Luis Lopez

This chapter presents the similarities and differences between human and nonhuman animals in order to provide a proper characterization of what it means to be a human being according to two major Islamic philosophers, Alfarabi and Avicenna. The first section explains the characteristics of sense perception and intellectual knowledge, introducing a relevant aspect that will serve to distinguish between human and nonhuman animals, that is, self-awareness (_al-shuʿūr bi-al-dhāt_); the second section deals with the capacity to articulate language among human and even some nonhuman animals; the third section discusses the characterization of human beings as _zôon politikon_ (_hayawān madanī_), defining in which sense this feature is essential to human nature. Finally, the chapter offers some concluding remarks regarding the notion of “human being” in the Islamic philosophical tradition.

This article investigates the intersection between the medical condition of lovesickness and the social phenomenon of rape. While rape in medieval culture has been studied through the disciplinary lens of gender studies, theology, sociology, and legal theory, the influence of medical epistemology on these reprehensible acts of violence has been overlooked. The advent of the branch of knowledge known as medical humanities allows us to fill in this gap by looking into the clinical treatises that circulated widely in medieval Europe and served as curricula in medieval universities. This article argues that because intercourse with the beloved was recommended as therapy for lovesickness in the medical texts on the disease, such texts did more than inform physicians and natural philosophers about the causes, effects, and treatments for this dangerous condition, but helped normalize the hypersexuality of melancholic, lovesick men and, in so doing, provided hermeneutic tools for defending and justifying sexual aggressions. Under these circumstances, women’s bodies were perceived and treated as mere medicinal objects for healing men’s sickness and saving men’s lives.

The _Book of Job_ remains one of the most profound and unsettling texts in religious and philosophical thought, raising timeless questions about suffering, justice, and the human relationship with the divine. _Philosophical and Theological Perspectives on the Figure of Job_ brings together a diverse collection of essays that explore Job’s narrative from multiple perspectives—philosophical, theological, comparative, and literary—without reducing its complexity or imposing a singular interpretation.

En su conocida obra sobre Filón de Alejandría, Harry A. Wolfson sostiene que la filosofía filónica es el preámbulo de las “filosofías religiosas” de las tres tradiciones abrahámicas. Entre varias coincidencias y similitudes entre Filón y cada una de las filosofías religiosas, Wolfson destaca una particularmente importante: las tres tradiciones vieron en sus respectivas Escrituras dos significados, uno literal ( ῥητή o φανερά ) y otro oculto (ὑπόνοια). Cada una de estas tradiciones filosóficas buscó —a su manera— un método alegórico de interpretación. Dicho método lo aprendieron los Padres de la Iglesia directamente de Filón. Y de los Padres habría sido transmitido, según Wolfson, al islam y al judaísmo. La versión más difundida entre los historiadores e historiadoras de la filosofía ha sido que, en realidad, ni el islam ni el judaísmo tuvieron contacto directo con Filón. Podría hablarse en todo caso de una influencia indirecta. A pesar de las ambigüedades al respecto, este artículo pretende elucidar las posibles similitudes entre las nociones de ῥητή o φανερά y ὑπόνοια y sus equivalentes árabes, _ẓāhir _y _bāṭin_.

Este estudio aborda la problemática en torno a la relación de las teorías y modelos pedagógicos,centrándose en su vínculo con la investigación educativa y la práctica en el aula. En este sentido, elobjetivo principal es analizar el rol del método inductivo en la relación entre las teorías y modelospedagógicos desde la praxis en el aula, utilizando la metainvestigación y la crítica reflexiva basada enla teoría fundamentada. De este modo, se exploran las definiciones de teorías y modelos pedagógicos,el rol histórico del método inductivo en la investigación educativa, la relación entre el razonamientoinductivo, las principales teorías y modelos pedagógicos, y las implicaciones prácticas de estos enfoques en la enseñanza y el aprendizaje. Los resultados revelan que el método inductivo es esencial para formular hipótesis, teorías y modelos a partir de observaciones empíricas, proporcionando unabase sólida para la investigación educativa. Además, ha influido significativamente en el desarrollo dediversos modelos pedagógicos, facilitando la integración de teoría y práctica, lo cual es vital para una enseñanza efectiva. En conclusión, el estudio destaca la relevancia continua del método inductivoen la investigación educativa y su potencial para mejorar las prácticas pedagógicas, especialmentecon el avance de la tecnología, que ofrece nuevas oportunidades para mejorar la recopilación y elanálisis de datos.

