Robert Wisnovsky | McGill University (original) (raw)
Papers by Robert Wisnovsky
Palgrave Macmillan eBooks, Aug 16, 2013
Tasavvuf İlmi ve Akademik Araştırma Dergisi, 2010
Oxford University Press eBooks, Oct 31, 2013
... Yet Avicenna, like Aristotle himself, regularly starts a discussion in the logical work and t... more ... Yet Avicenna, like Aristotle himself, regularly starts a discussion in the logical work and then continues the discussion explicitly in his metaphysics. ... [17] In sum, I find thebook interesting, incomplete, and requiring a lot of background. ...
Edinburgh University Press eBooks, Nov 21, 2007
The philosopher and physician Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn 'Abdallah ibn Sina (d. 1037 C.E.), known ... more The philosopher and physician Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn 'Abdallah ibn Sina (d. 1037 C.E.), known in the West by his Latinized name Avicenna, was one of the most influential thinkers of the Islamic and European Middle Ages. Yet for a great number of scholars today Avicenna's thought remains inaccessible. Because he wrote almost all his works in Arabic, Avicenna seems remote to historians of medieval European philosophy who are able to read only the Latin translations of those works. And because he expresses his subtle and complex ideas in the technical terminology of Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism, Avicenna seems remote to Islamicists who have little or no background in the history of ancient and late-antique philosophy. By addressing some of the most fundamental issues in Avicenna's psychology, epistemology, natural philosophy and metaphysics, the contributors to this book hope to make Avicenna's thought more accessible to Latinists and Islamicists alike. After a brief...
Before and After Avicenna, 2003
Ideas in Motion in Baghdad and Beyond
The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy 2 Volume Set
Shii studies review, Jul 28, 2022
Oriens
This article examines the earliest surviving commentary on Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Shifāʾ: ʿAllāmah a... more This article examines the earliest surviving commentary on Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Shifāʾ: ʿAllāmah al-Ḥillī’s (d. 726/1325) Kitāb Kashf al-khifāʾ min Kitāb al-Shifāʾ, composed when Ḥillī was working with the Īlkhānid vizier Rashīd al-Dīn al-Hamadānī (d. 718/1318). Only part of this work—covering the initial chapters from the Maqūlāt (Categories) of the Manṭiq (Logic) section of the Shifāʾ—is extant. After describing the manuscript (Chester Beatty Ar. 5151), the article situates the Kashf al-khifāʾ within the history of kalām appropriations of Avicenna’s metaphysics. Ḥillī’s commentary contains evidence of a tug-of-war between Sunni and Shiite mutakallimūn over proprietorship of the Avicennian legacy.
Report prepared by Isabelle Guyon with information from the data donors listed below:
1. ARTICLES 1. Boethius on the Problem of Desert 2. Genuine Agency, Somehow Shared? The Holy Spir... more 1. ARTICLES 1. Boethius on the Problem of Desert 2. Genuine Agency, Somehow Shared? The Holy Spirit and Other Gifts 3. What Lucifer Wanted: Anselm, Aquinas, and Scotus on the Object of the First Evil Choice 4. Some Twelfth-Century Reflections on Mereological Essentialism 5. Why Are the Habits Necessary? An Inquiry into Aquinas' Moral Psychology 6. Olivi on Consciousness and Self-Knowledge: The Phenomenology, Metaphysics, and Epistemology of Mind's Reflexivity 7. Duns Scotus on Essence and Existence TEXTS Yahya 'Adi on the Location of God
Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 2004
Most scholars of Islamic intellectual history now agree on the distortedness of the traditional W... more Most scholars of Islamic intellectual history now agree on the distortedness of the traditional Western portrayal of al-Ġazālī (d. 1111) as the defender of Muslim orthodoxy whose Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahāfut al-falāsifa) was such a powerful critique that it caused the annihilation of philosophical activity in Islamic civilization. Some in fact are coming to the conclusion that al-Ġazālī's importance in the history of Islamic philosophy and theology derives as much from his assiduous incorporation of basic metaphysical ideas into central doctrines of Sunnī kalām, as from his far more celebrated bashing of the falāsifa. What is less well known is that al-Ġazālī's role in the ‘‘philosophizing” of Sunnī theology was not a lonely struggle by a single genius, but part of a broader trend that seems to have begun during Avicenna’s lifetime and that picked up speed in the first and second generations after Avicenna's death in 1037, with the work of al-Ġazālī's tea...
Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 2017
The “lost” Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī treatises recently discovered in the Tehran codex Marwī 19 include a re... more The “lost” Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī treatises recently discovered in the Tehran codex Marwī 19 include a record of a philosophical debate instigated by the Ḥamdānid prince Sayf-al-Dawla. More precisely, Marwī 19 contains Yaḥyā’s adjudication of a dispute between an unnamed Opponent and Yaḥyā’s younger relative Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAdī (who also served as al-Fārābī’s assistant), along with Ibrāhīm's response to Yaḥyā’s adjudication, and Yaḥyā’s final word. At issue was a problem of Aristotelian exegesis: should “body” be understood as falling under the category of substance or under the category of quantity? The unnamed Opponent argues that body is a species of substance; Ibrāhīm argues that technically speaking, body is a species of quantity, and hence an accident; and Yaḥyā judges that body is a species of substance, though for very different reasons than the Opponent gives. For the first time, the Arabic text of this exchange is edited and translated into English. Also provided is an Introducti...
Agents of Transmission, Translation and Transformation
Vehicles of Transmission, Translation, and Transformation in Medieval Textual Culture, 2011
A Golden Age of Science and Philosophy, 2010
Palgrave Macmillan eBooks, Aug 16, 2013
Tasavvuf İlmi ve Akademik Araştırma Dergisi, 2010
Oxford University Press eBooks, Oct 31, 2013
... Yet Avicenna, like Aristotle himself, regularly starts a discussion in the logical work and t... more ... Yet Avicenna, like Aristotle himself, regularly starts a discussion in the logical work and then continues the discussion explicitly in his metaphysics. ... [17] In sum, I find thebook interesting, incomplete, and requiring a lot of background. ...
Edinburgh University Press eBooks, Nov 21, 2007
The philosopher and physician Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn 'Abdallah ibn Sina (d. 1037 C.E.), known ... more The philosopher and physician Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn 'Abdallah ibn Sina (d. 1037 C.E.), known in the West by his Latinized name Avicenna, was one of the most influential thinkers of the Islamic and European Middle Ages. Yet for a great number of scholars today Avicenna's thought remains inaccessible. Because he wrote almost all his works in Arabic, Avicenna seems remote to historians of medieval European philosophy who are able to read only the Latin translations of those works. And because he expresses his subtle and complex ideas in the technical terminology of Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism, Avicenna seems remote to Islamicists who have little or no background in the history of ancient and late-antique philosophy. By addressing some of the most fundamental issues in Avicenna's psychology, epistemology, natural philosophy and metaphysics, the contributors to this book hope to make Avicenna's thought more accessible to Latinists and Islamicists alike. After a brief...
Before and After Avicenna, 2003
Ideas in Motion in Baghdad and Beyond
The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy 2 Volume Set
Shii studies review, Jul 28, 2022
Oriens
This article examines the earliest surviving commentary on Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Shifāʾ: ʿAllāmah a... more This article examines the earliest surviving commentary on Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Shifāʾ: ʿAllāmah al-Ḥillī’s (d. 726/1325) Kitāb Kashf al-khifāʾ min Kitāb al-Shifāʾ, composed when Ḥillī was working with the Īlkhānid vizier Rashīd al-Dīn al-Hamadānī (d. 718/1318). Only part of this work—covering the initial chapters from the Maqūlāt (Categories) of the Manṭiq (Logic) section of the Shifāʾ—is extant. After describing the manuscript (Chester Beatty Ar. 5151), the article situates the Kashf al-khifāʾ within the history of kalām appropriations of Avicenna’s metaphysics. Ḥillī’s commentary contains evidence of a tug-of-war between Sunni and Shiite mutakallimūn over proprietorship of the Avicennian legacy.
