Paperback

ISBN
978-1-908590-54-1
Dimensions
241 × 171
Number of Pages
316
Price
45.00
Price EUR
52.99
Price USD
55.00
Publication Published Date
Institute
Warburg Institute

Description

Many of the leading philosophers in the Islamic world were doctors, yielding extensive links between philosophy and medicine. The twelve papers in this volume explore these links, focusing on the classical or formative period (up to the eleventh century AD). One central theme is the Arabic reception of Greek figures who worked on medicine or medical topics, including Hippocrates, Aristotle and Galen. Several of the luminaries of philosophy in the early Islamic world are also studied, including Abū Bakr al-Rāzī, al-Fārābī, and Avicenna. Conversely, the volume also includes research on the use of philosophical ideas in medical authors, including ʿAlī ibn Riḍwān. Attention is also given to the connections between medicine and Islamic theology (kalām). As a whole, the book provides both a survey of the kinds of work being done in this relatively unexplored area, and a springboard for further research.

Table of contents

Introduction - PETER ADAMSON AND PETER E. PORMANN

Philosophical Topics in Medieval Arabic Medical Discourse: Problems and Prospects - PETER E. PORMANN

Hippocrates of Cos in Arabic Gnomologia - OLIVER OVERWIEN

Length and Shortness of Life Between Philosophy and Medicine: The Arabic Aristotle and his Medical Readers - ROTRAUD HANSBERGER

Al-Ǧāḥiẓ, Falsafa and the Arabic Hippocrates - JAMES MONTGOMERY

Early Kalām and the Medical Tradition - GREGOR SCHWARB

Abū Bakr al-Rāzī on Vision - PAULINE KOETSCHET

The Consolations of Philosophy: Abū Zayd al-Balḫī and Abū Bakr al-Rāzī on Sorrow and Anger - PETER ADAMSON AND HANS HINRICH BIESTERFELDT

Beyond the Disciplines of Medicine and Philosophy: Greek and Arabic Thinkers on the Nature of Plant Life - AILEEN DAS

Al-Ṭabarī and al-Ṭabarī: Compendia between Medicine and Philosophy - ELVIRA WAKELNIG

Cosmic, Corporeal and Civil Regencies: al-Fārābī’s anti-Galenic Defence of Hierarchical Cardiocentrism - BADR EL-FEKKAK

The Small Canon of Medicine (al-Qānūn al-ṣaġīr fī l-ṭibb) Ascribed to Avicenna - RAPHAELA VEIT

ʿAlī ibn Riḍwān on the Philosophical Distinction of Medicine - HANS HINRICH BIESTERFELDT 

Index

Reviews

Philosophy and Medicine in the Formative Period of Islam exhibits careful textual and historical scholarship at its best and successfully shows that the reception of Galen in early Islamic intellectual history was more complicated than we sometimes suppose.