Suf Amichay: Matter and Creation in the Medieval Jewish Tradition
This chapter will survey the theories of matter in the medieval Jewish tradition. It will focus on two elements: the first is the selective reception of the Aristotelian concept of matter as taught by Muslim scholars, and the second is an esoteric tradition regarding the creation of the world which is strongly tied to concepts of matter. The chapter will consider Jewish thinkers starting with al-Mukammas and Saadia in the early Middle Ages, leading to Maimonides and then to the Jewish Averroism of the later Middle Ages. Drawing on both known and edited texts and manuscripts which received very little attention so far, I will claim that the Jewish tradition had a generally unified approach to theories of matter, with a competing underlying esoteric tradition; I will show how the mainstream and esoteric traditions draw on (different) Greek sources but integrate their theories with pre-existing Jewish sources.
Dustin Klinger: ‘How can one complete logic if it includes the incomplete part?' On A Notorious Issue in Post-Avicennian Hypothetical Syllogistic’
A remarkable feature of Avicenna’s logic was the incorporation of hypothetical syllogistic that integrated elements from propositional and term logic. Avicennan logicians recognized wholly hypothetical syllogisms consisting of two conditional premises as producing a conditional conclusion entirely parallel to categorical syllogisms. By the 13th century, however, a specific case of such syllogisms elicited extensive discussions that later became notorious for their difficulty. This specific case – unknown in the Graeco-Latin logical tradition, as far as I can see – concerns wholly hypothetical syllogisms whose premises share only one term instead of one proposition. The present paper explores discussions of such syllogisms only sharing an “incomplete part” (by Zayn al-Dīn al-Kashshī, Afḍal al-Dīn al-Khūnajī, Athīr al-Dīn al-Abharī, Najm al-Dīn al-Kātibī, Ibn Wāṣil, Shams al-Dīn al-Samarqandī, Quṭb al-Din al-Rāzī) and their relevance for our understanding the different ways in which Avicenna’s logic was received and developed.
Scott MacDonald: Augustine's Ontology of Cognition from Soliloquia to De trinitate
In his early Soliloquia (386/7) Augustine appeals to a principle of ontological inherence derived from Aristotle’s Categories to argue for the immortality of the rational mind: if the mind cognizes eternal intelligibles, and if cognition of that sort requires that intelligibles inhere in the mind as in a subject inseparably (as Aristotelian particular accidents inhere in substances), then the mind must be immortal. But in his unfinished sketch of a projected third book of Soliloquia (now known as De immortalitate animae) Augustine articulates misgivings about construing cognition in terms of ontological inherence. Cognition must involve a relation of some sort between the mind and an object, but perhaps the distinctively cognitive relation is not inherence. As Augustine recognizes, that worry undermines the argument for immortality and the project of Soliloquia. In so doing it raises for him questions to which he will return time and again and at every stage of his career, namely, what is the ontology of cognition and, in particular, the cognition of intelligibles? What kinds of entities, powers, activities, and relations must there be if intellectual cognition is to occur? Augustine gives his final and fullest account in De trinitate (ca. 420): cognition of intelligibles requires (1) an incorporeal substance (a mind) with (2) a distinctive cognitive power (the mind’s gaze — analogous to the eye’s power to see), (3) incorporeal, eternal, necessary entities (intelligible objects), and, crucially, (4) the activation of the mind’s power by virtue of its cognitive contact with, or relation to, an intelligible object. Augustine tells us there that the distinctively cognitive relation is an irreducible (sui generis) relation between mind and intelligible object. This paper traces the path from Augustine’s first unsuccessful but formative explorations in Soliloquia to the polished account of the mature De trinitate.
Tianyue Wu: Augustine on the Mirror and the Self-Knowledge
This paper examines Augustine's complex and seemingly contradictory views on the mirror metaphor in his theory of self-knowledge. While Augustine, breaking from the Platonic tradition, explicitly rejects the analogy of knowing oneself as one sees a face in a mirror, he champions the mind's immediate self-presence (sibi praesens). Yet, he also famously employs St. Paul's phrase "through a glass, darkly" to argue that the mind knows itself as the image of God by serving as a mirror for knowing its creator.
To resolve this tension, this paper distinguishes between two forms of self-knowledge in Augustine. The first is an immediate, non-mirrored, and non-representational knowledge of the self's existence, stemming from the mind's unique self-presence. Augustine argues this foundational self-awareness is certain but substantively limited, insufficient to fulfil the Delphic injunction "know thyself". The second is a substantial, mirrored knowledge of the self, achieved when the mind actively thinks of itself (se cogitare) as the imago Dei. By viewing itself as a mirror reflecting its divine archetype, the mind gains substantive knowledge of its own nature, value, and ethical purpose. This paper concludes that Augustine's innovative distinction demonstrates the coherence of his theory and shows how he transcended his philosophical predecessors to offer a richer, multi-dimensional account of the knowledge of the self.