Peter Adamson
Biographic Data
| ID | 461083 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Peter Adamson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Peter |
| FAMILY NAME | Adamson |
| SIGNATURE | ADAMSON P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9256-2366 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 48 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 4 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 41 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 7 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1983 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Women of the world: Teaching women thinkers in pre-modern global philosophy
This paper reflects on experiences teaching courses on women thinkers from antiquity and the medieval period. The discussion is built around a proposed syllabus (similar to one used in teaching at King's College London) which includes readings on women in ancient, medieval, and Renaissance European philosophy, as well as ancient China and India, the medieval Islamic world, and African oral traditions. The paper concludes with general reflections …
The Necessity and Goodness of Animals in Sijistānī’s Kashf Al-Maḥjūb
The Neoplatonic notion of “emanation” implies a required progression through hierarchical stages, originating from the highest principle (the One or God) and cascading down through a series of principles. While this process is deemed necessary, it is also inherently good, even “choiceworthy”, aligning with the identification of the first principle with the Good. Plotinus, a prominent Neoplatonist, emphasizes the beauty and goodness of the sensibl…
Thinking with Rosa: Assent in philosophy of the Islamic world
In Thinking with Assent: Renewing a Traditional Account of Knowledge and Belief, Maria Rosa Antognazza offers a historical narrative of pre-modern epistemology.She argues that until very recently, philosophers generally held that "knowing and believing are distinct in kind in the strong sense that they are mutually exclusive mental states".This paper tests, and ultimately confirms, that account by applying it two thinkers of the Islamic world, al…
Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī on Animal Cognition and Immortality
This paper is devoted to a fascinating passage in Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1210), in which he argues that non-human animals have rational souls. It is found in his Mulaḫḫaṣ fī l-manṭiq wa-l-ḥikma ( Epitome on Philosophy and Logic ). Following a discussion of the afterlife, Faḫr al-Dīn suggests that animals should, like humans, be capable of grasping universals, and that they are aware of their own identity over time. Furthermore, animal behavior s…
Al-Bīrūnī on Greek and Indian Philosophy: Divine Action and Reincarnation
In his monumental work on Indian culture and society, al-Bīrūnī (d. around 1048 AD ) sets out a multifaceted program. He aims at gathering various Indian religious, philosophical, and scientific beliefs for his Muslim audience, and in a second step compares this material to Greek philosophy and even Islamic doctrines. In this paper, we discuss al-Bīrūnī’s attitude towards his sources and his methodology in distinguishing beliefs held by the masse…
Ancient Women Philosophers: Recovered Ideas and New Perspectives
Intuition in the Avicennan tradition
Many later thinkers in the Islamic world pick up on, and further expand, the idea of intuition (ḥads) as they react to Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā). Focusing on figures from the twelfth–thirteenth century, in this paper we will focus especially on the following points of debate: (1) Avicenna’s idea that intuition is distingiushed from normal (discursive) thought by lacking ‘motion’, (2) The question of how and why different individuals differ in the exten…
Averroes on Intellect: From Aristotelian Origins to Aquinas’s Critique
There have been philosophers who sought to preserve and ratify the dictates’ common sense, and there have been philosophers who were willing to overturn and correct those dictates. And then there was Averroes. His most notorious doctrine is not just counterintuitive. It commits him to something that seems self-evidently false, namely that there is only a single mind to which all human thought is related. As his most famous critic, Thomas Aquinas,…
Philosophy in the Islamic World: Volume 2/1: 11th-12th Centuries: Central and Eastern Regions
Philosophy in the Islamic World is a comprehensive and unprecedented four-volume reference work devoted to the history of philosophy in the realms of Islam, from its beginnings in the eighth century AD down to modern times. In the period covered by this second volume (eleventh and twelfth centuries). Both major and minor figures of the period are covered, giving details of biography and doctrine, as well as detailed lists and summaries of each au…
Received Wisdom: The Use of Authority in Medieval Islamic Philosophy
In this paper I challenge the notion that medieval philosophy was characterized by strict adherence to authority. In particular, I argue that to the contrary, self-consciously critical reflection on authority was a widespread intellectual virtue in the Islamic world. The contrary vice, called ‘taqlīd’, was considered appropriate only for those outside the scholarly elite. I further suggest that this idea was originally developed in the context of…
State and Nature: Studies in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy
Classical Indian Philosophy: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 5
