Ibn Sīnā on Floating Man Arguments

Ahmed Alwishah

I
n his writings on psychology, Ibn Sīnā embarked on a compre-
hensive project: an investigation of the existence of the self,
and an exploration of the self ’s nature. The lynchpin of this
project is the Floating Man Argument (hereafter FMA),1 and the
subsequent discussions that surround it, especially in al-Taʿliqāt and
al-Mubāḥathāt. Several scholars have examined FMA in the past.
However, they have focused mostly on the earliest version of Ibn
Sīnā’s al-Nafs, and paid little or no attention to other extant versions
of this text, which appear—critically—to be more advanced.2 This

1 Most scholars have translated the term as “Flying Man.” I believe that the
accurate translation is “Floating Man,” because the name of the argument is
derived from the verb yahwā in al-Nafs, which literally means “to fall down,”
and from muʿallaqa in al-Ishārāt, which has a range of meanings, among
them “floating.” Thus, from both meanings, it is more appropriate to deduce
the name “Floating Man.” See Ibn Sīnā, al-Ishārāt wa-l-tanbihāt, ed. Sulaymān
Dunyā (Cairo: Dār al-Maʿārif, 1957); Avicenna’s De anima (Arabic text): being the
psychological part of Kitāb al-Shifā’, ed. F. Rahman (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1959).
2 See scholars such as S. Pines, “La Conception de la Conscience de Soi chez
Avicenne et chez Abū al-Barakāt al-Baghdādī,” Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale
et Littéraire du Moyen Âge 29 (1954): 21–56; M. Marmura, “Avicenna’s ‘Flying
Man’ in Context,” Monist 69 (1986): 383–396; A. Druart, “The Soul and Body
Problem: Avicenna and Descartes,” in Arabic Philosophy and the West, ed.
A. T. Druart (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1988), 27–48;
D. Hasse, Avicenna’s De Anima in the Latin West (London: Warburg Institute,
2000); A. Hasnawi, “La Conscience de Soi chez Avicenne et Descartes,” in
Descartes et le Moyen Âge, ed. J. Biard and R. Rashed (Paris: Vrin 1997), 283–291;
R. Sorabji, Self (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006); Deborah L.
Black, “Avicenna on Self-Awareness and Knowing that One Knows,” in The
Unity of Science in the Arabic Tradition, ed. Shahid Rahman, Tony Street, and
Hassan Tahiri (Dordrecht: Springer Science, 2008), 63–87. While it is true that
Marmura presented three versions of the FMA, his treatment of the FMA
suffered from two critical problems: (a) it had not integrated Ibn Sīnā’s latest

Journal of Islamic Philosophy 9 (2013): 49–71.

© 2013 by the Journal of Islamic Philosophy, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN: 1536-4569
50 Ahmed Alwishah

paper3 shows, through careful examination of the versions of FMA,

that Ibn Sīnā’s project unfolds in three primary stages: In the early
FMAs, Ibn Sīnā sets out to affirm the existential separability of the
self and the body, to establish the inextricable relation between the
existence of the self, and its self-awareness, and to offer a way to
individuate one Floating Man (hereafter FM) from another. Failing
in the earliest versions to explain why one could not identify the self
with any of his bodily parts, or form the concept of his self without
having the concept of his body included in it, Ibn Sīnā advances
to another form of separability—namely, conceptual separability.
In al-Risālat al-aḍḥawiyya and in an argument that is analogous
to FMA, Ibn Sīnā demonstrates that because the self and its bodily
parts are knowable, one can form the concept of his self, or the ‘I,’
without understanding that his bodily parts are included in it. In the
final stage, after having emphasized the essentiality of self-awareness
to the existence of the self, Ibn Sīnā sets out to examine the nature
works, in which he develops significant points concerning the FMA, and (b)
it failed to identify the main premises of the FMA.
3 The roots of this study grew out of conference presentations by Alwishah in
2002 and 2005; and primarily out of Alwishah’s dissertation, specifically the
part which concerns Ibn Sīnā’s FMA and self awareness. See Ahmed Alwishah,
“Avicenna’s Philosophy of Mind: Self-Awareness and Intentionality” (PhD diss.,
UCLA, 2006). An examination of Alwishah’s dissertation and Black’s “Avicenna”
shows that while they present different treatments of Ibn Sīnā’s concept of
self-awareness, they share the following common inferences and ideas: (1)
Self-awareness is essential/intrinsic to self/intellect (Alwishah, 81; Black, 65).
(2) “No medium is required in order to become self-aware; we perceive the self
“through itself ” (Alwishah, 69–74; Black, 65). (3) Self-awareness is immediate,
direct and unconditioned (Alwishah, 69–76; Black, 65). (4) Self-awareness
is present in the soul/self from the beginning of its existence (Alwishah, 58;
Black, 65). (5) The self is aware of its self continuously and not intermittently
(Alwishah, 83; Black, 65). (6) The existence of the self is just the awareness of
the self (Alwishah, 58, 78–79; Black, 65). (7) Self-awareness presupposes any
activities/actions (Alwishah, 70; Black, 67). (8) One does not lose his awareness
of his self even in sleep or drunkenness (Alwishah, 77; Black, 67). (9) In the
case of self-awareness, there must be an identity relation between the subject/
knower and the object/known of this awareness (Alwishah, 69; Black, 69).
(10) Self-awareness is not an activity (Alwishah, 70–71; Black, 70).
 Journal of Islamic Philosophy / 2013 51

of self-awareness and its relation to the other kinds of awareness.

