Philosophy in the Islamic world from the 9th to 11th centuries was characterized by an engagement with Greek philosophical works in Arabic translation. This volume collects papers on both the Greek philosophers in their new Arabic guise, and on reactions to the translation movement in the period leading up to Avicenna.

The domain of Islamic thought and intellectual history boasts an important body of studies relevant to the Arabic philosophy of language, as well as a growing interest in Islamicate argumentation theory and practice. There remains, however, a dearth of volumes which pool research from both areas and examine them together. Filling this gap is more critical than ever. In our time, significant work is being conducted in argumentation theory, but little of it draws from, or relates to, the rich (...) i... (shrink)

The nature of matter and the idea of indivisible parts has fascinated philosophers, historians, scientists and physicists from antiquity to the present day. This collection covers the richness of its history, starting with how the Ancient Greeks came to assume the existence of atoms and concluding with contemporary metaphysical debates about structure, time and reality. Focusing on important moments in the history of human thought when the debate about atomism was particularly flourishing and transformative for the scientific and (...) philosophical spirit of the time, this collection covers: - The discovery of atomism in ancient philosophy - Ancient non-Western, Arabic and late Medieval thought - The Renaissance, when along with the re-discovery of ancient thought, atomism became once again an important doctrine to be fully debated - Logical atomism in early analytic philosophy, with Russell and Wittgenstein - Atomism in Liberalism and Marxism - Atomism and the philosophy of time - Atomism in contemporary metaphysics - Atomism and the sciences Featuring 28 chapters by leading and younger scholars, this valuable collection reveals the development of one of philosophy's central doctrines across 2,500 years and within a broad range of philosophical traditions. (shrink)

In his disputatio, Johann Peter von Ludewig provides a history of rational philosophy among the Arabs and sets out to contextualize the Turks’ attitude to it. Like many Lutheran scholars of the time, Ludewig believed that Islam, as a religion, impeded the development of rational philosophy in the Arab world. However, unlike those philosophers, he examines external influences that may have fed the interest of Arab Muslims in rational philosophy, especially dialectic. Unlike Orthodox Lutherans, such as Pfeiffer (...) and Kromayer, in his conclusion, Ludewig prays that Muslim philosophers cultivate reason to overcome the "deceit of Muhammadanists" toward rational worship. The use of the contentious and seemingly oxymoronic phrase “rational worship” (logikē latreia: λογική λατρεία, from Rom. 12:1), combining “rationality” and “worship” together refects, to a certain extent, the Enlightenment belief that reason could be used to understand the nature of God against any type of irrational religiosity. The idea of worshipping God rationally and equating God with reason shows the intellectual engagement of Protestant scholars with Enlightenment rationalism. (shrink)

This book, first published in 1957, is the study of 14th-century Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, who founded a special science to consider history and culture, based on the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle and their Muslim followers. In no other field has the revolt of modern Western thought against traditional philosophy been so far-reaching in its consequences as in the field of history. Ibn Khaldun realized that history is more immediately related to action than political philosophy (...) because it studies the actual state of man and society. He found that the ancients had not made history the object of an independent science, and thought it was important to fill this gap. A factual acquaintance with the conclusions of Ibn Khaldun's reflections on history is not the same as the full comprehension of their theoretical significance. When these fundamental questions are answered, it becomes possible to pose the specific question of the relation of Ibn Khaldun's philosophy of history, or his new science of culture, to other practical sciences and, particularly, to the art of history. After an exposition of the major trends of Islamic historiography, part of this book attempts to answer this question through the analysis of the method and intention of the sections of the 'History' where Ibn Khaldun himself examines the works of major Muslim historians, shows the necessity of the new science of culture, and distinguishes it from other practical sciences. (shrink)

Fascinating and well-documented in its details of cultural migration and evolution, this book offers a well-balanced perspective on the mutual influence of Arabic and Western worlds during the Middle Ages. It traces the transmission of Greek philosophy and science to the Islamic world, forming a portrait of medieval Muslim thought that illustrates its commonalities with Judaic and Christian teachings as well as its points of divergence. He shows how a particular type of Hellenistic culture made its way through the Syrian (...) Church, the Zoroastrians of Persia, and the pagans of Harran to the Islamic community, attaining its final metamorphosis in northeast Italy, where it constituted an anti-ecclesiastical influence that helped to pave the way for the Renaissance. Bibliography. Chronological Table. Index. (shrink)

