Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association

Volume 86, 2012

Philosophy in the Abrahamic Traditions

Why the Christian Magistri Turned to Arabic and Jewish Falāsifa
Aquinas and Avicenna

Here, I should like to tell a story, beginning with how the works of Aristotelian philosophy came to exist in Latin translations, then moving to the project of transforming Christian theology into an Aristotelian “science.” After that, I would like to look a bit more closely at the case of Br. Thomas of Aquino and his dependence upon the Muslim philosopher Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna, 980–1037). Finally, I shall end by drawing some wider conclusions based upon this important example.