An annotated bibliography on ibn sina: first supplement (1990-1994).

• Author: McGinnis, Jon
• Position: Review

An Annotated Bibliography on Ibn Sina: First Supplement (1990-1994). By JULES L. JANSSENS. Textes et etudes du Moyen Age, vol. 12. Louvain-la-Neuve: FEDERATION INTERNATIONALE DES INSTITUTS D'ETUDES MEDIEVALES, 1999. Pp. xvii + 218. BeF 990.57; $22.90 (paper).

This volume is the promised supplement to the author's An Annotated Bibliography on Ibn Sina (1970-1989). Like its predecessor, the supplement is bibliographic scholarship at its best. The text consists of seventeen pages of introductory material, seventeen chapters, and twenty pages of indices. The indices include a section on "Ancient Authors" and one on "Contemporary Authors." Janssens breaks the section on ancient authors into the finer divisions of "Greek and Roman Authors," "Arabic Authors," "Jewish Authors," and "Western Authors (Middle Ages, Renaissance and Modern Times)."

The seventeen rubrics under which Janssens groups his bibliographical notes are: I: Works, Editions and Translations (further divided into "Major Philosophical Works: Collective Works, Shifa' and Other Major Philosophical Writings)," "Major Medical Works" and "Minor Works"; II: Bibliography; III: Biography; IV: Collective Works (and Addenda 1980-millenary); V: General Studies (Philosophy) (further divided into "Monographs," "Encyclopedia Articles and Contributions in Histories of Arabic Philosophy" and "General Papers"); VI: Logic-Noetics-Divisions of the Sciences; VII: Linguistics-Terminology--Poetry; VIII: Psychology--Pedagogics; IX: Politics--Ethics; X: Metaphysics; XI: Religious Themes and Mysticism; XII: Sources (Greek); XIII: Ibn Sina and Other Arabic Thinkers; XIV: Influences (further divided into "Ibn Sina and the Latin West," "Ibn Sina and Jewish Thought" and "Ibn Sina and Syrian Thought"); XV: Sciences; XVI: Medicine (further divided into "General Studies$," "Specialized Items (Including Sources)" a nd "Influences"); and finally XVII: Varia.

These divisions cut up Avicennian scholarship at its natural joints and consequently the text is "user friendly" for the researcher. The one difference I noticed between the arrangement of Janssens' original bibliography and the supplements is that certain internal divisions within the chapters are not as fine-grained. Thus, for example, articles on the physical theory of Ibn Sina that had their own division in the chapter on science are now scattered throughout that chapter. This fact is not due to any...