In the last version of FMA and its relevant passages, Ibn Sīnā (a)
identifies self-awareness with the attributes of immediacy, continuity,
certitude, and self-referentiality, and (b) links the immediate and
the perceptual forms of awareness by positing that there are two
distinct orders of awareness with different relations to the self. It is
only by recognizing these different stages, and the developments in
Ibn Sīnā’s thought, that one can obtain a critical and comprehensive
understanding of Ibn Sīnā’s FMA.
The Existential Separability
In the first chapter of al-Nafs, Ibn Sīnā makes it clear that the
main objective of FMA is to affirm the existence of the essence of
the human soul, and to understand its nature. Such affirmation, he
claims, cannot be achieved by obtaining or inferring new knowledge,
but rather only by drawing attention (tanbih)4 to a special knowledge
or truth (ḥaqq) which intrinsically5 exists within the self. Having
established that, Ibn Sīnā proceeds to present FMA1 by stating that:
We say anyone among us must make himself believe
(yatawahm) that it is as if he is created all at once and
as a whole (kamila), but his eyes are prevented from
seeing anything external, and he is created floating in
the air or a vacuum in such a way that the substance of
the air does not collide with him so as to allow him to
perceive; and his limbs are separate and do not meet
or touch each other. He then reflects on whether he
affirms the existence of his self. For he will not have
a doubt in affirming the existence for his essence, yet
he will not along with this affirm [the existence of] the

4 In addition, Ibn Sīnā uses the term tadhkīr (remembering). He dropped this
term, however, in his version of FMA in al-Ishārāt.
5 Later in al-Taʿlīqāt, Ibn Sīnā restates this introduction of FMA and adds the
term awalī (intrinsic). See Ibn Sīnā, al-Taʿlīqāt, ed. H. al-ʿUbaydī (Baghdad:
Bayt al-Ḥikma, 2002), §36, 112.
52 Ahmed Alwishah

extremities of his limbs, nor his innards, his heart, or

anything external to him. Instead, he will affirm [the
existence] of his essence, without affirming that it has
length, breadth or depth. Nor, if in that state he were
able to imagine there to be a hand or other body part,
would he imagine that it was a part of his essence or
as a condition for his essence. You know that what is
affirmed is different from what is not affirmed and what
is assented to is different from what is not assented to.
Therefore, the essence that he affirms to be existent has
a specific characteristic of being his very self, other
than his body and his organs; these he does not affirm.
Thus, he is admonished and has a way of attending to
the existence of his soul as something other than the
body and immaterial, and he is acquainted (ʿārif) and
is aware of it (mustashʿir), but if he is oblivious of it, he
will need to be rebuked.6
One can reconstruct Ibn Sīnā’s FMA1 in the following steps:
1. The FM is aware of the existence of his self without being
aware of the existence of his body.
2. The FM affirms the existence of his self without affirming
the existence of his body.
3. The FM is taken without his body; all that is left is his self,
which does the affirming [i.e., his self affirms itself].
At this point, one may conclude that:
4. Denying the existence of his self is inconceivable, since
it is a necessary condition for affirming his existence.
5. Denying the existence of his body is conceivable, since it
is not a necessary condition for affirming his existence.

6 al-Nafs, 16. [[Avicenna’s De anima]] Unless otherwise indicated, all the transla-
tions from Arabic are my own.
 Journal of Islamic Philosophy / 2013 53

6. From (4 and 5) it follows that affirming the existence of

the self without affirming the existence of the body is
conceivable.
By affirming the existence of his self, the FM demarcates a
crucial division between his body, which is not essential to his
existence, and a non-corporeal entity, which is necessary to his
existence as a whole. The FM is aware of himself, and this awareness
in turn allows him to assert his own existence.
The relation between the existence of the self, and self-aware-
ness, is investigated further in Ibn Sīnā’s al-Taʿliqāt. There, Ibn Sīnā
asserts that to be a self is to be self-aware. He expresses this idea
elsewhere in al-Taʿliqāt:
(a) “When the self exists, self-awareness exists with it.”7
(b) “For the existence of the self is the awareness of itself,
and these concepts are both inextricable.”8
(c) “Our awareness of our selves is itself our existence.”9
In (b) and (c) Ibn Sīnā invokes a robust, inextricable connection
between “being a self ” and “being aware of that which is a self.”
Thus, the FM can know that he exists on the basis of his awareness
that he is a self. In al-Mubāḥathāt, Ibn Sīnā further asserts that this
inextricable connection is presupposed not only by his awareness
of his self, but also in any act of cognition. He writes that, “the
soul is continuously aware of its existence. If my soul cognizes in
actuality something other than my self, it is continuously aware
that it cognizes as long as it cognizes.”10 With that in mind, we can
infer from the above that:
1. I am aware that I exist if I am aware of my self.
2. In knowing something exists, I know that I am aware
of my self.

