Peter Adamson - Philosophy in the Islamic World

With any luck, you are not merely browsing this volume in a bookstore or online, but are a proud owner who has just lovingly taken it down from the special shelf you reserve for books likely to impress house guests. With even more luck, it resides there alongside the first two installments of The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps. If so, you may already have noticed that it is somewhat fatter than the second volumePhilosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman Worldswhich was, in turn, already fatter than the initial offering, Classical Philosophy. Like a middle-aged parent whose work and family duties allow no time for regular exercise, the History of Philosophy has good excuses for its weight gain. In the second volume, we devoured a whole millennium of philosophy, stretching from contemporaries of Aristotle in the fourth century BC to the end of late antiquity with Boethius and Maximus the Confessor. In a further bid to satisfy your appetite for philosophy, this book will cover an even larger time-span, and a far larger geographical area to boot.

Like its predecessors, the volume youre about to read is aimed at a general audience. You need to be armed with nothing but interest in the topic. Ive tried not to assume familiarity with the territory covered in the first two volumes, though this certainly wouldnt hurt. As ever, my approach is chronological, though certain themes act as leitmotifs for the story as a whole. (For a briefer survey which instead adopts a thematic structure, see my recently appeared Very Brief Introduction to Islamic Philosophy.

For many readers, the most unexpected feature of the book will probably be the attention I devote to non-Muslim thinkers in the Islamic world. Other introductory volumes have been devoted to either Islamic philosophy or Jewish (medieval) philosophy, and these may glance along the way at the faith tradition not in focus. But as far as I know this is the only general introductory volume that offers detailed and dedicated coverage of philosophy in the Islamic world among all the Abrahamic faiths. Most of the material on Jewish philosophy will be found in the second section on Andalusia, though there are discussions of earlier Jewish thinkers in the first part too. This allows me to present medieval Jewish philosophy in its proper cultural and intellectual context. Of course there will be more to say about the history of Jewish philosophy in future volumes, with Renaissance Jews and figures like Spinoza and Mendelssohn still to come. But covering philosophy in the Islamic world without any gaps means examining one of the most important stretches in the history of Jewish philosophy. Less extensive but no less important to the volume is the discussion of Christian philosophy in the Islamic world, especially the so-called Baghdad School of Christian Aristotelians.

The book is based on the scripts for the History of Philosophy podcast, though as with the earlier volumes I have revised these substantially and added some material, for instance the aforementioned consideration of taqld under the Ottomans. This version also has the advantage of giving references to the primary texts I am discussing, as well as additional notes and suggestions for further reading. I hope that this will inspire and assist you to read more widely about a topic that has become a dynamic and exciting field within the history of philosophy over the past couple of decades. With the increasing number of reliable translations, it is no longer necessary to know Arabic (or Hebrew, or Persian) to familiarize yourself with the amazing quantity and quality of philosophical literature in the Islamic world. Indeed, when I launched this series of podcasts and books, part of my aim was to build up an audience with curiosity about ancient philosophy, who I hoped might stick with me once I reached the less widely known territory covered in this book. If you are indeed coming to this after reading the first two books, then thank you for continuing the journey. If you are new to the series, then hopefully youll agree that the book does stand on its own. Either way, I now invite you to embark on the third volume of the History of Philosophy, without any gaps.