This paper aims at elaborating a very special topic relative to the medieval philosophy; particularly, the question of noetic as was dealt with by a philosopher of the Islamic occident. Although the article is but the first part of the whole work, it still reveals the originality and the innovative tendency brought about this philosopher. What is most essential in Ibn Bajja’s noetic is the absence of intellect in power and the presence of intellect in act, in the design (...) of intellects, in addition the substance of the cogitative faculty is the intermediate spiritual forms. It is here where shows up the most important aspect of his originality; the forms which are closer to the nature of the intelligible, by virtue of the division into two parts: 1. By anteriority with regard to who/what resembles the sensible. 2. By posteriority with regard to who/what resembles the species/the kind. (shrink)

RésuméIl est bien connu que les notions detaṣawwur et detaṣdīq sont tout à fait centrales dans l’épistémologie de la philosophie arabo-islamique. La “conceptualisation” désigne la définition d'un objet de connaissance, et l’“assentiment” la reconnaissance de la véracité de la définition, par un raisonnement d'un certain type. Parmi les auteurs ayant traité ces deux thèmes le plus en profondeur figure al-Fārābī, qui a exercé sur Ibn Bājja une influence décisive. Cet article analyse les passages relatifs àtaṣawwurettaṣdīqdans les notes d'Ibn Bājja aux (...) écrits de logique et de méthodologie scientifique d'al-Fārābī, en particulier ses gloses auKitāb al-Burhān. On montre ainsi qu'Ibn Bājja a parfaitement saisi l'importance de ces deux termes dans la lecture farabienne de la méthode scientifique aristotélicienne, et qu'il les a employés pour traiter de certaines activités mentales. En effet ces deux notions, centrales chez Ibn Bājja, sont à la base de certaines de ses œuvres les plus fameuses. (shrink)

RésuméLe présent article propose la liste des œuvres médicales composées par Ibn Bājja, donne une présentation synthétique de celles qui nous ont été transmises et étudie le métacommentaire au commentaire de Galien sur lesAphorismesd'Hippocrate (Sharḥ fī al-Fuṣūl). Ce texte montre une influence profonde d'al- Fārābī, en particulier dans sa conception de l'expérience médicale, qui remonte à la façon dont ce dernier construit l'expérience (tajriba) comme le procédé inductif, décrit par Aristote dans lesSeconds Analytiques, produisant les prémisses de la démonstration. Sur (...) cette base, Ibn Bājja défend la pertinence d'une médecine moins scolastique et plus empirique, une position dont Ibn Rushd se fera l'écho. Des similitudes entre le texte d'Ibn Bājja et leK. al-Kulliyyāt fī al-ṭibbd'Ibn Rushd suggèrent que celui-ci avait lu leSharḥ fī al-Fuṣūl. Cette œuvre, en outre, pourrait bien attester que la dissection humaine était pratiquée à l'époque d'Ibn Bājja. (shrink)

Aristotle claimed that man is by nature social. Later philosophers challenged this assertion, questioning whether man is necessarily social or simply socialized. Ibn Bājja, a twelfth-century philosopher from Muslim Spain, and Martin Heidegger, a twentieth-century German philosopher, approached this question in paradoxical terms, claiming in their respective works that despite having been born into social origins (a necessary framework of existential and social conditions), human beings are able—and even mandated—to escape these origins, and thus society, to some degree. Through Ibn (...) Bājja’s book, The Governance of the Solitary, and a portion of Heidegger’s magnum opus, Being and Time, I present what each of these thinkers posit to be a person’s social origins, and the respective epistemological justifications they provide to suggest that man should work to depart from them. To conclude, I appropriate the claims of Ibn Bājja and Heidegger to address the “real world” plausibility and potential benefits—both to society and to man himself—of man’s departure from society. (shrink)

Aristotle claimed that man is by nature social. Later philosophers challenged this assertion, questioning whether man is necessarily social or simply socialized. Ibn Bājja, a twelfth-century philosopher from Muslim Spain, and Martin Heidegger, a twentieth-century German philosopher, approached this question in paradoxical terms, claiming in their respective works that despite having been born into social origins (a necessary framework of existential and social conditions), human beings are able—and even mandated—to escape these origins, and thus society, to some degree. Through Ibn (...) Bājja’s book, The Governance of the Solitary, and a portion of Heidegger’s magnum opus, Being and Time, I present what each of these thinkers posit to be a person’s social origins, and the respective epistemological justifications they provide to suggest that man should work to depart from them. To conclude, I appropriate the claims of Ibn Bājja and Heidegger to address the “real world” plausibility and potential benefits—both to society and to man himself—of man’s departure from society. (shrink)

