SGA 9 (2019)

Dr. Sami Aydin
sami.aydin@lingfil.uu.se
University of Uppsala
Box 635, 751 26 Uppsala (Sweden)
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Dr. Rüdiger Arnzen
r.arnzen[at]ruhr-uni-bochum.de
Ruhr University Bochum
Faculty of Philology, Seminar für Orientalistik und Islamwissenschaft
Universitätsstraße 150, 44801 Bochum (Germany)
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Prof. Dr. Najib George Awad
nawad[at]hartsem.edu
Hartford Seminary, Connecticut
77 Sherman Street, Hartford, CT 06105 (USA)
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Dr. Yury Arzhanov
yury.arzhanov[at]oeaw.ac.at
Division of Byzantine Research
Institute for Medieval Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Hollandstrasse 11-13, 1020 Wien (Austria)
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Dr. Nicolás Bamballi
nicolas.bamballi@oeaw.ac.at
Division of Byzantine Research
Institute for Medieval Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Hollandstrasse 11-13, 1020 Wien (Austria)
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Dr. Francesco Celia
francescocda[at]gmail.com
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Center for the Study of Christianity
Room 6823, Faculty of Humanities
Mt. Scopus Campus
Jerusalem 9190501 (Israel)
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Dr. Slavomír Čéplö
slavomir.ceploe[at]oeaw.ac.at
Division of Byzantine Research
Institute for Medieval Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Hollandstrasse 11-13, 1020 Wien (Austria)
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Dr. Elisa Coda
elisa.coda[at]cfs.unipi.it
Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere
Università di Pisa, v. P. Paoli 15, 56126 Pisa (Italy)
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Prof. Cristina D’Ancona
cristina.dancona[at]unipi.it
Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere
Università di Pisa, v. P. Paoli 15, 56126 Pisa (Italy)
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Prof. Marco Di Branco
marco.dibranco[at]uniroma1.it
Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’
Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Roma (Italy)
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Prof. Tiziano Dorandi
tiziano.dorandi[at]orange.fr
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
(UMR 8230, Centre Jean Pépin)
7, rue Guy Môquet BP N°8
94801 Villejuif Cedex, Paris (France)
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Dr. Biancamaria Giommoni
biancamaria.giommoni[at]php.unipi.it
Università di Pisa
Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere
via P. Paoli 15, 56126 Pisa (Italy)
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Dr. Yehuda Halper
yehuda.halper[at]biu.ac.il
Bar-Ilan University
Department of Jewish Thought
Ramat-Gan, 5290002 (Israel)

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Paul Hullmeine
phullmeine[at]ptolemaeus.badw.de
Bavarian Academy of Sciences
Project “Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus”
Alfons-Goppel-Str. 11, 80539 Munich (Germany)
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Dr. Grigory Kessel
grigory.kessel[at]oeaw.ac.at
Division of Byzantine Research
Institute for Medieval Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Hollandstrasse 11-13, 1020 Wien (Austria)
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Dr. Concetta Luna
concetta.luna[at]sns.it
Scuola Normale Superiore
Piazza dei Cavalieri 1, 56126 Pisa (Italy)
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Dr. Issam Marjani
issam.marjani[at]cli.unipi.it
Centro Linguistico Interdipartimentale
Università di Pisa, via S. Maria 36, 56126 Pisa (Italy)
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Prof. Cecilia Martini Bonadeo
cecilia.martini[at]unipd.it
Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche Geografiche
e dell’Antichità, Università di Padova
Via del Vescovado 6, 35141 Padova (Italy)
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Prof. Dr. Matthias Perkams
Matthias.Perkams[at]uni-jena.de
Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Institut für Philosophie
Zwätzengasse 9, E 04, Jena (Germany)
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Dr. Andrea Pintimalli
Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’
Dipartimento di Storia, Antropologia, Religoni, Arte, Spettacolo
Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Roma (Italy)
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Prof. Sir Richard Sorabji
richard.sorabji[at]philosophy.ox.ac.uk
Wolfson College, University of Oxford
Linton Road OX2 6UD, Oxford (UK)
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Abstract:
In his treatise Against the Gnostics, II 9[33], Plotinus claims that those who challenge the perfection of the celestial bodies cannot be virtuous, least of all can be the self-proclaimed elite of the mankind as in the Gnostics’ narrative. Not only the heavenly bodies are perfect, as their movement in circle shows: they also instance the highest ‘virtue’. What on earth can this mean? II 9[33] is the only treatise of the Enneads where the heavens are described in such terms. This article contends that Plotinus establishes a connection between ‘virtue’ and the celestial bodies in order to refute incisively the astrological beliefs of that kind of would-be Platonists that are the Gnostics in his eyes. He also includes the celestial order in his vision of the structure of reality and of the mankind’s role within the visible world.

