Introduction to Arabic Philosophy (HT 2026)

Mondays, 2pm–3pm, Schwarzmann Centre (Seminar Room 30.025)

Convened by Dr Ibrahim Safri

This course offers an introduction to the major themes of Arabic philosophy. We will examine how ancient Greek philosophy was appropriated and integrated within the Arabic philosophical discourse through the translation movement and the production of early commentaries on key works of Aristotle and Plato. Building on this tradition, philosophers in the Islamic world developed original philosophical theories, giving rise to a distinct philosophical tradition.

These lectures will introduce key notions from the Arabic philosophical tradition, including creation and causality, atomism and change, necessary existence, and mental existence. This will allow us to trace to what extent Arabic philosophers interacted with, adapted, and challenged their predecessors from the ancient Greek philosophical tradition. We will conclude our course by exploring the development of Arabic philosophy in its subsequent form, being distinctly an Islamic philosophical tradition rather than an extension of philosophy in late antiquity.

A significant segment of these lectures will focus on the philosophy of Avicenna (d. 1037), a seminal figure in the development of Arabic philosophy. This will be followed by a shift to the post-Avicennan philosophy period, particularly in relation to the Avicennan influence on al-Rāzī (d. 1210) and the so-called post-classical Islamic philosophy.

Provisional Schedule

  • Week 1: Historical overview of Arabic philosophy
  • Week 2: Early Arabic philosophy: Ancient Greek philosophy in Arabic (translations and commentaries)
  • Week 3: al-Kindī’s philosophy: Creation ex-nihilo
  • Week 4: Avicenna’s philosophy: Necessary being
  • Week 5: Avicenna’s philosophy: Mental existence
  • Week 6: Atomism in Islamic philosophy
  • Week 7: Motion in Islamic philosophy
  • Week 8: Time in Islamic philosophy

 

Reading

Texts:

  • Avicenna. The Metaphysics of The Healing, A parallel English-Arabic text translated, introduced, and annotated by Michael E. Marmura. Islamic Translation Series. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2005.
  • Avicenna, The Physics of The Healing; a Parallel English-Arabic Text. Translated by: Jon McGinnis. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2009

  • Calverley, Edwin, and James Pollock. Nature, Man and God in Medieval Islam: Volumes: 1-2. Boston: Brill, 2022.

Secondary literature:

  • Adamson, Peter and Richard C. Taylor, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 2005.

  • Druart, Th.-A. ‘Philosophy in Islam’, The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Philosophy, Ch. 4. ‘Greek into Arabic’. EI3.

  • Gutas, Dimitri. Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ‘Abbasid Society (2nd -4th /8th -10th centuries). London & New York: Routledge, 1998

  • McGinnis, Jon, “Arabic and Islamic Natural Philosophy and Natural Science”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.)

  • Wisnovsky, Robert. Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018.

  • Wolfson, Harry. The Philosophy of the Kalām. Harvard University Press, 1976.