An investigation on the Position of Allegory in Avicenna's Philosophical Methodology

Avicenna's metaphysics is a coherent system, the elements of which is established in a universal proportion and takes their meaning alongside each other and gets meaning to others. This taking and getting the procedure of meaning presumes the assumption of hermeneutical writing and reading of Avicenna's work and allegory is the basis of such writing and reading. So Avicenna's metaphysics in its totality which can be named "allegorical metaphysics", affected by the Islamic esotericism, neo-Platonic reading of Aristotle and Al-Farbi's philosophy, founded an allegorical methodology, which gave meaning to all of his systems, from logical text to theology and allegorical stories, as a coherent system; so Avicenna's allegorical stories, is the continuation of his logical texts and his logical texts become meaningful in relationship to those allegorical ones; even if allegory of one is more than the other. So, in this paper, I aim to show the dimensions of this allegorical approach.