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The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes. Therefore in medicine we ought to know the causes of sickness and health. And because health and sickness and their causes are sometimes manifest, and sometimes hidden and not to be comprehended except by the study of symptoms, we must also study the symptoms of health and disease. Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials. Of these causes there are four kinds: material, efficient, formal, and final.

Avicenna#1

KnowledgeMedicineScience

About this quote

What does it mean?
True knowledge requires understanding causes; in medicine, this means studying symptoms to find underlying sickness and health factors.
In plain terms
To know something you must know its causes and symptoms.
What can you take from it?
Understanding causes leads to true knowledge.

Where it applies

  • medical study
  • scientific research
  • problem solving

Putting it to work

  • study root causes
  • analyze symptoms
  • trace origins

Questions to consider

  • What causes are you studying?
  • How do symptoms reveal truth?

Another view

Some phenomena cannot be fully explained by known causes.

More from Avicenna

  1. Those who deny the first principle should be flogged or burned until they admit that it is not the same thing to be burned and not burned, or whipped and not w…

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  2. An ignorant doctor is the aide-de-camp of death.

    Permalink to quote #3
  3. It is evident that everything which does not exist at first and then exists, is determined by something other than itself.

    Permalink to quote #4

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