¿Es Kant un sexista? La discusión contemporánea sobre el sexismo kantiano recorre todas las áreas del corpus desde la epistemología, metafísica, estética, ética hasta la filosofía política. En la presente investigación me concentraré en la discusión ética y política, en particular en el estatus moral de la mujer. Argumentaré que inclusive en la lectura más caritativa de Kant el estatus moral de la mujer es inferior al del hombre. Para desarrollar el punto anterior tomaré como hilo conductor el concepto de carácter. Este concepto presenta dos ventajas. Por un lado, condensa ciertas preocupaciones morales como la relación entre sensibilidad y razón. Por otro lado, y en relación con el punto anterior, el carácter moral se expresa diferente en el carácter femenino y en el carácter masculino. En el primero se expresa el sentimiento, mientras que en el segundo se expresa la racionalidad. Dada la primacia de la racionalidad sobre sentimiento, el carácter moral masculino tiene ciertas ventajas sobre el femenino.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Averroes on Intellect: From Aristotelian Origins to Aquinas’s Critique by Stephen R. OgdenLuis Xavier López-FarjeatStephen R. Ogden. Averroes on Intellect: From Aristotelian Origins to Aquinas’s Critique. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. Pp. 296. Hardback, $90.00.Stephen Ogden’s book is a remarkable contribution to one of the most controversial topics within the tradition of interpreters of Aristotle’s De anima. As is well known, Aristotle defines the intellect (nous) as “the part of the soul by which it knows and thinks” (DA III.4, 429a9– 10). This doctrine of the intellect becomes rather obscure in DA III.5, where Aristotle states that there is a passive intellect that needs to be actualized through an active intellect. This passage contains, perhaps, the most debated statement in Aristotelian psychology. Aristotle argues that the passive or potential intellect is the part of the soul that, in a sense, becomes all things as it knows them. The intellect, however, has another aspect: in a sense, it makes all things. This is what Aristotle calls the “active” or “agent” intellect. This characterization is fairly ambiguous: it is separable (chôristos), separated (chôristheis), not passive (apathês), unmixed (amigês), and it is essentially an activity (têi ousiai energeia); furthermore, it is immortal (athanaton), eternal (aidion), and always thinking.According to Alexander of Aphrodisias’s interpretation, Aristotle holds that since the human intellect is in potency, its actualization needs the intervention of an intellect that is always thinking, namely, the active intellect. Alexander associates the active or agent intellect (poiêtikos nous) with the divine intellect and divine intellection as it appears in Aristotle’s Metaphysics XII.9, 1074b33–35, another famous passage where Aristotle describes the first mover as thought thinking itself. A long tradition of interpreters and commentators, both ancient and medieval, discussed whether Aristotle held that the actualization of the potential intellect came from an external intellect—be it God (as Alexander thought) or another kind of separate intellect (as was the case for Islamic philosophers such as al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes), or whether Aristotle was referring to two aspects within a single human intellect (as Thomas Aquinas held, for instance).As its title indicates, Ogden’s book focuses on Averroes, a Muslim philosopher who proposed one of the most puzzling interpretations of the Aristotelian doctrine of the intellect. It is puzzling, perhaps false, and even absurd, because it holds that “the intellect that understands intelligible concepts is a single, separate, eternal substance shared by [End Page 659] all humanity”(1). Strange as it may seem, this position—which Ogden calls the “unicity thesis” (1)—was among the most debated in the Jewish and Christian traditions throughout the medieval period and the Renaissance. But beyond detailing the mere reception and historical assimilation of Averroes’s doctrine, Ogden takes on the task of arguing for its philosophical coherence. It is not a simple task. One might think that, rather than helping to clarify Aristotle’s theory, Averroes made it more complicated. If it is already difficult to understand the Aristotelian definition of the active intellect and to decide whether it is a separate intellect or part of the soul, Averroes seems to make things worse by arguing that the active or agent intellect (in Latin, intellectus agens or intelligentia agens; in Arabic, ‘aql al-fa“āl) and the so-called material or possible intellect (intellectus materialis; ‘aql hayūlānī) are both single, separate, and eternal intellects.As is well known, and as Ogden himself explains, Thomas Aquinas criticized the idea of two separate intellects (passive and active) and provided an account that is in principle satisfactory, according to which the two intellects are intellectual powers of each person’s soul. There is an enormous amount of scholarly literature evaluating the merits of Thomas Aquinas’s refutation of Averroes and his followers. But as Ogden notices, few scholars— among them, Richard C. Taylor, Jean-Baptiste Brenet, Deborah Black, and Josep Puig—have pointed out that the two philosophers begin their discussions with different assumptions. In my view, one of the greatest merits of Ogden’s book is that, as far as I...

