Time: Avicenna, Aristotle; Two Perspectives or One?

The concept of time, its existence, ontology, and epistemology are considered as a pivotal philosophical issue from the ancient Greek time up to now. Aristotle explicitly deals with this subject. His notion of time can be also seen in Avicenna’s writings. This point have arisen many questions and discussions concerning that whether Avicenna as a commentator of Aristotle simply narrates Aristotle’s view, or he elaborates and develops Aristotle’s idea and presents his own view.The aim of this paper is to study this issue and discuss about the viewpoints of some Muslim scholars who believe that Avicenna’s idea is not fundamentally different from that of Aristotle. In addition, we study the viewpoints of those who believe that although Avicenna uses the same structure as Aristotle did, his specific considerations make his theory of time distinctive. The paper elaborates that, in some senses, there are at least two differences between these two philosophers: regarding the derivative / non-derivative conceptions of time, and regarding the divisibility / indivisibility of time.