Fedor Benevich
Biographic Data
| ID | 5923809 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Fedor Benevich |
| GIVEN NAMES | Fedor |
| FAMILY NAME | Benevich |
| SIGNATURE | BENEVICH F |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Edinburgh |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7338-6731 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 10 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
Pleasure, Pain, and Desire
This article addresses the primary arguments, concepts, and methods associated with the philosophical analysis of mental states in classical kalām. My discussion will be based on the analysis of pleasure and pain, as well as desire and aversion. These two closely related pairs serve as perfect examples of kalām strategies in the philosophy of mind. We will see that scholars of kalām commonly rely on direct, either phenomenal or empirical, observa…
Nonreductive Theories of Sense-Perception in the Philosophy of Kalām
In this article, I will argue that various scholars of kalām unanimously agree that sense-perception is something beyond the physical processes in the sense organs. There may be something happening in our eyes when we see a red apple, but seeing a red apple is not tantamount to it. We will see that some scholars of kalām argue that sense-perception is akin to being aware or conscious of the object of perception, and, hence, distinct from the phys…
Necessary Existence and the Doctrine of Being in Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Healing, written by Daniel D. De Haan
Avicennian essentialism
Essentialism can be defined as a metaphysical theory according to which things have essential and accidental properties. In this paper, I will address Avicennian essentialism, that is, essentialism as we find it in Avicenna’s own writings and the writings of the immediate post-Avicennian philosophical tradition of the Islamic world. I will consider a number of primary sources, summarize the state of recent scholarship regarding Avicennian metaphy…
Meaning and Definition
The theory of essential definitions is a fundamental anti‐sceptic element of the Aristotelian‐Avicennian epistemology. In this theory, when we distinguish the genus and the specific differentia of a given essence we thereby acquire a scientific understanding of it. The aim of this article is to analyse systematically the sceptical reasons, arguments and conclusions against real definitions of three major authorities of twelfth‐century Arabic phil…
Knowledge as a Mental State in Muʿtazilite Kalām
It is commonly accepted that the definition of knowledge is not among the main epistemological concerns of the period between Plato and Edmund Gettier. Kalām is an exception to the rule. Kalām scholars provide a detailed philosophical analysis of the difference between knowledge and mere true belief. In this article, I am focusing on the analysis of knowledge in one tradition of kalām , Bahšamite Muʿtazilism. I will argue that knowledge is a fact…
Perceiving Things in Themselves
What are the proper objects of perception? Two famous responses to this question hold that they are either the images of extramental objects, that is, the way in which they appear to us (representationalism), or they are the objects themselves (direct realism). In this paper, I present an analysis of this issue by Abū l-Barakāt al-Baġdādī (d. 1164/65), a post-Avicennian scholar whose impact on the history of Islamic philosophy has been largely ne…
Fire and Heat
Avicenna's analysis of the definition of substance and accident repeatedly emphasizes two points: one and the same essence cannot be substance in one instance and accident in another; whether x is extrinsic or intrinsic for an underlying subject, y does not tell us anything as to whether x is substance or not. Both points are development in an argument against certain unnamed people who claimed the opposite. In this article I will show that Avice…
The Essence-Existence Distinction
The essence-existence distinction was a central issue in metaphysical disputes among post-Avicennian thinkers in the Islamic world. One group argued that what a thing is is different from that it is only conceptually. A rival view would have it that the distinction between essence and existence is real. The purpose of this article is to analyze the philosophical core of the dispute, by isolating the main arguments and their metaphysical foundatio…
The Classical Ashʿari Theory of Aḥwāl
Perhaps the most well-known feature of Islamic dialectical theology, kalām, is its assumption that created things are atomic ‘substances’ whose properties are called ‘accidents’. Within kalām itself, there were debates as to whether this twofold analysis of created reality was sufficient. For there are not only concrete accidents like ‘this black’, that is, but the features shared by such individual accidents—for instance ‘blackness’. To handle s…
