•  7
    Creation and Eternity in Medieval Philosophy
    In Heather Dyke & Adrian Bardon (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Time, Wiley. 2013.
    This chapter on creation and eternity in medieval philosophy focuses on arguments for the world's age drawn from the nature of time. To this end, there are four main sections. The first covers proofs for the eternity of the world taken from the nature of time, with an emphasis on Aristotle's original argument for that thesis and then Avicenna's modal version of the proof. The second deals with rejoinders, based upon non‐Aristotelian conceptions of time, to proofs for the eternity of the world wi…Read more
  •  13
    One Way of Ambiguous
    American 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
  •  20
    One Way of Being Ambiguous
    American 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
  •  22
    Analytic Philosophy and the Islamic Tradition: Introduction
    with Billy Dunaway
    Essays in Philosophy 23 (1): 1-3. 2022.
  •  15
    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
  •  3
    Editors' Note
    with Billy Dunaway
    Res Philosophica 98 (2): 157-159. 2021.
  •  25
    A Continuation of Atomism: Shahrastānī on the Atom and Continuity
    Journal 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
  •  2
    Medieval Philosophy of Religion
    with G. R. Evans, John Marenbon, Dermot Moran, Syed Nomanul Haq, Jon McGinnis, and Thomas Williams
    Acumen Publishing. 2013.
    Volume 2 covers one of the richest eras for the philosophical study of religion. Covering the period from the 6th century to the Renaissance, this volume shows how Christian, Islamic and Jewish thinkers explicated and defended their religious faith in light of the philosophical traditions they inherited from the ancient Greeks and Romans. The enterprise of 'faith seeking understanding', as it was dubbed by the medievals themselves, emerges as a vibrant encounter between - and a complex synthesis…Read more
  •  15
    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
  •  33
    The 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
  • Making Time Aristotle's Way
    Apeiron: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science 36 (2): 143-170. 2003.
  •  31
    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
  •  15
    Classical Arabic Philosophy: An Anthology of Sources (review)
    Speculum 84 (1): 188-189. 2009.
  • Time and Time Again: A Study of Aristotle and Ibn Sina's Temporal Theories
    Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. 2000.
    The dissertation examines the temporal theories of Aristotle and the Muslim Aristotelian, Ibn Sina . After considering Aristotelian science and sketching Aristotle's theory of physics, the dissertation picks up a series of puzzles concerning the reality of time. The central puzzle is a dilemma, which seemingly shows that the now can neither change nor remain the same. The dilemma is important, since one's solution to it affects the way one envisions time. Aristotle's solution, I argue, is to sho…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.
  •  83
    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.