This important book investigates the emergence and development of a distinct concept of self-awareness in post-classical, pre-modern Islamic philosophy. Jari Kaukua presents the first extended analysis of Avicenna's arguments on self-awareness - including the flying man, the argument from the unity of experience, the argument against reflection models of self-awareness and the argument from personal identity - arguing that all these arguments hinge on a clearly definable concept of self-awareness as pure first-personality. He substantiates his interpretation with an analysis of (...) Suhrawardī's use of Avicenna's concept and Mullā Sadrā's revision of the underlying concept of selfhood. The study explores evidence for a sustained, pre-modern and non-Western discussion of selfhood and self-awareness, challenging the idea that these concepts are distinctly modern, European concerns. The book will be of interest to a range of readers in history of philosophy, history of ideas, Islamic studies and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

This book is a collection of studies on topics related to subjectivity and selfhood in medieval and early modern philosophy. The individual contributions approach the theme from a number of angles varying from cognitive and moral psychology to metaphysics and epistemology. Instead of a complete overview on the historical period, the book provides detailed glimpses into some of the most important figures of the period, such as Augustine, Avicenna, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz and Hume. The questions addressed include the ethical (...) problems of the location of one's true self and the proper distribution of labour between desire, passion and reason, and the psychological tasks of accounting for subjective experience and self-knowledge and determining different types of self-awareness. (shrink)

Avicenna's physics has been the object of relatively scant scholarly attention in comparison to his psychology and metaphysics. This is deplorable, for as Jon McGinnis points out in the introduction to the present volume, Avicenna's physical investigations both illuminate and deal in detail with a number of topics of crucial importance for both psychology and metaphysics. Furthermore, the scholarly consensus on Avicenna's originality and singular importance for the subsequent Arabic and Latin traditions in the two disciplines is equally true in (...) the field of physics. The Physics of the Healing, Avicenna's major work, shows its author in full control of the late ancient commentary tradition and earlier discussion in .. (shrink)

Arguments for God’s Existence in Classical Islamic Thought: A Reappraisal of the Discourse By ErlweinHannah C., ix + 249 pp. Price HB £79.00. EAN 978–3110617641.

Contemporary caution against anachronism in intellectual history, and the currently momentous theoretical emphasis on subjectivity in the philosophy of mind, are two prevailing conditions that set puzzling constraints for studies in the history of philosophical psychology. The former urges against assuming ideas, motives, and concepts that are alien to the historical intellectual setting under study, and combined with the latter suggests caution in relying on our intuitions regarding subjectivity due to the historically contingent characterizations it has attained in contemporary philosophy (...) of mind. In the face of these conditions, our paper raises a question of what we call non-textual (as opposed to contextual) standards of interpretation of historical texts, and proceeds to explore subjectivity as such a standard. Non-textual standards are defined as (heuristic) postulations of features of the world or our experience of it that we must suppose to be immune to historical variation in order to understand a historical text. Although the postulation of such standards is often so obvious that the fact of our doing so is not noticed at all, we argue that the problems in certain special cases, such as that of subjectivity, force us to pay attention to the methodological questions involved. Taking into account both recent methodological discussion and the problems inherent in two de facto denials of the relevance of subjectivity for historical theories, we argue that there are good grounds for the adoption of subjectivity as a non-textual standard for historical work in philosophical psychology. (shrink)

This paper engages critically with Dimitri Gutas’ recent characterization of post-classical Islamic philosophy and theology as a form of paraphilosophy or intellectual activity that merely simulates philosophy. I argue that this view arises from a misguided understanding of the concept of philosophy that should provide the standard for its historiography. In order to avoid a number of problematic consequences, such as gaps in historical continuity or a disconnection from what we understand by philosophy today, we must take our cue from (...) a sufficiently uncontroversial contemporary concept of philosophy instead of any particular historical concept, such as the Peripatetic amalgam of metaphysics, theory of science, and the empirical sciences. Such a strategy provides a sound basis for the inclusion of post-classical thinkers, as well as many classical thinkers who are not falāsifa, in the history of Islamic philosophy without vicious circularity or loss of a normative concept of philosophy. (shrink)

