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Active Intellect
The active intellect (Latin: ''intellectus agens''; also translated as agent intellect, active intelligence, active reason, or productive intellect) is a concept in classical and medieval philosophy. The term refers to the formal (''morphe'') aspect of the intellect ('' nous''), in accordance with the theory of hylomorphism. The nature of the active intellect was the subject of intense discussion in medieval philosophy, as various Muslim, Jewish and Christian thinkers sought to reconcile their commitment to Aristotle's account of the body and soul to their own theological commitments. At stake in particular was in what way Aristotle's account of an incorporeal soul might contribute to understanding of the nature of eternal life. Aristotle's conception The idea is first encountered in Aristotle's ''De Anima'', Book III. Following is the translation of one of those passages (''De Anima'', Bk. III, ch. 5, 430a10-25) by Joe Sachs, with some notes about the Greek: ...since in na ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian region and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. Even after the fall of Western Rome, Latin remained the common language of international communication, science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the 18th century, when other regional vernaculars (including its own descendants, the Romance languages) supplanted it in common academic and political usage, and it eventually became a dead language in the modern linguistic definition. Latin is a highly inflected language, with three distinct genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), six or seven noun cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, and vocative), five declensions, four verb conjug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Energeia
In philosophy, potentiality and actuality are a pair of closely connected principles which Aristotle used to analyze motion, causality, ethics, and physiology in his ''Physics'', ''Metaphysics'', '' Nicomachean Ethics'', and ''De Anima''. The concept of potentiality, in this context, generally refers to any "possibility" that a thing can be said to have. Aristotle did not consider all possibilities the same, and emphasized the importance of those that become real of their own accord when conditions are right and nothing stops them. Actuality, in contrast to potentiality, is the motion, change or activity that represents an exercise or fulfillment of a possibility, when a possibility becomes real in the fullest sense. These concepts, in modified forms, remained very important into the Middle Ages, influencing the development of medieval theology in several ways. In modern times the dichotomy has gradually lost importance, as understandings of nature and deity have changed. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maimonides
Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages. In his time, he was also a preeminent astronomer and physician, serving as the personal physician of Saladin. Born in Córdoba, Almoravid Empire (present-day Spain), on Passover eve, 1138 (or 1135), he worked as a rabbi, physician and philosopher in Morocco and Egypt. He died in Egypt on 12 December 1204, when his body was taken to the lower Galilee and buried in Tiberias. During his lifetime, most Jews greeted Maimonides' writings on Jewish law and ethics with acclaim and gratitude, even as far away as Iraq and Yemen. Yet, while Maimonides rose to become the revered head of the Jewish community in Egypt, his writings also had vociferous critics, particularly in Spain. Nonetheless, he was posthumous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avicenna
Ibn Sina ( fa, ابن سینا; 980 – June 1037 CE), commonly known in the West as Avicenna (), was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, philosophers, and writers of the Islamic Golden Age, and the father of early modern medicine. Sajjad H. Rizvi has called Avicenna "arguably the most influential philosopher of the pre-modern era". He was a Muslim Peripatetic philosopher influenced by Greek Aristotelian philosophy. Of the 450 works he is believed to have written, around 240 have survived, including 150 on philosophy and 40 on medicine. His most famous works are '' The Book of Healing'', a philosophical and scientific encyclopedia, and '' The Canon of Medicine'', a medical encyclopedia which became a standard medical text at many medieval universities and remained in use as late as 1650. Besides philosophy and medicine, Avicenna's corpus includes writings on astronomy, alchemy, geography and geology, psycholo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Farabi
Abu Nasr Muhammad Al-Farabi ( fa, ابونصر محمد فارابی), ( ar, أبو نصر محمد الفارابي), known in the West as Alpharabius; (c. 872 – between 14 December, 950 and 12 January, 951)PDF version was a renowned early Islamic philosopher and jurist who wrote in the fields of political philosophy, metaphysics, ethics and logic. He was also a scientist, cosmologist, mathematician and music theorist. Ludwig W. Adamec (2009), ''Historical Dictionary of Islam'', pp.95–96. Scarecrow Press. . In Islamic philosophical tradition he was often called "the Second Teacher", following Aristotle who was known as "the First Teacher". He is credited with preserving the original Greek texts during the Middle Ages via his commentaries and treatises, and influencing many prominent philosophers, such as Avicenna and Maimonides. Through his works, he became well-known in the West as well as the East. Biography The existing variations in the basic accounts of al-Fara ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
'aql
‘Aql ( ar, عقل, meaning "intellect"), is an Arabic language term used in Islamic philosophy or theology for the intellect or the rational faculty of the soul or mind. It is the normal translation of the Greek term '' nous''. In jurisprudence, it is associated with using reason as a source for '' sharia'' "religious law" and has been translated as "dialectical reasoning". History In Islam, the term ‘aql was heavily elucidated by early Shī‘ah thinkers; it came to replace and expand the pre-Islamic concept of ''ḥilm'' ( ar, حلم) "serene justice and self-control, dignity" in opposition to the negative notions of ignorance (''jahl'') and stupidity (''safah''). The "possessor of ‘aql", or ''al-‘āqīl'' (plural ''al-‘uqqāl'') realises a deep connection with God. Jaʿfar aṣ-Ṣādiq (d. 765, notably an Imām) described this connection as a realisation that God loves some, that God is truth and that only '' ‘ilm'' "sacred knowledge" and its development can he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neoplatonist
Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of thinkers. But there are some ideas that are common to it. For example, the monistic idea that all of reality can be derived from a single principle, "the One". Neoplatonism began with Ammonius Saccas and his student Plotinus (c. 204/5 – 271 AD) and stretched to the 6th century AD. After Plotinus there were three distinct periods in the history of neoplatonism: the work of his student Porphyry (3rd to early 4th century); that of Iamblichus (3rd to 4th century); and the period in the 5th and 6th centuries, when the Academies in Alexandria and Athens flourished. Neoplatonism had an enduring influence on the subsequent history of philosophy. In the Middle Ages, neoplatonic ideas were studied and discussed by Christian, Jewish, and Muslim thinkers. In the Islamic cu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Themistius
Themistius ( grc-gre, Θεμίστιος ; 317 – c. 388 AD), nicknamed Euphrades, (eloquent), was a statesman, rhetorician, and philosopher. He flourished in the reigns of Constantius II, Julian, Jovian, Valens, Gratian, and Theodosius I; and he enjoyed the favour of all those emperors, notwithstanding their many differences, and the fact that he himself was not a Christian. He was admitted to the senate by Constantius in 355, and he was prefect of Constantinople in 384 on the nomination of Theodosius. Of his many works, thirty-three orations of his have come down to us, as well as various commentaries and epitomes of the works of Aristotle. Early life He was born in Paphlagonia and taught at Phasis. Apart from a short sojourn in Rome, he resided in Constantinople during the rest of his life. He was the son of Eugenius, who was also a distinguished philosopher, and who is more than once mentioned in the orations of Themistius. Themistius was instructed by his father in ph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Of Aphrodisias
Alexander of Aphrodisias ( grc-gre, Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Ἀφροδισιεύς, translit=Alexandros ho Aphrodisieus; AD) was a Peripatetic philosopher and the most celebrated of the Ancient Greek commentators on the writings of Aristotle. He was a native of Aphrodisias in Caria, and lived and taught in Athens at the beginning of the 3rd century, where he held a position as head of the Peripatetic school. He wrote many commentaries on the works of Aristotle, extant are those on the ''Prior Analytics'', '' Topics'', ''Meteorology'', '' Sense and Sensibilia'', and ''Metaphysics''. Several original treatises also survive, and include a work ''On Fate'', in which he argues against the Stoic doctrine of necessity; and one ''On the Soul''. His commentaries on Aristotle were considered so useful that he was styled, by way of pre-eminence, "the commentator" (). Life and career Alexander was a native of Aphrodisias in Caria (present-day Turkey)A. Chaniotis, 'Epigraphic evidence fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unmoved Mover
The unmoved mover ( grc, ὃ οὐ κινούμενον κινεῖ, ho ou kinoúmenon kineî, that which moves without being moved) or prime mover ( la, primum movens) is a concept advanced by Aristotle as a primary cause (or first uncaused cause) or " mover" of all the motion in the universe. As is implicit in the name, the moves other things, but is not itself moved by any prior action. In Book 12 ( grc-gre, Λ) of his ''Metaphysics'', Aristotle describes the unmoved mover as being perfectly beautiful, indivisible, and contemplating only the perfect contemplation: self-contemplation. He equates this concept also with the active intellect. This Aristotelian concept had its roots in cosmological speculations of the earliest Greek pre-Socratic philosophers and became highly influential and widely drawn upon in medieval philosophy and theology. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, elaborated on the unmoved mover in the . First philosophy Aristotle argues, in Book 8 of the ''Phy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metaphysics (Aristotle)
''Metaphysics'' ( Greek: τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά, "things after the ones about the natural world"; Latin: ''Metaphysica'') is one of the principal works of Aristotle, in which he develops the doctrine that is sometimes referred to as ''Wisdom'', sometimes as ''First Philosophy'', and sometimes as ''Theology,'' in English. It is one of the first major works of the branch of western philosophy known as metaphysics. It is a compilation of various texts treating abstract subjects, notably Being, different kinds of causation, form and matter, the existence of mathematical objects and the cosmos. Overview The ''Metaphysics'' is considered to be one of the greatest philosophical works. Its influence on the Greeks, the Muslim philosophers, Maimonides thence the scholastic philosophers and even writers such as Dante was immense. Aristotle gives an epistemology of causation: his theory of four causes to supplement the material and formal causes of earlier theories. Also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intelligible Form
An intelligible form in philosophy refers to a form that can be apprehended by the intellect. According to Ancient and Medieval philosophers, the intelligible forms are the things by which we understand. These are genera and species, insofar as genera or species such as "animal", "man" or "horse" are not found in sensible nature, except as individual man or horse. Aristotle The concept of the form as being what makes knowledge possible dates back to the time of Socrates. Aristotle is credited with making the distinction that led to the idea of the intelligible form. He argued that the mind is divided into the active and passive intellect, where the passive intellect receives the forms of things in order to be known, and the active intellect then turns possible knowledge into knowledge in act. Plotinus According to Plotinus, the power of the Demiurge (the 'craftsman' of the cosmos The cosmos (, ) is another name for the Universe. Using the word ''cosmos'' implies viewing the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