Ibn Bajja both lavishly praises Plato, and quietly alters his teaching. He develops a novel version of the Platonic city, taken partly from Alfarabi, which completely excludes non-philosophers from it, arguing that the gap between purely intellectual philosophy and mostly corporeal politics is simply too great. This allows Ibn Bajja to escape many of the problems associated with the exposition and implementation of the city of the Republic and Political Regime, but raises a new difficulty, namely, the relationship (...) of the small, weak city of the philosophers to the stronger, larger cities of human beings more generally, in the midst of which it must somehow flourish. Ibn Bajja’s solution, ironically, points to the frenetic political engagement for which his biography is known, and which he himself may eventually have come to regret. (shrink)

Ce travail consiste à développer un sujet très spécial dans le corpus de la philosophie du moyen âge, plus précisément question de noétique chez un philosophe de l�occident musulman, mais l�article présent est juste la première partie de l�ensemble du travail, mais il reflète déjà la nouveauté et l�originalité de ce philosophe de l�Espagne musulmane. Le plus essentiel dans la noétique d�Ibn Bajja c�est l absence de l�intellect en puissance dans le schème des intellects, il y a juste l�intellect (...) en acte et la faculté cogitative, et la matière de la faculté cogitative ce sont les formes spirituelles intermédiaires, et là (nous pensons) un point important de l�originalité d�Ibn Bajja, ce sont des formes très proches de la nature des intelligibles grâce à la division des formes de la fantasia en deux parties: 1. par antériorité sur ce qui ressemble au sensible. 2. par postériorité sur ce qui ressemble à l�espèce. (shrink)

This article re-exams the old tension between the philosopher and the city. Reading Ibn Bājja’s Governance of the Solitary and Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra against the background of Plato’s Republic, I argue that they both embrace several key aspects of Platonic political philosophy: the assumption that philosophical natures can grow spontaneously in sick cities, the ideal of the philosopher legislator and the correlative project of founding a virtuous new regime. Yet in preparation for this final task, each prescribes a regimen (...) of solitude for philosophers, so that they might preserve their own health and autonomy. While this spiritual exercise at first appears merely temporary and provisional—aimed at the cultivation of a philosopher ruler and the eventual establishment of a healthy political regime —I argue that both Ibn Bājja and Zarathustra ultimately abandon their Platonic ambitions and opt instead for the apolitical contemplative life. (shrink)

Presents a survey of what Arabic philosophers, as commentators of Aristotle's _Physics_, have contributed to philosophy and science in the Middle Ages. Their influences on each other and the extent of the influences of previous Greek commentators on them, are also examined.

A survey of what Arabic scholars have written on the subjects treated in Aristotle's Meteorology . It is investigated how they were influenced by one another and by previous Greek commentators. Also, two Arabic treatises are edited and translated.