7 Ibn Sīnā, al-Taʿlīqāt, §34, 111.

8 Ibid., §61, 122.
9 Ibid., §70, 125.
10 Ibn Sīnā, al-Mubāḥathāt, ed. M. Bīdārfar (Qum: Baydār, 1992), §550, 185–186.
54 Ahmed Alwishah

3. Thus, the awareness of my self is present in every act of

cognition.
Having shown the connection between the notion of existential
separability, and the inextricable relation between the existence of
the self and self-awareness, Ibn Sīnā proceeds to present a more
advanced account of existential separability in FMA2:
If a human being was created all at once in such way that his
hands and feet stretched out so that he neither sees nor touches
them, nor do they touch each other, and so that he does not hear
any sound, he would certainly not know that any of his bodily parts
existed, and yet he would know (ʿalama) that his ānniyya existed as
one thing even though he would not know all those parts, for what
is not known is not the same as that which is known.11
There are two key developments in this version that are worthy
of our investigation: First, there is Ibn Sīnā’s use of the term ānniyya12
to equate or replace the term dhāt. The concept of ānniyya underwent
a number of changes and refinements in Ibn Sīnā’s philosophy.
In most of his writings, Ibn Sīnā uses the term ānniyya to mean
“individual existence.” However, in the context of the FMA and its

11 al-Nafs, 255. [[Avicenna’s De anima]]

12 Ānniyya is an abstract noun derived from the Arabic particle “ānna,” which is
used to introduce the topic of a nominal sentence and has no direct translation
into English, although “it is the case that” is functionally similar. According
to some modern scholars, the earliest text to contain the term ānniyya is the
Theology of Aristotle. In his translation of this text, Friedrich Dieterici takes
ānniyya to be an equivalent to the Greek term τὰ ὂντως ὂντα, and in turn
takes this term to mean essence (see R. Frank, “Arabic Philosophical Term
Anniyah,” Les Cahiers de Byrsa 6 (1956), 181). Paul Kraus concludes that the
term ānniyya is the equivalent of both the Greek infinitive τὸ εἶναι and the
Greek participle τὸ ὄν (see Frank, “Arabic Philosophical Term Anniyah,” 183).
Al-Kindī was the first to use the term ānniyya in Arabic philosophical writ-
ings to mean existence. In al-Falsafat al-ūlā, he argues that “the cause of the
existence and the continuance of everything is the True One. This is because
each thing has an ānniyya and has a reality [that causes it]” (see al-Kindī,
al-Rasāʾil al-falsafiyya, ed. M. Abū Rīda (Cairo: al-Fikr al-ʿArabī, 1950), 97).
 Journal of Islamic Philosophy / 2013 55

relevant passages to a specific usage, he uses the term specifically

in reference to the self.13
With respect to the first use, Ibn Sīnā affirms his predecessors’
interpretations of ānniyya, al-Fārābī’s in particular.14 For example, in
al-Madkhal, Ibn Sīnā defines ānniyya as that which “refers essentially
to the question of ‘which’15 (ayyu-mā-huwa) a thing is,” as opposed
to māhiyya, which he defines as that “which pertains essentially to
the question of ‘what’ (mā-huwa) a thing is.”16 In his Metaphysics,
Ibn Sīnā makes clear that ānniyya necessitates quiddity, whereas
quiddity does not necessarily require the existence of ānniyya, i.e.,
quiddity can exist in the state of potentiality. With the exception
of the Necessary Being, whose ānniyya is the same as His quiddity,
everything which has an ānniyya must have a quiddity.17 In other
words, in any given temporal being this must be true: if there is an
ānniyya, then there must be a quiddity.
In FMA2 and 3, and other relevant passages, Ibn Sīnā takes
ānniyya to mean something that is not necessarily opposed to
quiddity. It is, instead, that which represents the identity and
the core of what it is to be a particular human. For example, in
al-Risāla al-aḍḥawiyya, Ibn Sīnā defines what he calls the persisting

13 See Deborah L. Black, “Avicenna on Individuation, Self-Awareness, and God’s

Knowledge of Particulars,” in The Judeo-Christian-Islamic Heritage: Philosophi-
cal and Theological Perspectives, ed. R. Taylor and I. Omar (Milwaukee, WI:
Marquette University Press, 2012).
14 In his discussion of the emphatic particle ānna, al-Fārābī states that sometimes
the existence of the thing is called its ānniyya, sometimes the essence of the
thing is called ānniyya, and sometimes—likewise—the substance of a thing
is called its ānniyya (see al-Fārābī, al-Alfāẓ al-mustaʿmala fī l-manṭiq, ed. M.
Mahdī (Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 1968), 45). Al-Fārābī equates this term with
māhiyya by showing that “philosophers call ‘the complete existence’ of a thing
ānniyya—which itself is a māhiyya” (see al-Fārābī, Kitāb al-Ḥurūf, ed. M.
Mahdī (Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 2004), 61).
15 Ibn Sīnā, al-Shifāʾ, al-Madkhal, ed. G. Qanawātī, M. Khuḍayrī, and F. al-Ahwānī
(Cairo, 1952), 46.
16 Ibid.
17 Avicenna, Metaphysics, trans. Marmura, 276.
56 Ahmed Alwishah

(al-thābita) ānniyya to be “that which if it is assumed to be existing

and the other things which pertain to a human are assumed to be
annihilated, then the core (al-ḥāṣil) and identity (al-hawiyya) of
being human continues to exist.”18 Later, he explicitly states that
that “which can be indicated by the concept of the ānniyya is truly
his self (dhāt).” He insists that “the affirmation of my being as one
lies within my substantial (al-jawhariyya) ānniyya and [not within
my quantitative or qualitative attributes].”19 Finally, Ibn Sīnā affirms
that my awareness of my ānniyya is prior to my awareness of the
existence of my external or internal organs.20 We can derive from
all of these remarks that the term ānniyya here denotes a specific
aspect of the self, namely, that which represents the identity and
the continuous mode of awareness of one’s existence.
Second, while Ibn Sīnā suggests that the FM has no prior knowl-
edge at all in both FMA1 and FMA2, he posits different ways of
affirming the knowledge of the existence of the self in each. In FMA1,
the FM affirms this knowledge after (i) imagining the separability of
his self from the body, and (ii) then reflecting upon his disembodied
self. In other words, the FM engages in a process of withdrawal from
his body and its sensory contents, while directly accessing that which
is doing the reflection. In doing so, he distinguishes between being
a self as subject in relation to things other than itself, and a self as
subject in relation to itself alone. However, in FMA2, Ibn Sīnā argues
that, for the FM, knowledge of the existence of his ānniyya is not
something which results from the stages of imagining and reflect-
ing. Rather, it is something concurrent with (maʿa) the realization
of being unaware of his bodily parts. To put this another way, the

