed to Ibn Sina's mystical thought. Two of these were his spiritual consciousness and the Shi'ite milieu of his times. The intellectual tradition in which Ibn Sina lived, and his exposure to different aspects of Islamic intellectual tradition, were another factor that shaped his mystical thought. This thesis also attempts to reread Ibn Sina's mystical works in order to reveal his methodological perspective on mysticism. Ibn Sina incorporates mystical experience in a symbolic narrative into his work. He also theorized about mystical experience, using S&dotbelow;ufi terms like mystical knowledge ('irfan) and love ('ihsq), and tried to explain these experiences in a systematic fashion. / Ibn Sina's main contribution to the field of mysticism is his attempt to reconcile and to connect the different traditions of Neoplatonism, gnosticism, and S&dotbelow;ufism. It is remarkable how these ideas fit into a common framework---that of mysticism. These ideas may possibly stem from his close understanding of and sympathy with S&dotbelow;ufi discourse. Ibn Sina also contributed to a new literary genre in S&dotbelow;ufi literature, most notably in his visionary recitals, which express a sort of mystical experience.

A thought experiment by Avicenna known as the Flying man presents a hypothetical man in the air who is not aware of the existence of his body but simultaneously is aware of himself. A common objection to the Flying Man accuses Avicenna of committing an epistemic and logical fallacy known as the Masked Man. This paper analyses the two most recent interpretations of the Flying Man thought experiment, where each interpretation attempts to understand the main argument which Avicenna poses through the thought experiment.  On one hand, I will examine Peter Adamson and Fedor Benevich’s interpretation, which rejects previous criticisms of the Flying Man with an emphasis on Avicenna’s philosophy of essences. I will, on the other hand, present Jari Kaukua’s interpretation; a response to Adamson and Benevich’s interpretation with two closely related objections. The last section of this paper discusses and evaluates the scholars’ debated points and offers a more charitable interpretation of the Flying Man through my suggestive indicative method.

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Thèse--Universit́e de Paris. / "Éditions auxquelles renvoient les références données au cours du présent travail": p. xiii-xvi. At head of title: A.-M. Goichon. Error in paging: p. 533 numbered 353. "Bibliographie": p. [504]-520.

The intention of this project is to explicate several arguments advanced in the esoteric treatise Al-Risalah al-Ad&dotbelow;h&dotbelow;awiyya fi amr al-Macad, Avicenna's treatise par excellence on the subject of resurrection. This study of Ad&dotbelow;h&dotbelow;awiyya is primarily exegetical and limits itself to ideas which grant Ad&dotbelow;h&dotbelow;awiyya a character of its own. Consequently, the scholastic demonstrations Ad&dotbelow;h&dotbelow;awiyya shares in common with Avicenna's other writings are left aside. / Ad&dotbelow;h&dotbelow;awiyya contains a number of arguments, for example those directed against the mutakallimun, which cannot be found elsewhere in Avicenna's writings. It also presents two purely psychological demonstrations for the immateriality---and hence immortality---of the rational soul. Finally, Ad&dotbelow;h&dotbelow;awiyya explicitly describes the states of the souls in the hereafter, and reveals the principle upon which Avicenna founds his doctrine of al-macad.

This thesis presents the first scholarly attempt to provide a systematic study—by way of rational reconstruction—of Avicenna’s philosophical analysis of knowledge. The analysis is centred on the well-known but ill-researched epistemic notions of apprehension (taṣawwur) and judgement (taṣdīq) that Avicenna consistently claims to be the necessary and sufficient conditions for anyone to be regarded as having knowledge. The study, however, begins with an account of Avicenna’s philosophical programme and its primary philosophical assumption, namely, his metaphysical realism. I argue that this assumption is the most fundamental principle from which emerge all strands of his thought and by which all his philosophical views are unified into a single philosophical system. Thus, I argue that it is with a clear view of his metaphysical realism and the broader philosophical programme which grows out of it that we can make fully sense of Avicenna’s philosophical analysis of knowledge and his epistemology in general. Bearing this in mind, I proceed with a systematic and rational reconstruction of Avicenna’s epistemic concepts of apprehension and judgement and followed then by his conception of truth (al-haq), which is implicit in his epistemic notion of judgement. Given that for Avicenna, as we shall see, it is only true judgement that can be counted as knowledge. Furthermore, a truly realist philosophical account of knowledge, or epistemology in general, must make a contact with psychology. I provide therefore an account of Avicenna’s psychological explanations of all the mental processes that involved in knowing. This includes his account of epistemic faculties—such as consciousness, sense perception, mind, and reason—and all the kinds of knowledge that these faculties yield to human beings. With the completion of my attempt at a systematic and rational reconstruction of Avicenna’s philosophical account of knowledge in terms of the epistemic notions of apprehension, judgement, and truth, I close the study by way of summarising his analysis of knowledge in modern form. And, lastly, I suggest that given the fact that this thesis is the first scholarly attempt at a systematic study of Avicenna’s philosophical analysis of knowledge, I should like it to be seen as a prolegomenon to develop rigorous arguments for his analysis as the basis for a tenable alternative to the traditional account of knowledge.

