This paper focuses on the methodological issues related to the obstacles and potential horizons of approaching the philosophical traditions in Islam from the standpoint of comparative studies in philosophy, while also presenting selected case-studies that may potentially illustrate some of the possibilities of renewing the impetus of a philosophical thought that is inspired by Islamic intellectual history. This line of inquiry is divided into two parts: the first deals with questions of methodology, and the second focuses on ontology and phenomenology (...) of perception, by way of offering pathways in investigating the history of philosophical and scientific ideas in Islam from the viewpoint of contemporary debates in philosophy. A special emphasis will be placed on: (a) interpreting the ontology of the eleventh century metaphysician Ibn Sīnā (known in Latin as: Avicenna; d. 1037 CE) in terms of rethinking Heidegger’s critique of the history of metaphysics, and (b) analyzing the philosophical implications of the theory of vision of the eleventh century polymath Ibn al-Haytham (known in Latin as Alhazen; d. ca. 1041 CE) in terms of reflecting on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception. (shrink)

This exploratory paper discusses a somewhat heterodox metaphysical theory of consciousness: the “many-worlds theory”. The theory gives up the common assumption that all conscious experiences are features of one and the same world and asserts instead that different conscious subjects are associated with different “first-personally centred worlds”. We can think of these as distinct and “parallel” first-personal realizers of a shared “third-personal world”. This is combined with a form of modal realism, according to which different subjects’ first-personally centred worlds are (...) all real, though only one of them is present for each subject. The relationship between first-personally centred and third-personal worlds can in turn be captured in a levelled ontology, where the first-personal level is subvenient and the third-personal supervenient. The described setup is intended to capture the irreducibly subjective nature of conscious experience without lapsing into solipsism. The paper also looks at some existing scientific theories of consciousness, such as integrated information theory, through the lens of the present metaphysical theory and discusses its implications for the hard problem of consciousness. (shrink)

In metaphysics, there are a number of distinct but related questions about the existence of “further facts”—facts that are contingent relative to the physical structure of the universe. These include further facts about qualia, personal identity, and time. In this article I provide a sequence of examples involving computer simulations, ranging from one in which the protagonist can clearly conclude such further facts exist to one that describes our own condition. This raises the question of where along the sequence the (...) protagonist stops being able to soundly conclude that further facts exist. (shrink)