Though currently marginalised in Western philosophy, tenth-century Arabic philosopher Abu Nasr Alfarabi is one of the most important thinkers of the medieval era. In fact, he was known as the ‘second teacher’ (after Aristotle) to philosophers such as Avicenna and Averroes. As this epithet suggests, Alfarabi and his successors engaged in a critical and creative dialogue with thinkers from other historical traditions, including that of the Ancient Greeks, although the creativity of his part is often marginalised as well. In this (...) article, I offer a new interpretation of Alfarabi’s sweeping volume, The Principles of the Opinions of the Virtuous Community. My focus is the materialism that overflows Alfarabi’s account of soul in general and the imaginative power in particular. The political conclusion of this account is that Virtuous Community does not directly present Alfarabi’s ideal ruler or community. Instead, it offers a materialist critique that prefigures critical theory and post-structuralism and thereby provides guidelines for how to more effectively engage monotheistic communities in the pursuit of social justice – including along the axes of race, gender and sexual orientation. (shrink)

This essay examines the reception of the ancient virtue of greatness of soul (or magnanimity) in the Arabic tradition, touching on a range of figures but focusing especially on Miskawayh and even more concertedly on al‐Ghazālī. Influenced by a number of Greek ethical texts available in Arabic translation, both of these thinkers incorporate greatness of soul into their classifications of the virtues and the vices. Yet a closer scrutiny raises questions about this amicable inclusion, and suggests that this virtue stands (...) in an uneasy relationship to the larger ethical schemes of both thinkers. This is substantiated by a careful probing of these thinkers’ considered views on the value of honor and the ethics of self‐evaluation. Yet if the values embedded in the virtue of greatness of soul conflict with these thinkers’ ethical standpoints, there is then an interesting question to ask as to why this conflict should be obscured from view. (shrink)

Al-Kindlidlid's œ;uvre. Two appendixes give respectively details of the manuscripts of the Arabic text and the two Latin translations, and an edition of a specimen chapter from these three versions.

Galen's æuvre presents a remarkably varied body of texts–varied in subject matter, style, and didactic purpose. Logical tracts sit alongside tomes of drug–lore; handbooks of dietetics alongside anatomical investigations; treatises of physiology alongside ethical opuscula. These differences in type have received some, though as yet insufficient, scholarly attention. Mario Vegetti demonstrated the coexistence of two ‘profili’ or images of the art of medicine: Galen presents the art as an Aristotelian deductive science, on the one hand, and as a technician's craft, (...) on the other. The former image, offering an ambitious elevation of the doctor's cultural status, has medicine as a philosophical episteme analogous to the mathematical sciences, exercised above all to provide causal accounts and logical demonstrations, and centred on the knowledge of anatomy. The second image is that of the clinician, concerned with the body in its pathological manifestations and using as its prime model the ‘pre-anatomical’ theory of the humours. And the content of the treatises shifts in relation to this dual image: ‘profilo alto’ and ‘profilo basso’ are reflected in different types of work. Polemical writings such as the Protrepticus, as well as the great treatises of anatomy and physiology, De usu partium and De naturalibus facultatibus, present medicine in the former light, while works like De temperamentis or Quod animi mores base themselves on humoral pathology and accord with the earlier, artisan-like image. (shrink)

Galen's æuvre presents a remarkably varied body of texts–varied in subject matter, style, and didactic purpose. Logical tracts sit alongside tomes of drug–lore; handbooks of dietetics alongside anatomical investigations; treatises of physiology alongside ethical opuscula. These differences in type have received some, though as yet insufficient, scholarly attention. Mario Vegetti demonstrated the coexistence of two ‘profili’ or images of the art of medicine: Galen presents the art as an Aristotelian deductive science, on the one hand, and as a technician's craft, (...) on the other. The former image, offering an ambitious elevation of the doctor's cultural status, has medicine as a philosophical episteme analogous to the mathematical sciences, exercised above all to provide causal accounts and logical demonstrations, and centred on the knowledge of anatomy. The second image is that of the clinician, concerned with the body in its pathological manifestations and using as its prime model the ‘pre-anatomical’ theory of the humours. And the content of the treatises shifts in relation to this dual image: ‘profilo alto’ and ‘profilo basso’ are reflected in different types of work. Polemical writings such as the Protrepticus, as well as the great treatises of anatomy and physiology, De usu partium and De naturalibus facultatibus, present medicine in the former light, while works like De temperamentis or Quod animi mores base themselves on humoral pathology and accord with the earlier, artisan-like image. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to critically assess the present state of Islamic philosophy in its main home, namely, Iran. However, since such a study requires some knowledge of the past developments of philosophical thought among Muslims, the paper briefly, though critically, deals with the emergence and subsequent phases of change in the views of Muslim philosophers from ninth century onward. In this historical survey I also touch upon the role played by other Muslim scholars such as theologians, mystics (...) and jurists, in shaping Islamic philosophy. The last section of the paper, deals, not in great details, with one or two possible scenarios for the future of Islamic philosophy. (shrink)

