Richard Taylor

Philosophy written in Arabic and in the Islamic world represents one of the great traditions of Western philosophy. Inspired by Greek philosophical works and the indigenous ideas of Islamic theology, Arabic philosophers from the ninth century onwards put forward ideas of great philosophical and historical importance. This collection of essays, by some of the leading scholars in Arabic philosophy, provides an introduction to the field by way of chapters devoted to individual thinkers or groups, especially during the 'classical' period from the ninth to the twelfth centuries. It also includes chapters on areas of philosophical inquiry across the tradition, such as ethics and metaphysics. Finally, it includes chapters on later Islamic thought, and on the connections between Arabic philosophy and Greek, Jewish, and Latin philosophy. The volume also includes a useful bibliography and a chronology of the most important Arabic thinkers.

The Kalam fi mahd al-khair, generally known in the West as the Liber de causis, is a small collection of propositions devoted, for the most part, to a consideration of the First Cause and the higher realities of Medieval and Ancient Metaphysics. While this work appears not to have had great influence in the Islamic Philosophical milieu, its Twelfth Century Latin translation played a fundamentally important role in the formation of Western Medieval thought and came to be adopted as part of the Medieval Aristotelian corpus thanks to its ascription to Aristotle. The purpose of this dissertation is to provide the proper foundations for study of this treatise as an influential philosophical work. ;In Part I the notion of being as originated and as Originating is examined in the context of other Proclean and Plotinian Arabic philosophical texts, after a discussion of the general Greek philosophical background. The notion of being in those texts and the Mahd al-khair is shown to be fundamentally the same and quite possibly to have the thought of Porphyry as its source. ;Part II considers the Mahd al-khair historically. After examination of the relevant testimonia, the questions of the title and composition and author are dealt with in detail. The title found in the Ankara and Istanbul manuscripts, Kalam fi mahd al-khair, "Discourse on the Pure Good," is taken as the work's original title. It is also determined that the anonymous author was probably a Muslim or Christian philosophical thinker living in the Middle East between 833 and 922 A.D. whose thought was influenced by the Plotiniana Arabica. Finally, it is shown that it is not impossible that the Mahd al-khair and the Proclus Arabus texts recently edited by Gerhard Endress came from a single Arabic translation of Proclus' Elements of Theology. ;Part III contains descriptions of the materials used in the edition together with discussions of other editions, the tradition of the text and the methodology for this critical edition. ;Part IV contains the Arabic text, the English translation and detailed notes to these. ;Finally, the study is supplemented by five appendices including relevant Arabic materials and also detailed critical observations and remarks on the Latin Liber de causis

This article explicates Averroes's understanding of human knowing and abstraction in this three commentaries on Aristotle's De Anima. While Averroes's views on the nature of the human material intellect changes through the three commentaries until he reaches is famous view of the unity of the material intellect as one for all human beings, his view of the agent intellect as 'form for us' is sustained throughout these works. In his Long Commentary on the De Anima he reveals his dependence on al-Fârâbî for this notion and provides a detailed critique of the Farabian notion that the agent intellect is 'form for us' only as agent cause, not as our true formal cause. Although Averroes argues that the agent intellect must somehow be intrinsic to us as our form since humans are per se rational and undertake acts of knowing by will, his view is shown to rest on an equivocal use of the notion of formal cause. The agent intellect cannot be properly our intrinsic formal principle while remaining ontologically separate.

Conçu comme un complément du volume consacré Aux origines du lexique philosophique européen, cet ouvrage contient des études qui tentent de montrer comment le vocabulaire philosophique a été élaboré au Moyen Âge occidental. Les penseurs médiévaux — tant les traducteurs des textes philosophiques grecs, hébraïques et arabes que les philosophes et les théologiens — ont contribué à la multiplication de néologismes et à l’affinement du sens d’anciens concepts. Par leur «travail» linguistique, qui allait de pair avec des efforts de conceptualisation, ils ont forgé un langage propre à leurs diverses disciplines et orientations philosophiques. Les penseurs du Moyen Âge — d’Augustin à Suárez, en passant par tant d’autres maîtres de la scolastique — ont joué de diverses manières un rôle primordial dans la formation du vocabulaire philosophique.

