Quotation
Last reviewed:
“Medicine is the science by which we learn the various states of the human body, in health and when not in health, and the means by which health is likely to be lost and, when lost, is likely to be restored.”
Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) · Islamic Aristotelianism · Medieval · completed 1025; this English 1930
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is a job description. Medicine is the science of the body's states in health and out of it, and of the means by which health is likely to be lost and, when lost, likely to be restored. A competing reading hears a promise that every loss can be put back, which the word likely refuses. The sentence opens Book I of the Canon of Medicine, before the long account of causes, signs, and regimen. It is why the Canon is a medical book as well as the work of a philosopher. The floating man, already in this library, is a thought experiment in the Psychology of the Book of Healing. This line does not prove a soul. It says what the physician is trying to know. Gruner's English is the translation. The Arabic definition is the source.
Did Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. The opening definition of medicine in Book I of the Canon. Gruner's 1930 English is a standard rendering of the Arabic. It is a translation. It is not the floating-man passage in the Book of Healing.
Where it comes from
The Canon of Medicine, Book I, the definition of medicine, in O. C. Gruner's English (1930)
Approximate date: completed 1025; this English 1930.
How to use it
A clinic leaflet that promises to restore anyone who follows the plan has dropped the word likely. The definition asks what state the body is in, how that state is lost, and what tends to bring it back. It does not turn a definition into a warranty. A conversation that cannot say which of the three it is about has left the sentence.
A mindset reading
Treat a definition as a limit on the claim. He is marking the subject of a science. Using the line to sneer at medicine, or to pretend the Canon was only metaphysics, misses the book it opens.
Understand the philosophy
The Canon was a teaching text for centuries, in Arabic and then in Latin. The key term is medicine as a science of states. Gruner translates the definition in Book I. The floating-man card is from a different work. The metaphysical claim about the necessary existent is a further card, from the Metaphysics of the Healing, and should not be swapped for this one.
- knowledge
- self
FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is a job description. Medicine is the science of the body's states in health and out of it, and of the means by which health is likely to be lost and, when lost, likely to be restored. A competing reading hears a promise that every loss can be put back, which the word likely refuses. The sentence opens Book I of the Canon of Medicine, before the long account of causes, signs, and regimen. It is why the Canon is a medical book as well as the work of a philosopher. The floating man, already in this library, is a thought experiment in the Psychology of the Book of Healing. This line does not prove a soul. It says what the physician is trying to know. Gruner's English is the translation. The Arabic definition is the source.
Did Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. The opening definition of medicine in Book I of the Canon. Gruner's 1930 English is a standard rendering of the Arabic. It is a translation. It is not the floating-man passage in the Book of Healing.
Which work is it in?
The Canon of Medicine, Book I, the definition of medicine, in O. C. Gruner's English (1930) Approximate date: completed 1025; this English 1930.