A short history of medieval philosophy

Andalus and sefarad

An integrative approach to Jewish and Muslim philosophy in al-AndalusAl-Andalus, the Iberian territory ruled by Islam from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries, was home to a flourishing philosophical culture among Muslims and the Jews who lived in their midst. Andalusians spoke proudly of the r...

Avicenna and the aristotelian left

Ernst Bloch gives a striking account of materialism that traces emancipatory elements of modern thought to medieval Islamic philosophers’ encounter with Aristotle. He argues that the great medieval Islamic philosopher Avicenna (Ibn Sina) planted the seeds of a radical materialism still relevant f...

Disenchanting the caliphate

Hayrettin Yücesoy offers a groundbreaking new account of political discourse in Islamic history by examining Abbasid imperial practice, illuminating the emergence and influence of a vibrant secular tradition.

Ecstasy in the classroom

Ecstasy in the Classroom analyzes the early thirteenth century theological discourse about Paul’s rapture and other modes of cognizing God. It reconstructs the perceptions of transformation and self they imply, and demonstrate their role in establishing the peculiar professional identity of schol...

Guides to the eucharist in medieval egypt

An English translation of three key texts on the Coptic liturgy by Abū al-Barakāt ibn Kabar, Yūḥannā ibn Sabbā‘, and Pope Gabriel V. With a scholarly introduction to the works, their authors, and the Coptic liturgy, as well as a detailed explanatory apparatus, this volume provides a useful and ne...

How to focus

How you can learn to focus like a monk without living like oneDistraction isn’t a new problem. We’re also not the first to complain about how hard it is to concentrate. Early Christian monks beat us to it. They had given up everything to focus on God, yet they still struggled to keep the demons o...

Ibn sina’s remarks and admonitions: physics and metaphysics

Grounded in an exploration of logic and happiness (the ultimate human goal), the text illuminates the divine, the human being, and the nature of things through a wide-ranging discussion of topics.

Medieval nonsense

Five hundred years before “Jabberwocky” and Tender Buttons, writers were already preoccupied with the question of nonsense. But even as the prevalence in medieval texts of gibberish, babble, birdsong, and allusions to bare voice has come into view in recent years, an impression persists that thes...

Open to reason

Open to Reason traces Muslims’ long intellectual and spiritual history of questioning to show how Islamic philosophy has always engaged critically with texts and ideas both inside and outside its tradition. Through a rich reading of classical and modern Muslim philosophers, Souleymane Bachir Diag...

Revelation 1-3 in christian arabic commentary

The first publication in a new series—Christian Arabic Texts in Translation, edited by Stephen Davis—this book presents English-language excerpts from thirteenth-century commentaries on the Apocalypse of John by two Egyptian authors, Būlus al-Būshī and Ibn Kātib Qas.ar. Accompanied by scholarly i...

The singular voice of being

Reconsiders John Duns Scotus’s theory of the univocity of being in connection to his conception of ultimate difference. Develops a systematic account of ultimate difference from disparate discussions throughout his corpus.