A Comparative Study of the Concept of Generation and Corruption in Aristotle and Ibn Sina

The treatise On Generation and Corruption is one of the treatises on nature which Aristotle wrote in about 347-335 BC. This treatise consists of two books: in the first one, Aristotle introduces generation and corruption as two basic properties of sublunary bodies. The other properties of sublunary bodies include transformation, growth and shrinking, contact, action and interaction, and mixing, which are completely distinct from each other in Aristotle’s view. He rejects absolute generation and corruption and criticizes Empedocles’ theory of equating them with transformation. The second book is mainly devoted to a profound investigation of the four primary elements (water, earth, air, and fire), their nature, and the quality of their changing into each other. Aristotle believes that these elements come into being in a cyclical fashion and none is prior to the other.Ibn Sina divided the existents of the world into four groups of intellects or angels, angelic souls, spherical bodies, and the bodies of the world of generation and corruption. He matched the ontological distinction between immaterial beings and those beings which are coupled with matter and are subject to generation and corruption with the astronomical distinction between the spheres and the sublunary world. Ibn Sina followed Aristotle in this regard. In this paper, the authors analyze the concept of generation and corruption in bodies from the viewpoints of Aristotle and Ibn Sina. They also examine the extent of Aristotle’s influence over Ibn Sina concerning generation and corruption, as well as the latter’s innovations in this regard.