From Alexandria to Baghdad and Córdoba: The Philosophical Continuity from Late Antiquity to Medieval Islam

 

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Bibliografiske detaljer
Forfatter: Mena Córdoba, Luis
Format: artículo original
Status:Versión publicada
Fecha de Publicación:2025
Beskrivelse:This article argues against the traditional historiography that locates, in Justinian's closure of the Athenian Academy in 529 CE, an intellectual break that would have sharply separated classical philosophy from its medieval Islamic reception. It contends, instead, that this philosophy did not disappear with the closing of the pagan schools of Athens, but was transformed, first through the Neoplatonic commentaries of Alexandria and the Syriac and Eastern Christian translation networks, and later through the Abbasid translation movement that gave rise to falsafa as a discipline in its own right, to be finally assimilated, criticized, and expanded by al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes. To this end, the article examines the role of late antique commentators such as Simplicius of Cilicia and John Philoponus as conceptual bridges between both worlds, reconstructs the caliphal patronage of the Baghdad House of Wisdom and the decisive impact of the misattributed Theology of Aristotle, analyzes the metaphysical and physical development that this reception made possible in medieval Islam, and discusses, finally, two current lines of historiographical debate: the influence of Islamic astronomical corrections on Copernicus and the need to overcome a Eurocentric reading that reduces Arabic thinkers to mere passive preservers of a foreign legacy.
País:Portal de Revistas UNA
Institution:Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica
Repositorio:Portal de Revistas UNA
Sprog:Español
OAI Identifier:oai:www.revistas.una.ac.cr:article/23012
Online adgang:https://www.revistas.una.ac.cr/index.php/praxis/article/view/23012
Palabra clave:medieval Islamic philosophy
late antique Neoplatonism
Abbasid translation movement
falsafa
historiography of philosophy
filosofía islámica medieval
neoplatonismo tardoantiguo
movimiento de traducción abasí
historiografía de la filosofía