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36Intuition in the Avicennan traditionBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 31 (4): 657-674. 2022.Many later thinkers in the Islamic world pick up on, and further expand, the idea of intuition (ḥads) as they react to Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā). Focusing on figures from the twelfth–thirteenth century, in this paper we will focus especially on the following points of debate: (1) Avicenna’s idea that intuition is distingiushed from normal (discursive) thought by lacking ‘motion’, (2) The question of how and why different individuals differ in the extent of their intuition, (3) The role of intuitive th…Read more
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35Neoplatonism (review)Phronesis 57 (4): 380-399. 2012.In Eudemian Ethics 8.2, Aristotle posits god as the starting-point of non-rational desire (particularly for the naturally fortunate), thought, and deliberation. The questions that dominate the literature are: To what does `god' refer? Is it some divine-like entity in the soul that produces thoughts and desires or is it Aristotle's prime mover? And how does god operate as the starting-point of these activities? By providing a careful reconstruction of the context in which god is evoked, I argue a…Read more
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34Al-Kind=IOup Usa. 2006.The first book in the Great Medieval Thinkers series to focus on an Islamic philosopher. It offers a brief, accessible introduction to the thought of the philosopher al -Kindi. His works, though brief, are of great historical importance. Al-Kindi was the first philosopher of the Islamic world. Peter Adamson will survey what is known of al-Kindi's life, examine his thought on a wide range of topics, and consider the relationship of al-Kindi's work to his Greek sources.
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30M. Ullmann: Wörterbuch zu den griechisch-arabischen Übersetzungen des 9. Jahrhunderts . Pp. 904. Wiesbaden: Harassowitz Verlag, 2002. Cased, €175. ISBN: 3-447-04584- (review)The Classical Review 54 (01): 252-. 2004.
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29Arabic Philosophy and Theology before AvicennaIn John Marenbon (ed.), The Oxford Handbook to Medieval Philosophy, Oxford University Press. pp. 58. 2012.
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29Philosophy and Jurisprudence in the Islamic World (edited book)De Gruyter. 2019.This book brings together the study of two great disciplines of the Islamic world: law and philosophy. In both sunni and shiite Islam, it became the norm for scholars to acquire a high level of expertise in the legal tradition. Thus some of the greatest names in the history of Aristotelianism were trained jurists, like Averroes, or commented on the status and nature of law, like al-Fārābī. While such authors sought to put law in its place relative to the philosophical disciplines, others critici…Read more
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25Al-Kindī, Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb ibn IsḥāqIn H. Lagerlund (ed.), Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy, Springer. pp. 672--676. 2011.
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25State and Nature: Studies in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (edited book)De Gruyter. 2021.A much-maligned feature of ancient and medieval political thought is its tendency to appeal to nature to establish norms for human communities. From Aristotle's claim that humans are "political animals" to Aquinas' invocation of "natural law," it may seem that pre-modern philosophers were all too ready to assume that whatever is natural is good, and that just political arrangements must somehow be natural. The papers in this collection show that this assumption is, at best, too crude. From very …Read more
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25Culture and Philosophy in the Age of PlotinusInternational Journal of the Platonic Tradition 2 (1): 79-81. 2008.
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23Animals: A History (Oxford Philosophical Concepts) (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2018.This volume traces the history of animals in philosophy, from antiquity down to contemporary times. Negative attitudes towards animals, as found in Aristotle and Descartes, turn out to be more nuanced than usually supposed, while remarkable discussions of animal welfare appear in late antiquity, India, the Islamic world, and Kant.
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23Received Wisdom: The Use of Authority in Medieval Islamic PhilosophyRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 89 99-115. 2021.In this paper I challenge the notion that medieval philosophy was characterized by strict adherence to authority. In particular, I argue that to the contrary, self-consciously critical reflection on authority was a widespread intellectual virtue in the Islamic world. The contrary vice, called ‘taqlīd’, was considered appropriate only for those outside the scholarly elite. I further suggest that this idea was originally developed in the context of Islamic law and was then passed on to authors who…Read more
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23A hidden wisdom: medieval contemplatives on self-knowledge, reason, love, persons, and immortalityBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 1-5. forthcoming..
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22Al-Sarakhsī, Aḥmad ibn al-ṬayyibIn H. Lagerlund (ed.), Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy, Springer. pp. 1174--1176. 2011.
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21M. Ullmann: Wörterbuch zu den griechisch-arabischen Übersetzungen des 9. Jahrhunderts. Pp. 904. Wiesbaden: Harassowitz Verlag, 2002. Cased, €175. ISBN: 3-447-04584-1 (review)The Classical Review 54 (1): 252-252. 2004.
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21Miskawayh on AnimalsRecherches de Theologie Et Philosophie Medievales 89 (1): 1-24. 2022.Drawing on all the extant philosophical works of Miskawayh, including his well known Refinement of Character, this paper aims to determine his attitudes towards the psychological capacities and moral standing of non-human animals. Miskawayh most often mentions animals as a contrast to the rationality of humans, but also grants animals likenesses or lesser versions of typically human traits like virtues and friendship. It is argued that for Miskawayh, the teleological design of animals gives huma…Read more
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20A hidden wisdom: medieval contemplatives on self-knowledge, reason, love, persons, and immortality A hidden wisdom: medieval contemplatives on self-knowledge, reason, love, persons, and immortality, by Christina Van Dyke, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2022, pp. 256, £32.49 (hb), ISBN: 9780198861683 (review)British Journal for the History of Philosophy. forthcoming.The most annoying thing a book reviewer can do is to complain, if only implicitly, that the work under review is not quite the one that they wish the author had written. So you’ll be glad to know t...
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20Philosophy in the Islamic World: A Very Short IntroductionOxford University Press UK. 2015.In the history of philosophy, few topics are so relevant to today's cultural and political landscape as philosophy in the Islamic world. Yet, this remains one of the lesser-known philosophical traditions. In this Very Short Introduction, Peter Adamson explores the history of philosophy among Muslims, Jews, and Christians living in Islamic lands, from its historical background to thinkers in the twentieth century.Introducing the main philosophical themes of the Islamic world, Adamson integrates i…Read more
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20Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī on Animal Cognition and ImmortalityArchiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 106 (1): 23-52. 2024.This paper is devoted to a fascinating passage in Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1210), in which he argues that non-human animals have rational souls. It is found in his Mulaḫḫaṣ fī l-manṭiq wa-l-ḥikma (Epitome on Philosophy and Logic). Following a discussion of the afterlife, Faḫr al-Dīn suggests that animals should, like humans, be capable of grasping universals, and that they are aware of their own identity over time. Furthermore, animal behavior shows that they are capable of rational planning and …Read more
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20Epistles of the Brethren of Purity. On Logic: an Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of Epistles 10–14. Edited and translated by C. Baffioni (review)Journal of Islamic Studies 23 (3): 363-366. 2012.
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17In the age of al-Fārābī: Arabic philosophy in the fourth-tenth century (edited book)Nino Aragno. 2008.Contains papers that cover a conference held at the Warburg Institute in 2006 to consider the philosophy of al-Farabi alongside other intellectual developments of his time, together with a wide range of other figures and traditions from the period.
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17Philosophy in the Islamic world is a comprehensive and unprecedented four-volume reference work devoted to the history of philosophy in the realms of Islam, from its beginnings in the eighth century AD down to modern times. In the period covered by this second volume (eleventh and twelfth centuries). Both major and minor figures of the period are covered, giving details of biography and doctrine, as well as detailed lists and summaries of each author’s works. This is the English version of the r…Read more
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Creighton UniversityUndergraduate
Omaha, Nebraska, United States of America