Islamic Philosophy (I)

Course Description:

This course is intended to be an introduction to the major issues and texts of Islamic philosophy and the main philosophical schools in Islam. We will first attempt to specify different areas of philosophy including ontology, metaphysics, epistemology, psychology, and others and, second, to explain their methods and basic topics. We will analyse the historical rise, development, and interrelations of philosophical issues. We will also discuss the central concepts of Islamic philosophy, including existence and quiddity; external and mental existence; philosophical categories; divisions of existents; causality and its role in the natural sciences; God’s existence and knowledge of the world; and knowledge and its foundations.

Syllabus

• Definition of philosophy. The difference between philosophy and theology.
  
  
• A brief introduction to the Peripatetic, illuminationist, and transcendental philosophical schools.
  
  
• Basic topics of ontology; general principles of existence, divisions of existence, the three modes (necessity, contingency and impossibility), quiddity and it properties, causality.
  
  
• Major topics in epistemology; subjective and objective realms, mental existence, knowledge and its divisions.
  
  
• Some major concepts of metaphysics; intermediary realm (‘alam al-barzakh),  intellects (‘alam al-‘uqul), divine realm, God as necessary being and attributes of God.

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