Peter Adamson

This last chapter presents highlights from the history of the reception of Proclus’ thought. It starts with the reception in late antiquity and the Middle Ages, and subsequently discusses Renaissance and modernity. For the Greek tradition, the authors show how Damascius and pseudo-Dionysius adopt and adapt Proclus’ thought, and briefly touch on a Byzantine critic of Proclus: Nicholas of Methone. For the Arabic reception the authors show how the Discourse on the Pure Good adjusts Proclean metaphysics to Muslim and Christian revelation. For the Latin tradition, Thomas Aquinas’ ‘triangulation’ between different sources, and the fourteenth-century German reworking of Proclus are presented. The authors then discuss the fascinating manuscript tradition of the Renaissance, the metaphysical/theological revival of Neoplatonism in the fifteenth–sixteenth centuries, the reception of Proclus’ mathematics and astronomy in early modern thought, and finally another revival of Neoplatonic metaphysics, in German Idealism.

Taking its cue from a passage in which the late pagan Neoplatonist Damascius criticizes his predecessor Proclus, this paper explores the way that ancient philosophers understood the soul’s access to its own tacit contents through the power of memory. Late ancient discussions of this issue respond to a range of passages in Plato and to Aristotle’s On Memory. After a survey of this material it is shown that for Damascius, but not Proclus, memory requires a distinction between the subject and object of remembering. This means that there can be no memory involved in self-thought, such as occurs in intellect, but only in soul. In conclusion, the paper draws attention to a parallel discussion in Augustine, who, like Proclus, thinks that self-thinking can be understood as a function of memory.

Giles of Rome’s On Ecclesiastical Power, a polemical work arguing for the political supremacy of the pope, claims that the papacy holds a ‘plenitude of power’ and has direct or indirect authority over all aspects of human life. This paper shows how Giles uses themes from natural philosophy in developing his argument. He compares cosmic and human ordering and draws an analogy between the relations of soul to body and of Church to state. He also understands the pope’s power to be ‘universal’ in nature, another idea taken from Aristotelian physics. Further, Giles views the pope’s right to intervene arbitrarily in the affairs of the Christian community as mirroring God’s ability to work miracles. We thus see that Giles, no less than intellectuals on the other side of this debate such as Dante and Marsilius of Padua, believed that Aristotelian natural philosophy could be enlisted in the service of political thought.

This article offers an analysis of the argumentative method of two treatises by Alexander of Aphrodisias, On Fate and On Providence, the latter of which is preserved only in Arabic translation. It is argued that both texts use techniques from Aristotelian dialectic, albeit in different ways, with On Fate adhering to methods outlined in Aristotle's Topics whereas On Providence uses the ‘aporetic’ method familiar from texts such as MetaphysicsΒ‎. This represents a revision of a previous study of Alexander's method in On Fate by Jaap Mansfeld, which emphasized parallels between that method and the techniques of ancient scepticism. It is, however, suggested that Alexander does reflect developments in epistemology during the Hellenistic period, especially in so far as he ‘upgrades’ the status of endoxa to play something like the role of common conceptions in the dogmatic Hellenistic schools.

Alongside his much-discussed theory that humans are permanently, if only tacitly, self-aware, Avicenna proposed that in actively conscious self-knowers the subject and object of thought are identical. He applies to both humans and God the slogan that the self-knower is “intellect, intellecting, and object of intellection (‘aql, ‘āqil, ma‘qūl)”. This paper examines reactions to this idea in the Islamic East from the 12th-13th centuries. A wide range of philosophers such as Abū l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī, Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, al-Šahrastānī, Šaraf al-Dīn al-Mas‘ūdī, al-Abharī, al-Āmidī, and Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī raised and countered objections to Avicenna's position. One central problem was that on widely accepted definitions of knowledge – according to which knowledge is representational or consists in a relation – it seems impossible for the subject and object of knowledge to be the same. Responses to this difficulty included the idea that a self-knower is “present” to itself, or that here subject and object are different only in “aspect (i‘tibār)”.

The twelfth century philosopher-theologian Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī is well known for his critique of Avicennan metaphysics. In this paper, I examine his critique of Avicenna's physics, and in particular his rejection of the Avicennan and Aristotelian theory of place as the inner boundary of a containing body. Instead, Fakhr al-Dīn defends a definition of place as self-subsisting extension, an idea explicitly rejected by Aristotle and Avicenna after him. Especially in his late work, theMaṭālib, Fakhr al-Dīn explores a number of important philosophical issues with reference to this theory of place, including the principle that two indiscernible things must be identical and the idea that motion and rest are always relative.RésuméLe philosophe-théologien du XIIesiècle Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī est bien connu pour sa critique de la métaphysique avicennienne. Nous examinons, dans cet article, sa critique de la physique d'Avicenne, et en particulier son rejet de la théorie avicennienne et aristotélicienne du lieu – lieu comme limite interne du corps englobant. Alternativement, Fakhr al-Dīn défend une théorie du lieu comme extension auto-subsistante, doctrine explicitement révoquée par Aristote et Avicenne à sa suite. En particulier dans son œuvre tardive, lesMaṭālib, Fakhr al-Dīn explore plusieurs questions philosophiques importantes en rapport avec cette théorie du lieu, dont: le principe voulant que deux choses indiscernables soient identiques, et l'idée selon laquelle mouvement et repos sont toujours relatifs.

