Venue: Magdalen College, Old Law Library, Lecture Room B (Weeks 1-2), McFarlane Library (Weeks 3-8)
Time: Tuesdays, 2-3.30pm
Text: Avicenna, The Physics of The Healing
The theory of time remains one of the most complex and significant subjects of inquiry, central to both philosophical and physical discourse globally. Throughout the history of world philosophy, this concept has been continually refined, spanning Late Antiquity and Neoplatonism through to Islamic, Medieval, and Early Modern philosophical traditions. Within the global corpus of Arabic philosophy, diverse interpretations of time have emerged, shaped by three primary perspectives that influenced Islamic medieval conceptions of this theory. This reading class will focus on Avicenna’s The Physics of The Healing, in which he presents various notions of time before establishing his own account.
Our objective is to engage in a profound reading of Avicenna’s thesis to determine the extent to which his theory of time represents a departure from Aristotelian thought, a continuation of the Peripatetic tradition, or an innovative synthesis. We will discuss how his contributions facilitated the development of this concept within the context of global philosophy.
