Avicenna’s Notion of al-mawḍūʿ al-awwal ('first subject') in Ilāhiyyāt, I, 1-2 and its Latin Reception

Scholarship has recently underscored the relevance of Avicenna’s achievements concerning the epistemological structure of metaphysics, as well as their deep influence on Latin medieval philosophy. In this paper, I focus on Avicenna’s original epistemological notion of ‘first subject of science’. The paper falls into two parts. In the first one, I determine the exact meaning of the expression ‘first subject’ as it is employed in Ilāhiyyāt, I, 1-2. In the second part, the Latin reception of the Avicennian notion is investigated taking into account the Latin translation of Avicenna’s work in order to explain how and to which extent Latin authors could and actually did understand the Avicennian notion of ‘first subject’.