Full Description
Winner of the 21st World Book Award of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 2014
This study—the first monograph devoted exclusively to al-Fārābī's cosmology—provides a new interpretation of this thinker's philosophical development through an analysis of the Greek and Arabic sources and a contextualization of his life and thought in the cultural and intellectual milieu of his time. It discusses key cosmological and metaphysical concepts articulated in his works, with a special focus on celestial causation, intellection, and motion. This book also examines al-Fārābī's cosmological method and particularly the connection between astronomy, physics, and metaphysics. The result is a reassessment of al-Fārābī's cosmology vis-à-vis late-antique Greek philosophical trends and a clearer understanding of how it creatively adapted and transformed this legacy to establish a new cosmological paradigm in Arabic thought.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter One: Cosmology, the Sciences, and the Scientific Method
Chapter Two: The Architecture of the Heavens: Intellects, Souls, and Orbs
Chapter Three: Matter and Creation: a Shift of Paradigms?
Chapter Four: The Aporia of Celestial Motion
Conclusion
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Bibliography
General Index
