Short essays assignment 24 November 2011

Answer ONLY TWO of the following four questions

in no more than 1000 words total.

Note:

The limitation of length will require that you think carefully about the composition, content and coherence of your responses.

Also Note:

For each question you must provide a brief outline of no more than 1/2 page (not part of word total)

Deadline: 1 December 2011

=> send responses to each instructor via email by the end of that day <=

(1) How does Avicenna define and conceive creation? Explain the key notions that make up his understanding.

(2) How does al-Ghazali critique Avicenna on the notion ‘from the one only one thing proceeds’? (This is discussed in Lecture 5b on al-Ghazali.)

(3) How does Averroes understand Divine Knowledge? In answering explain how he responds to the differing views of Avicenna and al-Ghazali?

4. (4)What is the nature of the First Cause in the Liber de causis and the Plotiniana Arabica? Explain the key notions at work in the conception of the First Cause in those works as we have studied them.
   

SAMPLE

Here is a question with a sample outline:

"Briefly and concisely compare and contrast the understandings of creation according to Avicenna and Averroes"

in 500 words.

Outline:

1. introduction to the problem: the meaning of  "creation": does "creation" properly mean 

only creation ex nihilo? [2 sentences only]

2. Avicenna [ca. 200 words]

2.1. creation as creation ex nihilo in Avicenna

2.2. emanation as creation ex nihilo in Avicenna

3. Averroes [ca. 200 words]

3.1. creation as the actualization of potentiality

3.2. creation as ontological dependence

4. Differences and similarities in Avicenna and Averroes on creation [ca. 2-4 sentences]