λογοσ+ Colloquium

The 10th-century philosopher Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī was interested in, among other subjects, the classification of different sciences. In several of his works, he follows Aristotle’s approach to dividing philosophy into theoretical and practical sciences. Yet, in other works, al-Fārābī argues that some sciences have both theoretical and practical components. One such science is music. In …

The idea of the Enlightenment, both as an intellectual phenomenon as well as a historical period, is recurrently treated as a European phenomenon or more generally an exclusive cultural heritage of “the West”. In my talk I attempt to address this Grand Narrative's Eurocentric bias as a phenomenon generated by epistemic asymmetries and discuss the …

The aim of the presentation is a concise reconstruction of the various understandings of the concepts of tolerance and intolerance which brings the philosophical dimension to the fore. The role of translation, adaptation, and transformation of European concepts into Arabic is analyzed in an intercultural or transcultural perspective, making the competing conceptions of tolerance around …

Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Daštakī (d. 1498) has proposed a solution to the liar paradox which has strong similarities to a modern solution that is proposed by Alfred Tarski. In this presentation, I argue that Daštakī’s solution can be taken as a synthesis of two earlier solutions proposed by Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 1274) and Šams al-Dīn …

Abstract:  Apart from having been praiseworthy as one of the summits of Ancient Greek anatomical science, Galen's description of the  anatomy of the brain went on to enjoy widespread acceptance in the medieval Arabic tradition. Among the Galenic texts translated into classical Arabic during the ʿAbbāsid Translation Movement were On Anatomical Procedures and On the Usefulness of the …

Short bio.: Damien Janos is presently conducting a Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers at the Fakultät für Philosophie at the LMU in Munich. Prior to that, he was an assistant professor for many years at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, and the Université de Montréal, Canada. He has written extensively on the history of Arabic metaphysics and …

Abstract: From the 1970s onward and particularly in the 1990s, Arab philosophers of various schools discussed and developed expressis verbis theories of secularism. In this contribution, I focus on two Arab secularism theories of the 1990s, which, I propose, must be seen in the context of the new global formation after the end of the Cold War …