Report prepared by Isabelle Guyon with information from the data donors listed below:
1. ARTICLES 1. Boethius on the Problem of Desert 2. Genuine Agency, Somehow Shared? The Holy Spir... more 1. ARTICLES 1. Boethius on the Problem of Desert 2. Genuine Agency, Somehow Shared? The Holy Spirit and Other Gifts 3. What Lucifer Wanted: Anselm, Aquinas, and Scotus on the Object of the First Evil Choice 4. Some Twelfth-Century Reflections on Mereological Essentialism 5. Why Are the Habits Necessary? An Inquiry into Aquinas' Moral Psychology 6. Olivi on Consciousness and Self-Knowledge: The Phenomenology, Metaphysics, and Epistemology of Mind's Reflexivity 7. Duns Scotus on Essence and Existence TEXTS Yahya 'Adi on the Location of God
Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 2004
Most scholars of Islamic intellectual history now agree on the distortedness of the traditional W... more Most scholars of Islamic intellectual history now agree on the distortedness of the traditional Western portrayal of al-Ġazālī (d. 1111) as the defender of Muslim orthodoxy whose Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahāfut al-falāsifa) was such a powerful critique that it caused the annihilation of philosophical activity in Islamic civilization. Some in fact are coming to the conclusion that al-Ġazālī's importance in the history of Islamic philosophy and theology derives as much from his assiduous incorporation of basic metaphysical ideas into central doctrines of Sunnī kalām, as from his far more celebrated bashing of the falāsifa. What is less well known is that al-Ġazālī's role in the ‘‘philosophizing” of Sunnī theology was not a lonely struggle by a single genius, but part of a broader trend that seems to have begun during Avicenna’s lifetime and that picked up speed in the first and second generations after Avicenna's death in 1037, with the work of al-Ġazālī's tea...
Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 2017
The “lost” Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī treatises recently discovered in the Tehran codex Marwī 19 include a re... more The “lost” Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī treatises recently discovered in the Tehran codex Marwī 19 include a record of a philosophical debate instigated by the Ḥamdānid prince Sayf-al-Dawla. More precisely, Marwī 19 contains Yaḥyā’s adjudication of a dispute between an unnamed Opponent and Yaḥyā’s younger relative Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAdī (who also served as al-Fārābī’s assistant), along with Ibrāhīm's response to Yaḥyā’s adjudication, and Yaḥyā’s final word. At issue was a problem of Aristotelian exegesis: should “body” be understood as falling under the category of substance or under the category of quantity? The unnamed Opponent argues that body is a species of substance; Ibrāhīm argues that technically speaking, body is a species of quantity, and hence an accident; and Yaḥyā judges that body is a species of substance, though for very different reasons than the Opponent gives. For the first time, the Arabic text of this exchange is edited and translated into English. Also provided is an Introducti...
Agents of Transmission, Translation and Transformation
Vehicles of Transmission, Translation, and Transformation in Medieval Textual Culture, 2011
A Golden Age of Science and Philosophy, 2010
Link to YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v\_BcZFB0eZw&feature=youtu.be Ibn Khaldun... more Link to YouTube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_BcZFB0eZw&feature=youtu.be
Ibn Khaldun's studies of the rise and fall of Islamicate empires have proven to be of widespread and enduring relevance within broader fields of social scientific research.
In the same vein, this lecture argues, the insights that Marshall Hodgson derives from his far-reaching study of the origins and evolution of the Islamicate ecumene should figure centrally in the ongoing efforts of philosophers, social theorists, and humanistic scholars of various sorts to reconceptualize world history through a non-Western-centric and more spiritually sympathetic lens.
In order to advance this claim, the presentation situates Hodgson's major world-historical arguments within the discourse on the nature and implications of the Axial Age (800-200 BCE), an approach that he consciously utilizes to orient his analyses in The Venture of Islam.
November 26, 2020, 1:30 PM EST (UTC -5). Dr Florian Zemmin, Leipzig University, will speak on: Th... more November 26, 2020, 1:30 PM EST (UTC -5).
Dr Florian Zemmin, Leipzig University, will speak on:
The Secular in Middle East and Islamicate History
Hosted on Zoom: https://mcgill.zoom.us/s/83909416415 Passcode 870227
The Keenan Chair of Interfaith Studies and the James McGill Professor of Islamic Philosophy are collaborating in a reflection on religion, Islam, and cosmopolitanism associated with McGill’s academic tradition of Islamic Studies, and epitomized by scholars such as Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Fazlur Rahman, and Toshihiko Izutsu. In preparation for the Keenan Conference on World Religions and Globalization, to be held in Montreal in Spring 2022, we are hosting an online lecture series titled ReOrienting the Global Study of Religion: History, Theory, and Society.
While the study of the Islamosphere has stimulated a critical reconceptualization of the notion of religion, we would like to extend this reflection to how religious concepts have been embedded in broader views of history and society, including the Western colonial construction of the “Middle East” as the cradle not just of Islam but of all Abrahamic religions. Some of the lectures will contribute to such reflections also through the foil of the interdisciplinary legacy of Ibn Khaldun, a champion of non-Western thought and precursor of social theory.
