The Commentary on Sefer Yeṣira, with its pronounced Pythagorean and Neo-Platonic overtones, written by Saadya Gaon in 931, stands out among the other writings of this Jewish theologian, and raises the question of the purpose of its composition. It has been argued that in writing a commentary on this work of letter-speculation, Saadya responded to mythical and mystical trends in tenth-century Judaism, endeavoring to recast this foundational mystical text as a work of rational philosophy. The present article argues that Saadya (...) was also responding to the intellectual challenge of his broader environment, stretching beyond the Jewish community. In some circles in the Islamicate world, letterspeculations, often associated with the sciences of the occult, were presented in this period as the height of philosophy. In particular, al-Tawḥīdī’s account of the Pure Brethren and Ibn Masarra’s Book on the Properties of Letters demonstrate the relevance of these trends in Saadya’s immediate geographic and intellectual environment. (shrink)

In the 5th/11th century in Cairo, Imam Ḥamza, the founder of the Druze faith, abrogated the entire substantive laws, including the Islamic one. And yet, four centuries later, Druze jurists in the mountainous regions of Syria developed their own legal doctrine. This essay explores the evolution of Druzism from an esoteric doctrine according to the Ismāʿīlī vision to a madhhab (doctrinal school of law) using the prism of gender (in)equality. Through a close reading of the Imam’s epistles in the Ḥikma (...) (i.e., the Druze canon of scripture) and Druze law treatises from the 9th/15th century, I show how premodern Druze jurists were influenced particularly by Shāfiʿī and Mālikī law. Although they remained faithful to the strict gender equality articulated in their sacred book, Druze jurists established a gender hierarchy in marriage and permitted wife beating based on Q 4:34. They however expounded an original doctrine of zinā (adultery): despite their construction of femininity as inferior and irrational, and their assumption of women’s intellectual deficiency, Druze jurists considered nonconsensual marriage as well as nonconsensual sex in marriage to be crimes of zinā. I argue that Druze jurists developed rules that enforced sexual equality but simultaneously conformed to their patriarchal vision of society to maintain the social cohesion of their religious community, clans, and extended families, all of which provided local networks for informal conflict resolution. (shrink)

In Mysticism and Philosophy in al-Andalus, Michael Ebstein underscores the many links that connect the intellectual world of the Andalusi mystics Ibn Masarra (269/883-319/931) and Ibn al-ʿArabi (560/1165-638/1240) to the Ismāʿīlī tradition.

Relationism; knowledge, sociology of; objectivism, philosophy.

This book presents a collection of studies by Romanian philosophers, addressing foundational issues currently debated in contemporary philosophy of science. It offers a historical survey of the tradition of scientific philosophy in Romania. It examines some problems in the foundations of logic, mathematics, linguistics, the natural and social sciences. Among the more specific topics, it discusses scientific explanation, models, and mechanisms, as well as memory, artifacts, and rules of research. The book is useful to those interested in the philosophy of (...) real science, but also to those interested in Romanian philosophy. (shrink)