This paper explores the philosophical aspects of the "Great Introduction" of Abū Ma'šar, one of the great figures of Arabic astrology and an associate of al-Kindī, the great 9th century philosopher. I argue that the following points of philosophical interest may be found in this text: 1. Astrology is described as a "master science" along the lines proposed by Aristotle, i.e. it provides principles for lower sciences. Also he supplies arguments to ground astrology on methodological grounds, such as the use of empirical evidence and testimony. 2. Abū Ma'šar broadly follows al-Kindī's explanation of how the stars influence the sublunary world, by heating the elements. This agrees with al-Kindī's work "On the Proximate Agent Cause of Generation and Corruption," and I identify some parallels between the two works. 3. Finally, Abū Ma'šarr considers whether human freedom is compatible with this causal account. He holds that human actions do fall under the class of the "possible" and not the "necessary," but only because for him the "possible" is what happens sometimes, not always. Thus he seems tacitly to hold that genuine choice is compatible with causal necessitation.

This chapter shows how al-Kindī interweaves ideas from Greek cosmology to give a theory that can explain the efficacy of astrology and how God’s providence is dispersed by means of heavenly influence. A concrete example is found in al-Kindī’s works on meteorology, since he thinks that weather is produced by celestial causation. The mechanics of this causation are explained differently in different works, which leads to a consideration of the authenticity of On Rays, which is ascribed to al-Kindī, and its place in his corpus. Finally, the chapter considers whether al-Kindī’s account commits him to determinism, and whether he thinks universal causal determinism is compatible with human freedom.

This chapter is divided into three sections dealing with pharmacology, optics, and music, and emphasizes the issues of methodology, especially how al-Kindī thinks mathematics is used in science. In pharmacology, al-Kindī gives an arithmetical theory for calculating the effects of compound drugs. In optics, he expands on ideas inherited from Ptolemy to provide a novel theory of light and color. In music, he puts forward an ambitious theory, influenced by Pythagoreanism, which holds that all things are interconnected by relations of harmony.

Al-Kindī wrote a well-known treatise On Intellect, which was the first Arabic treatise to give a taxonomy of the types of intellect. The chapter argues that the epistemology implied by this treatise implies that al-Kindī makes a sharp divide between intellect, which knows, and the senses, which experience particulars. This is parallel to his strongly dualist account of soul. The chapter concludes by considering the difficulties this raises for “mediating” psychological phenomena such as imagination, which is explored most fully by al-Kindī in a discussion of prophetic dreams.

This chapter provides an overview of the evidence regarding al-Kindī’s biography, and surveys what is known of his writings based on the account in Ibn al-Nadīm’s Fihrist. While most of his works are lost, there is a significant extant corpus which is also summarized here. The chapter discusses how al-Kindī’s writings relate to the translation movement under the ’Abbāsids, which produced Arabic versions of Greek philosophical and scientific works. It concludes by considering al-Kindī’s legacy, among Neoplatonic philosophers who followed his broad approach, contrasting this “Kindian tradition” to the more Aristotelian school in Baghdad, whose most famous representative was al-Fārābī.

This chapter discusses al-Kindī’s main influences from Greek works produced by the translation movement, and how al-Kindī thought the ideas from these works should be put together into a coherent philosophical curriculum. In philosophy, al-Kindī was most influenced by Aristotle and by Neoplatonic works. His vision of philosophical methodology follows a Greek tradition of dividing philosophy up in terms of the different objects studied in different sciences. Finally, the chapter discusses the role of the Arabic language and Islam in al-Kindī’s thought by surveying texts in which he engages in Koranic exegesis, and by explaining his project of developing a new Arabic terminology in philosophy.

Al-Kindī’s extant ethical corpus is relatively small, but sufficient to show that his ethics is an application of his Neoplatonic ideas about metaphysics and psychology. He provides the first Arabic account of Socrates, a philosophical hero who is presented as despising things of the physical world, or “external goods” — Socrates is here conflated with the Cynic philosopher Diogenes. In al-Kindī’s largest ethical treatise, On Dispelling Sorrows, al-Kindī provides a work of consolation which uses Platonist ideas to undergird a broadly Stoic or Cynic teaching on the value of external goods.