Allegedly, according to Avicenna’s theory of God’s knowledge of particulars, God knows particulars in a universal way or universally. But, it is controversial how we should interpret knowing in a universal way. It seems knowing in a universal way is a black-box in Avicenna’s theological context. However, Peter Adamson in his valuable ‘On Knowledge of Particulars’ has suggested a novel approach to decode this black-box in Avicenna’s theological context. According to Adamson, the key for this black-box is embedded in Avicenna’s (...) epistemological context, i.e., Kitāb al-Burhān. It seems Adamson’s interpretation of Avicenna’s theory of God’s knowledge of particulars consists of two main steps. Firstly, on the basis of Kitāb al-Burhān, he tries to show that knowing in a universal way amounts to knowing syllogistically. For example, when, based on the syllogism “(I) all humans are animals, (II) Zayd is a human, and therefore (III) Zayd is an animal” one knows that ‘Zayd is an animal,’ one knows it universally. Secondly, on the basis of the first step, Adamson tries to show how we should interpret Avicenna’s theory. The upshot of Adamson’s interpretation is that God knows only essential features of particulars and not their accidental features. In this paper, I will argue that both steps in Adamson’s account of Avicenna’s theory of God’s knowledge of particulars face serious problems. (shrink)

It seems Avicenna’s passages regarding God’s knowledge of particulars are susceptible of being given two different types of interpretation. The main difference between these two accounts of his theory concerning God’s knowledge of particulars is that one of them, which I call the Neglected Interpretation, appeals to some metaphysical entities as the proxies of concrete particular objects, which are distinct from God’s essence, to explain God’s knowledge of particulars, while the other type does not. The views of post-Avicennian thinkers like (...) Suhrawardī and Ṭūsī of Avicenna’s account are classifiable under the Neglected Interpretation, as shown by their objections to Avicenna’s theory of God’s knowledge of particulars. This type of interpretation of Avicenna’s theory of God’s knowledge of particulars has been neglected in the secondary English literature on the issue. In this paper, I will present a reconstructed version of this type of interpretation of the Avicennian theory of divine knowledge. (shrink)

It seems Avicenna’s passages regarding God’s knowledge of particulars are susceptible of being given two different types of interpretation. The main difference between these two accounts of his the...

God is omniscient; therefore, for any two propositions, P1 and P2, God knows both that P1 and P2. If God knows multiple things, then God is not simple. But, God is supposed to be a s...

Avicenna’s discussion of future contingent propositions is sometimes considered to entail metaphysical indeterminism. In this paper, I argue that his logical analysis of future contingent statements is best understood in terms of the epistemic modality of those statements, which has no consequences for modal metaphysics. This interpretation is corroborated by hitherto neglected material concerning the question of God’s knowledge of particulars. In the Taʿlīqāt, Avicenna argues that God knows particulars by knowing their complete causes, and when contrasted with the human (...) knowledge of particulars, this epistemically superior access shows that the contingency of statements about future particulars is not due to the modal properties of real particulars but to the nature of human access to them. (shrink)