Alison Douglis argues that perjury is nothing more than a tool to facilitate court proceedings, conceptually distinct from lying. Instead, I argue that the conceptual structure of perjury and of lying match almost perfectly. Apparent mismatches do not arise as a property of perjury but as a consequence of the juridical context. I present an overview of some of the recent philosophical work on lies with focus on the problem of ‘what is said’ and pragmatic enrichment. I also discuss the question of whether false implicatures should be regarded as lies, the intent to deceive condition on lying, and the falsity of the statement as a condition on lying. I then turn to perjury and show that the same philosophical problems that lies give rise to are reproduced almost point by point. I show that the oath condition and the materiality condition on perjury, which would seem to provide an empirical distinction, are in fact rooted in our understanding of lies. Against Jennifer Keiser and Douglis, I argue that a cross-examination is in fact a form of conversation in Grice’s sense.

Resumen Es muy conocida la opinión de Kant en relación con la inmoralidad del suicidio. De ahí que, muchos autores lo consideren como un prohibicionista absoluto. Sin embargo, no hay hasta el momento un análisis puntual sobre la definición metafísica-conceptual del suicidio en la teoría kantiana. En este artículo propongo entender el suicidio en Kant como una muerte física, total, autorreferencial, voluntaria e inmoral. Esta definición contrastará con la privación de la vida, la cual no implica inmoralidad. Al ser voluntarios, tanto la privación de la vida, como el suicidio son actos racionales y entendibles a partir de las máximas de acción. La inmoralidad del suicidio sólo surgirá al considerar la primacía de las razones morales por encima de razones no morales.It is common knowledge theposition of Kant regarding the immorality of suicide. Several authors attribute him an absolutist-forbidden criterion. Nerveless, there is no extended analysis about the metaphysical-conceptual definition of suicide in Kantian theory. In this paper I hold that suicide in Kant can be defined asphysical death, full, self-referential, voluntary, and immoral. This definition conflicts with the definition of deprivation of life which is not immoral. As voluntarily acts, both suicide and deprivation of life are rational acts that can be understood as maxims of action. The immorality property of suicide is due to the primacy of moral over non-moral reasons.

In Albert’s De anima III, 3, chapters 6–11 there is a discussion on whether the human intellect is able to apprehend only forms abstracted from matter or whether it is possible for it to know something separated from magnitude. If the human intellect is able to understand separate forms, this would mean that some forms are not apprehended with phantasms and magnitude but by the conjunction of the possible intellect and the separate intellect. This matter is quite problematic since it is not clear enough whether separate forms are known through the perfect conjunction of the possible intellect and the agent intellect or by means of the agent intellect which acts both as efficient and formal cause of these forms. Here, I focus on chapter 8 where Albert criticizes Avempace’s doctrine of the intellect, and chapter 11 where he states a resolution to the problem, which is very close to that of Averroes. This exploration illustrates the complexity of the relationship between the philosophies of Albert and Averroes.

Resumen: En De interpretatione Aristóteles distingue entre voces articuladas e inarticuladas. Mientras que la voz articulada se compone de una combinación de vocales y consonantes, la voz inarticulada equivale a cualquier sonido emitido por animales no humanos. Sin embargo, al-Fārābī cuestiona esta visión. En su Gran Comentario a De Interpretatione, corrige la postura de Aristóteles y desarrolla una argumentación que toma en cuenta algunas consideraciones sobre el comportamiento de los animales no humanos en algunos de los tratados de Aristóteles sobre los animales. Tras presentar la postura de al-Fārābī en torno al "lenguaje" en los animales no humanos, discuto brevemente hasta qué punto las capacidades de los animales no humanos para expresarse y comunicarse amplían nuestra comprensión de lo que podríamos entender por lenguaje.: In De Interpretatione Aristotle distinguishes between articulate and inarticulate voices. While articulate voices are a combination of vowels and consonants, inarticulate voices would be any sound uttered by non-human animals. Nevertheless, al-Fārābī debated this view. In his Long Commentary on the De Interpretatione, he amends Aristotle's position and develops an argumentation that takes into account some considerations regarding nonhuman animals' behavior found in Aristotle's treatises on animals. After presenting al-Fārābī's views concerning the "language" of non-human animals, I briefly discuss to what extent the capacities of non-human animals to express and communicate themselves broadens our comprehension of what we might understand by language.

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.

