ABSTRACT

This essay offers a reading of German philosopher Ernst Bloch's 1952 essay Avicenna and the Aristotelian Left in relation to the question of orientalism. Bloch's study of first-century Islamic philosopher, scientist and doctor Ibn Sina (Avicenna) relies on orientalist sources and authors also discussed in Edward Said's Orientalism. Yet, it challenges many stereotypes and ‘structures of attitude and reference’ that are recurrent in European representations of the Middle East. Bloch presents Avicenna as a secular thinker and situates him in a complex economic and social conjuncture, refusing to see his work as manifestation of a non-Western pre-modern ‘essence’. This perspective avoids both primitivism and essentialism; rather, it aims to recuperate the vast influence of Islamic thought on European philosophy, especially the European Enlightenment. Avicenna's heterodox naturalism and rebellious interpretation of Aristotle is hence reframed as the source of a materialist line of descent to which Bloch himself belongs. Bloch hence sketches a concept of philosophical heritage grounded into the legacy of Avicenna's teaching, thereby anticipating Edward Said's critique of the metaphysics of exteriority proper to Orientalist discourse and its colonial underpinning.

摘要

这篇文章提供了对德国哲学家恩斯特·布洛赫 1952 年关于东方主义问题的文章《阿维森纳和亚里士多德左派》的解读。布洛赫对一世纪伊斯兰哲学家、科学家和医生伊本·西纳（阿维森纳）的研究依赖于东方主义资料，作者也在爱德华·赛义德的《东方主义》中讨论过. 然而，它挑战了欧洲代表中东地区的许多刻板印象和“态度和参考结构”。布洛赫将阿维森纳描绘成一个世俗的思想家，并将他置于一个复杂的经济和社会关系中，拒绝将他的作品视为非西方前现代“本质”的体现。这种观点避免了原始主义和本质主义；相反，它旨在恢复伊斯兰思想对欧洲哲学尤其是欧洲启蒙运动的巨大影响。因此，阿维森纳的异端自然主义和对亚里士多德的反叛解释被重新定义为布洛赫本人所属的唯物主义血统的来源。因此，布洛赫勾勒出一个植根于阿维森纳教学遗产的哲学遗产概念，从而预见了爱德华·赛义德