Aristotle through Arabic Eyes: The Medieval Commentaries of Averroes

FAIN: FT-59037-11

Robert Pasnau
Regents of the University of Colorado, Boulder (Boulder, CO 80303-1058)

Over the next several years, I will be writing a book on the philosophy of Averroes, one of the great masters of the medieval Islamic tradition, and a pivotal influence on later Western philosophy. The project's frank ambition is to reposition our conception of medieval philosophy, so that we no longer view it through Eurocentric, Christian eyes, but instead regard it as the international, interdenominational activity that it so clearly was. Whereas ancient and modern philosophy can be confined mainly to work done within a homogeneous cultural sphere of at most a few hundred miles, the world of medieval philosophy runs from Oxford to Nishapur and from Fez to Prague, through Islamic, Jewish, and Christian thought, and correspondingly through Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, and Greek texts.