Quotation
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“The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes.”
Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) · Islamic Aristotelianism · Medieval · completed 1025; this English 1930
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is Aristotelian method inside a medical book. Because things have causes, knowing a thing is unfinished until those causes are known. A competing reading hears a claim that a single hidden cause explains every illness, which the sentence does not say. Causes are plural, and the Canon will sort them. The remark sits at the start of Book I, in the same opening movement as the definition of medicine, which is a separate card. Complete is the demanding word. A list of symptoms is not yet the knowledge he means. Gruner's 1930 English is the translation used here. The Book of Healing is the philosophical summa. This sentence is the physician's rule for when a description counts as knowledge. It does not mention the soul.
Did Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. A sentence from the opening of Book I of the Canon, in Gruner's English, before the definition of medicine is put to work. It is a translation of his Arabic, not a proverb, and it is not the floating man.
Where it comes from
The Canon of Medicine, Book I, opening methodological remark, in O. C. Gruner's English (1930)
Approximate date: completed 1025; this English 1930.
How to use it
A discharge note that names a condition and not a cause is, by this standard, unfinished knowledge, which is often all a ward can honestly offer. The sentence does not say the note is useless. It says the knowledge is not complete. A meeting that treats the name of the condition as the end of the inquiry has stopped short of the standard he states.
A mindset reading
Ask which cause would make the description complete, and whether you actually have it. The habit is a brake on labels. A label can be the right name and still not be knowledge by causes.
Understand the philosophy
This is the methodological remark at the opening of Canon, Book I, in Gruner's English. The key demand is knowledge by causes. The definition of medicine, the neighbouring card, says which states and means the science studies. The Metaphysics of the Healing will give a different, stricter use of necessity. That argument is not this sentence.
- knowledge
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is Aristotelian method inside a medical book. Because things have causes, knowing a thing is unfinished until those causes are known. A competing reading hears a claim that a single hidden cause explains every illness, which the sentence does not say. Causes are plural, and the Canon will sort them. The remark sits at the start of Book I, in the same opening movement as the definition of medicine, which is a separate card. Complete is the demanding word. A list of symptoms is not yet the knowledge he means. Gruner's 1930 English is the translation used here. The Book of Healing is the philosophical summa. This sentence is the physician's rule for when a description counts as knowledge. It does not mention the soul.
Did Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. A sentence from the opening of Book I of the Canon, in Gruner's English, before the definition of medicine is put to work. It is a translation of his Arabic, not a proverb, and it is not the floating man.
Which work is it in?
The Canon of Medicine, Book I, opening methodological remark, in O. C. Gruner's English (1930) Approximate date: completed 1025; this English 1930.