IDS 3932: Greek and Islamic Philosophy

Drs. Mustafa Abu-sway and Daniel White

Spring 2004

Note: The paper version of this syllabus will be regularly updated; the

original syllabus, online, should be regularly consulted: http://wise.fau.edu/~dwhite or

http://wise.fau.edu/~dwhite/courses/IDS3932GIP.htm;

Dr. Abu-Sway’s Web Page is at  http://www.fau.edu/~mabusway/

 

 

 

 

Required Books:

 

Author:  Allen, R. E.                                   

Title:   Greek  Philosophy: Thales to Aristotle  (Free Press, ISBN:  0-029-00495-0)     

 

Author:  Plotinus                           

Title:   Enneads (Penguin, ISBN:  ISBN 014044520X)          

           

Author: Majid Fakhry

Title:   A History of Islamic Philosophy (Columbia U P, ISBN:   0231055331)

 

Author: Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

Title:   Al-Ghazali’s Path to Sufism (Fons Vitae, ISBN: 1887752307)

 

Author: Averroes (Charles Butterworth, editor)

Title:   Decisive Treatise and Epistle Dedicatory: Determining the Connection Between the Law and Wisdom (U of Chicago P, ISBN:  0842524797)

 

Course Description:  In this interdisciplinary critical-inquiry seminar we will explore the historical and thematic relationships between two philosophical traditions: Greek and Islamic. The seminar will be conducted as a series of discussions among the professors and students regarding key texts in the two traditions. Some lectures will be interspersed into our ongoing dialogue or “dialectic” (dialektikē technē, jadal)  but our principal mode of inquiry will be conversational.  Our conversation will focus on the following issues:

 

1) The principal languages of the two traditions: classical Greek and Arabic;

2) The question, “What is ‘philosophy’—philosophia, falsafa or hikmah ?”

3) The key areas of philosophical inquiry as understood by the Greek and Islamic philosophers (metaphysics, including theology or kalām, epistemology, and value theory (ethics, aesthetics, social and political philosophy, etc.); 

4) The answers provided by the both traditions to key questions of broad human concern:  a) what is “nature” (the world of “existing beings” [zōa, mawjūdāt]  revealed by the senses, typically called the “empirical realm” by European philosophers? b) what is the status of homo sapiens (ho anthropos, ‘āmma ) and what are the elements of “human nature”? d) what is the “mind” or “spirit” (psyche, nafs) and what are its faculties, such as “intellect” or “reason” (noūs or ‘aql) and desire/appetite (epithumia or nuzū‘iyah); c) what is “knowledge” (epistēmē, ‘ilm); d) is there a “god / God” (theos, ilah, Allāh) and what is the nature of “being” or “substance” per se ( to on, ousia, al-Awwa, jawhar)? d) what is the goal of human life? Is it happiness (eudaimonia,  sa‘ādah) and, if so, how is it to be achieved? e) what constitutes the best “community” or political order (polis or politeia), in the language of Plato, or the “virtuous city” (al-Madinah al-Fādilah)?) in the words of Al-Fārābi?  what constitutes education (paideia, ta‘lim ), and  is its goal “wisdom” (sophia, hikmah)?

 

Assignments: In keeping with the dialogical nature of the course, you will be required to:

1) attend every class session and read assigned material—discussion can only take place among discussants; = 10% of final grade;

2) write a series of brief essays (300-500 words) in response to the assigned readings;  altogether 60% of final grade;

3) write a final essay (1,000 words) on Greek and Islamic philosophy:  30% of final grade.

 

Key dates for the Semester:

             1/7 - Classes Start     1/19 - MLK Holiday

            2/27  Drop Date
            3/8 - 3/13 - Spring Break
            4/21 - Reading Day
            4/23 - 4/29 - Final Exams (refer to Boca on-line schedule)
            4/30 - Semester Ends, Commencement

 

Course Organization:

The sequence of readings in the course is outlined below. We will work in a series of five thematic/historical units, each including readings from Greek and Islamic philosophy.  The units correspond (roughly) to the questions mentioned under the course description above, with the concluding unit focusing on the synthesis of the Greek and Islamic traditions. 

 

Unit 1: Jan. 7-14  What is philosophy? What are the origins of the Greek and Islamic philosophical traditions?  Essay I (300-500 words) due Jan. 21st .

Greek Readings: Thales, Allen, pp. 27-29; Plato, from “Apology,” Allen pp. 74-97; Aristotle, from Metaphyics Book I, Allen pp. 307-320; Plotinus, “Porphyry on the life of Plotinus,” Plotinus, pp.  ci-cxxxv.

Islamic Readings:

Fakhry, pp. xv-xxiv; 1-6;

Ancillary Readings:  Excerpt from Aristotle’s Metaphysics I, with Greek text;  Liber de Causis (Book of Causes), Arabic Version; Liber de Causis  (Latin); St. Thomas of Aquinas, St Thomas of Aquinas, Exposition of Liber de Causis (English translation); Liber de Causis et sancti Thomae de Aquino super librum de causis expositio (Latin version of Liber de Causis and Aquinas’s commentary); Descartes’ Meditations (English, Latin, French).


Unit 2: Jan. 19-Feb. 18 The key areas of philosophical inquiry I:  What is Knowledge? Hermeneutics, the theory of textual interpretation(s).

a) Theory of Knowledge (epistemology):  Essay II (500 words) due Feb. 11.