The use of the immediate and common point of view is presented, in Arab philosophy, as characteristic of the rhetorical method. We will endeavour, in this article, to determine the importance, the significance and the origins of this concept in the works of Fbb where Fbahb which depend on the concept of the immediate and common point of view, focusing in particular on the definition of enthymema. In the last part, we will investigate some philological and philosophical difficulties, such as (...) the difference between rhetorical and dialectical premises, which constitute the background to the development of the concept. (shrink)

Al-Kindī's Forty Chapters was one of the most influential astrological texts in the Middle Ages in the Arabic and Latin-reading world. Yet it has never been studied by modern scholars and has not even been properly identified in the standard bibliographies and encyclopaedias of Arabic literature. This study describes the work as it appears in the Arabic MS, Jerusalem, Khālidī Library, 21-Astr.-2; sets it in the tradition of Greek, Persian and Arabic texts on catarchic astrology; and traces its influence on (...) later Arabic astrological works, which give evidence of a fuller text than that in the Khālidī Library. This fuller text appears in the two Latin translations made in the mid-twelfth century by Hugo of Santalla and Robert of Ketton. Finally some comments are added about the place of The Forty Chapters in al-Kindī's œ;uvre. Two appendixes give respectively details of the manuscripts of the Arabic text and the two Latin translations, and an edition of a specimen chapter from these three versions. Les quarante chapitres d'al-Kindī furent l'un des textes astrologiques les plus influents du moyen âge dans le monde arabe et dans le monde de culture latine. Néanmoins, malgre son importance ce trait´e n'a jamais été étudié ni même correctement identifié dans les bibliographies et les encyclopédies de base consacrées à l'histoire littéraire des Arabes. Cette étude décrit le texte tel qu'il se présente dans le MS Arabe 21-Astr.-2 de la bibliothèque Khālidī de Jérusalem, le replace dans les traditions grecque, persane et arabe d'écrits sur l'astrologie catarchique, et en suit l'influence sur des textes astrologiques arabes plus tardifs. Ces derniers démontrent l'existence d'une version des Quarante chapitres plus complète que celle du manuscrit de Jérusalem. C'est cette version plus complète qui apparaît dans les deux traductions latines rédigées au milieu du XII e siècle par Hugues de Santalla et Robert de Ketton. L'étude s'achève sur quelques commentaires visant à replacer les Quarante chapitres dans l'œuvre d'al-Kindī. Deux appendices donnent respectivement une description des manuscrits du texte arabe et des deux traductions latines, et l'édition d'un chapitre sur la culture et l'irrigation des terres dans chacune des trois versions. (shrink)

Speaking of relations between logic and religion in Islamic world may refer to logic in two respects: logic in religious texts, from doctrinal sacred texts such as Qur’ān and sayings of the Prophet to the Qur’ānic commentaries and the texts related to the principles and fundamentals of jurisprudence, all of which make use of some reasoning to persuade the audiences or to infer the rules and prescripts for religious behavior of the members of religious community; and logic as a discipline (...) that is studied and applied both independently and as a tool for reasoning in schools of Islamic theology, systems of Islamic philosophy, and other types of knowledge in medieval Islamic world, all being strongly influenced by religious doctrines of Islam. Accordingly, this paper speaks of the different manifestations of using logical reasoning, particularly analogy, in Qur’ānic arguments, e.g. for the existence of God and resurrection after death; some contradictions or paradoxes reported by different opponents in the verses of Qur’ān; the place of logic in the classification of disciplines and the courses taught at the schools and seminaries; the influence of the attitudes of different religious sects on logic; the instrumental role of logic for both religious and secular reasonings; the relation between reason and dogmatic religious doctrines, and, finally, the reflection of this relation on progress or recession of logic in medieval Islamic world. (shrink)