A thousand years after the publication of The Book of Healing (Kitāb al-Shifāʾ) by Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, 980-1037), Falsafa - Meetings of Arab Philosophy at the IMA - dedicates its 2026-2027 season to this monumental work. Logic, physics, mathematics, metaphysics: meeting after meeting, we will explore the various aspects of one of the most ambitious and influential texts in intellectual history, in Islam and beyond
In 2027, the millennium of the Kitāb al-Shifāʾ will be celebrated, the work through which Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā) assigns to what is often considered a philosophical encyclopedia the task of presenting philosophical knowledge in its entirety. Its very title - The Book of Healing - expresses the ambition of this undertaking: to free the soul from ignorance. By exploring the architecture of the work - logic, physics, mathematics, and metaphysics - we will show how the order of its parts reflects a unified and ambitious philosophical design, where the path of knowledge coincides with that of intellectual salvation. We will examine not only what the Shifāʾ says, but the way its structure embodies the Avicennan ideal of a complete and ordered science which, culminating in metaphysics, is capable of leading the human soul, and therefore the individual, to its perfection. With: Olga L. Lizzini, professor at Aix-Marseille University, where she teaches Islamology and the intellectual tradition of Islam. A specialist in Avicenna and, more generally, in Arab-Islamic and medieval philosophy, she is particularly interested in Arabic-language metaphysics, its Greek sources, and its reception in the Jewish and Latin worlds. Among her most recent publications: Treatise on the Divine Unity of Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, introduced, translated from Arabic and annotated, Les Belles Lettres, 2025; Avicenna, Vrin, 2026; Arab Philosophy Under Study. Meaning, Limits and Challenges of a Modern Discipline, co-edited with J.-B. Brenet, Vrin, 2019. The Falsafa meetings are coordinated and led by Jean-Baptiste Brenet, a medievalist, professor of Arab philosophy at Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne University, agrégé in philosophy and doctor from the École Pratique des Hautes Études (section of religious sciences). These lectures are recorded and published as podcasts, accessible on streaming platforms and on the IMA website.
Rate: Tuesday, October 6, 2026 at 7 p.m. Free admission with reservation Library (level 1)
Source: paris.fr — photo: DR