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Abstract:
Proclus’ Platonic Theology was edited by H.D. Saffrey and L.G. Westerink in six volumes, published between 1968 and 1997. Several scholars suggested emendations in their reviews of one or other volume, and the editors themselves did the same on various occasions, even though a number of these emendations remained unpublished, relegated in the handwritten notes on their own copies of the volumes. In their turn, also the editors of Proclus’ commentary on the Parmenides, C. Luna and A.-Ph. Segonds, revised here and there the text of the Platonic Theology. This study collects all the emendations, published and unpublished, examining each of them separately. It thus provides a complement to the edition of this monumental treatise, that displays the systematic theology held in the Neoplatonic school of Athens at the end of antiquity.

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Abstract:
The Ambrosianus A 183 sup. (76 Martini-Bassi), dated between the end of the 13th and the beginning of the 14th cent., is the oldest partial manuscript of the first book of the Anthologion by Johannes Stobaeus. A codicological study and the analysis of the main variants are presented in this article. The conclusion is that the Ambrosianus not only derives from the same model as the Neapolitanus III D 15 and the later Parisinus gr. 2129, but also is the model (through a lost intermediate) of the Parisinus.

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Abstract:
This paper focuses on a specific topic discussed in the Risāla fī l-farq bayna l-rūḥ wa-l-nafs by Qusṭā ibn Lūqā (820-912 ca.): the proof that the soul is incorporeal. That the arguments presented by Qusṭā are Neoplatonic is quite clear, but the precise sources have not yet been identified. This article presents textual comparisons with the Arabic paraphrase of Plotinus’ treatise On the Immortality of the Soul, translated and adapted in the ps.-Theology of Aristotle. Parallel passages are present also in the Arabic paraphrase of the De Anima, but the main source of Qusṭā’s argument concerning the incorporeal nature of the soul is the Arabic Plotinus. At variance with pneuma, soul is an incorporeal substance, and on this point Plato and ‘Aristotle’ are in agreement in Qusṭā’s opinion.

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Abstract:
Seven folios at the Vatican Library (Vat. Syr. 586) constitute the only remaining part of a manuscript from the 13th century that contained a large commentary on the Categories of Aristotle. The text features an exchange between a pupil and a master, where the pupil either puts a question on a certain matter regarding the Categories or asks for a clarification to a lemma that is cited from it, to which the master attempts to offer a basic explanation. The extant part of this commentary, which deals with Aristotle’s concluding discussion on the category of quantity and his initial presentation of the relatives, with some noteworthy observations, is edited here for the first time from the partially mutilated folios with a translation and some annotations. The question of its date of composition, its possible author and some other relevant points are treated in the introduction.

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Abstract:
This essay studies al-Muqammaṣ’s Muslim Kalām text, Twenty Chapters, and focuses on his criticism of the Christian Kalām on the Trinity. It first analyzes al-Muqammaṣ’s assessment of the Christian Kalām on the Trinity within the framework of his logico-philosophical discourse on God as ‘the One’. It then tries to investigate which Christian mutakallims’ Arabic works, among the ones we have extant today, could al-Muqammaṣ have read and had in mind when he argued against the doctrine of the Trinity in his Twenty Chapters. I conclude with some remarks on the dynamics of interaction between mutakallims in the Abbasid era, that can be extracted from the discoursing strategies of texts like al-Muqammaṣ’s Twenty Chapters.

