an inquiry on the nature of pleasure in avicenna’s point of view

the problem of pleasure is one of the long life, great, effective and much as disputable during the human history. and a variety of philosophical-ethical schools, and also religions, divine and non-divine have paid attention - affirmatively or negatively - to it since a long time ago. although, avicenna has been affected in his definition of the pleasure by scholars of the past, but he had not been as a pure imitator of them. he has given two definitions about the pleasure the second of which is more perfect than the first. his definitions are based on the positive and negative affairs. in the first stage, avicenna, divides the pleasures into three parts: sensual, intellectual and intuitive ones. he believes, in spite of the public assumptions and some epicureans, that inner sensual delights are superior to external sensual ones, and the intellectual pleasures and intuitive ones are better than both of sensual delights, and he gives reasons for his claims. in the second stage, he divides the pleasures into mortal and eternal, and then into corporeal and spiritual, but he perfects eternal and spiritual pleasures over corporeal and mortal ones. he also believes that the pleasures have systematic ambiguities in five degrees.