TOPICS:INTRO TO CLASSICAL ARABIC PHILOSOPHY in Spring 2025 (PL2091A)

This course is designed in order to have an overall approach of what is commonly called “Arabic” or “Islamic” classical philosophy (mainly from 9th to 13th Century), which enroots in two different cultural realms. First, it is the Greek thought legacy that has never ceased to be practised in the Near East after Aristotle (in Greek and Syriac languages). Secondly, this thought accompanied and survived the rise of the new monotheistic religions and contributed to shape the Christian Patristic tradition. It then encountered the new thought categories that arose with the birth of Islam and its own civilization. Philosophy knew and lived then a new revival that had been encouraged by Abbasid caliphs, in a way it dealt with ancient topics and new ones. Students will be able to observe, with this course, that Islam, that does not belong to the Antique period nor to the European Middle Ages, allowed philosophy to be practised along with theology, because of the meeting points of interest. Besides, philosophical activity, the way it had been followed, contributed in a certain way in the birth and development of Islamic theology (known as the discipline of kalam). Concepts, periods and authors will be approached along with the new system of ideas and fabric of arguments that have organized and shaped the debate for centuries.