The Physics was the very first volume that Avicenna wrote when he began his monumental encyclopedia of science and philosophy-The Healing.
Avicenna's reasons for beginning with the Physics are numerous: It offers up the principles needed to understand such special natural sciences as psychology; it sets up many of the problems that take center stage in his Metaphysics; and it even provides concrete examples of many of the abstract analytical tools that he would develop in the Logic.
While Avicenna's Physics roughly follows the thought of Aristotle's Physics, with its emphasis on natural causes (like form, matter, agent, and end), the nature of motion, and the conditions necessary for motion (like place, time, and continua), the work is hardly derivative.
It represents arguably the most brilliant mind of late antiquity grappling with and rethinking the entire tradition of natural philosophy inherited from the Greeks as well as the physical though of Muslim speculative theologians.
As such, the Physics is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding Avicenna's complete philosophical system, the history of science, or the history of ideas.
The Physics is here fully translated for the first time in any western language and includes a revised edition of the Arabic.
