Warburg Institute Colloquia 12
IN THE AGE OF AL-FARABI:
ARABIC PHILOSOPHY IN THE FOURTH/TENTH CENTURY
Edited by Peter Adamson
The papers in this volume were given at a conference held at the Warburg Institute in 2006 to consider the philosophy of al- Fārābī alongside other intellectual developments of his time together with a wide range of other figures and traditions from the period. The volume initially focuses on the group of Peripatetics working in Baghdad with al-Fārābī’s teacher Abū Bishr Mattā and his student Yahyā ibn ῾Ādī who worked in the Aristotelian tradition. Other papers look at thinkers working in the Neoplatonic tradition transmitted by al-Kindī’s circle, such as al-῾Āmirī, Ibn Farīghūn and al-Isfizārī. The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity provide compelling evidence of the fusion of Neoplatonism and Greek science with contemporary Islamic religious thought. Neoplatonic ideas also appear in the symbology of Ismā῾īlī thought at this time.
CONTENTS
| Ulrich Rudolph | Reflections on al-Fārābī’s Mabādi᾿ ārā᾿ ahl al-madīna al-fādila |
| Deborah L. Black | Al-Fārābī on Meno’s Paradox |
| Elias Giannakis | Anaxagoras in the Baghdad Physics |
| Carl Ehrig-Eggert | Yahyā ibn ῾Adī on Universals and the Intellect |
| Dominique Urvoy | Abū Bakr al-Rāzī and Yahyā ibn ῾Ādī |
| Peter Adamson | Platonic Pleasures in Epicurus and al-Rāzī |
| P. E. Pormann | Medical Methodology and Hospital Practice: The Case of Fourth-/Tenth-Century Baghdad |
| Lutz Richter-Bernburg | Abū Bakr al-Rāzī and al-Fārābī on Medicine and Authority |
| Daniel De Smet | Al-Fārābī᾿s Influence on Hamīd al-Dīn al-Kirmānī’s Theory of Intellect and Soul |
| Antonella Straface | An Esoteric Interpretation of the Basmala in the Kitāb Shajarat al-yaqīn |
| Carmela Baffioni | Metaphors of Light and the ‘Verse of Light’ in the Brethren of Purity |
| Godefroid de Callataÿ | World Cycles and Geological Changes according to the Brethren of Purity |
| Paul L. Heck | Doubts about the Religious Community (Milla) in al-Fārābī and the Brethren of Purity |
| Elvira Wakelnig | Philosophical Fragments of al-῾Āmirī Preserved Mainly in al-Tawhīdī, Miskawayh, and in the Texts of the Siwān al-hikma Tradition |
| David C. Reisman | An Obscure Neoplatonist of the Fourth/Tenth Century and the Putative Philoponus Source |
| Hans Hinrich Biesterfeldt | Ibn Farīghūn on Communication |
| Marwan Rashed | New Evidence on the Critique of the Qur᾿ānic Miracle at the End of the Third/Ninth Century: Qustā ibn Lūqā vs. the Banū al-Munajjim |
Preface and Index
316pp 2008 Price: £40.00
ISBN 978 0 85481 147 2 ISSN 1352-9986
The Warburg Institute, London - Nino Aragno Editore, Turin