Aristotle and the Arabic Tradition

277 Pages·2015·1.5 MB·English

by  Ahmed Alwishah

ARISTOTLE AND THE ARABIC TRADITION
This volume of essays by scholars in ancient Greek, medieval, and
Arabic philosophy examines the full range of Aristotle’s influence
upon the Arabic tradition. It explores central themes from
Aristotle’s corpus,includinglogic,rhetoric andpoetics,physicsand
meteorology, psychology, metaphysics, ethics, and politics, and
examines how these themes are investigated and developed by
Arabic philosophers including al-Kindī, al-Fārābī, Avicenna,
al-Ghazālī,IbnBājja,andAverroes.Thevolumealsoincludesessays
that explicitly focus upon the historical reception of Aristotle, from
the time of the Greek and Syriac transmission of his texts into the
Islamicworld,totheperiodoftheirintegrationandassimilationinto
Arabicphilosophy.Thisrichandwide-rangingcollectionwillappeal
to all those who are interested in the themes, development, and
contextofAristotle’senduringlegacywithintheArabictradition.
ahmed alwishah is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pitzer
College, Claremont. He has translated the Arabic testimonia of
ThalesjointlywithRichardMcKirahaninThales(2014).
josh hayes is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Alvernia
University, Pennsylvania. His research focuses upon Aristotle and
thehistoryofAristoteliancommentary.

ARISTOTLE AND THE ARABIC
TRADITION
edited by
AHMED ALWISHAH
JOSH HAYES
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Firstpublished2015
AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloguinginPublicationdata
AristotleandtheArabictradition/editedbyAhmedAlwishah,JoshHayes.
pages cm
Includesbibliographicalreferences.
isbn978-1-107-10173-9
1. Philosophy,Arab. 2. Islamicphilosophy. 3. Aristotle–Influence. I. Alwishah,
Ahmed,editor.
B741.A737 2015
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2015008924
isbn978-1-107-10173-9Hardback
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Contents
Listoffigures pagevii
Notesoncontributors viii
Acknowledgments x
Introduction 1
AhmedAlwishahandJoshHayes
1 “Arisṭūʿindal-ʿArab,”andbeyond 11
ChristinaD’Ancona
2 ThedivisionofthecategoriesaccordingtoAvicenna 30
PaulThom
3 Whatifthat(is)why?Avicenna’staxonomyofscientific
inquiries 50
RiccardoStrobino
4 TheRhetoricandPoeticsintheIslamicworld 76
UweVagelpohl
5 Al-FārābīandtheDidascalia 92
FrédériqueWoerther
6 Aristotle’s‘physical’worksandtheArabictradition 105
PaulLettinck
7 Definingnature:fromAristotletoPhiloponustoAvicenna 121
AndreasLammer
8 Avicennaonself-cognitionandself-awareness 143
AhmedAlwishah
9 Averroesonintentionalityandthehumanexperience
ofthenaturalworld 164
YehudaHalper
v
vi Contents
10 MetaphysicsintheorbitofIslam 177
CalvinNormore
11 TheArabicreceptionoftheNicomacheanEthics 200
JoshHayes
12 Theshiningandthehidden:notesonpoliticsandsolitude
fromthe“GreekProphets”toal-Fārābī 214
ClaudiaBaracchi
References 234
Index 261
Figures
2.1 Thecategoriesaccordingtoal-Kindī 31
2.2 ThecategoriesaccordingtoOlympiodorusandElias 32
2.3 Thecategoriesaccordingtothe‘widelyaccepted’division
(Avicenna,al-Shifāʾ) 36
2.4 Avicenna’selaborationofthe‘widelyaccepted’division 41
2.5 ThecategoriesaccordingtoAvicenna(Dānishnāmeh) 45
vii
Notes on contributors
ahmed alwishah is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pitzer College.
He is co-editor of Ibn Kammuna’s Refinement and Commentary on
Suhrawardī’sIntimations(2002).
claudia baracchi is Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of
Milano-Bicocca, Italy. She is the author of Aristotle’s Ethics as First
Philosophy(2008).
christinad’anconaisProfessorofPhilosophyattheUniversityofPisa,
Italy.SheistheauthorofRecherchessurle‘LiberdeCausis’(1995).
yehuda halper is Professor of Practice of Jewish Studies at Tulane
University,NewOrleans,LA.
josh hayes is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Alvernia University,
Reading,PA.
andreaslammerisadoctoralcandidateinLehrstuhlvifürspätantikeund
arabischePhilosophie,Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität,Münich.
paullettinckisProfessorintheDepartmentofScienceandTechnology
StudiesattheUniversityofMalaya,KualaLumpur.Heistheauthorof
Aristotle’s Meteorology and Its Reception in the Arabic World (1999) and
Aristotle’sPhysicsandItsReceptionintheArabicWorld(1994).
calvin normore is Professor of Philosophy at University of California,
Los Angeles and Honorary Professor of Philosophy at Queensland
University,Australia.
riccardostrobinoisMellonBridgeAssistantProfessorinGreek,Latin,
andArabictraditionsatTuftsUniversity.
paul thom is Honorary Visiting Professor in the School of
Philosophical and Historical Inquiry at the University of Sydney,
viii
Notesoncontributors ix
Australia. He is the author of The Logic of the Trinity: Augustine to
Ockham (2012).
uwe vagelpohl is Senior ResearchFellow at the University of Warwick,
UK. He is the author of Aristotle’s Rhetoric in the East: The Syriac and
Arabictranslationandcommentarytradition(2008).
fre´de´riquewoertherisResearchFellowattheFrenchNationalCentre
for Scientific Research. She is the editor of Fragments of Apollodorus of
Pergamon and Theodore of Gadara (2013) and Fragments of Hermagoras
(2012).