18 Ibn Sīnā, al-Risālat al-aḍḥawiyya fī l-maʿād (published under the title of Epistola
Sulla Vita Futura), ed. F. Lucchetta (Padova: Editrice Antenore, 1969), 13.
19 Ibn Sīnā, al-Mubāḥathāt, §403, 147.
20 Ibn Sīnā, al-Mubāḥathāt, §62, 59; see also another edition of Ibn Sīnā,
al-Mubāḥathāt, in Arisṭū ʿinda al-ʿarab, ed. A. R. Badawī (Cairo, 1978), § 370, 207.
This latter edition is hereafter referred to in notes as Ibn Sīnā, al-Mubāḥathāt
(ed. Badawī).
 Journal of Islamic Philosophy / 2013 57

FM’s knowledge of his ānniyya includes his knowledge that he is

unaware of any of his bodily parts. One significant consequence of
this shift in FMA2 is that it offers a way to individuate one FM from
another. For in the case of having two or more FM, the question
may be raised: how is one FM to be distinguished from another? The
facts—that each FM has no prior knowledge, and that the self of each
is aware of nothing but itself—do not tell us how these selves are
individuated. However, the shift between FMA1 and 2 suggests that
an FM has a peculiar, complex awareness of both the existence of
his self, and of not having an awareness of the existence of his body.
The Conceptual Separability
Having realized that FMA1 and FMA2 are limited to addressing
the questions of why FM could not identify the self with any of
his bodily parts, we now ask, Can one form a concept of his self
without having the concept of his body included in it? Ibn Sīnā, in
al-Risālat al-aḍḥawiyya establishes the following:
If a man reflects (taʾammal) on the thing by which he is
called ‘he,’ and [by which] he refers to himself as ‘I,’ he
will imagine that that [thing] is his body and his flesh.
But then if he reflects or ponders [he would find] that
if his hands, legs, ribs, and the rest of his external limbs
did not belong to his body, he would continue to have
[what is conceived by] the concept [which he refers to
as ‘I’]. Thus, he would know that these parts of his body
are not included in the concept [which he refers to as
‘I’]. Having arrived at this point, he will [further reflect]
on [the separability] of his primary organs, such as the
brain, the heart, and liver and etc., [from his ‘I’]. With
respect to the brain, it is possible for one [to think that]
part of it is separable, and yet the concept of [his ‘I’] is
affirmed. As far as the heart, it is not possible to assume
[its separability] in reality, but only in imagination.
For one can know that his ānniyya, which he refers
58 Ahmed Alwishah

to, existed without knowing that he has a heart, and

[without knowing] how it is, what it is, and where it is
. . . After further investigation, [we find that] the thing
which [means that] a man [can be] considered to be
[al-muʿtabar] a human is indicated by the concept of
ānniyya, and this is his true essence; and it is the thing
by which he knows that he is ‘he’; that [essence] is, by
necessity the soul.21
At the outset, and unlike the previous FMAs, Ibn Sīnā presup-
poses someone who has knowledge of the existence of both his self
and his bodily parts. Then he sets out to investigate the questions:
Why am I not my body? What is that which substantiates the ref-
erential ‘I’ in me, and can it be understood without conceiving of
any bodily parts in it?
In response to the above questions, Ibn Sīnā argues that one at
first intuitively identifies what substantiates ‘I’ with the existence of
his body. Early in FMA2, Ibn Sīnā attributes this intuitive identifica-
tion to what he called the “perpetual inextricable relation” (dawām
al-mulāzama) between the self and the body.22 Such a relation causes
one to believe that whenever one thinks of himself, one does so in
such a way that the body partakes in it. However, in his view, a further
investigation of this matter should counter this naive identification
and reveal the true subject of the ‘I.’
In the course of this investigation, Ibn Sīnā offers two cor-
related steps. First—and unlike the case in FMA1 and 2, where he
classifies the bodily parts under one category—in this argument Ibn
Sīnā thinks it is essential for our inquiry into the referential ‘I’ to
distinguish between the external and the primary/internal bodily
parts. Within each category, one needs to examine the possibility of
ascertaining the ‘I’ independent from having knowledge of the bodily
parts. While Ibn Sīnā is quick to ascertain this possibility with respect

21 Ibn Sīnā, al-Risāla, 141–145.

22 al-Nafs, 255. [[Avicenna’s De anima]]
 Journal of Islamic Philosophy / 2013 59

to the external parts, he is reluctant to do the same with respect to

the primary/internal parts, the brain in particular. He is aware of
the prima facie difficulty of thinking, that that which substantiates
the ‘I’ is something separable from the brain. The brain plays a
critical role in Ibn Sīnā’s cognitive theory: It contains key faculties
that bridge the perceptual reality and the mind. Like Descartes,23 Ibn
Sīnā distinguishes between the intellect and the brain, and denies
that the brain is employed in pure understanding or reasoning.
However, while Ibn Sīnā affirms that the brain is employed only in
imagining and sensing, he is unwilling to assert that one can think
of the separability of the brain in its entirety from the ‘I.’ For while
both think that my idea of my ‘I’ is independent from my idea of
my body, Ibn Sīnā seems to think that my idea of my ‘I’ contains
an affinity between my brain and my intellect.
But which part of the brain is inseparable from the ‘I’? Ibn Sīnā
has not addressed this question at all, but based on his doctrine of
the internal faculty, one can assume that he is referring to the part
of the brain that is responsible for the faculty of representation
and estimation.24 After all, these faculties, estimation in particular,
are working directly with the intellect, and the practical intellect
benefits from their perceptual contents. Thus, while it seems that
Ibn Sīnā fully emerges from the Aristotelian cocoon upholding
the view that the subject of the ‘I’ exists independently from the
body, here he allows the power of the soul to be diffused within
the subject of the ‘I.’
Now, with regard to the second step of this investigation, Ibn
Sīnā identifies that which substantiates the ‘I’ as the essence of the
soul. The ‘I’ is that which refers to one’s ānniyya, and “the ānniyya

23 Descartes argues that, “I have often also shown distinctly that mind can act
independently of the brain; for certainly the brain cannot be used in pure
thought: its only use is for imagining and perceiving” (see René Descartes, The
Philosophical Works of Descartes, trans. Elizabeth S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911–12), 2:212).
24 al-Nafs, 41–45. [[Avicenna’s De anima]]
60 Ahmed Alwishah

is his true essence.” He explicitly states that, “when one refers to

himself as ‘I’ [he is referring to something] other than the totality of
his bodily parts; it is the thing that exists beyond his body.”25 Later, he
expresses the relation between the ‘I’ and the awareness of essence
when he states that I am aware of my ‘I’ even if I don’t know that I
have a hand, leg or other bodily parts.”26 Hence, we gather from all
these remarks that one is always aware of his ‘I,’ and that the ‘I’ refers
to the essence of one’s self, not to any object added to the essence.
The question of what substantiates the ‘I,’ is critically relevant
to Ibn Sīnā’s distinction between essence and existence. Contrary
to Aristotle, Ibn Sīnā holds the view that existence is superadded to
essence, and is not inherent in it. In al-Ishārāt, he states that, “the
existence of a thing is different from its essence, and it is not part
of it . . . rather, it is superadded to it.”27
Thus, in the light of this distinction, one can deduce the
following:
(a) My essence is perceived to have a mode of being that is
distinct from the existence of my body.
(b) My essence is aware of itself without being aware of
my body.
(c) I am aware of my ‘I’ even if I am not aware of my body,
or of anything beyond my essence.
(d) Thus, my ‘I’ is a referential expression of my awareness
of my essence.
The referential ‘I’ picks out the essence of what it is to be me,
and in every instance of the referring, I affirm my awareness of
this essence.
The idea that to be aware of one’s self is essential to what it
means to be a self is emphasized over and over in previous FMAs. In

25 Ibn Sīnā, al-Risāla, 184.

26 Ibid.
27 Ibn Sīnā, al-Ishārāt, 49.
 Journal of Islamic Philosophy / 2013 61

what follows, Ibn Sīnā sets out to explore the nature of self-awareness,
and its relation to perceptual awareness.
The Immediacy and Continuity of Self-Awareness
In FMA3, Ibn Sīnā focuses his attention on identifying the
nature of self-awareness. In al-Ishārāt, Ibn Sīnā argues:
Return to yourself and reflect. If you are healthy, or
rather in some other state of health such that you discern
a thing accurately, are you oblivious to the existence of
yourself and do you not affirm it? To me this [being
oblivious and not affirming it] does not happen to an
intelligent [person]. One’s self does not escape even the
sleeper in his sleep, and the drunk in his drunkenness,
even though its representation to oneself is not fixed in
memory. If you imagine yourself to have been at your
first creation mentally and physically sound, and it is
assumed that your self is altogether in such a position
and disposition as not to perceive its parts nor have its
limbs touch each other—but separate and momentarily
suspended in temperate (ṭalq) air—you find that it is
oblivious to everything except the fixedness (thubūt) of
its individual existence (ānniyyatihā). With what you are
you aware of yourself at that time, prior to that time,
and posterior to it? What is it of yourself that you are
aware of? Is it one of your senses, is it your intellect, or
a faculty other than your senses by which you are aware
of [yourself]? If it is your intellect or a faculty other
than your senses by which you are aware of [yourself],
then are you aware of [it] by means of an intermediary
or without intermediary? I do not think in that case
you are in need of an intermediary. Thus, it is without
an intermediary [that you are aware of yourself]. It
remains, therefore, that you are aware of yourself without
the need for another faculty or intermediary. Hence it
62 Ahmed Alwishah

remains that you are [aware of yourself] by means of

your senses or internal [power] without intermediary.
Reflect further!28
Ibn Sīnā centers his argument on two key notions, namely, the
immediacy and continuity of self-awareness.
A. Immediacy: Ibn Sīnā suggests above that there is direct
access to the awareness of the self. It is the kind of relation where
no action, activity, or even thought mediates between the self and its
awareness of itself. He makes it clear that by apprehending certain
activities, one must presuppose the existence of the self without
necessarily proving it, and this special knowledge of the self is
inherent in the self, and not in the act of cognition.
In al-Taʿliqāt, Ibn Sīnā emphasizes the direct relation between
the self and its awareness of itself, by employing two main concepts:
presence (ḥuḍūr) and identity (huwiyya). With respect to the former,
he asserts that:
In every state the self presents itself to the self, and can
never be oblivious to it. For the existence of the self is
the same as the awareness of itself, and the self does not
become aware of itself, for it is already aware of itself
and its presence in-it-self.29
In this sense, the self presents itself to us with a continu-
ous awareness of itself. To apprehend itself, it does not
require any acts or activities, not even a specific act which
brings about self-awareness. Ibn Sīnā argues that in the
case of self-awareness, there must be an identity relation
between the subject and the object of this awareness:
“When you are aware of yourself, then there must be an
28 Ibid., 2:343–345, see Ibn Sina’s Remarks and Admonitions: Physics and
Metaphysics, trans. Shams Inati (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014),
94–95, with significant modification,
29 Ibn Sīnā, al-Taʿliqāt, §61, 122. See also another edition of Ibn Sīnā, al-Taʿliqāt,
ed. A. R. Badawī (Cairo, 1973), 148; this latter edition will henceforth be referred
to in notes as Ibn Sīnā, al-Taʿliqāt (ed. Badawī).
 Journal of Islamic Philosophy / 2013 63