En el artículo defiendo la idea de una lectura cómplice constructiva como la mejor manera de lidiar con el problema del canon filosófico. Frente a la conservación complaciente y la eliminación paranoica, mi posición aboga por una lectura menos reverencial que interrogue el papel de los clásicos en los procesos de exclusión racistas y sexistas. La lectura de los clásicos requiere hacer fisuras en la canonización. Como ejemplo de lo anterior reviso el papel de Kant y el neokantismo en la construcción racista y sexista del canon filosófico, así como de las obras canónicas del propio Kant.

A partir de una investigación sobre el conocimiento de lo singular en Aristóteles, en estas páginas presentamos una recopilación y lectura básica de los lugares más importantes dentro de las obras de lógica del pensador griego que refieren el concepto de individuo, específicamente en su carácter de entidad determinada , no sin antes hacer algunas acotaciones generales sobre lo que en otras obras se considera al respecto.Based on an investigation of knowledge of singulars in Aristotle, we present and interpret the most important passages referring to the concept of individual in the logical works of the Greek thinker. We concentrate specifically on its character as determined entitiy . We begin, however, with some general remarks about what other works of his have to say on the subject

En varios pasajes de sus obras psicológicas, Avicena sugiere que los animales no humanos tienen un yo. Aquí argumentaré que, a partir de las características que le atribuye a la percepción, hay razones de peso para sospechar que los animales no humanos efectivamente tienen un yo: el impulso natural en ellos hacia la supervivencia, la familiaridad con su propio cuerpo, su capacidad para tender hacia aquello que les resulta conveniente y huir de lo peligroso de acuerdo con sus propias circunstancias, así como el modo de relacionarse con el mundo, son conductas que, como se verá, requerirían la presencia de un yo. In several passages from his psychological works Avicenna suggests that non-human animals have a self. Here I argue that from the Avicennian description of perception, there are strong reasons to suspect that non-human animals have a self: their natural self-preservation impulse, the familiarity they have with their own body, their capacity to move towards what they perceive as convenient and to avoid what is dangerous according to their own circumstances, and the way each one relates to the world, are behaviors that, as will be shown, would require the presence of a self

We consider the concept of poverty from the asset-accumulation approach and propose an integrated framework, building upon existing theories, to describe how the interconnected factors of trust (or lack thereof) and social distance can reinforce poverty traps. Social distance is influenced by choice, while trust is the symptom that defines the strength of social ties on a group. We look at how an absence of trust influences how households make decisions about the use and accumulation of assets in ways that could perpetuate poverty. Weak trust also affects how groups interact with each other in a society, creating “trust clusters” within homogeneous groups and antagonism across groups, which in turn affects aspirations and leads to an erosion of the basis of a social contract. For more effective and sustainable poverty reduction, we need to understand these linkages and address them systematically.

Esta obra colectiva expone diversas concepciones teóricas, ontológicas, epistemológicas, axiológicas y prácticas sobre el origen, sentido, problemáticas, ventajas, detrimentos, alternativas y desafías de la filosofía de la innovación y su incidencia en la educación; reflexiona sobre las contribuciones de la tecnología y responde a interrogantes como: ¿Cuáles son los aporte de la tradición filosófica, del pensamiento ilustrado, de la postmodernidad y de la teoría crítica para la filosofía de la innovación educativa?; ¿Cuál es la función de la filosofía para la comprensión de la innovación?; ¿Cómo se explica el progreso tecno-científico desde la epistemología contemporánea?; ¿Cuál es el componente pedagógico de la innovación?; ¿Cuáles son las aportaciones del Laudato Si para la innovación educativa?. Además, plantea la necesidad de repensar algunos aspectos relacionados con la educación, el Estado y la identidad latinoamericana para determinar las posibilidades, las limitaciones y los retos de la innovación, entendida como un fenómeno en permanente construcción. Este tomo se encuentra conformado por ocho capítulos en los que los autores formulan un conjunto de contribuciones para la generación de nuevas investigaciones. Además, evidencia a la innovación como un procesos que exige reformulaciones. La innovación sigue siendo una de las tareas pendientes de la filosofía.

