Non-lnnate A Priori Knowledge in Avicenna

Abstract

In his "The Empiricism of Avicenna" Dimitri Cutas interprets Avicenna as an empiricist.¹ He analyzes Avicennian 'principles of syllogism' and claims that none of them are a priori. Moreover, regarding awwalïyat and fitrïyat - which are two groups of such principles-Gutas suggests that "[i]t appears that both kinds of propositions would be analytic, in Kantian terms. As for Locke, they would be what he called 'trifling.'"² In my first comment in this issue, I disagreed with this view and argued that these two groups of propositions are a priori in the Kantian sense. Assenting to their truth is internal to the intellect and independent of empirical information. I also argued that at least some fitrïyat are synthetic, rather than analytic. So Avicenna's epistemology accommodates instances of non-analytic knowledge that are independent of sense experience.