identity relation between the subject of this awareness

(shāʿr) and the object of this awareness (mashʿūr).”30
Aristotle posits a view that captures the identity relation between
the intellect and the object of its thought. In De Anima 430a 3–5,
Aristotle asserts that “thought is itself thinkable in exactly the same
way as its objects are. For in the case of objects which involve no
matter, what thinks and what is thought are identical.” For Aristotle,
the self-thinking of the intellect, as he shows in Metaphysics (1072b
20–22 and 1074b 35–36), and as Lewis demonstrates, is incidental
to “whatever (first-order) perceiving or knowing the person is
currently engaged [in].”31 Unlike Aristotle, Ibn Sīnā centers his
idea of identity on the notion of direct-awareness, and not on the
activity of thinking. He denies that there is any activity of thinking
or representation that mediates between the self and its awareness
of itself. For Ibn Sīnā, the self is intrinsically aware of its existence:
“The self-awareness of the self is intrinsic (gharizī) to the self, and
[it] is the same as its existence; thus, there is no need for something
external to the [self] for the self to be aware of itself.”32
Bahmanyār, a disciple of Ibn Sīnā, was not convinced by this
explanation, and he put an intriguing alternative hypothesis to
Ibn Sīnā. Bahmanyār held that awareness is just another form of
perception—the kind of perception in which a substantial self is not
assumed. Later, he called this perception an “impression” (athar),
which is generated within our inner sense.33 His view, in a way, is
analogous to Hume’s claim that
. . . when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I
always stumble on some particular perception or other,
of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or
pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without
30 Ibn Sīnā, al-Taʿliqāt, §59, 120–121. See also al-Taʿliqāt (ed. Badawī), 147–148.
31 F. Lewis, “Self-Knowledge in Aristotle,” Topoi 15 (1996): 39–46.
32 Ibn Sīnā, al-Taʿliqāt, §72, 125.
33 Ibn Sīnā, al-Mubāḥathāt, §444, 160–161. See also al-Mubāḥathāt (ed. Badawī),
§425, 222.
64 Ahmed Alwishah

a perception, and never can observe anything but the

perception.34
Both Bahmanyār and Hume seem to agree that (a) introspective
awareness/knowledge is a form of perceptual awareness/knowledge,
and (b) there is no substantial persisting self which is present in
the inner sense, or to be more precise, in the “impression” itself.
Ibn Sīnā responded to Bahmanyār, first by stating that the act
of perceiving itself is an affirmation of the self, insofar as it is the
self which is doing the perceiving.35 Furthermore, he provided a
complex argument to repudiate the claim that self-awareness is not
an awareness of a self, rather, it is merely an “impression” which
occurs in oneself. His argument can be constructed as follows:36
1. The claim that “an impression occurs to us, and we are aware
of that impression” means one of two things:
(a) The occurrence of “awareness” is the same
as the occurrence of an “impression.”
(b) The occurrence of “awareness” is something that
follows the occurrence of an “impression.”
2. If (a), then the statement “we are aware of that impres-
sion” would be meaningless. For the terms “awareness” and
“impression” would become synonymous (murādaf) with
each other.
3. If (b), then either (i) the concept (maʿnā) of the quiddity
of the self is presented in the awareness, or (ii) it is not
presented in the awareness.
4. It is not the case (ii), for that means the awareness is an
occurrence of something which has no quiddity.

34 David Hume, A Treatise on Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge and P. H.

Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896), 252.
35 Ibn Sīnā, al-Mubāḥathāt, 446, 161. See also al-Mubāḥathāt (ed. Badawī), §425,
222.
36 Ibn Sīnā, al-Mubāḥathāt, 446, 161. See also al-Mubāḥathāt (ed. Badawī), §425,
222.
 Journal of Islamic Philosophy / 2013 65

5. It is not the case (i), for it entails that in addition to the

impression which causes the occurrence of the awareness,
there must be an impression for the occurrence of the quid-
dity of the self in the awareness. However, this occurrence
is not caused by an impression, but rather is constitutive
(mutakawina) in the awareness.
6. Therefore, it is not the case that an “impression” brings about
the awareness of a self.
In al-Taʿliqāt, Ibn Sīnā further stresses his view that an “impres-
sion” cannot be an intermediary between oneself and the awareness
of oneself; he argues that my awareness of myself is fully transparent
to myself, and it is prior to any form of awareness or impression.37
For Ibn Sīnā, the claim that, “I am aware of an ‘impression,’” implies
that one is also an object of one’s awareness. To claim that there is
only an awareness of an “impression,” and that there is no awareness
of a self, is to deny the awareness of the “impression” itself. For one
cannot be aware of oneself as experiencing an “impression,” without
being aware of a self-experiencing this “impression.”
Having established that the immediacy of self-awareness is
awareness with certainty, and that we are in a position to experience
its certitude, Ibn Sīnā explains that “certainty is to know that you
know something, and to know that you know that thing uncondition-
ally. Self-awareness is like that, for you are aware of yourself, and you
know that you are aware of your awareness, and you know that you
are aware of it unconditionally.”38 In this respect, both the notion
of certainty, and that of self-awareness, inherit the unconditional
truth of their objects, and constitute the first and second orders of
awareness (we explain this below). Furthermore, the connection
between certainty and self-awareness implies that self-awareness
provides us with well-founded knowledge by eliminating the source