L'A. esamina in particolare il Commento grande al De anima. In primo luogo evidenzia l'insegnamento averroista in relazione al tema dell'intelletto e dell'individuo, in secondo luogo esamina alcune proposizioni relative all'immortalità dell'anima individuale, ma sottolinea la difficoltà di conciliare tali affermazioni di Averroè con la dottrina dell'intelletto. L'ultima parte dello studio propone un esame critico del recente studio di O.N. Mohammed, Averroes, Aristotle, and the Qur'an on Immortality «International Philosophical Quarterly» 33 37-55

Averroes asserts in his Long Commentary on the De Anima and in his Long Commentary on the Metaphysics that principles of the science of metaphysics are established in the science of psychology. In psychology, human intellectual understanding is found to require the separate agent intellect for the coming to be of knowledge. The analysis of human psychology establishes that intellect must exist and must be separate from the human being in existence. Moreover there exists potency in those things called intellect, thanks to the argument for the existence of the material intellect

After a very brief introduction, Davidson begins with an informed and detailed account of the views of Aristotle and his major commentators, whose writings had enormous influence on the development of the medieval traditions. Davidson's account is supplemented with a critical exposition of the relevant teachings from the Plotiniana Arabica, from al-Kindi, and from a treatise on the soul attributed to Porphyry in the Arabic tradition. Impressive as all this is, it is simply stage setting for Davidson's detailed accounts of the doctrines and arguments of al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes.

With his clear and accessible prose, impeccable scholarship, and balanced Judgment, Roland Teske, SJ, has been an influential and important voice in Medieval philosophy for more than thirty years. This volume, in his honour, brings together more than a dozen essays on central metaphysical and theological themes in Augustine and other medieval thinkers. The authors, listed below, are noted scholars who draw upon Teskes work, reflect on it, go beyond it, and at times even disagree with it, but always in a spirit of respectful co-operation, and always with the aim of getting at the truth. Essays on Augustine contributed by Gerald Bonner, Charles Brittain, Joseph Koterski, SJ, Joseph T. Lienhard, SJ, David Vincent Meconi, SJ, Ann A. Pang-White, Frederick Van Fleteren, Dorothea Weber, and James Wetzel. Essays on Bernard of Clairvaux, William of Auvergne, and other medieval themes contributed by John P. Doyle, William Harmless, SJ, John A. Laumakis, Edward P. Mahoney, and Philipp W. Rosemann.

The Arabic philosophical tradition played an important role in the formation of theological, philosophical and scientific thought in medieval Europe subsequent to the translations from Arabic into Latin in the 12th and 13th centuries. The influence of that Arabic classical rationalist tradition in works by al-Farabi, Avicenna, Averroes and the Liber de causis is evident in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, though the breadth and depth of that influence is often insufficiently noted and explained by scholars of Aquinas. This course focuses on the metaphysics, epistemology and psychology of Aquinas in the development of his philosophical conceptions of soul and intellect in the context of his use of sources in Aristotle and works by philosophers of the Arabic tradition, particularly Avicenna and Averroes. Readings are selected from writings from each of the four major periods of his career starting with his first major work, the Commentary on the Sentences. The course was planned to be taught at Marquette, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the Universidad Panamericana as a hybrid course. That is, it was taught using online tools and resources and also in the classroom with face-to-face meetings once per week. And it was taught at Marquette, KU Leuven and the Universidad Panamericana simultaneously. On Thursdays students met online with video and audio for questions and discussion with Profs. Taylor, Robiglio and López-Farjeat and the student groups in Milwaukee, Leuven and Mexico City live.

Born in 1126 to a family of Maliki legal scholars, Ibn Rushd, known as Averroes, enjoyed a long career in religious jurisprudence at Seville and Cordoba while at the same time advancing his philosophical studies of the works of Aristotle. This translation of Averroes’ Long Commentary on Aristotle’s _De Anima_ brings to English-language readers the complete text of this influential work of medieval philosophy. Richard C. Taylor provides rich notes on the Long Commentary and a generous introduction that discusses Averroes’ most mature reflections on Aristotle’s teachings as well as Averroes' comprehensive philosophical views on soul and intellect. It is only in the Long Commentary that Averroes finally resolves to his satisfaction the much vexed issue of the nature of intellect, Taylor shows

Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Rushd (ca. 1126-98), who came to be known in the Latin West as Averroes, was born at Cordoba into a family prominent for its expert devotion to the study and development of religious law (shar'ia). In Arabic sources al-Hafid (“the Grandson”) is added to his name to distinguish him from his grandfather (d. 1126), a famous Malikite jurist who served the ruling Almoravid regime as qadi (judge) and even as imam (prayer leader and chief religious authority) at the magnificent Great Mosque which still stands today in the city of Averroes' birth and where Averroes himself served as Grand Qadi (chief judge). When the governing regime changed with the success of 'Abd al-Mu'min (r. 1130-63), founder of the Almohad (al-Muwahhidun) dynasty, the members of the family continued to flourish under a new religious orientation based on the teachings of the reformer, al-Mah. di ibn Tumart (d. ca. 1129-30). Although insistent on the strict adherence to religious law, Ibn Tumart's teachings were at the same time equally insistent on the essential rationality of human understanding of the existence and unity (tawhid) of God and his creation as well as the rationality of the Qur'an and its interpretation.