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Abstract:
This article discusses anew the sources of the treatise by Paul the Persian on the scopes of the writings of Aristotle, transmitted by Miskawayh. A whole row of different sources can be identified: The Syriac Long commentary on the Categories by Sergius’ of Rēšʿaynā as well as different Greek works, including obviously Philoponus’ commentary on the Physics, a commentary on the Analytica priora similar to David and Elias and an introduction into logics which resembles a passage in Boethius. Paul probably knew Greek and spent time in a Greek context, where he could collect so many different works. Paul arranged his material in an original way and supplemented points left open by Greek authors. Formally, he introduces a very consequent binary division of entities and treatises absent from the extant Greek sources. It is possibly influenced by East Syrian scholastic culture. Regarding the content, he was the first to explain all five types of syllogism. Especially the understanding of the Greek μυθῶδες, as a description of the poetical syllogism, as “imagined”, which is probably due to him, paved the way for the Arabic theories on poetical syllogisms. By writing this treatise, Paul fulfils a never executed promise of Sergius’ of Rēšʿaynā, namely explaining the aim(s) of all writings of Aristotle. Thus, he gives the first sketch of a purely Aristotelian curriculum of philosophy in late Antiquity, which is introduced by Sergius’ magnificent image of Aristotle as the master of all sciences. The reception of Paul’s treatise by al-Fārābī and Miskawayh leads to the diffusion of the Aristotelian curriculum, as developed by the two Syro-Persian masters, in Arabic philosophical texts.

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Abstract:
Pagan Greek philosophy spread to the Persian king Khushru I, a Zoroastrian, in the 6th century CE, who first gave the Athenian philosophers refuge from their Christian emperor, to hold (newly translated) discussions with them, and then got a report through ‘Paul of Persia’ of the Alexandrian school’s case to Christian students for studying Aristotle’s logic, in order to decide between conflicting claims about Christian doctrine. The Greek philosophical author of this (newly translated) case can be identified, and it has nothing to do with the equally fascinating autobiography of Khushru’s physician, who got and translated into Middle Persian charming moral tales from India, but abandoned all effort to decide between conflicting Indian claims about religion.

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Abstract:
This article is devoted to the third chapter of the Taḥqīq mā li-l-Hind by Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī (973-1048) from the viewpoint of his vision of the history of religions and their relationship with the issue of human languages. The opinions held by the inhabitants of the Hind about the intelligibilia and sensibilia form the focus of the chapter, and as an introduction to these opinions al-Bīrūnī embarks on a complex series of comparisons involving texts and concepts of the classical Greece, the sufi tradition, as well as of the Hebrew, Christian, and Manichean doctrines. Such comparisons attest not only al-Birūnī’s linguistic skills and broad knowledge of multifarious religious traditions, but also his endeavour to include elements of the Sanscrit heritage in the intellectual context of the Islam of his age.

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Abstract:
Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī is famous mostly for his various scientific treatises on astronomy, mathematics, and geodesy. This paper aims to establish him as an important figure in the philosophical debates in the Islamic world around 1000 AD. The famous exchange of letters between him and the young Avicenna on physical and cosmological questions is a clear indication of al-Bīrūnī’s general interest in philosophical issues and Aristotelian texts. In one of these letters, al-Bīrūnī questions one of the most fundamental Aristotelian teachings – that of the eternity of the world. The discussion of this point and Avicenna’s answer reveal the sources of both interlocutors. While Avicenna is deeply influenced by the Ps.-Aristotelian Theology, al-Bīrūnī draws heavily from John Philoponus, even defending him against Avicenna. In addition, a passage from the geodetic work Kitāb Taḥdīd nihāyat al-amākin gives further evidence for a Philoponan influence on al-Bīrūnī. In this text, al-Bīrūnī answers objections to the Kalām-argument for creation made by Ibn al-Ḫammār. In conclusion, it is argued that al-Bīrūnī played a major role in the philosophical debates of his time, in addition to his well-known contributions to the scientific debates.

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Abstract:
Thanks to the translation of his anti-eternalist works, in the Arabic-speaking world Philoponus was known as a Christian who championed the createdness of the cosmos. Also some of his commentaries on Aristotle were translated. Contemporary scholarship on Philoponus discusses the different and at times opposed attitudes that coexist in his huge literary output: indeed, he is both a commentator of Aristotle in a Neoplatonic vein and a harsh critic of the eternity and divinity of the heavens – in itself a pivot of Aristotelian-Neoplatonic cosmology. A prominent feature of the ‘Arabic Philoponus’ is that the anti-eternalist stance, far from being the expression of his genuine position, appears as a device to make an agreement with the ruling Christian faith. This article surveys the current state of research on Philoponus, on his life and works in the Arabic sources, on the works translated, and on their influence on Muslim thought.

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