37 Ibn Sīnā, al-Taʿliqāt, 40, 113–114. See also Ibn Sīnā, al-Taʿliqāt (ed. Badawī),
79.
38 Ibn Sīnā, al-Taʿliqāt, 34, 111. See also Ibn Sīnā, al-Taʿliqāt (ed. Badawī), 79.
66 Ahmed Alwishah

of any deficiency in inference or reasoning. There is no gap between

what is, and what is aware of it.
B. Continuity: at the opening of the FMA3, Ibn Sīnā addresses
the question of whether the Floating Man is aware of his ānniyya
in states other than the state of consciousness. His response comes
as no surprise to us given that he has already argued for an inex-
tricable relation between the existence of the essence of the self,
and its awareness of itself. For him, there is no time at which one
is not aware of his existence. The self, in his view, is conscious of
itself continuously, and conscious of others in virtue of being
conscious of itself. Ibn Sīnā writes, “The self is aware of itself in
an absolute state and without any condition at all. The self is aware
of itself always and not intermittently.”39 But is one aware of one’s
existence in different mental states? For example, Ibn Sīnā takes up
the following question: “can one be aware of one’s own existence
while sleeping?”40 Based on the inextricable relation between self
and its awareness of itself, the answer to this question seems to be
rather straightforward. The self is a conscious essence and it exists
independently from the activities of the body, including the activity
of sleeping. Hence, if I exist, I am aware of my essence, regardless
of my activities. However, Ibn Sīnā does not confine his response
to this view, but rather offers a complex argument:
A person in his sleep is acting upon his images, in the
same way that he is acting upon his sensibles when he
is awake; and [during his sleep], he often acts upon
[his] intelligible/cognitive contents in the same manner
that he does when he is awake. In the state of acting
upon [all these during sleep], he is aware that he is
the one who is acting in the same way as when he is
awake. Thus, when he awakes and remembers his acting
[during his sleep], he would remember his awareness of

39 Ibn Sīnā, al-Taʿliqāt, 34, 111. See also Ibn Sīnā, al-Taʿliqāt (ed. Badawī), 79.
40 Ibn Sīnā, al-Mubāḥathāt, §66, 61.
 Journal of Islamic Philosophy / 2013 67

himself [as the one who performed the acting] as well.

And if he awakes without remembering that, then he
will not remember his awareness of himself. However,
this [forgetting] will not indicate that he is unaware of
himself, because remembering the awareness of the self
is different from the awareness of the self, and what is
more “the awareness of the awareness of the self ” is
different from “the awareness of the self.” The person
who is awake, too, will not remember his awareness
of himself, if he cannot preserve in his memory some
events that happen to him at the time when he was not
oblivious to the [awareness of] himself.41
This argument includes many ideas that need to be explored:42
1. Ibn Sīnā suggests that one is not only acting upon images
and intelligibles while one is sleeping, but that one is also
aware of oneself as the one who is acting upon them. He
maintains that during sleep one is aware of images and
intelligible forms in the same manner that one is aware of
them while awake. He draws an analogy between the type
of self-awareness that occurs during the process of sensing
sensible forms, and the form of self-awareness that takes
place in the state of imagining these forms. In both cases,
the awareness of the self is self-evident to the agent. It is
inconceivable to think of the self existing and interacting
with its perceptual contents either while asleep or awake
without being aware of itself.
2. Another important point is that self-awareness, which is
present along with the activity of acting upon the images

41 Ibid. §60, 59. See also Ibn Sīnā, al-Mubāḥathāt (ed. Badawī), §380, 210. In
comparing the editions of Badawī and Bīdārfar, I conclude that Badawī
identifies the right ordering of lines 8–10.
42 Unlike Black, who discussed this passage (67), I focus primarily on the rela-
tion between self-awareness and the two cases of sleep, the remembrance of
activity, and the awareness of awareness.
68 Ahmed Alwishah

and intelligible forms, is registered in the memory of the

agent. Thus, when one is awake, one remembers it along
with the acting process. In other words, by remembering my
dream as mine, I remember that I am aware of myself while
I am dreaming. But provided that such awareness cannot
be associated with a form of representation, or with an idea
of myself, then how is it possible for me to remember my
awareness of myself? I take it that what Ibn Sīnā means is
that it is something constitutive in remembering that I am the
one viewing the images during my sleep, and these images
belong to a self which is aware of itself. For Ibn Sīnā, if there
is an activity of dreaming, then it must be directed toward
a subject who is experiencing this activity. In remembering
this activity, one must be inherently remembering the subject
who is experiencing this activity.
3. In the case of dreamless sleep, in which there is no trace of
the images or thoughts registered in the mind or in memory,
Ibn Sīnā insists that one continues to be aware of oneself.
Not remembering anything after one awakes from a dream-
less sleep does not indicate that one has not been aware of
oneself throughout the dreamless sleep. Ibn Sīnā explains his
view by drawing an analogy between the different orders of
awareness that one may experience while one is awake on the
one hand, and the case of being aware, but not remembering
the awareness of waking, on the other. One must distinguish
between the state of awareness of the self, and the state of
awareness of the awareness of the self (discussed further
below). While it is impossible to be oblivious to the first-order
of awareness, given that it is intrinsic, it is possible that one
may not acquire second-order awareness. Likewise, just as
it is impossible for one to be unaware of oneself during
dreamless sleep, it is possible for one to forget this awareness
while one is awake.
 Journal of Islamic Philosophy / 2013 69