La thèse traite d’une section de la plus grande somme philosophique d’Avicenne (Ibn Sīnā, m. 1037), le Livre de la Guérison (Kitāb al-Šifāʾ). La somme s’articule en quatre parties qui concernent la logique, la philosophie naturelle, les mathématiques et la métaphysique ; la section dont il est question dans la thèse correspond à la réélaboration de l’Isagogé de Porphyre par Avicenne (Kitāb al-Madḫal, « Livre de l’Introduction ») qui ouvre la section de logique du Šifāʾ. La thèse est articulée en trois parties principales, c’est-à-dire (i) une édition du texte arabe du Madḫal d’Avicenne, (ii) une traduction en anglais et (iii) un commentaire de l’ouvrage ; ces trois parties principales sont précédées d’une Introduction (0) en deux parties, la première (0a) étant une Introduction Générale aux innovations doctrinales majeures de l’ouvrage, et la deuxième (0b) étant une Introduction à l’édition du texte, qui inclut la première étude systématique de sa tradition directe et indirecte et qui expose les critères suivis dans l’édition. (i) La seule édition existante du Madḫal d’Avicenne est celle imprimée au Caire en 1952 (réimprimée à Téhéran en 1983 et à Beyrouth en 1993), basée sur dix manuscrits. L’énorme tradition manuscrite du Madḫal d’Avicenne et, en général, du Livre de la Guérison, reste toujours à explorer. Selon les résultats provisionnels de la recherche bibliographique conduite dans le cadre de ce travail, on peut estimer que la tradition manuscrite du Madḫal compte au moins 119 manuscrits, avec la possible addition de 14 autres manuscrits (comme illustré dans l’Introduction à l’édition, 0b). Loin d’être représentatif de la tradition textuelle de l’ouvrage, le texte de l’édition du Caire a été constitué sur la base de dix manuscrits qui n’ont pas été choisis sur la base des critères philologiques, et dont les relations stemmatiques sont inconnues. Même si une édition critique fondée sur tous les 119 témoins sûrs du texte excède le but du présent travail, l’édition offerte dans la thèse utilise un nombre de manuscrits plus vaste que l’édition du Caire et sélectionne les témoins par une collation préliminaire achevée sur des morceaux du texte. Le but d’une telle collation préliminaire est de sélectionner les manuscrits d’une façon moins arbitraire et de fournir une reconstruction de leurs relations stemmatiques (proposée dans l’Introduction, 0b). En général, l’édition ici proposée inclut 32 manuscrits choisis parmi les 68 inspectés, dont 21 ont été systématiquement collationnés et 11 ont été éliminés en tant que codices descripti. La présente édition considère aussi la traduction latine du douzième siècle, comptée parmi les témoins les plus anciens de l’ouvrage. Ce travail éditorial est censé apporter une amélioration par rapport à l’édition du Caire dans un nombre de points cruciaux pour la compréhension des argumentations d’Avicenne. (ii) Au début de ce projet, les traductions intégrales du Madḫal d’Avicenne en langue moderne étaient disponibles uniquement en turque et en russe. Bien que des traductions partielles de l’ouvrage en d’autres langues aient été produites, une traduction anglaise complète était encore un desideratum. La thèse offre une traduction anglaise intégrale basée sur le texte arabe qui vient d’être établi, visant à préserver le plus possible la cohérence dans la traduction des termes philosophiques principaux. La traduction est complémentée par un apparat de notes, afin de faciliter la compréhension immédiate du texte. (iii) La troisième section de la thèse offre un commentaire systématique du Madḫal d’Avicenne, qui est censé supporter une lecture plus profonde du texte dans son intégrité. Le commentaire envisage soit les aspects historiques, soit les aspects philosophiques et inclut, plus en détail, l’analyse et l’identification, si possible, des sources d’Avicenne, en mettant en évidence les points de majeur intérêt philosophique du travail abordés de façon globale dans l’Introduction Générale (0a). / The thesis deals with a section of the major philosophical summa by Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, d. 1037), namely the Book of the Healing (Kitāb al-Šifāʾ). The summa is structured into four parts, devoted to Logic, Natural Philosophy, Mathematics and Metaphysics; the section at stake is Avicenna’s reworking of Porphyry’s Isagoge (Kitāb al-Madḫal, i.e. “Book of the Introduction”) opening the section of Logic of the Šifāʾ. The thesis is articulated into three main parts, namely (i) an edition of the Arabic text of Avicenna’s Madḫal, (ii) an English translation and (iii) a systematic commentary; these three main parts are preceded by an Introduction (0) divided into two halves: (0a) a General Introduction focused on the doctrinal major innovations of the work and (0b) an Introduction to the Edition of the text, which offers a first comprehensive study of its direct and early indirect tradition and explains the criteria of the edition. (i) The only previous edition of Avicenna’s Madḫal was the one printed in Cairo in 1952 (then reprinted in Tehran in 1983 and in Beirut in 1993), based on ten manuscripts. The huge manuscript tradition of Avicenna’s Madḫal – and, more in general, of Avicenna’s Book of the Healing – is still a matter of investigation. According to the provisional results of the bibliographical research conducted in the present work, it can be estimated that the manuscript tradition of the Madḫal amounts to at least 119 certain witnesses and 14 possible additional witnesses (as explained in the Introduction to the edition, 0b). The text of the Cairo edition, far from being representative of the whole textual tradition, was reconstructed on the basis of ten manuscripts that were not selected on the basis of philological criteria and whose reciprocal stemmatic relations were not clear. Although a critical edition based on all the 119 certain witnesses of the work exceeds the scope of the present work, the edition provided in the thesis takes into account a larger number of manuscripts than the Cairo edition did and, most importantly, selects them by means of a preliminary collation made on portions of the text. The purpose of this preliminary collation is making the selection of the manuscripts employed less arbitrary and providing a reconstruction of their stemmatic relations (in the Introduction, 0b). Overall, 32 manuscripts among the 68 inspected were employed in the edition here proposed, 21 of which were systematically collated and 11 were eliminated as codices descripti. The present edition also assumes as a witness the twelfth-century Latin translation of the work, which is, at the present moment, among the earliest extant witnesses of the text. Hopefully, this editorial work allowed us to improve the text of the Cairo edition in a number of points that are crucial to the correct understanding of Avicenna’s argumentation. (ii) As this project started, complete translations of Avicenna’s Madḫal in modern languages were only available in Turkish and Russian. Chapters of the work had also been translated in other languages, but an English translation of the whole work was still a desideratum. A complete English translation is provided in the thesis, based on the newly-established Arabic text of the work and aiming at preserving the major possible consistency in rendering the relevant philosophical terms. As a complement to the translation, an apparatus of notes is offered to facilitate the immediate understanding of the text. (iii) The third section of the thesis consists in a systematic commentary on Avicenna’s Madḫal, which is meant to support a deeper understanding of the text in its entirety. The commentary deals with both historical and philosophical aspects; more in detail, it includes an analysis and an identification, when possible, of Avicenna’s sources, and underlines the points of major philosophical interest of the work, which are dealt in a more comprehensive manner in the General Introduction (0a).