Greek Readings:  Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Zeno: Allen  pp. 40-48; Plato, Euthyphro, Allen pp. 57-73; Plato, Phaedo, “The Theory of Recollection, Allen pp. 171-176; Plato, Republic, “The Four Stages of Cognition,” The Divided Line, and “The Allegory of the Cave,”  books VI-VII, Allen pp. 221-227; Plato, from Parmenides, Allen, pp. 257-269; Aristotle, from Categories, Allen pp. 285-291, from Metaphysics Book II, Allen pp. 320-323; Plotinus, “Dialectic,” pp. 24-29. Illustrations of Plato's Divided Line and Allegory; Plato’s Criticisms of the Theory of Forms.

Islamic Readings:

 Ghazali, 17-24

Ancillary Readings:  Liber de Causis, English Translation (in progress) ; Proclus: lilfe and works. The Qur'an Online; The Qur'an in English (there are various other English translations listed on the Qur’an Online cite).

 

 b) Theory of the Soul:  .

Greek Readings: Plato, from Phaedo, Allen, pp. 155-196; Plato, from Phaedrus, Allen pp. 246-256; Plato, from Republic, Book IV, on the divisions of the soul, Allen pp. 197-207; Aristotle, from On the Soul, Allen pp. 292-306; Plotinus, First Ennead, “The Animate and Man,”  pp. 3-14; Ennead IV, 8th Tractate, “The Soul’s Descent into the Body,” pp. 334-343.

Islamic Readings:  

 Fakhri, 128-162, 233

 

 Unit 3: Feb. 16-Mar. 3 The key areas of philosophical inquiry II: What is reality?

Theory of Being (ontology, metaphysics, cosmogony and cosmology):   Essay III (500 words) due Mar. 3.

Greek Readings: Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism, Allen pp. 35-40;  Heraclitus and Parmenides (revisited), Allen pp. 40-47;  the Pluralists, Allen pp. 49-55; Plato, Republic  (revisited) VI-VII, pp. 217-245; Plato, Timaeus, excerpts in Allen, pp. 270-281; Aristotle, Metaphysics, from Books IV, VI, VII, XII, Allen, pp. 323-383; Physics, from Books II, Allen pp.  413-430; Plotinus, Ennead III, 8th Tractate, “Nature, Contemplation, and the One,” pp.  233-247; Ennead V, 1st Tractate, “The Three Initial Hypostases,” and 2nd Tractate, “The Order and Nature of Beings following on the First,”  pp. 347-363.  Ancillary reading: Plato's Cosmology in Timaeus; Aristotle’s Categories;

Islamic Readings:

 Fakhri, 72-7, 99, 114-118, 203-233, 308-11, 360

 

 Unit 4:  Mar. 15-31 The key areas of philosophical inquiry: What is “the good” or the ultimate goal of life?  

Value Theory: ethics, aesthetics, social and political theory:

Greek Readings: Plato, Republic (revisited), Book VI, “The Sun,” Allen pp. 217-221; Plato, from Symposium, Allen pp. 142-154; Plato, from Republic V, “Philosophers must be Kings,” Allen pp. 205-216; Aristotle, from Nichomachean Ethics, Allen pp. 384-408;  Aristotle's Virtues; Aristotle, from Politics, pp. 409-412; Plotinus, Ennead V, 5th Tractate, “That Intellectual Beings are not outside the Intellectual Principle: and on the Nature of the Good,” pp. 391-405; 8th Tractate, “On Intellectual Beauty,” pp. 410-424; Ennead VI, 8th Tractate, “On Free Will and the Will of the One,”  pp. 512-534.

Islamic Readings:  Ghazali, 51-66; more assigned in class.

 

Web-based materials for the study of Islamic and Greek Culture:

 

ISLAMIC:

Resources for Studying Islam: http://www.arches.uga.edu/~godlas/

Arabic Calligraphy: http://www.sakkal.com/ArtArabicCalligraphy.html

Mosques: http://www.islamicity.com/Culture/MOSQUES/Asia/default.htm

Islamic Philosophy Online :   http://www.muslimphilosophy.com

 

GREEK: 

Art and Architecture of Greece: http://harpy.uccs.edu/greek/greek.html

Architecture of Greece: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/arch/greek_arch.html

Diotima:  Materials for the Study of Women and Gender:  http://www.stoa.org/diotima/

Erectheum: http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Erectheion.html

Parthenon: http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/The_Parthenon.html  and http://www.roanoke.edu/gst/ParthenonWest.htm

Greek Culture, Arts: http://home.aol.com/TeacherNet/AncientGreece.html#To

Sandro Botticelli: http://www.artchive.com/artchive/B/botticelli.html

 

Unit 5: April 5-April 19 The Synthesis of Greek and Islamic Perspective: Toward a Cosmopolitan, Multicultural World Perspective?  Greece as Europe, the ‘modern’ influence.  Nietzsche’s critique of Socratic culture. ESSAY IV (1,000 to 1,500 words) due at the end of the unit—April 19th.   Open Discussion of selected texts.  (Averroes, 1-33) NO LATE PAPERS!

 

Exam period, Wed. April 28th, 10:30 AM (tentative):  Final Essays will be returned and discussed.