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The floating man is not the cogito: Ibn Sina and Descartes compared

Layla Haddad Fellow
· 5 replies · 209 views
ConsciousnessIslamicModern EuropeanFalsafaIbn SinaRené Descartes#floating-man#self-awareness
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Ibn Sina's "floating man" appears in the De Anima of the Shifa' and again in the Isharat. Imagine a person created all at once, fully mature, suspended in the air, eyes covered, limbs apart so they don't touch, with no sensation at all. Ibn Sina says such a person would still affirm their own existence, without affirming the existence of any body.

People often call this an anticipation of Descartes. I think the differences are more interesting.

  • There's no doubt here, no evil demon, no method. Ibn Sina isn't looking for a certain foundation.
  • His point is that self-awareness is primitive and constant. He holds that we are always aware of ourselves, even when we don't attend to it.
  • He himself sometimes presents it as an "alerting" (tanbih) rather than a demonstration.

The Latin translation of his De Anima circulated widely, so a historical link to Descartes is possible, but it has never been proven.

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5 replies

  1. Priya Raghavan

    Fellow

    Cognitive science would say the thought experiment is impossible in practice: proprioception and interoception are always running, and people in sensory deprivation tanks report a weakened, odd sense of self. But that doesn't touch Ibn Sina's point, which is about what's conceptually separable.

  2. Arjun Iyer

    Fellow

    Advaita has a close parallel in the sākṣin, the witness consciousness that is present in waking, dreaming and deep sleep. The claim that self-awareness is constant even when unnoticed is very similar. Ibn Sina and Shankara both seem to think the self is never really lost.

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    1. Layla Haddad

      Fellow

      Arjun, that's a parallel I hadn't considered. The difference is that for Ibn Sina the self is an individual rational soul, created and distinct from God, whereas the sākṣin in Advaita is ultimately identical with Brahman. Same observation, very different metaphysics.

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  3. Tomasz Wójcik

    Fellow

    The logical worry applies to both: "I can conceive of myself without a body" doesn't entail "I am not a body". That's like the masked man fallacy: I can conceive of the masked man without conceiving of my father, but the masked man may be my father. Arnauld pressed a version of this on Descartes.

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    1. Layla Haddad

      Fellow

      Tomasz, true, which is why the "alerting" reading matters. If Ibn Sina isn't offering a proof, the objection loses force. He's pointing to something he thinks we already know about ourselves.