Peter Adamson and Jonardon Ganeri present a lively introduction to one of the world's richest intellectual traditions: the philosophy of classical India. They begin with the earliest extant literature, the Vedas, and the explanatory works that these inspired, known as Upani.sads. They also discuss other famous texts of classical Vedic culture, especially the Mah=abh=arata and its most notable section, the Bhagavad-G=ita, alongside the rise of Bud…
Health: A History
Philosophy and Jurisprudence in the Islamic World
Animals
It is commonly assumed that serious philosophical reflection on animals goes back only a few hundred years, to the Utilitarians or to the rise of Darwinism. This volume shows that, to the contrary, animals have been a subject of controversy and reflection in all periods of the history of philosophy. We trace the story from Greek and Indian antiquity through the Islamic and Latin medieval traditions, to Renaissance and early modern thought, ending…
The Simplicity of Self-Knowledge After Avicenna
Alongside his much-discussed theory that humans are permanently, if only tacitly, self-aware, Avicenna proposed that in actively conscious self-knowers the subject and object of thought are identical. He applies to both humans and God the slogan that the self-knower is “intellect, intellecting, and object of intellection ( ‘aql, ‘āqil, ma‘qūl )”. This paper examines reactions to this idea in the Islamic East from the 12th-13th centuries. A wide r…
Philosophers, Sufis and Caliphs: Politics and Authority from Cordoba to Cairo and Baghdad, written by Ali Humayun Akhtar
Kant on Animals: A History
This chapter focuses on Kant’s position concerning the nature of nonhuman animals and the moral obligations that humans have toward animals. It begins by describing Kant’s account of the nature of animals and the distinction between humans and nonhuman animals. It then moves on to explaining Kant’s account of the nature of moral obligation and his oft-misunderstood contention that we do not have “duties to” nonhuman animals but only “duties with …
Fakhr Al-Dīn Al-Rāzī on Place
The twelfth century philosopher-theologian Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī is well known for his critique of Avicennan metaphysics. In this paper, I examine his critique of Avicenna's physics, and in particular his rejection of the Avicennan and Aristotelian theory of place as the inner boundary of a containing body. Instead, Fakhr al-Dīn defends a definition of place as self-subsisting extension, an idea explicitly rejected by Aristotle and Avicenna after …
Miskawayh on Pleasure
This paper provides an analysis and translation of a previously edited, but otherwise unstudied work by Miskawayh (d. 1030) entitled On Pleasures and Pains ( Fī al-Laḏḏāt wa-al-ālām ). After a brief orientation regarding the Aristotelian account of pleasure in the Nicomachean Ethics , which is Miskawayh's main source, the theory of pleasure set out in On Pleasures and Pains is compared to the discussion of pleasure in Miskawayh's better known Ref…
Economy, Family, and Society from Rome to Islam: A Critical Edition, English Translation, and Study of Bryson's 'Management of the Estate' By Simon SWAIN
Journal Article Economy, Family, and Society from Rome to Islam: A Critical Edition, English Translation, and Study of Bryson’s ‘Management of the Estate’ By Simon Swain Get access Economy, Family, and Society from Rome to Islam: A Critical Edition, English Translation, and Study of Bryson’s ‘Management of the Estate’ By Simon Swain (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), xiv + 573 pp. Price HB £100.00. EAN 978–1107025363. Pet…
Late Antiquity
Classical philosophy: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps
Peter Adamson aims ultimately to present a complete history of philosophy, more thoroughly but also more enjoyably than ever before. He offers an accessible, humorous, and detailed look at the emergence of philosophy with the Presocratics, the probing questions of Socrates, and the first full flowering of philosophy with the dialogues of Plato and the treatises of Aristotle. The story is told 'without any gaps', discussing not only such major fig…
From the necessary existent to God
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Interpreting Avicenna: Critical Essays
Avicenna is the greatest philosopher of the Islamic world. His immense impact on Christian and Jewish medieval thought, as well as on the subsequent Islamic tradition, is charted in this volume alongside studies which provide a comprehensive introduction to and analysis of his philosophy. Contributions from leading scholars address a wide range of topics including Avicenna's life and works, conception of philosophy and achievement in logic and me…
Kant on Animals: A History
This chapter focuses on Kant’s position concerning the nature of nonhuman animals and the moral obligations that humans have toward animals. It begins by describing Kant’s account of the nature of animals and the distinction between humans and nonhuman animals. It then moves on to explaining Kant’s account of the nature of moral obligation and his oft-misunderstood contention that we do not have “duties to” nonhuman animals but only “duties with …
Neoplatonism
De la teoría a la practica
Aristotelianism and the Soul in the Arabic Plotinus
It is common for historians of medieval thought to note that the influence of Aristotle on Islamic philosophy was tinged with Neoplatonism, thanks to a text known as the "Theology of Aristotle." It is now known that the "Theology" is in fact not a work of Aristotle's but rather a paraphrase of parts of Plotinus's Enneads. Certainly, the misattribution of this work to Aristotle facilitated the spread of Neoplatonism as an aspect of Islamic peripat…
Averroes: A Rationalist in Islam (review)