This is a critical comment on Adamson and Benevich, published in issue 4/2 of the Journal of the American Philosophical Association. I raise two closely related objections. The first concerns the objective of the flying man: instead of the question of what the soul is, I argue that the argument is designed to answer the question of whether the soul exists independently of the body. The second objection concerns the expected result of the argument: instead of knowledge about the quiddity (...) of soul, I claim the argument yields knowledge about the soul's existence independently of the body. After the objections, I turn to the masked man fallacy, claiming that although the Adamson-Benevich interpretation does save the argument from the fallacy, this comes at the cost of plausibility. I then give a more modest interpretation that both avoids the fallacy and is plausible. The paper concludes with a remark about the metaphysical possibility of the flying man. (shrink)

Contemporary caution of anachronism in intellectual history on the one hand, and currently momentous theoretical emphasis on subjectivity on the other, are two prevailing circumstances that set puzzling constraints for studies in the history of philosophical psychology. Together these circumstances call for heightened awareness of our own interpretive presuppositions as historians: the former urges against assuming ideas, motives, and concepts that may be alien in the historical intellectual setting under study and the latter suggests caution in relying on our intuitions (...) regarding subjectivity due to the specific and historicallycontingent characterisations subjectivity has attained in the contemporary philosophy of mind. In face of these enticements our paper explores subjectivity as a non-textual standard of interpretation. Taking into account recent methodological discussion and examples of denials of the relevance of subjectivity for historical theories, we argue that historical work should be conceived as a reflective investigation into what is and what is not genuinely historical. In particular, we show how subjectivity can function as a pre-conceptualized feature of the world that has an effect on our concept formation. (shrink)

It is a necessary condition for recognising change that there is a yardstick against which the change can be perceived. The same applies to changes that philosophical concepts undergo. This paper delineates standards for recognising conceptual change that meet the requirements of conscientious history of philosophy. More particularly, we want to argue for the need of what we will call non-textual standards. These are features of the world of experience that must be assumed to be shared between us and the (...) historical authors we study. While they must be used in tandem with the recognised contextual standards of conceptual change, we will argue that without recourse to at least some non-textual standards, important kinds of conceptual change will remain inexplicable. (shrink)

Avicenna’s logical theory of negative judgement can be seen as a systematic development of the insights Aristotle had laid out in the De interpretatione. However, in order to grasp the full extent of his theory one must extend the examination from the logical works to the metaphysical and psychological bases of negative judgement. Avicenna himself often refrains from the explicit treatment of the connections between logic and metaphysics or psychology, or treats them in a rather oblique fashion. Time and again (...) he is satisfied with noting that this or that question is not proper for a logician and should be dealt with in metaphysics or psychology—without bothering to refer his reader to the exact loci. The following is an attempt at a reconstruction of Avicenna’s theory of negative judgement in such a broad fashion. I will begin with his analysis of negative judgement as resulting from an operation of ‘removing’ the predicate term from the subject term. On this basis, I will move on to discuss how he conceives of the relation between negative judgements and affirmative judgements that contain privative or metathetic terms as well as the question of whether negative judgements can be reduced to affirmative ones. Having thus laid out his logical theory of negation, I move on to discuss the underlying metaphysics by looking at the relation between existence and non-existence, and existence and privation. Finally, I will address Avicenna’s scattered psychological remarks on how we can conceive of what does not exist. (shrink)

Teksti luonnehtii lyhyesti islamilaisen filosofian tutkimuksen nykytilaa sekä esittää tiivistelmän symposiumissa käsiteltävän kirjani keskeisestä sisällöstä.