Fascinating and well-documented in its details of cultural migration and evolution, this book offers a well-balanced perspective on the mutual influence of Arabic and Western worlds during the Middle Ages. It traces the transmission of Greek philosophy and science to the Islamic world, forming a portrait of medieval Muslim thought that illustrates its commonalities with Judaic and Christian teachings as well as its points of divergence. He shows how a particular type of Hellenistic culture made its way through the Syrian (...) Church, the Zoroastrians of Persia, and the pagans of Harran to the Islamic community, attaining its final metamorphosis in northeast Italy, where it constituted an anti-ecclesiastical influence that helped to pave the way for the Renaissance. Bibliography. Chronological Table. Index. (shrink)

This volume constitutes an attempt at bringing together philosophies of time—or more precisely, philosophies on time and, in a concomitant way, history—emerging from Christianity’s and Islam’s intellectual histories. Starting from the Neoplatonic heritage and the voice of classical philosophy, the volume enters the Byzantine and Arabic intellectual worlds up to Ibn Al-Arabi’s times. A conscious choice in this volume is not to engage with, perhaps, the most prominent figures of Christian and Arabic philosophy, i.e., Augustine on the one hand (...) and Avicenna/Ibn Sina on the other, precisely because these have attracted so much attention due to their prominence in their respective traditions—and beyond. In a certain way, Maximus the Confessor and Ibn Al-Arabi—together with Al-Fārābi—emerge as alternative representatives of their two traditions in this volume, offering two axes for this endeavor. The synthesis of those approaches on time and history, their comparison rather than their mere co-existence, is left to the reader’s critical inquiry and philosophical investigation. (shrink)

This volume covers some fifty years of Pines' work in the field of Islamic philosophy, from the very first article he published ("Some Problems of Islamic Philosophy", in 1937") to an article that was found in his paper after his death and is published here for the first time (" The origin of the Tale of Salâmân and Absâl").

Johannes Steuchius’ disputatio uses Arabic logic to present an historical account of the development of philosophical thought in Arabia before and after the emergence of Islam. Steuchius first proposes that philosophy drew its origins from the East. His evidence for this claim is that many of the Greek philosophers, considered the forefathers of European philosophy, began cultivating their philosophical thinking as a result of exposure to ancient Eastern philosophy. After the introduction of Greek philosophy, it is agreed that dialectic was (...) among the first of the arts the Arabs practiced. (shrink)

Relational inferences are a well-known problem for Aristotelian logic. This book charts the development of thinking about this problem by logicians writing in Arabic from the ninth to the nineteenth century. It shows that that the development of Arabic logic did not - as is often supposed - come to an end in the fourteenth century.

A collection of nine essays by one of the leading scholars in medieval Jewish Philosophy. The volume consists of two parts. Part I, entitled "Philosophy and History," includes essays on the study of medieval Jewish Philosophy, on the notion of Peace, on the political philosophy of Nissim of Gerona and Isaac Abrabanel, and on Maimonides' views on Messianism. In part II, "Philosophy and Faith," the subjects dealt with are: 'The God of the Philosophers and the God of the Kabbalists', (...) the notion of Miracle in medieval Jewish Philosophy, the esoteric character of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed, and a lost Arabic recension of Aristotle's Parva Naturalia. Professor Aviezer Ravitzky is Chairman of the Department of Jewish Thought, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. (shrink)

While the transmission of Greek philosophy and science via the Muslim world to western Europe in the Middle Ages has been closely scrutinized, the fate of the Arabic philosophical and scientific legacy in later centuries has received less attention, a fault this volume aims to correct. The authors in this collection discuss in particular the radical ideas associated with Averroism that are attributed to the Aristotle commentator Ibn Rushd (1126-1198) and challenge key doctrines of the Abrahamic religions. This volume examines (...) what happened to Averroes's philosophy during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Did early modern thinkers really no longer pay any attention to the Commentator? Were there undercurrents of Averroism after the sixteenth century? How did Western authors in this period contextualise Averroes and Arabic philosophy within their own cultural heritage? How different was the Averroes they created as a philosopher in a European tradition from Ibn Rushd, the theologian, jurist and philosopher of the Islamic tradition? (shrink)