The second speaker in the series will be Florian Zemmin, Leipzig University. The title of the lecture, which will be followed by a Q&A, is The Secular in Middle East and Islamicate History. The lecture is based on a chapter that Dr Zemmin is contributing to The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Middle East in course of publication (both online and in print) with Oxford University Press, edited by Armando Salvatore, Sari Hanafi, and Kieko Obuse. https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190087470.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190087470?rskey=Mfv0d4&result=19 Sari Hanafi will serve as a discussant of the lecture.
Abstract: Islam is all too frequently regarded as the other of secular (Western) modernity. Sometimes this perception extends to Middle Eastern societies, for which Islam allegedly plays a constitutive role. However, secularity, the difference between religion and the secular, has been shaping modern societies in the Middle East too. Moreover, recent scholarship has highlighted patterns of secularity both within modern Islamic thought and in Islamicate history.
The lecture first establishes the factual secularity of modern Middle Eastern societies, focusing on the relation between religion and politics. Moving from structures to ideas, it then shows how modern Islamic thought conceptualized secularity. Examples from Islamicate history will make clear that secularity in the Middle East was not the exclusive product of colonial modernity, but drew also on earlier distinctions between religion and the secular.
Florian Zemmin is Senior Researcher at the Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences “Multiple Secularities - Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities,” Leipzig University. He is the author of Modernity in Islamic Tradition. The Concept of ‘Society’ in the Journal al-Manar (Cairo, 1898–1940) (De Gruyter, 2018) and co-editor of Working with A Secular Age: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Charles Taylor's Master Narrative (De Gruyter, 2016) and Islam in der Moderne, Moderne im Islam. Eine Festschrift für Reinhard Schulze zum 65. Geburtstag (Brill, 2018).
The Keenan Chair of Interfaith Studies and the James McGill Professor of Islamic Philosophy are c... more The Keenan Chair of Interfaith Studies and the James McGill Professor of Islamic Philosophy are collaborating in a reflection on religion, Islam, and cosmopolitanism associated with McGill’s academic tradition of Islamic Studies, and epitomized by scholars such as Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Fazlur Rahman, and Toshihiko Izutsu. In preparation for the Keenan Conference on World Religions and Globalization, to be held in Montreal in Spring 2022, we are hosting an online lecture series titled ReOrienting the Global Study of Religion: History, Theory, and Society. While the study of the Islamosphere has stimulated a critical reconceptualization of the notion of religion, we would like to extend this reflection to how religious concepts have been embedded in broader views of history and society, including the Western colonial construction of the “Middle East” as the cradle not just of Islam but of all Abrahamic religions. Some of the lectures will contribute to such reflections also through the foil of the interdisciplinary legacy of Ibn Khaldun, a champion of non-Western thought and precursor of social theory.
Some of teh lectures will present drafts of chapters belonging to The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Middle East in course of publication (both online and in print) with Oxford University Press, edited by Armando Salvatore, Sari Hanafi, and Kieko Obuse.
Link to the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvRyAqyEEk0&t=275s The work of Ibn Kh... more Link to the YouTube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvRyAqyEEk0&t=275s
The work of Ibn Khaldun has been read in many ways, focusing often on his notion of ‘asabiyyah and the nature of the social bond in tribal societies that motivates power exercise, territorial expansion and the rise of dynasties. The spatial ordering of society plays a crucial role in this vision. This presentation attempts to explore the notion of order and its configurations in space in the Muqaddimah, and how Ibn Khaldun’s political imagination was based on an understanding of the nomos of the earth on three levels: the cosmic nomos, the material/spatial nomos and the sociological nomos. While a dominant approach to the reading of Ibn Khaldun was understanding tribal societies as hierarchical, or history as cyclical, I will try to examine heterarchy in the three levels of the nomos. To relate the above to contemporary debates in political theory, Carl Schmitt is invited to this discussion where his understanding of the nomos as the order of appropriation, distribution and production in every society is highlighted. I will also refer to Michel Maffesoli and his work on neo-tribalism.