David Streight's translation of Roger Arnaldez's Averroès makes this brief overview of the life and thought of Averroes (Ibn Rushd, 1126-98) available to an English-speaking audience. The importance of Averroes as a linchpin in the transmission of Greek thought, especially Aristotle, from the Arabic- to the Latin-speaking world, and the interest of Averroes' views on the nature of the human intellect, the relationship between philosophy and relig…
Al-Kindī and the Mu‘tazila: Divine Attributes, Creation and Freedom
The paper discusses al-Kindī's response to doctrines held by contemporary theologians of the Mu‘tazilite school: divine attributes, creation, and freedom. In the first section it is argued that, despite his broadly negative theology, al-Kindī recognizes a special kind of “essential” positive attribute belonging to God. The second section argues that al-Kindī agreed with the Mu‘tazila in holding that something may not yet exist but still be an obj…
The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy
Philosophy written in Arabic and in the Islamic world represents one of the great traditions of Western philosophy. Inspired by Greek philosophical works and the indigenous ideas of Islamic theology, Arabic philosophers from the ninth century onwards put forward ideas of great philosophical and historical importance. This collection of essays, by some of the leading scholars in Arabic philosophy, provides an introduction to the field by way of ch…
Correcting Plotinus: Soul's Relationship to Body in Avicenna's Commentary on the Theology of Aristotle
CORRECTING PLOTINUS: SOUL'S RELATIONSHIP TO BODY IN AVICENNA'S COMMENTARY ON THE THEOLOGY OF ARISTOTLE Get access PETER ADAMSON PETER ADAMSON King's College London Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Volume 47, Issue Supplement_83_Part_2, February 2004, Pages 59–75, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-5370.2004.tb02309.x Published: 22 February 2011
The Cambridge companion to Arabic philosophy
Vision, Light and Color in Al-Kindī, Ptolemy and the Ancient Commentators
Al-Kindī was influenced by two Greek traditions in his attempts to explain vision, light and color. Most obviously, his works on optics are indebted to Euclid and, perhaps indirectly, to Ptolemy. But he also knew some works from the Aristotelian tradition that touch on the nature of color and vision. Al-Kindī explicitly rejects the Aristotelian account of vision in his De Aspectibus , and adopts a theory according to which we see by means of a vi…
Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism
Porphyrius Arabus on Nature and Art: 463F Smith in Context
Journal Article PORPHYRIUS ARABUS ON NATURE AND ART: 463F SMITH IN CONTEXT Get access PETER ADAMSON PETER ADAMSON King's College London Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Volume 50, Issue Supplement_98, October 2007, Pages 141–163, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-5370.2007.tb02510.x Published: 20 January 2014
Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism
Epistles of the Brethren of Purity. On Logic: An Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of Epistles 10-14 * Edited and translated by C. Baffioni
The massive collection of Epistles by the so-called ‘Brethren of Purity’ (Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ) is one of the more intriguing bodies of Islamic philosophical literature prior to Avicenna. The Epistles have been studied in the context of the history of Ismaʿilism, though it is unclear whether or not the anonymous authors in fact belonged to this tradition. The thought of the Brethren is widely recognized as an important testimony to the impact of Greek…
Neoplatonism
Posterior Analytics 2.19: A Dialogue With Plato
POSTERIOR ANALYTICS 2.19: A DIALOGUE WITH PLATO? Get access PETER ADAMSON PETER ADAMSON King's College London Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Volume 54, Issue Supplement_107, January 2011, Pages 1–19, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-5370.2011.tb00010.x Published: 24 March 2015
Islamic Philosophy, Science, Culture, and Religion: Studies in Honor of Dimitri Gutas, edited by Felicitas Opwis and David Reisman
First paragraph: A recent survey volume on medieval philosophy has called Dimitri Gutas, Professor of Arabic and Graeco-Arabic at Yale University, “the leading living historian of Islamic thought.” Such judgments are to some extent a matter of taste, of course, but few scholars have as good a claim to the title as Gutas. His publications include pioneer-ing work on the tradition of Greek-Arabic gnomologia, one of the most significant monographs e…
Neoplatonism
More than Heat and Light: Miskawayh's Epistle on Soul and Intellect
From the necessary existent to God
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Interpreting Avicenna: Critical Essays
Avicenna is the greatest philosopher of the Islamic world. His immense impact on Christian and Jewish medieval thought, as well as on the subsequent Islamic tradition, is charted in this volume alongside studies which provide a comprehensive introduction to and analysis of his philosophy. Contributions from leading scholars address a wide range of topics including Avicenna's life and works, conception of philosophy and achievement in logic and me…
The Judeo-Christian-Islamic Heritage: Philosophical and Theological Perspectives
Late Antiquity
Interpreting Avicenna: Critical Essays
Philosophy (36 works) · Epistemology (25 works) · Theology (24 works) · Medieval and Classical Philosophy (22 works) · Philosophy (18 works) · Islam (14 works) · Islamic Studies and History (14 works) · Classical Philosophy and Thought (13 works) · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies (13 works) · Art (12 works)