• Logic and Science: The Role of Genus and Difference in Avicenna's Logic, Science and Natural Philosophy
    Documenti E Studi Sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale 18 165-186. 2007.
    Il naturale senso della logica in relazione alla scienza è quello di fornire un linguaggio alle acquisizioni epistemologiche: tale sembra essere il senso assegnatogli anche da Avicenna in al-Mantiq. La questione in realtà è molto più profonda: quale relazione c'è fra gli universali predicabili e gli oggetti della scienza? Attraverso l'esame della questione quale è delineata nel Madkhal, in particolare in merito al genere e alla differenza, e il loro ruolo nelle scienze in alcuni passaggi del Kit…Read more
  • Book Review (review)
    Journal of the American Oriental Society 124 (1): 103-108. 2004.
  •  18
    Avicenna's Metaphysics in Context
    with Robert Wisnovsky
    Journal of the American Oriental Society 124 (2): 392. 2004.
  •  12
    An Annotated Bibliography on Ibn Sina: First Supplement
    with Jules L. Janssens
    Journal of the American Oriental Society 121 (3): 535. 2001.
  •  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
  •  16
    Intelligence and the Philosophy of Mind
    Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 80 169-183. 2006.
  • Book Review (review)
    Journal of the American Oriental Society 124 (2): 392-394. 2004.
  •  1
    One of the most fundamental notions in the thought of Aristotle is the distinction between actuality and potentiality, which Aristotle links with the equally fundamental distinction between form and matter respectively. According to Aristotle, form, which brings with it actuality, and matter, which brings with it potentiality, are eternal and as such necessary. Consequently, on Aristotle?s view, neither form nor matter needs an efficient cause for its existence. Later thinkers?both in the Greek …Read more
  •  2
    Avicennan Infinity: A Select History of the Infinite through Avicenna
    Documenti E Studi Sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale 21 199-222. 2010.
  •  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
  •  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
  •  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
  •  26
    Alexander of Aphrodisias on the Cosmos
    with Charles Genequand
    Journal of the American Oriental Society 124 (1): 103. 2004.
  • Book Review (review)
    Journal of the American Oriental Society 121 (4): 729-730. 2001.
  •  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
  •  46
    An Introduction to Medieval Philosophy (review)
    Teaching Philosophy 32 (4): 417-420. 2009.
  •  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
  •  10
    History of Islamic Philosophy
    Journal of the American Oriental Society 122 (4): 855. 2002.
  •  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
  •  6
    The paper treats Avicenna’s ’metaphysical’ argument for the existence of God and the modal metaphysics that underpins it. Earlier analyses of modalities attempted to reduce necessity, possibility and impossibility to nonmodal elements, which was done most commonly by appealing to a temporal frequency model of modalities. In contrast, Avicenna believed that modalities were an inherent feature of existence, and so just as there is nothing more basic than existence, so likewise there is nothing mor…Read more