•  117
    Aristotle's account of place in terms of an innermost limit of a containing body was to generate serious discussion and controvery among Aristotle's later commentators, especially when it was applied to the cosmos as a whole. The problem was that since there is nothing outside of the cosmos that could contain it, the cosmos apparently could not have a place according to Aristotle's definition; however, if the cosmos does not have a place, then it is not clear that it could move, but it was thoug…Read more
  •  105
    Scientific Methodologies in Medieval Islam
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 41 (3): 307-327. 2003.
    : The present study considers Ibn Sînâ's (Lat. Avicenna) account of induction (istiqra') and experimentation (tajriba). For Ibn Sînâ induction purportedly provided the absolute, necessary and certain first principles of a science. Ibn Sînâ criticized induction, arguing that it can neither guarantee the necessity nor provide the primitiveness required of first principles. In it place, Ibn Sînâ developed a theory of experimentation, which avoids the pitfalls of induction by not providing absolute,…Read more
  •  84
    The Eternity of the World: Proofs and Problems in Aristotle, Avicenna, and Aquinas
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 88 (2): 271-288. 2014.
    This study looks at the position of two of the Middle Ages’ towering intellectual figures, Avicenna and Aquinas, and their arguments concerning the age of the cosmos. The primary focus is the nature of possibility and whether possibility is such that God can create it or such that its “existence” has some degree of independence from God’s creative act. It is shown how one’s answer to this initial question in turn has enormous ramifications on a number of other, core theological topics. These iss…Read more
  •  46
    An Introduction to Medieval Philosophy (review)
    Teaching Philosophy 32 (4): 417-420. 2009.
  •  43
    Avicenna
    Oxford University Press. 2010.
    This book is designed to remedy that lack.
  •  38
    Making Abstraction Less Abstract: The Logical, Psychological, and Metaphysical Dimensions of Avicenna’s Theory of Abstraction
    Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 80 169-183. 2006.
    A debated topic in Avicennan psychology is whether for Avicenna abstraction is a metaphor for emanation or to be taken literally. This issue stems from the deeper philosophical question of whether humans acquire intelligibles externally from an emanation by the Active Intellect, which is a separate substance, or internally from an inherently human cognitive process, which prepares us for an emanation from the Active Intellect. I argue that the tension between thesedoctrines is only apparent. In …Read more
  •  37
    Classical Arabic Philosophy: An Anthology of Sources (edited book)
    with David C. Reisman
    Hackett. 2007.
    This volume introduces the major classical Arabic philosophers through substantial selections from the key works (many of which appear in translation for the first time here) in each of the fields—including logic, philosophy of science, natural philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, and politics—to which they made significant contributions. An extensive Introduction situating the works within their historical, cultural, and philosophical contexts offers support to students approaching the subject for …Read more
  •  33
    The study begins with the language employed in and the psychological basis of thought experiments as understood by certain medieval Arabic philosophers. It then provides a taxonomy of different kinds of thoughts experiments used in the medieval Islamic world. These include purely fictional thought experiments, idealizations and finally thought experiments using ingenious machines. The study concludes by suggesting that thought experiments provided a halfway house during this period between a sta…Read more
  •  33
    Avicenna's discussion of space is found in his comments on Aristotle's account of place. Aristotle identified four candidates for place: a body's matter, form, the occupied space, or the limits of the containing body, and opted for the last. Neoplatonic commentators argued contra Aristotle that a thing's place is the space it occupied. Space for these Neoplatonists is something possessing dimensions and distinct from any body that occupies it, even if never devoid of body. Avicenna argues that t…Read more
  •  31
    While the little-known thinker Sharaf al-Dīn al-Mas'ūdī may have had doubts concerning the Ishārāt of the great Persian philosopher Avicenna, no one should have doubts concerning Ayman Shihadeh's brilliant Doubts on Avicenna: A Study and Edition of Sharaf al-Dīn al-Mas'ūdī's Commentary on the Ishārāt. Professor Shihadeh's volume is a rich study of Mas'ūdī's alMabāḥith wa-l-shukūk 'alā Kitāb al-Ishārāt, which additionally offers the first critical edition of that work. Doubts on Avicenna affords …Read more
  •  31
    Ibn Sîn' on the Now
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 73 (1): 73-106. 1999.
  •  27
    Willful Understanding: Avicenna’s Philosophy of Action and Theory of the Will
    Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 97 (2). 2015.
    Name der Zeitschrift: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie Jahrgang: 97 Heft: 2 Seiten: 160-195
  •  26
    Alexander of Aphrodisias on the Cosmos
    with Charles Genequand
    Journal of the American Oriental Society 124 (1): 103. 2004.
  •  25
    A Continuation of Atomism: Shahrastānī on the Atom and Continuity
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 57 (4): 595-619. 2019.
    while it should go without saying, it bears mentioning: the history of atomism in the medieval Islamic East is not the same as that of the medieval Christian West. One simply cannot assume that what is true of the conception of the atom in the West also need be true of the conception of the atom in the East, or even that the two traditions are drawing upon and responding to the same set of literature. In fact, the question is open as to whether these two histories even share a common origin. Whi…Read more
  •  24
  •  23
    Relational Syllogisms and the History of Arabic Logic, 900–1900 (review)
    Speculum 88 (1): 283-284. 2013.
  •  22
    The forma fluens/fluxus formae debate concerns the question as to whether motion is something distinct from the body in motion, the flow of a distinct form identified with motion , or nothing more than the successive states of the body in motion, the flow of some form found in one of Aristotle's ten categories . Although Albertus Magnus introduced this debate to the Latin West he drew his inspiration from Avicenna. This study argues that Albertus misclassified Avicenna's position, since Albertus…Read more
  •  22
    Analytic Philosophy and the Islamic Tradition: Introduction
    with Billy Dunaway
    Essays in Philosophy 23 (1): 1-3. 2022.
  •  20
    One Way of Being Ambiguous
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 96 (4): 545-570. 2022.
    This study provides the historical background to, and analysis and translations of, two seminal texts from the medieval Islamic world concerning the univocity of being/existence and a theory of “ambiguous predication” (tashkīk), which is similar to the Thomistic theory of analogy. The disputants are Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (1149–1210), who defended a theory of the univocity of being, and Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (1201–1274), who defended the theory of ambiguous predication. While the purported issue is…Read more
  •  20
    The Cambridge Companion to Anselm (review)
    Review of Metaphysics 60 (1): 148-150. 2006.
  •  18
    Avicenna's Metaphysics in Context
    with Robert Wisnovsky
    Journal of the American Oriental Society 124 (2): 392. 2004.
  •  16
    Intelligence and the Philosophy of Mind
    Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 80 169-183. 2006.
  •  16
    Making Abstraction Less Abstract: The Logical, Psychological, and Metaphysical Dimensions of Avicenna’s Theory of Abstraction
    Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 80 169-183. 2006.
    A debated topic in Avicennan psychology is whether for Avicenna abstraction is a metaphor for emanation or to be taken literally. This issue stems from the deeper philosophical question of whether humans acquire intelligibles externally from an emanation by the Active Intellect, which is a separate substance, or internally from an inherently human cognitive process, which prepares us for an emanation from the Active Intellect. I argue that the tension between thesedoctrines is only apparent. In …Read more