This thematic introduction to classical Islamic philosophy focuses on the most prevalent philosophical debates of the medieval Islamic world and their importance within the history of philosophy. Approaching the topics in a comprehensive and accessible way in this new volume, Luis Xavier Lopez-Farjeat, one of the co-editors of The Routledge Companion to Islamic Philosophy, makes classical Islamic philosophy approachable for both the new and returning student of the history of philosophy, medieval philosophy, the history of ideas, classical Islamic intellectual history, and the history of religion. Providing readers with a complete view of the most hotly contested debates in the Islamic philosophical tradition, Lopez-Farjeat discusses the development of theology and philosophy during the ʿAbbāsid period, including the translation of Aristotle into Arabic, the philosophy and theology of Islamic revelation, logic and philosophy of language, philosophy of natural science, metaphysics, psychology and cognition, and ethics and political philosophy. This volume serves as an indispensable tool for teachers, students, and independent learners aiming to discover the philosophical problems and ideas that defined the classical Islamic world. Key Features - Offers readers a broad, thorough view of the history of Islamic philosophy by using a thematic approach. - Traces the dialogues between philosophers and theologians about important and controversial topics. - Offers both historical descriptions of the key debates in classical Islamic philosophy and current interpretations by contemporary scholars. - Includes extensive lists for further reading at the end of each chapter, directing curious students to the best avenues for further research.

This valuable reference work synthesizes and elucidates traditional themes and issues in Islamic philosophy as well as prominent topics emerging from the last twenty years of scholarship. Written for a wide readership of students and scholars, The Routledge Companion to Islamic Philosophy is unique in including coverage of both perennial philosophical issues in an Islamic context and also distinct concerns that emerge from Islamic religious thought. This work constitutes a substantial affirmation that Islamic philosophy is an integral part of the Western philosophical tradition. Featuring 33 chapters, divided into seven thematic sections, this volume explores the major areas of philosophy: Logic, Metaphysics, Philosophy in the Sciences, Philosophy of Mind/Epistemology, and Ethics/Politics as well as philosophical issues salient in Islamic revelation, theology, prophecy, and mysticism. Other features include: •A focus on both the classical and post-classical periods •A contributing body that includes both widely respected scholars from around the world and a handful of the very best younger scholars •"Reference" and "Further Reading" sections for each chapter and a comprehensive index for the whole volume The result is a work that captures Islamic philosophy as philosophy. In this way it serves students and scholars of philosophy and religious studies and at the same time provides valuable essays relevant to the study of Islamic thought and theology

The Arabic tradition knew Alexander’s treatises On Fate and On Providence. Alexander criticizes the Stoic determinism with some peripatetic arguments. In those treatises we can find, at least, two positions: the peripatetic and “libertarian” position represented by Alexander, and Stoic determinism. A very similar discussion can be found in Islamic tradition. As S. Van den Bergh has insisted, Islamic theological schools had some Stoic influences. One of the issues in which we can find some common views is, precisely, the problem of determinism and free will. The aim of this paper is to show that the kasb (acquisition)doctrine of the Islamic theologians Asharites is very similar to Stoic determinism in its compatibilist version: both, Stoics and Asharites, conceive a causal network established by the fate or the providence. From this point of view we have to discuss which is the true agent of the natural and human acts that happen in this world. If the providence guides every act, the natural causality and the free will should be denied. On the one hand, I will present some arguments from the most representative Asharite theologian, al-Ghazali, to support a kind of compatibilist determinism; from the other hand, I will evaluate Averroes peripatetic arguments against determinism. Is Averroes more consistent than Alexander or do we have to conclude that al-Ghazali and the Asharites have stronger arguments in order to support the kasb doctrine?

La noción de Witz tiene su origen en Shafiesbury y, posteriormente, en Kant y en Fichte. El genio es el puente de unión entre la aparente contradicción de la naturaleza con la libertad y, gracias a esta importante función es el único que logra conciliar la armonía helénica con la desarmonía romántica. Desde este planteamiento el autor intenta mostrar: primero, la configuración del genio desde las nociones de naturaleza y libertad (Kant); segundo, la posible conciliación efectuada por el genio entre el espíritu helénico y el espíritu romántico, que no es otra cosa que la esencia de la poesía moderna (Schlegel, Goethe); tercero, una conciliación aparente que culmina, más bien, con la frustración y el desengaño del genio, que se vuelve, según la terminología hegeliana, "conciencia infeliz" (Hegel).

Se parte de la idea de que el mundo platónico no es el de las ideas sino el que se capta desde la sensibilidad. En el plano histórico-filosófico se recurre a los pitagóricos, aunque el autor no acoje en su totalidad la idea de que sólo los números resuelven la cuestión del mundo. A cambio, apela a una escala musical, propendiendo hacia una estética de lo sublime que exalta la sensilbilidad, la cual irrumpe con una nueva racionalidad en conflicto con la logicidad de las palabras. Por esta razón, los artistas son un paso imprescindible, y con ellos la determinación de la naturaleza del fenómeno artístico. Así se introduce la música para acompañar la comprensión de Platón, y se afirma que el arte del demiurgo no es otro que el de un músico matemático.