Arabic Thought and Its Place in History (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 Excerpt: ... treatises " On the soul," " On the power of the soul," "On the unity and the one," and " On the intelligence and the intelligible," some of which afterwards circulated in mediaeval Latin translations, which continued to be reprinted well into the 17th century (e.g., De intelligentia et de intelligibili. Paris, 1638). In metaphysics he wrote essays on "Substance," "Time," "Space and Measure," and "Vacuum." In mathematics he wrote a commentary on the Almajesta of Ptolemy, and a treatise on various problems in Euclid. He was a staunch upholder of the neo-Platonic theory that the teaching of Aristotle and that of Plato are essentially in accord and differ only in superficial details and modes of expression; he wrote treatises " On the agreement between Plato and Aristotle " and on " The object before Plato and Aristotle." In essays "Against Galen" and "Against John Philoponus" he criticised the views of those commentators, and endeavoured to defend the orthodoxy of Aristotle by making them responsible for apparent discrepancies with the teaching of revelation. He was interested also in the occult sciences, as appears from his treatises " On geomancy," "On the Jinn," and "On dreams." His chemical treatise called kimiya t-Tabish, "the chemistry of things heated," has been classed as a work on natural science and also as a treatise on magic; this was the unfortunate direction which Arabic chemistry was taking. He also wrote several works on music. (Cf. Schmolders: Documenta Philos. Arab. Bonn., 1836, for Latin versions of select treatises). As we have already noted, his primary importance was as a teacher ...