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Thinker profile

Avicenna

Distinguishes essence and existence and argues for a necessary existent as the cause of contingent beings.

Dates

980-1037

Tradition

Islamic Peripatetic

Core profile

Distinguishes essence and existence and argues for a necessary existent as the cause of contingent beings.

Concepts to watch

Essence and existencecontingencynecessary being

How to study this thinker

  1. 1Start with the basic problem this thinker is trying to solve.
  2. 2Name the concepts Aquinas receives, corrects, or resists.
  3. 3Return to Aquinas and ask how the borrowed insight is reordered.

Aquinas connection

Influence on Aquinas

Aquinas learns from Avicenna that essence and existence must be distinguished in creatures.

Aquinas responds

He accepts the distinction but rejects emanationist limits, insisting on free creation and divine simplicity.

Adjacent profiles

Previous thinkerBoethiusTransmits logic and gives influential definitions of person, eternity, providence, and participation.Next thinkerAverroesDefends a rigorous Aristotle and a controversial account of the intellect that medieval Latins had to confront.