Q0564

“The knowledge of anything that has causes is not complete unless it…” — Avicenna (The Healing, Metaphysics I)

Verified English quotation. Primary source: The Healing, Metaphysics I. Theme: knowledge.

English

The knowledge of anything that has causes is not complete unless it is known through its causes.
Thinker Avicenna
School Islamic Philosophy
Source The Healing, Metaphysics I
Theme Knowledge
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source and attribution

The archive attributes this English wording to The Healing, Metaphysics I and files it under Islamic Philosophy. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

About Avicenna

Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna, 980–1037) wrote The Healing and The Canon of Medicine, dominating Islamic and later Latin curricula. Born near Bukhara, he synthesized Aristotelian and Neoplatonic themes into a system centered on the Necessary Existent and an immortal rational soul.

How to read this passage

Epistemology asks whether knowledge is justified true belief, reliable tracking of the world, or something else; it also asks how perception, testimony, memory, and reason contribute. This passage enters that discussion through knowledge.

Concepts in this quote

Knowledge
Knowledge is the philosophical study of what we can justifiably claim to know—and where certainty ends.

How to cite this quotation

APA: Avicenna. (n.d.). The knowledge of anything that has causes is not complete unless it is known through its causes. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0564

MLA: Avicenna. “The knowledge of anything that has causes is….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0564.

Chicago: Avicenna. “The knowledge of anything that has causes is….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0564.

Frequently asked questions

What is the source of the quotation “The knowledge of anything that has causes is…”?

The passage is attributed to Avicenna, The Healing, Metaphysics I. The archive attributes this English wording to The Healing, Metaphysics I and files it under Islamic Philosophy. That locator distinguishes the passage from loose internet attributions: readers can return to the named work or section to check translation, surrounding argument, and edition-specific wording.

What does Avicenna mean by knowledge?

Epistemology asks whether knowledge is justified true belief, reliable tracking of the world, or something else; it also asks how perception, testimony, memory, and reason contribute. This passage enters that discussion through knowledge.

Same thinker

More from Avicenna

  1. Suppose a person were created at once, fully mature, but with sight veiled and limbs outstretched so that he touched nothing; he would affirm his own existence without affirming any body.
  2. The Necessary Existent has no cause; rather, It is the cause of all that is possible.
  3. The soul is a substance; it is not a body, nor is it impressed in a body as a form in matter in the way of bodily forms.
  4. The first of intelligibles is the grasp of existence; from it the mind proceeds to the necessary and the possible.
  5. Prophecy is a perfection of the human intellect joined to a power of imagination that receives and expresses what the intellect knows.

All quotations by Avicenna

Same theme

More on knowledge

  1. What I do not know, I do not claim to know.
  2. No one errs willingly.
  3. What then is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain it to one who asks, I do not know.
  4. What do I know?
  5. Once in a lifetime, everything must be doubted.

Browse the knowledge theme