Classical Arabic Philosophy

Reviews / Votes

This book will make a major impact on the study, and especially the teaching, of Arabic philosophy. A major difficulty with this field has been the lack of any adequate textbook of sources. . . . Reisman and McGinnis not only provide here a rich selection of texts that could be the basis for even a full-year course on Arabic thought, but also manage to translate several important works for the first time; they also include some standards that would probably be missed were they not here. It will no doubt become the standard anthology used in courses on Arabic philosophy, and I will use it this way myself. The team of McGinnis and Reisman is an ideal one. . . All in all, this project is to be greeted with immense enthusiasm. --Peter Adamson, King's College London This fine piece of linguistic work brings to non-Arabists some representative samplings from dozens of the most seminal philosophers that the Arabic-speaking world has produced. Most of the outstanding minds are present, from traditionalists to the most speculative thinkers. . . . [T]his anthology succeeds in offering, in an English translation that is both accessible to readers and faithful to the writers, a comprehensive range of outlooks and perspectives highlighting almost half a millennium (9th-13th centuries CE). . . . The broad range covered is a tribute to the anthologists' judgment and skills. --S.P. Blackburn, CHOICE The anthology produced by Jon McGinnis and David Reisman is a welcome development because it makes accessible a range of key texts covering the spread of philosophical concern in the "classical" period of philosophy in Islam. As they are both Arabists and medievalists with a philosophical training, they have successfully rendered philosophical Arabic into a sophisticated English idiom accessible to students in Islamic thought, medieval studies, and the history of philosophy. In a growing field of study with a paucity of available primary sources in translation, this anthology is greatly welcome and will no doubt become the standard text used in many medieval philosophy, Islamic philosophy, and religious studies courses. The translations are fluent, sophisticated, and well supported with endnotes on the Arabic textual emendations and footnotes referring to the wider ancient and medieval context. A useful bibliography is appended, as is a quite excellent glossary of terms, Arabic-English and vice versa. --Sajjad H. Rizvi, University of Exeter