Avicenna and Avicennisms Conference

Avicenna and Avicennisms
A Colloquium at SOAS, 6-7 June 2014
Convenors: Ayman Shihadeh (SOAS) and Sajjad Rizvi (Exeter)

In the Islamic tradition, Abu ʿAlī Ibn Sīnā or Avicenna [d. 1037] remains the paradigmatic philosopher whose modification of the Aristotelian system, to propose the first comprehensive Islamic philosophy, was to have a lasting impact in both the Islamic world and medieval Europe. Bringing together a range of Avicenna scholars from established names to younger, up-and-coming scholars, this colloquium will focus on the impact and reception of Avicenna in these two lines of influence—in scholasticism and in the Islamicate world. We will perpetuate the recent tendency of defining philosophy in the Islamic traditions broadly to include the tradition of philosophical theology or kalām.

Avicenna and Avicennisms will examine not just what Avicenna meant for the formulation of Islamic philosophy and philosophical inquiry more generally in the Arabic and Persian traditions, but also how he was received, understood, reformulated, criticized, and even rejected (often in ways that still marked out the great influence that he had upon his detractors). In that sense, it will analyse what one of the speakers called 'la pandémie avicennienne’ that marked out learned culture in both Christendom and the world of Islam for most of the pre-modern period. The presenters will discuss not just wider issues of the very understanding of philosophy and what Avicenna meant, but also a range of particular considerations in metaphysics, logic, natural philosophy, and even anthropology.

FRIDAY, 6 June 2014, Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS

14.00–14.15 Welcome: Ayman Shihadeh (SOAS) and Sajjad Rizvi (Exeter)

Session 1. Chair: Ayman Shihadeh

14.15–15.00 Ahab Bdaiwi (St. Andrews), ‘Interpreting Avicenna in Timurid Iran: The Davānī-Dashtakī Debate’

15.00–15.45 Laura Hassan (SOAS), ‘The reception of Ibn Sīnā’s philosophy in Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī’s (d. 631/1233) philosophical and theological works’

15.45–16.00 Break

Session 2. Chair: Catarina Belo

16.00–16.45 Toby Mayer (IIS), ‘Disputed concepts of creation in the 5th namaṭ of Ibn Sīnā’s Ishārāt and in Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī's and Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī’s commentaries’

SATURDAY, 7 June 2014, Room B102, Brunei Gallery, SOAS

Session 3. Chair: Sajjad Rizvi

09.00–09.45 Jon Hoover (Nottingham), ‘Ibn Sina and Ibn Taymiyya on fitra’

09.45–10.30 Sophia Vasalou (Oxford Brookes), ‘Ibn Taymiyya Against the Philosophers: Reclaiming the Nativity of Moral Propositions’

10.30–10.45 Break

Session 4. Chair: Yahya Michot

10.45–11.30 Gregor Schwarb (FU Berlin), ‘The Reception of Avicenna and Avicennan philosophy in Christian-Arabic Literature’

11.30–12.15 Catarina Belo (AUC), ‘Avicenna on Intellect in Thomas Aquinas' Summa contra gentiles’

12.30–14.00 Lunch break

Session 5. Chair: Morgan Davis (BYU)

14.30–15.15 Wilfrid Hodges (Queen Mary’s, London), ‘The architecture of Ibn Sīnā’s logic’

15.15–16.00 Tony Street (Cambridge), ‘Against Avicenna? The evolution of the seventh-century logic text’

16.00–16.15 Break

Session 6. Chair: Wilfrid Hodges

16.15–17.00 Meryem Sebti (CNRS), ‘Potency in the Metaphysics of the Healing (IV, 2)’

17.00–17.45 Yahya Michot (Hartford), ‘Avicenna, Bahmanyār and the “Ishārāt"’

17.45–18.00 Closing Remarks: Sajjad Rizvi and Ayman Shihadeh

Attendance is free. However, prior registration is required for Day 2, as places are limited. Please register here:
https://avicennaandavicennisms.eventbrite.co.uk