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The Classical Ashʿari Theory of Aḥwāl
Perhaps the most well-known feature of Islamic dialectical theology, kalām, is its assumption that created things are atomic ‘substances’ whose properties are called ‘accidents’. Within kalām itself, there were debates as to whether this twofold analysis of created reality was sufficient. For there are not only concrete accidents like ‘this black’, that is, but the features shared by such individual accidents—for instance ‘blackness’. To handle s…
Fire and Heat
Avicenna's analysis of the definition of substance and accident repeatedly emphasizes two points: one and the same essence cannot be substance in one instance and accident in another; whether x is extrinsic or intrinsic for an underlying subject, y does not tell us anything as to whether x is substance or not. Both points are development in an argument against certain unnamed people who claimed the opposite. In this article I will show that Avice…
The Essence-Existence Distinction
The essence-existence distinction was a central issue in metaphysical disputes among post-Avicennian thinkers in the Islamic world. One group argued that what a thing is is different from that it is only conceptually. A rival view would have it that the distinction between essence and existence is real. The purpose of this article is to analyze the philosophical core of the dispute, by isolating the main arguments and their metaphysical foundatio…
Perceiving Things in Themselves
What are the proper objects of perception? Two famous responses to this question hold that they are either the images of extramental objects, that is, the way in which they appear to us (representationalism), or they are the objects themselves (direct realism). In this paper, I present an analysis of this issue by Abū l-Barakāt al-Baġdādī (d. 1164/65), a post-Avicennian scholar whose impact on the history of Islamic philosophy has been largely ne…
Necessary Existence and the Doctrine of Being in Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Healing, written by Daniel D. De Haan
Avicennian essentialism
Essentialism can be defined as a metaphysical theory according to which things have essential and accidental properties. In this paper, I will address Avicennian essentialism, that is, essentialism as we find it in Avicenna’s own writings and the writings of the immediate post-Avicennian philosophical tradition of the Islamic world. I will consider a number of primary sources, summarize the state of recent scholarship regarding Avicennian metaphy…
Meaning and Definition
The theory of essential definitions is a fundamental anti‐sceptic element of the Aristotelian‐Avicennian epistemology. In this theory, when we distinguish the genus and the specific differentia of a given essence we thereby acquire a scientific understanding of it. The aim of this article is to analyse systematically the sceptical reasons, arguments and conclusions against real definitions of three major authorities of twelfth‐century Arabic phil…
Knowledge as a Mental State in Muʿtazilite Kalām
It is commonly accepted that the definition of knowledge is not among the main epistemological concerns of the period between Plato and Edmund Gettier. Kalām is an exception to the rule. Kalām scholars provide a detailed philosophical analysis of the difference between knowledge and mere true belief. In this article, I am focusing on the analysis of knowledge in one tradition of kalām , Bahšamite Muʿtazilism. I will argue that knowledge is a fact…
Nonreductive Theories of Sense-Perception in the Philosophy of Kalām
In this article, I will argue that various scholars of kalām unanimously agree that sense-perception is something beyond the physical processes in the sense organs. There may be something happening in our eyes when we see a red apple, but seeing a red apple is not tantamount to it. We will see that some scholars of kalām argue that sense-perception is akin to being aware or conscious of the object of perception, and, hence, distinct from the phys…
Pleasure, Pain, and Desire
This article addresses the primary arguments, concepts, and methods associated with the philosophical analysis of mental states in classical kalām. My discussion will be based on the analysis of pleasure and pain, as well as desire and aversion. These two closely related pairs serve as perfect examples of kalām strategies in the philosophy of mind. We will see that scholars of kalām commonly rely on direct, either phenomenal or empirical, observa…
Epistemology (10 works) · Islamic Thought and Society Studies (9 works) · Medieval and Classical Philosophy (9 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Families in Therapy and Culture (5 works) · Islamic Studies and History (5 works) · Metaphysics (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Theology (4 works) · Computer Science (3 works)