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Cette thèse est consacrée à une analyse doctrinale et philologique du commentaire de Thomas d'Aquin sur la distinction 35 du premier Livre des Sentences de Pierre Lombard. Le sujet de cette distinction est la science que Dieu a de lui-même et des autres choses. La première partie de notre travail est une présentation conceptuelle et historique de l'arrière-fond de cette distinction. Elle est divisée en quatre étapes. Dans la première, nous nous sommes interrogé sur la science divine dans une perspective linguistique. Dans la seconde, nous avons discuté le rôle de l'autre, en tant qu'objet, dans la connaissance divine. Dans la troisième,nous avons étudié la synthèse chez Thomas des éléments aristotéliciens et pseudo-dionysiens, comme la notion d'actus purus et la notion d'esse. La quatrième étape, présente brièvement le contexte historique pour comprendre la méthode du commentaire des Sentences, ainsi qu'un bref panorama de l'Université de Paris au XIIIe siècle. La deuxième partie de la thèse offre une édition critique de la distinction 35. Après avoir collationné les témoins manuscrits selon les critères de la Commission Léonine, nous avons présenté le texte avec une introduction où nous établissons les différentes familles de la transmission textuelle. / This dissertation provides a doctrinal and philological study of Aquinas' Commentary on Book I, dist. 35 ofPeter Lombard's Sentences. At issue is the knowledge that God has of Himself and of the things other thanHimself. The first part of the dissertation investigates the conceptual and historical background of dist. 35. Itdivides into four sections. First, we approach the topic of the divine science from a linguistic perspective.Secondly, we examine the role of things other than God as objects of the divine knowledge. Thirdly, we drawattention to Aquinas' synthesis of Aristotelian and pseudo-Dionysian elements, namely the notions of actuspurus and esse. The fourth section provides an overview of the historical context and the XIIIth-centuryUniversity of Paris, in order to better understand the method of commentaries on the Sentences. The secondpart of the dissertation intends to provide, for the first time, the critical edition of Aquinas' Commentary onBook I, dist. 35 of Peter Lombard's Sentences. The manuscripts are collated according to LeonineCommission's criteria. The critical text is introduced by a philological study in which we investigate the textualtransmission of dist. 35 and we propose a stemma.