The Awareness of Awareness (al-shuʿūr bi-l-shuʿūr)

Ibn Sīnā’s theory—that self-awareness is the awareness of
awareness (i.e., that one is not only aware of something, but one is
aware of being aware of something)—requires further examination.
In al-Taʿliqāt, Ibn Sīnā links the process of knowing the self to the
awareness of awareness by stating:
Furthermore, if a thing does not know itself, how can
an “otherness” make the self know itself? Therefore, it
follows that something else cannot make the self know
itself. With regard to the awareness of awareness [I will
say that] this is something grasped by the intellect.43
The notion that the awareness of awareness is something pecu-
liar to the intellect is expressed explicitly elsewhere: “The awareness
of awareness is something attributed to the intellect.”44 Furthermore,
Ibn Sīnā distinguishes between the awareness of the self, and the
awareness of awareness, by showing that—unlike the former—the
latter is not a primary concept; in other words, it is not an idea which
is intrinsic to the existence of the self. Rather, it is something which
is apprehended by the acquisition of the intellect: “A man can be
oblivious of his awareness of himself and can be alerted to it; he
will not be aware of it twice, and with regard to the awareness of
awareness, it is obtained by acquisition and not by nature.”45
Thus, there are two stages of awareness: (a) direct awareness
of the self, which is experiential, and a privilege of the first person,
and (b) the awareness of awareness, which can be obtained by the
acquisition of the intellect without knowing the content of first-
order awareness—because such content is unavailable. With that
in mind, second-order awareness is qualified to be an epistemic
claim that can be utilized in the process of reasoning or inference.
To put it differently, in second-order awareness, the intellect intends

43 Ibn Sīnā, al-Taʿliqāt, §36, 112. See also al-Taʿliqāt (ed. Badawī), 79–80.
44 Ibn Sīnā, al-Taʿliqāt, §67, 124. See also al-Taʿliqāt (ed. Badawī), 160.
45 Ibn Sīnā, al-Taʿliqāt, §55, 119. See also al-Taʿliqāt (ed. Badawī), 147.
70 Ahmed Alwishah

first-order awareness, and first-order awareness becomes the object

of the intellect. Thus, second-order awareness necessarily includes
the existence of first-order awareness.
Now, an objection may naturally arise: To be aware of direct
self-awareness is itself awareness, and so would require a further
awareness of first-order awareness and so on, ad infinitum.
In al-Mubāḥathāt, Ibn Sīnā attempts to offer a way out of
the problem of infinite regress by comparing the different orders
of awareness to the different stages of perception. In his view, by
apprehending a perception of an object, one does not create a new
perception. Instead, one merely cognizes one’s perception, and the
object of the cognition is no different than the perception itself. Simi-
larly, Ibn Sīnā asserts that one does not create a new self-awareness
by reflecting upon an immediate awareness; but rather, one merely
cognizes this continuous and primary self-awareness.46 Hence, the
cognition of first-order awareness itself is not a new awareness, but
rather is a cognition of the same awareness. To block the sequence
of infinite regress of awarenesses, Ibn Sīnā suggests that we ought
to consider first-order awareness as something no different than
the cognition of it. For him, in both orders of awareness, one is
aware of the same object, i.e., the persisting self. The difference
between them lies in their epistemic values. First-order awareness
has no epistemic content; it is an awareness which occurs without
being about anything that can be recognized by the intellect. By
contrast, the content of second-order awareness is the experience
that one acquires from drawing attention to one’s direct awareness.
In this sense, Ibn Sīnā seems to adopt a strategy which is similar to
the one Aristotle employs in dealing with the problem of infinite
regress, which is generated from the notion of “perceiving that we
perceive.”47 Both philosophers block the regress by positing that the

46 Ibn Sīnā, al-Mubāḥathāt, §435, §436, 158. See also al-Mubāḥathāt (ed. Badawī),
§422, 221.
47 In De Anima 425b 15–17, Aristotle argues that, “if the sense which perceives
sight were different from sight, we must either fall into an infinite regress, or
 Journal of Islamic Philosophy / 2013 71

first perception (Aristotle), or immediate awareness (Ibn Sīnā), can

also be a perception or an awareness of itself, and so there is no
need to posit a new awareness.

• • • • •

By analyzing the versions of FMA, we can systematically trace

the three states in Ibn Sīnā’s development of the existence and the
nature of the self. Ibn Sīnā’s FMAs are designed not only to affirm
the existence and the autonomy of the self, but also to explore and
explain the intricate relation that the self has with its body and
its awareness of itself. By looking to the developments within Ibn
Sīnā’s FMAs, we can conclude that they serve not only to show the
autonomy of the self but also to focus our attention on the tensions
within, and the challenges of cognizing such an idea. The transition
from existential to conceptual separability helps us to understand the
difficulty of forming the concept of the self without including the
concept of bodily parts. The contrast between self-awareness and the
awareness of self-awareness supports the idea that self-awareness is
a special kind of knowledge—a knowledge which identifies with the
attributes of immediacy, certitude, continuity, and self-referentiality.

we must somewhere assume a sense which is aware of itself. If so we ought

to do this in the first case” (see Aristotle, The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed.
J. Barnes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984)).