The Architecture of Medical Knowledge: An Analysis of a Post-Avicennan Commentary on Avicenna’s Definition of Medicine

Document Type : Conference Paper

Authors

Department of the History of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Avicenna’s definition of medicine in his Canon established a foundational epistemological framework that also provoked a vibrant critical commentary tradition, predominantly centered in the Persian intellectual sphere. While this critical current is well-studied, the response it elicited remains underexplored. This article introduces and analyzes a previously unstudied anonymous Arabic treatise, dedicated to the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II (r. 1481–1512), which offers a sophisticated philosophical defense of Avicenna’s definition.
Through a close textual analysis, this study deconstructs the author’s meticulous arguments. The defense reaffirms medicine’s status as a ‘science’ (ʿilm) by defining it as encompassing both certain (yaqīnī) and conjectural (ẓannī) knowledge; it establishes Avicenna’s formulation as superior to al-Fārābī’s by highlighting its inclusion of preventative medicine; and it demonstrates the definition’s structural coherence by aligning it with the four Aristotelian causes.
The study concludes that this treatise is vital evidence of a dynamic, cross-regional intellectual dialogue. As a direct response to the Eastern critical tradition, the work exemplifies the ‘entangled histories’ of Iran and Türkiye, revealing an integrated scholarly landscape where a shared Avicennan heritage was actively debated, contested, and defended across cultural and political boundaries.

Keywords

References

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Journal of Research on History of Medicine
Volume 14, Suppl. 1
The 2nd History of Medicine Meeting: Entangled Histories: Contribution of Iran and Türkiye to the Development of Medical Sciences; 2025 Oct 7-10; Shiraz, Iran
October 2025
Pages 11-14

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