Ibn Sina — Experience with repetition and conditions
The question that opens it
Does extensive repetition yield absolute universality, or only a strong judgment within specified conditions?
- 1
`al-Burhān` I.9 distinguishes `istiqrāʾ`, which enumerates limited cases, from `tajriba`, which joins repeated sense experience with inference.
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Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna): al-Burhān min al-Shifāʾ
Ibn Sīnā; translated and introduced by Hannah C. Erlwein · 2025 · MPIWG Histories of Experience around the Globe #002; Arabic source text from Badawī 1966 with English translation; CC BY 4.0 DE
Locator: Translation, pages 7–10; al-Burhān I.9
Open sourceCausation in Arabic and Islamic Thought
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Locator: Section 4.1
Open source
- 2
He argues that induction surveying only a limited set of cases does not guarantee absolute universal certainty and may yield only probable belief.
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This is an evidence-linked editorial account, not a direct quotation.
Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna): al-Burhān min al-Shifāʾ
Ibn Sīnā; translated and introduced by Hannah C. Erlwein · 2025 · MPIWG Histories of Experience around the Globe #002; Arabic source text from Badawī 1966 with English translation; CC BY 4.0 DE
Locator: Translation, pages 8–10
Open sourceScientific Methodologies in Medieval Islam
Jon McGinnis · 2003 · Journal of the History of Philosophy 41(3), 307–327
Locator: Pages 309–314
Open source
- 3
`Tajriba` involves not only repeated observation but also an implicit inference that what happens always or for the most part is not merely accidental.
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This is an evidence-linked editorial account, not a direct quotation.
Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna): al-Burhān min al-Shifāʾ
Ibn Sīnā; translated and introduced by Hannah C. Erlwein · 2025 · MPIWG Histories of Experience around the Globe #002; Arabic source text from Badawī 1966 with English translation; CC BY 4.0 DE
Locator: Translation, pages 7–9
Open sourceCausation in Arabic and Islamic Thought
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Locator: Section 4.1
Open source
- 4
The universality supplied by experience is not absolute; it is conditioned by the repeatedly observed domain and the absence of impediments.
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This is an evidence-linked editorial account, not a direct quotation.
Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna): al-Burhān min al-Shifāʾ
Ibn Sīnā; translated and introduced by Hannah C. Erlwein · 2025 · MPIWG Histories of Experience around the Globe #002; Arabic source text from Badawī 1966 with English translation; CC BY 4.0 DE
Locator: Translation, pages 8–9
Open sourceScientific Methodologies in Medieval Islam
Jon McGinnis · 2003 · Journal of the History of Philosophy 41(3), 307–327
Locator: Pages 318–321
Open source
- 5
The source does not claim that experience invariably prevents error or always leads to certainty.
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This is an evidence-linked editorial account, not a direct quotation.
Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna): al-Burhān min al-Shifāʾ
Ibn Sīnā; translated and introduced by Hannah C. Erlwein · 2025 · MPIWG Histories of Experience around the Globe #002; Arabic source text from Badawī 1966 with English translation; CC BY 4.0 DE
Locator: Translation, page 9
Open source
- 6
The MPIWG sourcebook labels this `al-Burhān` scene “Isfahan, ca. 1027,” treating it as an approximate period rather than an exact date.
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This is an evidence-linked editorial account, not a direct quotation.
Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna): al-Burhān min al-Shifāʾ
Ibn Sīnā; translated and introduced by Hannah C. Erlwein · 2025 · MPIWG Histories of Experience around the Globe #002; Arabic source text from Badawī 1966 with English translation; CC BY 4.0 DE
Locator: Cover and page 1: Isfahan, ca. 1027
Open source