Link to YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghxYRSladWQ&t=786s La conférence vise à ... more Link to YouTube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghxYRSladWQ&t=786s
La conférence vise à indiquer les dettes méthodologiques et épistémiques d’Ibn Khaldun à l’égard des philosophes-logiciens qui l’ont précédé (Averroès). Les modalités logiques du nécessaire et du possible sont investies dans l’ordre historique pour rendre compte de la société humaine (nécessaire) et du fait historique (possible). Il en va de même pour le statut de la rhétorique, qui passe du statut de partie de la logique, qu’elle avait chez Al Farabi et chez Averroès, à une composante sémantique de la notion de civilisation (circulation de signes dans l’efficace du pouvoir politique). Ces analyses épistémiques sont une base pour remettre en cause la réception coloniale d’Ibn Khaldun qui a attribué à l’historien une conception cyclique de l’histoire, absente de son œuvre.
Syed Farid Alatas, National University of Singapore “Ibn Khaldun and Autonomous Knowledge Product... more Syed Farid Alatas, National University of Singapore
“Ibn Khaldun and Autonomous Knowledge Production”
Abstract: In order for theory to be relevant to the Third World/Periphery/South it needs to be challenged. The nature of that challenge is the deparochialisation of theory. The discipline of sociology and other social sciences have been slow to do this. Recently, however, there have been efforts to address the problem by way of the critique of canons and foundational theories of the discipline. This paper is a contribution in the direction of such critique to render the disciplines less parochial. This paper is divided into three parts. First it introduces the theme of silencing that manifests itself in the recounting of the voyages of discovery that began mere decades after the death of Ibn Khaldun. The paper then turns to the reconstruction of Khaldunian theory in the context of modern historical and area studies. The idea here is to provide a structure that may be used to construct social theory from the works of those thinkers from the South that are considered to be potential sources of alternative, non-Eurocentric theory. The thinker under consideration here is Ibn Khaldun. The paper ends with a discussion on autonomous knowledge as a more productive and critical way of thinking about knowledge production as opposed to the decolonization of knowledge. Ibn Khaldun is seen to be relevant to the challenge of hegemonic orientations other than Eurocentrism.
Heba Raouf Ezzat, Ibn Haldun University, Istanbul, Turkey
“The Tribe and the Nomos of the Earth: The Relevance of Ibn Khaldun”
Abstract: The work of Ibn Khaldun has been read in many ways, focusing often on his notion of ‘asabiyyah and the nature of the social bond in tribal societies that motivates power exercise, territorial expansion and the rise of dynasties. The spatial ordering of society plays a crucial role in this vision. This presentation attempts to explore the notion of order and its configurations in space in the Muqaddimah, and how Ibn Khaldun’s political imagination was based on an understanding of the nomos of the earth on three levels: the cosmic nomos, the material/spatial nomos and the sociological nomos. While a dominant approach to the reading of Ibn Khaldun was understanding tribal societies as hierarchical, or history as cyclical, I will try to examine heterarchy in the three levels of the nomos. To relate the above to contemporary debates in political theory, Carl Schmitt is invited to this discussion where his understanding of the nomos as the order of appropriation, distribution and production in every society is highlighted. I will also refer to Michel Maffesoli and his work on neo-tribalism.
The Keenan Chair of Interfaith Studies and the James McGill Professor of Islamic Philosophy are c... more The Keenan Chair of Interfaith Studies and the James McGill Professor of Islamic Philosophy are collaborating in a reflection on religion, Islam, and cosmopolitanism associated with McGill’s academic tradition of Islamic Studies, and epitomized by scholars such as Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Fazlur Rahman, and Toshihiko Izutsu. In preparation for the Keenan Conference on World Religions and Globalization, to be held in Montreal in Spring 2022, we are hosting an online lecture series titled ReOrienting the Global Study of Religion: History, Theory, and Society.
While the study of the Islamosphere has stimulated a critical reconceptualization of the notion of religion, we would like to extend this reflection to how religious concepts have been embedded in broader views of history and society, including the Western colonial construction of the “Middle East” as the cradle not just of Islam but of all Abrahamic religions.
Some of the lectures contribute to such reflections also through the foil of the interdisciplinary legacy of Ibn Khaldun, a champion of non-Western thought and precursor of social theory.
فيلوسموس:مجلة الفلسفة والعلوم في السياقات الإسلامية, 2024
ترجمة لبحث الدكتور روبيرت ويزنوفسكي Avicennism and Exegetical Practice in the Early Commentaries ... more ترجمة لبحث الدكتور روبيرت ويزنوفسكي
Avicennism and Exegetical Practice in the Early Commentaries on the Ishārāt