Syllabus detailed

DETAILED COURSE SYLLABUS

Note: In the following syllabus:

- CAP refers to CLASSICAL ARABIC PHILOSOPHY. AN ANTHOLOGY OF SOURCES, Jon McGinnis and David C. Reisman, eds. (Indianapolis / Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2007).

- CCAP refers to THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO ARABIC PHILOSOPHY (Cambridge: CUP, 2005). See the Marquette Philosophy Databases website at

https://www.marquette.edu/library/research/phil.html

- CCCIT refers to THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO CLASSICAL ISLAMIC THEOLOGY (Cambridge: CUP, 2008) See the Marquette Theology Databases website at

https://www.marquette.edu/library/research/phil.html

- Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy refers to the on-line version available through Marquette’s Raynor Library.

- SEP refers to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy available on-line at http://plato.stanford.edu/

- ARES refers to the Marquette University Raynor Library ARES Reserves system

#1: 08/26 TUIntroduction to the course and its objectives.

1. Course overview;

2. Course syllabus: final causes; course structure;

2. Greek background;

3. Islam.

Assigned readings to be completed within the first two weeks of class:

(i) Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture

(London;NY: Routledge, 1998);

(ii) CCCIT Introduction and chapters 1-5.

##2: 08/28 TH 1. “Tools of the Trade”: Bibliography, on-line resources, and more:

Daiber, Druart, Wirmer, Index Islamicus, International Philosophical

Bibliography, Muslim Philosophy website; more;

2. Methodologies.

Assigned readings:

(i) Dimitri Gutas, “The Study of Arabic Philosophy in the Twentieth Century. An Essay on the Historiography of Arabic Philosophy,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 29 (2002) 5-25.

(ii) CAP Introduction, parts I-III

Recommended reading:

Gerhard Endress, “Building the Library of Arabic Philosophy. Platonism and Aristotelianism in the Sources of al-Kindî,” in The Libraries of the Neoplatonists, Cristina D’Ancona, ed. (Brill: Leiden; Boston, 2007), pp. 319-350;

Peter Adamson, “The Kindian Tradition. The Structure of Philosophy in Arabic Neoplatonism,” Ibid., pp.351-370.

Gerhard Endress, “The Circle of al-Kindi. Early Arabic Translations from the Greek and the Rise of Islamic Philosophy,” The Ancient Tradition in Christian and Islamic Hellenism, ed. G. Endress and R. Kruk (Leiden, 1997);

#7: 09/16 TU al-Kindî, continued.

#8: 09/18 TU al-Fârâbî: Psychology, Metaphysics, Politics, Religion.

Assigned Readings:

(i) The Aims of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, in CAP, pp.78-81;

(ii) The Principles of Existing Things, in CAP, pp.81-120;

(iii) On the Intellect, in CAP, pp. 68-78;

(iv) David C. Reisman, “al-Fârâbî and the philosophical curriculum,” CCAP, pp. 52-71

Recommended:

al-Fârabi, The Book of Religion in Alfarabi: The Political Writings, Charles E. Butterworth, tr. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001).

Druart, Gutas, Black and Mahdi, “al-Fârâbî” in the Encyclopedia Iranica, available at http://www.iranica.com/newsite/

Deborah Black, “al-Farabi,” The History of Islamic Philosophy, Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman, ed. (Routledge: London, 1996);

Majid Fakhry, Al-Fârâbî. Founder of Islamic Neoplatonism (Oxford: Oneworld, 2002);

Richard C. Taylor, “Abstraction in al-Fârâbî,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 80 (2006) 151-168.

#8: 09/23 TH al-Fârâbî, continued.

#9: 09/25 TU al-Fârâbî, continued.

#10: 09/30 TUIbn Sina (Avicenna): Metaphysics and Psychology

Assigned readings:

(i) Metaphysics: Avicenna, Metaphysics (Marmura trans.), 1 ch.1-6: Method, Subject Mattter; Primary Concepts; Necessary and Possible Being. (Forthcoming on ARES.)

(ii) Metaphysics 6 ch.1-2: Causes, Metaphysical Efficient Cause; (Forthcoming)

(iii) Metaphysics 8: the First Principle; Metaphysics 10 ch.2-5: (Forthcoming)

(iv) Psychology: selections (Forthcoming on ARES.)

(v) On the Proof of Prophecies, tr. Marmura. (Forthcoming on ARES.)