Cet ouvrage se propose de confronter les problématiques relatives à la falsafa et à la religion islamique dans leur approche du corps. Le corps a toujours été marginalisé au profit de la notion de l'âme. Pendant que les penseurs ont été intéressés par l'étude de l'âme, le corps a toujours été leur point de départ. Son statut éthique et ontologique doit être réexaminé en refusant de se limiter aux dualismes classiques corps/âme ou matérialisme/spiritualisme qui masquent par leur dimension formelle ou (...) réductrice l'enjeu politique et existentiel de la question ainsi que ses implications théoriques et pratiques. Deux grandes perspectives apparaissent dans le développement de la falsafa lorsqu'elle problématise la question du corps. La première porte sur le fondement psychologique du lien existant entre l'âme et le corps et ses conséquences quant à la détermination de leur valeur réciproque. La deuxième est métaphysique et s'inscrit dans une visée eschatologique impliquant une conception de l'au-delà et du jugement dernier. Comment penser le corps d'un point de vue philosophique pour qu'il ne soit pas incompatible avec l'islam? Pour répondre à cette question, nous étudions les textes fondateurs de la falsafa spécialement ceux de Al-F r b, Ibn S n, Al-Ghaz l et Mull Sadr tout en les comparant aux textes coraniques. Georgio Rahal enseigne l'islamologie, l'histoire médiévale de l'islam, l'arabe littéraire et la philosophie arabe à l'Institut Catholique de Toulouse. (shrink)

Much attention has been given to Arabic thought in the history of philosophy, however, Arabic contributions to logic have been greatly overlooked. In the ten essays of this book, Nicholas Rescher presents substantial material on the history, progression and major trends of Arabic logic from the eighth through the sixteenth century. Rescher finds that, like much of Western thought, Arabic logic had its basis in Greek philosophy, and specifically in Hellenistic Aristotelian logic.

Peter Adamson presents the first full history of philosophy in the Islamic world for a broad readership. He traces its development from early Islam to the 20th century, ranging from Spain to South Asia, featuring Jewish and Christian thinkers as well as Muslim. Major figures like Avicenna, Averroes, and Maimonides are covered in great detail, but the book also looks at less familiar thinkers, including women philosophers. Attention is also given to the philosophical relevance of Islamic theology and mysticism--the (...) Sufi tradition within Islam, and Kabbalah among Jews--and to science, with chapters on disciplines like optics and astronomy. The first part of the book looks at the blossoming of Islamic theology and responses to the Greek philosophical tradition in the world of Arabic learning, the second discusses philosophy in Muslim Spain, and a third section looks in unusual detail at later developments, touching on philosophy in the Ottoman, Mughal, and Safavid empires. (shrink)

These essays on the way medieval Arabic philosophy was first introduced into European universities explain their formal working and provide fascinating accounts of the hardy souls who first ventured, literally, into hitherto unknown terrain.

Islamic philosophy has often been treated as mainly of historical interest, belonging to the history of ideas rather than to philosophy. This volume challenges this belief, and provides an indispensable reference tool. It includes: * Detailed discussions of the most important figures from earliest times to the present day * Chapters on key concepts in Islamic philosophy, and on relevant traditions in Greek and western philosophy * Contributions by 50 leading experts in the field, from over 16 countries * (...) Analysis of a vast geographical area with discussions of Arabic, Persian, Indian, Jewish, Turkish and South East Asian philosophy * Comprehensive bibliographical information and an extensive index Seyyed Hossein Nasr is Professor of Islamic Studies at the George Washington University, Washington D.C. He has held academic positions across the United States, as well as in Beirut and Tehran. He has written extensively on many aspects of Islamic philosophy; his work has been translated into over 20 languages. Oliver Leaman is a Reader in Philosophy at Liverpool's John Moores University and has published widely on Islamic philosophy and the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Relational Syllogisms and the History of Arabic Logic, 900–1900. By Khaled El-Rouayheb. Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science, vol. 80. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Pp. viii + 295. $168.

