The aim of this paper is to prove how what is apparently a mistake made by Plutarch, wheter deliberate or not, in his reference to the arson attack of Caesar´s soldiers in Alexandria as the end of the famous Library, show us the common sense of the term “bibliotheke” from that time up to now. Coming to this conclusion has required a detailed analysis of the Library of Alexandria since its birth applying Aristotelian doctrine to its configuration not only as (...) an organized space for books but also as an imaginary reading room from which the helenistic world of relations is established. In a second approach, we focus the attention on the change occurred in this collection with the introduction of alphabetical order and, then, with the philological activity of Callimachus. As a result of his Pinakes, the platonic concept of daimon, “guide”, became the first characteristic o a philologist or librarian. Using the information ordered in the Pinakes anybody could be a librarian and find a library anywhere. The old megále bibliotheke of Alexandría remains only with the idea of the conservation of original papyrus. This is de reason of the enigmatic sentence of Plutarch announcing the end of this situation caused by the action of the fire. (shrink)

Nuestro propósito aquí es el de dar cuenta, de un modo sumario, de la figura de Abu Bakr Zakariyya al-Razi (el Rhazes de los latinos) y los posibles orígenes de su pensamiento, así como presentar la originalidad de su pensamiento filosófico en el contexto de su tiempo y su cultura.

El presente trabajo pretende servir como introducción a una teodicea de la filosofía y la teología racionalista (mu'tazilí) árabe a partir de un texto de Algazel. Esta teología y filosofía cree que Dios ha creado el mejor de los mundos posibles debido a su esencia buena, siendo, por tanto, optimista y determinista. Sin embargo, este optimismo en la teología viene dado por la mera voluntad de Dios, mientras que en la filosofía por la causalidad y la necesidad lógica.

An introduction, from an al-Ghazâlî´s text, into a philosophic theodicy and an Arabic rationalistic theology (mu`tazili). Both of them, theology and philosophy, belive that God has created the best of possible worlds, so that, this world is optimistic and deterministic. However this optimism sense has different causes in them; for theodicy that is owing to Good wishes, while for philosophy is because of the causality and logical necessity.