This volume presents the first complete edition of Oxford, MS Marsh 539, a hitherto unpublished philosophy reader compiled anonymously in the eastern Islamic world in the eleventh century. The compilation consists of texts on metaphysics, physiology and ethics, providing excerpts from Arabic versions of Greek philosophical works and works by Arabic authors. It preserves fragments of Greek-Arabic translations lost today, including Galen's On My Own Opinions, the Summa Alexandrinorum, and Themistius on Aristotle's Book Lambda. The philosophy reader provides a unique (...) insight into philosophical activity of the place and time of the well-known philosopher Miskawayh, showing us which works had entered the mainstream and were considered necessary for philosophers to know. Elvira Wakelnig's volume includes a new facing-page English translation and a rich commentary which identifies the source texts and examines the historical and philosophical context of each passage. (shrink)

Ibn al-Fa's Kitmin, the Book of the Delight of the Believer preserves, in the first part, in at least three of its 100 philosophical and theological problems, passages from the hitherto lost Arabic version of Philoponus' De Aeternitate mundi contra Proclum. All quotations are taken from the refutation of the first proof, one of them from the beginning which is also lost in Greek. For this latter passage a parallel is found in al-Isfiz who draws on the same Philoponus source (...) in his Kit Masil al-umhiyya (Book on Metaphysical Questions). A comparison of the other passages to the extant Greek text suggests that al-Ank's overall accurate use of sources can be gained from his quotations of the extant Arabic versions of the De Anima-paraphrase, Nemesius' De Natura hominis and b. Rabban al-'s Firdaws al-ḥikma (Paradise of Wisdom). (shrink)

Al-ʽĀmirī’s Chapters on Metaphysical Topics are an impressive example of the fusing of Greek Neoplatonism with Islamic Theology. Being a paraphrase of the Proclean Elements of Theology , they provide a better understanding of the tradition of the Liber de Causis in Arabic.

Cet article analyse un bref texte arabe qui propose une division des catégories d’Aristote, en catégories simples et catégories composées ; ce fragment est attribué à Aḥmad Ibn al-Ṭayyib al-Saraḫsī, philosophe du neuvième siècle et disciple majeur d’al-Kindī, le « premier philosophe des Arabes ». L’article montre que la division d’al-Saraḫsī trouve son origine dans la tradition alexandrine des commentateurs aristotéliciens. Le fragment est replacé dans le contexte de la philosophie arabe en analysant différentes divisions des catégories avancées, respectivement, par (...) Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ, al-Kindī, les Frères de la Pureté et Abū l-Faraǧ ibn al-Ṭayyib. Des collections de définitions et de divisions philosophiques en grec et en syriaque constituent très probablement le mode de transmission de la division au monde de l’islam. Le fragment illustre également que, pour ce qui concerne la philosophie aristotélicienne, al-Saraḫsī ne suit pas toujours l’exemple de son maître al-Kindī. (shrink)