Islamic Philosophy has often been treated as mainly of historical interest, belonging to the history of ideas rather than to philosophy. This is volume challenges this belief. The Routledge History of Philosophy is made up entirely of essays by a distinguished list of writers. They provide detailed discussions of the most important thinkers and the key concepts in Islamic philosophy, from earliest times to the present day. Fifty authors from over sixteen countries have contributed to this volume. Each (...) Together the authors represent a wide variety of views. It includes analysis of Arabic, Persian, Indian, Jewish, Turkish and South East Asian Philosophy, together with extensive discussion of relevant areas of Greek and Western philosophy. An important but so far little understood philosophical tradition is clearly and thoroughly explored in this volume. Islamic philosophy is viewed as a continuing and lively philosophical activity, one which is just as capable of asking relevant questions today as it was in the past. (shrink)

In Being Another Way, Dustin Klinger recounts the history of how medieval Arabic philosophers in the Islamic East grappled with the logical role of the copula 'to be,' an ambiguity that has bedeviled Western philosophy from Parmenides to the analytic philosophers of today. Working from within a language that has no copula, a group of increasingly independent Arabic philosophers began to critically investigate the semantic role that Aristotle, for many centuries their philosophical authority, invested in the copula as the (...) basis of his logic. Drawing on extensive manuscript research, Klinger breaks through the thicket of unstudied philosophical works to demonstrate the creativity of postclassical Islamic scholarship as it explored the consequences of its intellectual break with the past. Against the still widespread view that intellectual ferment all but disappeared during the period, Klinger shows how these intellectuals over the centuries developed and refined a sophisticated philosophy of language that speaks to core concerns of contemporary linguistics and philosophy. (shrink)

It has long been a truism of the history of philosophy that intentionality is an invention of the medieval period, and within this standard narrative, the central place of Arabic philosophy has always been acknowledged. Yet there are many misconceptions surrounding the theories of intentionality advanced by the two main Arabic thinkers whose works were available to the West, Avicenna and Averroes. In the first part of this paper I offer an overview of the general accounts of intentionality and (...) intentional being found in the linguistic, psychological, and metaphysical writings of Avicenna and Averroes, and I trace the terminology of “intentions” to a neglected passage from Avicenna’s logic. In the second part of the paper I examine the way that Avicenna and Averroes apply their general theories of intentionality to the realm of sense perception. I offer an explanation of why Avicenna might have chosen to denominate the objects of the internal sense faculty of estimation as “intentions”, and I explore the implications of Averroes’s decision to attribute intentionality to the external senses and the media of perception. (shrink)

This study is the first comprehensive analysis of the physical theory of the Islamic philosopher Avicenna (d. 1037). It seeks to understand his contribution against the developments within the preceding Greek and Arabic intellectual milieus, and to appreciate his philosophy as such by emphasising his independence as a critical and systematic thinker. Exploring Avicenna’s method of "teaching and learning," it investigates the implications of his account of the natural body as a three-dimensionally extended composite of matter and form, and examines (...) his views on nature as a principle of motion and his analysis of its relation to soul. Moreover, it demonstrates how Avicenna defends the Aristotelian conception of place against the strident criticism of his predecessors, among other things, by disproving the existence of void and space. Finally, it sheds new light on Avicenna’s account of the essence and the existence of time. For the first time taking into account the entire range of Avicenna’s major writings, this study fills a gap in our understanding both of the history of natural philosophy in general and of the philosophy of Avicenna in particular. (shrink)

Extraits de la Source de vie de Salomon ibn-Gebirol.--Ibn-Gebirol, ses écrits et sa philosophie.--Des principaux philosophes arabes et de leurs doctrines.--Esquisse historique de la philosophie chez les Juìfs.--Appendice.--Texte hébreu des extraits de la Source de vie (2 p.l., 36 numb. l. at end).

'Updating Bertrand Russell for the 21st century... a cerebrally enjoyable survey, written with great clarity and touches of wit... The non-western section throws up some fascinating revelations' Sunday Times The story of philosophy is an epic tale: an exploration of the ideas, views and teachings of some of the most creative minds known to humanity. But since the long-popular classic Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy, first published in 1945, there has been no comprehensive and entertaining, single-volume history (...) of this great intellectual journey. With his characteristic clarity and elegance A. C. Grayling takes the reader from the world-views and moralities before the age of the Buddha, Confucius and Socrates, through Christianity's dominance of the European mind to the Renaissance and Enlightenment, and on to Mill, Nietzsche, Sartre, and philosophy today. And, since the story of philosophy is incomplete without mention of the great philosophical traditions of India, China and the Persian-Arabic world, he gives a comparative survey of them too. Intelligible for students and eye-opening for philosophy readers, he covers epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, logic, the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, political philosophy and the history of debates in these areas of enquiry, through the ideas of the celebrated philosophers as well as less well-known influential thinkers. He also asks what we have learnt from this body of thought, and what progress is still to be made. The first authoritative and accessible single-volume history of philosophy for decades, remarkable for its range and clarity, this is a landmark work. (shrink)

The ten essays in this book present the thoughts of major Arabic philosophers in history, while speaking to their basis in Greek philosophy and the influence of ...

This is the first comprehensive study of the philosophical achievements of twelfth-century Western Europe. It is the collaboration of fifteen scholars whose detailed survey makes accessible the intellectual preoccupations of the period, with all texts cited in English translation throughout. After a discussion of the cultural context of twelfth-century speculation, and some of the main streams of thought - Platonic, Stoic, and Arabic - that quickened it, comes a characterisation of the new problems and perspectives of the period, in scientific (...) inquiry, speculative grammar, and logic. This is followed by a closer examination of the distinctive features of some of the most innovative thinkers of the time, from Anselm and Abelard to the School of Chartres. A final section shows the impact of newly recovered works of Aristotle in the twelfth-century West. (shrink)

This volume brings together contributions from distinguished scholars in the history of philosophy, focusing on points of interaction between discrete historical contexts, religions, and cultures found within the premodern period. The contributions connect thinkers from antiquity through the Middle Ages and include philosophers from the three major monotheistic faiths-Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. By emphasizing premodern philosophy's shared textual roots in antiquity, particularly the writings of Plato and Aristotle, the volume highlights points of cross-pollination between different schools, cultures, and moments (...) in premodern thought. Approaching the complex history of the premodern world in an accessible way, the editors organize the volume so as to underscore the difficulties the premodern period poses for scholars, while accentuating the fascinating interplay between the Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin philosophical traditions. The contributors cover many topics ranging from the aims of Aristotle's cosmos, the adoption of Aristotle's Organon by al-Farabi, and the origins of the Plotiniana Arabica to the role of Ibn Gabirol's Fons vitae in the Latin West, the ways in which Islamic philosophy shaped thirteenth-century Latin conceptions of light, Roger Bacon's adaptation of Avicenna for use in his moral philosophy, and beyond. The volume's focus on "source-based contextualism" demonstrates an appreciation for the rich diversity of thought found in the premodern period, while revealing methodological challenges raised by the historical study of premodern philosophy. Contextualizing Premodern Philosophy: Explorations of the Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin Traditions is a stimulating resource for scholars and advanced students working in the history of premodern philosophy. (shrink)

In this study, Bethany Somma argues for a dichotomous interpretation of human desire developed by late ancient Greek and medieval Islamic philosophers in response to an ambiguity in Aristotle’s account of desire.

The study of perception and the role of the senses have recently risen to prominence in philosophy and are now a major area of study and research. However, the philosophical history of the senses remains a relatively neglected subject. Moving beyond the current philosophical canon, this outstanding collection offers a wide-ranging and diverse philosophical exploration of the senses, from the classical period to the present day. Written by a team of international contributors, it is divided into six parts: -/- (...) Perception from Non-Western Perspectives Perception in the Ancient Period Perception in the Medieval Latin/Arabic Period Perception in the Early Modern Period Perception in the Post-Kantian Period Perception in the Contemporary Period. The volume challenges conventional philosophical study of perception by covering a wide range of significant, as well as hitherto overlooked, topics, such as perceptual judgment, temporal and motion illusions, mirror and picture perception, animal senses and cross-modal integration. By investigating the history of the senses in thinkers such as Plotinus, Auriol, Berkeley and Cavendish; and considering the history of the senses in diverse philosophical traditions, including Chinese, Indian, Byzantine, Greek and Latin it brings a fresh approach to studying the history of philosophy itself. -/- Including a thorough introduction as well as introductions to each section by the editors, The Senses and the History of Philosophy is essential reading for students and researchers in the history of philosophy, perception, philosophy of mind, philosophical psychology, aesthetics and eastern and non-western philosophy. It will also be extremely useful for those in related disciplines such as psychology, religion, sociology, intellectual history and cognitive sciences. (shrink)