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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

The Categories Argument For The Real Distinction Between Being And Essence: Avicenna, Aquinas, And Their Greek Sources, Nathaniel Taylor Apr 2023

The Categories Argument For The Real Distinction Between Being And Essence: Avicenna, Aquinas, And Their Greek Sources, Nathaniel Taylor

Dissertations (1934 -)

There is a distinctively Avicennian way of understanding the categories to be found in the works of Thomas Aquinas that vindicates Aquinas’s early argument for the distinction between being and essence. Two of the most important and influential Aquinas scholars in the twentieth century recognized the roots of this Avicennian way in Aquinas, but neither Etienne Gilson and Cornelio Fabro made good on their insights. In this dissertation, I trace this Avicennian way through its sources in the Greek commentators and demonstrate how it provides the necessary insight into the structure and nature of the categories that render Aquinas’s Genus …


منظومة ابن سينا الإشراقية وتأثيرها على الفكر اليهودي الوسيط نموذج أبراهام بن عزرا, عبد الرحيم حيمد Mar 2023

منظومة ابن سينا الإشراقية وتأثيرها على الفكر اليهودي الوسيط نموذج أبراهام بن عزرا, عبد الرحيم حيمد

Dirassat

Avicenna had a great influence on Jewish thinkers throughout the Middle Ages. Jewish philosophy drew many of its conceptual constructions from the Avicenna tradition and succeeded in constructing original doctrines by reconciling Jewish tradition, Greek philosophy and its Muslim reception. The article traces the influence of Avicenna's ishraq (Enlightenment) philosophy on medieval Jewish thought. It seeks to clarify the nature of this influence, and to define its paths and repercussions on Jewish scholars and their various philosophical doctrines. This study highlights the extent of this influence through the analysis of philosophical and mystical notions in the work of Abraham Ben …


Necessary Existent Theology, Rosabel Ansari, Billy Dunaway, Jon Mcginnis Mar 2023

Necessary Existent Theology, Rosabel Ansari, Billy Dunaway, Jon Mcginnis

Philosophy Faculty Works

A meta-theology makes claims about the structure of theological claims: it identifies a single, fundamental claim about God, and shows how other theological claims are derivable from the fundamental claim. In his book Depicting Deity and other articles, Jon Kvanvig has identified three distinct meta-theologies: Creator Theology, Perfect Being Theology, and Worship-worthiness Theology. In this article, we argue that the medieval Islamic philosopher Avicenna's views about God have the structure of a meta-theology, and that it is distinct from the three projects Kvanvig identifies. This view is Necessary Existent Theology.


Avicenna's Doctrine Of Emanation And The Sphere Of The Heavens, Brian C. Manere Jan 2023

Avicenna's Doctrine Of Emanation And The Sphere Of The Heavens, Brian C. Manere

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Avicenna argues that the celestial spheres each have a soul, termed the motive soul, which is emanated by the first celestial intellect––a body of knowledge which knows itself. Despite outlining the powers of the motive soul, Avicenna does not formally investigate the psychology of the spheres nor their volition. Rather, he presents their volition as a mystery and leaves it to posterity to solve. In an attempt to resolve this mystery, I will argue that it is a direct result of Avicenna having purposefully written a repeated gap into his account of emanation such that there is no clear account …