A Glance At The Impacts Of Islamic Philosophy On Scholasticism
Abstract
The Present paper, in addition to discussing the indebtedness of Scholastic philosophy to Islamic thought in the 12th and 13th centuries, provides a short account of Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd's metaphysics along with their influence over the medieval philosophy. When discussing Ibn Sina, the author explicitly emphasizes his originality of thoughts with reference to his philosophical sources, such as Aristotle, neo-Platonists, Kindi, and Farabi. The author believes that this originality lies in Ibn Sina's discussions of existence, the relation of existence to reality and necessity, the distinction between existence and quiddity and its importance for the issue of creation in Scholasticism, as well as in posing Ibn Sina's argument for the demonstration of the Creator and explaining its difference from Arsitotle's argument of motion.Later, through referring to the issue of the soul and its argument of disengagement in the suspended man, and, finally, by resorting to the Avicennan-Augustinian school concerning the issue of knowledge, the writer discusses Ibn Rushd's ideas and his influence in the 13th and 14th centuries and even in the Renaissance period. He restates Ibn Rushd's view of the mission of religion and philosophy and their common ultimate end, poses the issue of the laymen, theologians, and philosophers and their various levels of perception in Ibn Rushd's eyes, and, finally, refers to his influence on his Latin followers, as well as to his opponents such as Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas.