Interpreting Avicenna
Critical Essays

Avicenna is the greatest philosopher of the Islamic world. His immense impact on Christian and Jewish medieval thought, as well as on the subsequent Islamic tradition, is charted in this volume alongside studies which provide a comprehensive introduction to and analysis of his philosophy. Contributions from leading scholars address a wide range of topics including Avicenna's life and works, conception of philosophy and achievement in logic and medicine. His ideas in the main areas of philosophy, such as epistemology, philosophy of religion and physics, are also analyzed. While serving as a general introduction to Avicenna's thought, this collection of critical essays also represents the cutting edge of scholarship on this most influential philosopher of the medieval era.

1. The life and times of Avicenna: patronage and learning in medieval Islam David C. Reisman; 2. Avicenna's philosophical project Dimitri Gutas; 3. Avicenna on the syllogism Tony Street; 4. Avicenna's natural philosophy Jon McGinnis; 5. Avicenna and medicine Peter E. Pormann; 6. Avicenna's epistemological optimism Dag Nikolaus Hasse; 7. Certitude, justification, and the principles of knowledge in Avicenna's epistemology Deborah Black; 8. Avicenna's metaphysics Stephen Menn; 9. From the necessary existent to God Peter Adamson; 10. Avicenna's Islamic reception Robert Wisnovsky; 11. The reception of Avicenna in Jewish cultures, East and West Gad Freudenthal and Mauro Zonta; 12. Avicenna's Christian reception Amos Bertolacci.

Peter Adamson is Professor of Philosophy at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, and at King's College London. He is author of The Arabic Plotinus: a Philosophical Study of the So-Called 'Theology of Aristotle' (2002) and Al-Kindî (2006), and co-editor, with Richard C. Taylor, of The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy (Cambridge, 2004). He has edited numerous collected volumes on philosophy in the Islamic world.