È possibile delineare due filoni interpretativi sul _Hayy b. Yaqzān_ (_Il vivente, figlio del desto_) di Ibn Tufayl: secondo l’uno, l’opera è uno sguardo realistico su un solitario in una società corrotta e si ispira agli insegnamenti della _Repubblica_ di Platone; secondo l’altro, l’opera ritrae un ideale puro e astratto di vita ascetica e insiste sull’imperativo morale dell’isolamento. Tuttavia entrambe queste interpretazioni precludono qualsiasi possibilità di felicità per l’uomo o per il filosofo all’interno di una società. In altre parole, tendono (...) a interpretare _Hayy b. Yaqzān_ come un tentativo di dimostrare che l’uomo non sia sociale o politico. La perfezione intellettuale e spirituale ricercata attraverso l’isolamento non può, a mio parere, essere separata da uno scopo pratico. L’isolamento del filosofo non viene praticato per distinguersi dalle società imperfette. Al contrario, tale isolamento è intrapreso per condurlo ad una realizzazione più alta e propriamente pratica. Su questa base, sostengo nell’articolo che l’uomo di Ibn Tufayl sia paragonabile allo ζῷον πολιτικόν aristotelico. Attraverso un confronto tra il _Hayy_ di Ibn Tufayl e lo ζῷον πολιτικόν di Aristotele vedremo come Ibn Tufayl si serva dell’_animale sociale/politico_ arabo (_hayawān insī _o _madanī_) di al-Fārābī e lo trasponga dal dominio della città a quello dell’individuo. Analizzando alcuni passaggi chiave, è possibile chiarire come il concetto di ζῷον πολιτικόν sia entrato nella filosofia araba e in particolare nella concezione di uomo di Ibn Tufayl attraverso il virtuoso di al-Fārābī e il solitario di Ibn Bājja. Prevailing academic views on Ibn Tufayl’s _Hayy b. Yaqzān_ (_Living, the Son of Wakeful_) fall into two camps: either the work is a realistic look at an isolated human being amidst a morally bankrupt population and harks back to the teachings of Plato’s _Republic_, or it portrays a pure and abstract ideal of the spiritual life in the footsteps of the natural first man, and insists on the moral imperative of isolation. The difficulty with both interpretations is that they preclude any possibility of happiness for the human person or the philosopher living in a society. In other words, they tend to interpret _Hayy b. Yaqzān_ as an attempt to demonstrate that the human is not essentially social or political. However, the intellectual and spiritual perfection sought through isolation cannot, in my opinion, be separated from a practical purpose. The isolation of the philosopher is not undergone to distinguish himself from imperfect human societies. On the contrary, such isolation is undertaken in order to lead one to a higher, and properly practical accomplishment. On this basis, I argue in this paper that Ibn Tufayl’s man is comparable to the Aristotelian ζῷον πολιτικόν. Through a comparison of Ibn Tufayl’s _Hayy_ and Aristotle’s ζῷον πολιτικόν we shall see how Ibn Tufayl reuses the Arabic _social/political animal_ (_hayawān insī_ or _madanī_) of al-Fārābī and transposes it from the domain of the city to that of the individual. By analysing some key passages, it becomes possible to illustrate how the concept of ζῷον πολιτικόν has entered Arabic philosophy, and particularly in Ibn Tufayl’s conception of man through the lenses of al-Fārābī’s virtuous and Ibn Bājja’s solitary man. (shrink)

Abū Bakr Ibn Ṭufayl was one of three great Islamic Peripatetics of Andalusia, sandwiched between Ibn Bājja for whom he had both highest encomia and biting censure, and his own illustrious protégé, Ibn Rushd. Yet only one philosophic work survives by Ibn Ṭufayl, the wondrous novella, Ḥayy Ibn Yaq ẓān, about an autodidact on a deserted island, who comes to learn almost all things through the use of reason alone. The present book by Taneli Kukkonen offers a welcome introduction to (...) Ḥayy Ibn Yaq ẓān and the thought of Ibn Ṭufayl. It appears in Patricia Crone’s Makers of the Muslim World series, which strives to “combine first-rate scholarship with a strong... (shrink)

The Arabic philosophical fable _Hayy Ibn Yaqzan _is a classic of medieval Islamic philosophy. Ibn Tufayl, the Andalusian philosopher, tells of a child raised by a doe on an equatorial island who grows up to discover the truth about the world and his own place in it, unaided—but also unimpeded—by society, language, or tradition. Hayy’s discoveries about God, nature, and man challenge the values of the culture in which the tale was written as well as those of every contemporary society. (...) Goodman’s commentary places _Hayy Ibn Yaqzan _in its historical and philosophical context. The volume features a new preface and index, and an updated bibliography. “One of the most remarkable books of the Middle Ages.”—_Times Literary Supplement_ “An enchanting and puzzling story.... The book transcends all historical and cultural environments to settle upon the questions of human life that perpetually intrigue men.”—_Middle East__ Journal_ “Goodman has done a service to the modern English reader by providing a readable translation of a philosophically significant allegory.”—_Philosophy East and West_ “Add[s] bright new pieces to an Islamic mosaic whose general shape is already known.”—_American Historical Review_. (shrink)

Ueber den Nothwendig-Existirenden.--Ueber den Modus des Hervorgehns der Dinge aus ihm.--Ueber die Schöpfung der Welt.

Ibn Khaldûn is one of the outstanding thinkers about the nature of society and politics in the pre-modern Arab world. This volume presents the political writings of the 14th-century philosopher, stressing their enduring relevance and exploring how his theory fits our own times.

Aristotle's De interpretatione; logic; Islamic philosophy; criticism and interpretation; early works to 1800.