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Philosophy

Selected Works

Jon McGinnis

Articles 1 - 12 of 12

Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Changing Motion: The Place (And Misplace) Of Avicenna's Theory Of Motion In The Post-Classical Islamic World, Jon Mcginnis Dec 2017

Changing Motion: The Place (And Misplace) Of Avicenna's Theory Of Motion In The Post-Classical Islamic World, Jon Mcginnis

Jon McGinnis

No abstract provided.

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Mind The Gap: The Reception Of Avicenna's New Argument Against Actually Infinite Space, Jon Mcginnis Dec 2017

Mind The Gap: The Reception Of Avicenna's New Argument Against Actually Infinite Space, Jon Mcginnis

Jon McGinnis

No abstract provided.

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Willful Understanding: Avicenna’S Philosophy Of Action And Theory Of The Will, Jon Mcginnis, Anthony Ruffus Jun 2017

Willful Understanding: Avicenna’S Philosophy Of Action And Theory Of The Will, Jon Mcginnis, Anthony Ruffus

Jon McGinnis

In this study, we look at two interpretive puzzles associated with the thought of Avicenna that are still of intrinsic philosophical interest today. The first concerns to what extent, if at all, Avicenna’s deity can be said to act freely. The second concerns to what extent, if at all, humans within Avicenna’s philosophical system can be said to act freely. It is our contention that only through a careful analysis of Avicenna’s theory of action can one begin to assess his position concerning the status of the will and so provide a satisfactory response to these two interpretative issues. We …

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A Small Discovery: Avicenna's Theory Of Minima Naturalia, Jon Mcginnis Jun 2017

A Small Discovery: Avicenna's Theory Of Minima Naturalia, Jon Mcginnis

Jon McGinnis

There has been a long-held misconception among historians of philosophy and science that apart from brief comments in Aristotle and Averroes, the theory of minima naturalia had to await Latin Schoolmen for its full articulation. Recently scholars have shown that far from sporadic comments on minima naturalia, Averroes in fact had a fully developed and well-integrated theory of them. In this study, I complement these scholars’ important work by considering Avicenna’s place in the history and development of the doctrine of the minima naturalia. There is no study to date that mentions Avicenna in connection with this doctrine despite the …

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Scientific Methodologies In Medieval Islam, Jon Mcginnis Jun 2017

Scientific Methodologies In Medieval Islam, Jon Mcginnis

Jon McGinnis

The present study considers Ibn Sînâ's (Lat. Avicenna) account of induction (istiqra') and experimentation (tajriba). For Ibn Sînâ induction purportedly provided the absolute, necessary and certain first principles of a science. Ibn Sînâ criticized induction, arguing that it can neither guarantee the necessity nor provide the primitiveness required of first principles. In it place, Ibn Sînâ developed a theory of experimentation, which avoids the pitfalls of induction by not providing absolute, but conditional, necessary and certain first principles. The theory of experimentation that emerges though not modern, does have elements that are similar to a modern conception of scientific method.

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Avicennan Infinity: A Select History Of The Infinite Through Avicenna, Jon Mcginnis Dec 2009

Avicennan Infinity: A Select History Of The Infinite Through Avicenna, Jon Mcginnis

Jon McGinnis

No abstract provided.

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The Physics Of The Healing - Book I & Ii, Jon Mcginnis Dec 2008

The Physics Of The Healing - Book I & Ii, Jon Mcginnis

Jon McGinnis

Avicenna’s Physics is the very first volume that he wrote when he began his monumental encyclopedia of science and philosophy, The Healing. Avicenna’s reasons for beginning with Physics are numerous: it offers up the principles needed to understand such special natural sciences as psychology; it sets up many of the problems that take center stage in his Metaphysics; and it provides concrete examples of many of the abstract analytical tools that he would develop later in Logic.While Avicenna’s Physics roughly follows the thought of Aristotle’s Physics, with its emphasis on natural causes, the nature of motion, and the conditions necessary …

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The Physics Of The Healing - Book Iii & Iv, Jon Mcginnis Dec 2008

The Physics Of The Healing - Book Iii & Iv, Jon Mcginnis

Jon McGinnis

Avicenna’s Physics is the very first volume that he wrote when he began his monumental encyclopedia of science and philosophy, The Healing. Avicenna’s reasons for beginning with Physics are numerous: it offers up the principles needed to understand such special natural sciences as psychology; it sets up many of the problems that take center stage in his Metaphysics; and it provides concrete examples of many of the abstract analytical tools that he would develop later in Logic.While Avicenna’s Physics roughly follows the thought of Aristotle’s Physics, with its emphasis on natural causes, the nature of motion, and the conditions necessary …

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Avoiding The Void: Avicenna On The Impossibility Of Circular Motion In A Void, Jon Mcginnis Dec 2006

Avoiding The Void: Avicenna On The Impossibility Of Circular Motion In A Void, Jon Mcginnis

Jon McGinnis

No abstract provided.

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Making Abstraction Less Abstract: The Logical, Psychological, And Metaphysical Dimensions Of Avicenna’S Theory Of Abstraction, Jon Mcginnis Dec 2006

Making Abstraction Less Abstract: The Logical, Psychological, And Metaphysical Dimensions Of Avicenna’S Theory Of Abstraction, Jon Mcginnis

Jon McGinnis

A debated topic in Avicennan psychology is whether for Avicenna abstraction is a metaphor for emanation or to be taken literally. This issue stems from the deeper philosophical question of whether humans acquire intelligibles externally from an emanation by the Active Intellect, which is a separate substance, or internally from an inherently human cognitive process, which prepares us for an emanation from the Active Intellect. I argue that the tension between these doctrines is only apparent. In his logical works Avicenna limns an account where through the internal human process of abstraction accidents accruing to an essence existing in matter …

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A Penetrating Question In The History Of Ideas: Space, Dimensionality And Interpenetration In The Thought Of Avicenna, Jon Mcginnis Feb 2006

A Penetrating Question In The History Of Ideas: Space, Dimensionality And Interpenetration In The Thought Of Avicenna, Jon Mcginnis

Jon McGinnis

Avicenna's discussion of space is found in his comments on Aristotle's account of place. Aristotle identified four candidates for place: a body's matter, form, the occupied space, or the limits of the containing body, and opted for the last. Neoplatonic commentators argued contra Aristotle that a thing's place is the space it occupied. Space for these Neoplatonists is something possessing dimensions and distinct from any body that occupies it, even if never devoid of body. Avicenna argues that this Neoplatonic notion of space is untenable on the basis of three arguments. In general he maintains that bodies' impenetrability is explained …

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Time And Time Again : A Study Of Aristotle And Ibn SīNā'S Temporal Theories, Jon Mcginnis Dec 1999

Time And Time Again : A Study Of Aristotle And Ibn SīNā'S Temporal Theories, Jon Mcginnis

Jon McGinnis

The dissertation examines the temporal theories of Aristotle and the Muslim Aristotelian, Ibn Sînâ (Avicenna). After considering Aristotelian science and sketching Aristotle's theory of physics, the dissertation picks up a series of puzzles concerning the reality of time. The central puzzle is a dilemma, which seemingly shows that the now can neither change nor remain the same. The dilemma is important, since one's solution to it affects the way one envisions time. Aristotle's solution, I argue, is to show how the now remains the same. Thus he adopts a “static” theory of time, i.e., time is a magnitude marked off …

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