This article reassesses the relationship between the tenth-century Muslim philosopher Abū al-Ḥasan al-'Āmirī (d. 992) and the pre-Socratic Greek thinker Empedocles. Earlier scholarship has focused on al-'Āmirī's popular work al-Amad (Afterlife), in which Empedocles, or rather a medieval construct known as pseudo-Empedocles or Empedocles arabus, is largely celebrated as a sage with Qur'ānic pedigree. By focusing for the first time on two largely unstudied treatises by al-'Āmirī, I argue that al-'Āmirī actually holds an overwhelmingly critical view of the authentic, historical Empedocles, a view formed through his engagement with arguments from Aristotle's Physics and On the Soul. Al-'Āmirī finds in Aristotle the evidence needed to ascribe to Empedocles an unorthodox position on material determinism and the role of providence in natural generation. Curiously, he is able to make similar accusations against Galen. This article also highlights al-'Āmirī's complicated position at the confluence of Neoplatonic metaphysics, Galenic physiology, and Aristotelian natural philosophy.
...More
Article
Dustin Klinger;
(2022)
Rereading Metaphysics Ε2-3: Aristotle's Argument against Determinism, and How Averroes Twisted It in His Long Commentary
(/isis/citation/CBB837035991/)
Thesis
Galsworthy, Carrie;
(2010)
Language and Intent in Empedocles' Cosmic Cycle
(/isis/citation/CBB001560877/)
Book
Dag Nikolaus Hasse;
Amos Bertolacci;
(2018)
The Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin Reception of Avicenna's Physics and Cosmology
(/isis/citation/CBB464758264/)
Article
Berg, Hein van den;
(2013)
The Wolffian Roots of Kant's Teleology
(/isis/citation/CBB001320551/)
Book
Fabrizio Bigotti;
(2020)
Physiology of the Soul: Mind, Body and Matter in the Galenic Tradition of Late Renaissance, 1550-1630
(/isis/citation/CBB286303811/)
Article
Wolfe, Charles T.;
(2014)
Teleomechanism Redux? Functional Physiology and Hybrid Models of Life in Early Modern Natural Philosophy
(/isis/citation/CBB001451908/)
Book
Dudley, John;
(2012)
Aristotle's Concept of Chance: Accidents, Cause, Necessity, and Determinism
(/isis/citation/CBB001201754/)
Book
Cassandra Gorman;
(2021)
The Atom in Seventeenth-Century Poetry
(/isis/citation/CBB486681154/)
Article
Leen Spruit;
(2017)
Sebastiano Bartoli on Life and the Soul
(/isis/citation/CBB245646731/)
Article
Martine Pécharman;
(2020)
Kenelm Digby on Quantity as Divisibility
(/isis/citation/CBB645048085/)
Article
Rodolfo Garau;
(2016)
Springs, Nitre, and Conatus. The Role of the Heart in Hobbes's Physiology and Animal Locomotion
(/isis/citation/CBB028109372/)
Article
García Valverde, José Manuel;
(2007)
El galenismo crítico de Girolamo Cardano: Análisis de la presencia de galeno en el De Immortalitate Animorum
(/isis/citation/CBB000831503/)
Book
Horstmanshoff, H. F. J.;
King, Helen;
Zittel, Claus;
(2012)
Blood, Sweat, and Tears: The Changing Concepts of Physiology from Antiquity into Early Modern Europe
(/isis/citation/CBB001252880/)
Book
Cooper, John Madison;
(2004)
Knowledge, Nature, and the Good: Essays on Ancient Philosophy
(/isis/citation/CBB000650408/)
Article
Luis Alejandro Salas;
(2020)
Galen on the Definition of Disease
(/isis/citation/CBB302055617/)
Article
Mason, Andrew;
(2013)
The Nous Doctrine in Plato's Thought
(/isis/citation/CBB001213463/)
Article
Tommaso Sgarro;
(2020)
Fisiologia e provvidenza in Campanella
(/isis/citation/CBB293360928/)
Article
Lewis, Orly;
Gregoric, Pavel;
(2015)
The Context of De Spiritu
(/isis/citation/CBB001551343/)
Article
Claire Bubb;
(2019)
The Physiology of Phantasmata in Aristotle: Between Sensation and Digestion
(/isis/citation/CBB675892501/)
Article
Daniel Coren;
(2020)
Aristotle on Motion in Incomplete Animals
(/isis/citation/CBB473772713/)
Be the first to comment!