Question

This book claims that people are more similar to the heavenly bodies than to other animals since they are “ideally balanced” and aware of God. This book describes three forms of mimesis, claiming that in the highest “the self vanishes” and “all that remains is the One.” A man in this book practices spinning rapidly before realizing that he must expel all physical characteristics from himself by sitting silently in a cave, which allows him to achieve the “ecstasy” first theorized by Ibn Bājja. This book contrasts the (*) materialist common people who blindly observe ritual with the religiously curious through the examples of Salāmān and Absāl. This book presents a variant of Ibn Sina’s “floating man” thought experiment in which the title character deduces that there is a Necessary Existent after being raised by a gazelle on a desert island. For 10 points, name this philosophical novel by Ibn Tufayl. ■END■ (10[1]0[1])

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