(vi) Robert Wisnovsky, “Avicenna and the Avicennian Tradition,” CCAP, pp. 92-136;

(vii) Deborah Black, “Psychology: soul and intellect,” CCAP, pp. 308-326;

(viii) Th.-A. Druart, “Metaphysics,“ CCAP, pp. 327-348

Recommended:

“Avicenna” Encyclopedia Iranica available at http://www.iranica.com/newsite/

Other recommendations forthcoming.

#11: 10/02 THAvicenna, continued.

#12: 10/07 TUAvicenna, continued.

#13: 10/09 THNo class due to required attendance at Oct. 11-12 Conference

10/11-12 Sat-Sun Aquinas and the Arabs Conference. Required attendance in lieu of

class on 10/09 and 11/25.

Assignment: Summary analysis (with 2 questions) of two presentations.

#14: 10/14 TUal-Ghazâlî and confrontation with the philosophers

Assigned readings:

(i) The Deliverance from Error, available at http://www.witness-pioneer.org/vil/Books/AG_DFE/default.htm. The preferred translation is that of Richard McCarthy in Freedom and Fulfillment (Boston: Twayne, 1980.)

(ii) Concerning that on which true demonstration is based, CAP pp.239-241.

(iii) The Incoherence of the Philosophers, Third Discussion, “On showing their obfuscation in saying that God is the world’s enactor and maker, that the world is His handiwork and act; showing that with them this is metaphor, not reality,” M. E. Marmura, tr., (Provo, Utah: BYU Press, 1997), pp. 56-78. (Forthcoming on ARES.)

(iv) M. E. Marmura, “al-Ghazali,“ CCAP, pp. 137-154.

Highly recommended:

Frank Griffel, “al-Ghazali,” SEP.

#15: 10/16 THal-Ghazali continued.

# 16: 10/21 TUExam #1 (20%)

#17: 10/23 TUIbn Bâjja and Ibn Tufayl

Natural Philosophy, epistemology and metaphysics, political philosophy

Assigned readings:

(i) Selection from Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, CAP, pp. 267-269;

(ii) Conjunction of the Intellect with Man, CAP, pp. 269-284.

(iii) Selection from The Governance of the Solitary, (Forthcoming)

(iv) Josep Puig Montada, “Philosophy in Andalusia: Ibn Bâjja and Ibn Tufayl,” CCAP, pp. 155-180;

(v) Josep Puig Montada, “Ibn Bajja,” in SEP.

(vi) Selections from Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, CAP, pp. 284-293;

RECOMMENDED:

Taneli Kukkonen, “No Man is an Island: Nature and Neo-Platonic Ethics in Hayy Ibn Yaqzan,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 46.2 (2008) pp. 187-204. (Available through Marqcat.)

#19: 10/28 TUAverroes on Philosophy and Religion

Assigned readings:

(i) Averroes. Decisive Treatise, CAP, pp. 309-330.

(ii) Richard C. Taylor, “’Truth Does Not Contradict Truth’: “Averroes and the Unity of Truth,” Topoi 19.1 (2000) 3-16. (Forthcoming on ARES.)

(iii) ---, “Ibn Rushd / Averroes and ‘ Islamic’ Rationalism,” forthcoming in the Proceedings of the October 2007 conference “Al-Andalus: Cultural Diffusion and Hybridity in Iberia (1000-1600),” at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

#20: 10/30 TH Averroes: Society, Religion and the Shari`ah of the Philosophers.

Assigned readings:

(i) Incoherence of the Incoherence, Final Discussion;

(ii) selections from The Explanation of the Sorts of Proofs in the Doctrines of Religion (Forthcoming on ARES.)

(iii) Richard C. Taylor, “Averroes: Religious Dialectic and Aristotelian Philosophical Thought,” CCAP, pp.180-200.

(iv) ---, “Averroes: God and the Noble Lie,” in Laudemus viros gloriosos. Essays in Honor of Armand Maurer, CSB, ed. R. E. Houser, (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007) 38-59.

#21: 11/04 TUAverroes on Soul and Intellect

Assigned readings:

(i) Selections translations from his Commentaries on the De Anima of Aristotle provided by the instructor;

(ii) Alfred Ivry, “ Arabic and Islamic Psychology and Philosophy of Mind,” SEP.

#22: 11/06 THAverroes: Cosmology, Metaphysics and God.

Assigned readings:

(i) Selections from the Long Commentary on the Metaphysics (Forthcoming).