In _Suhrawardī’s Illuminationism_, Jari Kaukua offers a new interpretation of Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī’s illuminationist philosophy. Commonly portrayed as a mystic, Suhrawardī appears here as a critical and systematic philosopher.

Puheenvuoro vastaa Knuuttilan, Mattilan ja Palménin keskeisiin kommentteihin. Erityisen huomion kohteena ovat mahdolliset vasta-argumentit käsiteltävässä kirjassa esittämiäni tulkintoja tai erityisesti Ibn Sīnān itsetietoisuuden käsitettä kohtaan.

in a seminal and highly influential study, Werner Jaeger presented the development of Aristotle, or Aristotelianism, as the emergence of an empiricist alternative to the rationalist fold of Plato and Platonism.1 Pitting perceived phenomena against the recollection of innate ideas, Aristotle founded knowledge on the perception of universal features and regularities in concrete things instead of an intuitive access to a separate world of incorporeal forms. In close analysis, such a straightforward opposition is forced, of course, and sets aside a (...) number of complicated questions of interpretation. To say nothing of Plato, Aristotle's alleged empiricism stands in rather stark contrast to the axiomatic tendencies in his... (shrink)

Mullā Ṣadrā Shīrāzī subscribes to the Avicennian view according to which the human subject is always and fully aware of herself. At the same time, his eschatology hinges on the Qur’ānic motif of the soul as a closed book that is first opened on the Final Day, that is, on the idea that each soul’s share in the afterlife should be understood as the full revelation of the soul’s true nature to itself. The two ideas thus have seemingly contradictory entailments: (...) the soul is fully aware of and transparent to itself, but at the same time it has aspects that can remain opaque to it, at least in this life. The task of this paper is to investigate whether Ṣadrā can coherently hold on to the two ideas, and what kind of revisions this requires him to make to the received concepts of self and self-awareness. (shrink)

Contemporary caution of anachronism in intellectual history on the one hand, and currently momentous theoretical emphasis on subjectivity on the other, are two prevailing circumstances that set puzzling constraints for studies in the history of philosophical psychology. Together these circumstances call for heightened awareness of our own interpretive presuppositions as historians: the former urges against assuming ideas, motives, and concepts that may be alien in the historical intellectual setting under study and the latter suggests caution in relying on our intuitions (...) regarding subjectivity due to the specific and historicallycontingent characterisations subjectivity has attained in the contemporary philosophy of mind. In face of these enticements our paper explores subjectivity as a non-textual standard of interpretation. Taking into account recent methodological discussion and examples of denials of the relevance of subjectivity for historical theories, we argue that historical work should be conceived as a reflective investigation into what is and what is not genuinely historical. In particular, we show how subjectivity can function as a pre-conceptualized feature of the world that has an effect on our concept formation. (shrink)

Contemporary caution against anachronism in intellectual history, and the currently momentous theoretical emphasis on subjectivity in the philosophy of mind, are two prevailing conditions that set puzzling constraints for studies in the history of philosophical psychology. The former urges against assuming ideas, motives, and concepts that are alien to the historical intellectual setting under study, and combined with the latter suggests caution in relying on our intuitions regarding subjectivity due to the historically contingent characterizations it has attained in contemporary philosophy (...) of mind. In the face of these conditions, our paper raises a question of what we call non-textual standards of interpretation of historical texts, and proceeds to explore subjectivity as such a standard. Non-textual standards are defined as postulations of features of the world or our experience of it that we must suppose to be immune to historical variation in order to understand a historical text. Although the postulation of such standards is often so obvious that the fact of our doing so is not noticed at all, we argue that the problems in certain special cases, such as that of subjectivity, force us to pay attention to the methodological questions involved. Taking into account both recent methodological discussion and the problems inherent in two de facto denials of the relevance of subjectivity for historical theories, we argue that there are good grounds for the adoption of subjectivity as a nontextual standard for historical work in philosophical psychology. (shrink)