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138Positioning Heaven: The Infidelity of a Faithful AristotelianPhronesis 51 (2): 140-161. 2006.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
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125Scientific Methodologies in Medieval IslamJournal 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
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93The Eternity of the World: Proofs and Problems in Aristotle, Avicenna, and AquinasAmerican 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
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70The Topology of Time: An Analysis of Medieval Islamic Accounts of Discrete and Continuous TimeModern Schoolman 81 (1): 5-25. 2003.
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53Arabic and islamic natural philosophy and natural scienceStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.
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52The Avicennan Sources for Aquinas on Being: Supplemental Remarks to Brian Davies’ “Kenny on Aquinas on Being”Modern Schoolman 82 (2): 131-142. 2005.
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47Classical Arabic Philosophy: An Anthology of Sources (edited book)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
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45Old Complexes and New Possibilities: Ibn Sīnā’s Modal Metaphysics in ContextJournal of Islamic Philosophy 7 3-33. 2011.
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42Making Abstraction Less Abstract: The Logical, Psychological, and Metaphysical Dimensions of Avicenna’s Theory of AbstractionProceedings 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
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40Doubts on Avicenna: A Study and Edition of Sharaf al-Dīn al-Mas'ūdī's Commentary on the Ishārāt. by Ayman ShihadehPhilosophy East and West 67 (2): 599-601. 2017.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
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39Tony Roark , Aristotle on Time: A Study of the Physics . Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 32 (6): 518-520. 2012.
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37The 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
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36A Continuation of Atomism: Shahrastānī on the Atom and ContinuityJournal 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
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36Willful Understanding: Avicenna’s Philosophy of Action and Theory of the WillArchiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 97 (2). 2015.Name der Zeitschrift: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie Jahrgang: 97 Heft: 2 Seiten: 160-195
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34A penetrating question in the history of ideas: Space, dimensionality and interpenetration in the thought of avicennaArabic Sciences and Philosophy 16 (1): 47-69. 2006.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
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33Alexander of Aphrodisias on the CosmosJournal of the American Oriental Society 124 (1): 103. 2004.
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31A Small Discovery: Avicenna’s Theory of Minima NaturaliaJournal of the History of Philosophy 53 (1): 1-24. 2015.
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29One Way of Being AmbiguousAmerican 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
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28A Medieval Arabic Analysis Of Motion At An Instant: the Avicennan sources to the forma fluens/fluxus formae debateBritish Journal for the History of Science 39 (2): 189-205. 2006.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
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28Relational Syllogisms and the History of Arabic Logic, 900–1900 (review)Speculum 88 (1): 283-284. 2013.
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27Analytic Philosophy and the Islamic Tradition: IntroductionEssays in Philosophy 23 (1): 1-3. 2022.
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22Necessary Existence and the Doctrine of Being in Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Healing by Daniel D. De HaanJournal of the History of Philosophy 60 (1): 158-160. 2022.Avicenna scholars know well that Avicenna aspired to present his metaphysics in the form of an Aristotelian science. The mélange of topics that make up Avicenna’s Metaphysics often appears disjointed and rambling, making it difficult to see how successful he was in this aspiration. Daniel D. De Haan’s book provides an aerial view of Avicenna’s Metaphysics, which argues that Avicenna succeeded. More specifically, De Haan suggests how Avicenna’s conception of the “necessary” links the general subj…Read more
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22The Leaven of the Ancients: Suhrawardī and the Heritage of the GreeksThe Leaven of the Ancients: Suhrawardi and the Heritage of the GreeksJournal of the American Oriental Society 121 (4): 729. 2001.
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21Intelligence and the Philosophy of MindProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 80 169-183. 2006.
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21Review of Peter Adamson (ed.), Richard C. Taylor (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2005 (5). 2005.
Areas of Specialization
Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy |
History of Western Philosophy, Misc |
Areas of Interest
History of Western Philosophy, Misc |
Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy |