Ibn al-Haytham and psychophysics

Persian scholar Ibn al-Haytham ('Alhazen') has rightly been credited with many advances in optics and vision science, but recent spurious claims that he is the 'founder of psychophysics' rest upon unsupported assertions, a conflation of psychophysics with the wider discipline of psychology, and semantic arguments over what it is to 'found' a school of thought.     

伊本·泰米叶的时代及其思想

10 世纪以后,穆斯林世界思想趋于僵化,教派分化现象明显,政治上四分五裂。伊本·泰米叶在总结历史基础上,提出重开“创制大门”,鼓励独立判断;坚持维护伊斯兰原旨教义;承认政治现实,提出新的政治学说。由于触犯各方利益,他受到打击迫害,其思想未能传播开来,但在后来产生了广泛影响。伊本·泰米叶是中世纪穆斯林世界少有的改革思想家。     

Translation and Interpretation in Ibn Taymiyya's Logical Definition

This article deals with the concepts of translation and interpretation in Ibn Taymiyya's Theory of Definition. Translation is replacement of one name by another or of one named object by another, while, Interpretation is replacement of one name by a named object or of a named object by a name. The relationship between the definition and the definiendum is decided by the law of al-Tard wa al-'Aks (coextensiveness-cumcoexclusiveness) that looks at objects from all sides and decides the traits of the definiendum. It also aims at deciding the signification of the name and this is also the aim of the definition. Since the ‘name’; is a linguistic matter, the definition is related to the signification of the name and its language.     

Ibn Sina and the status of moral sentences

There are some texts about moral sentences in the Islamic logical literature especially in the logical books of Ibn Sina that have been interpreted in completely opposite ways. Relying on these texts, some scholars take Ibn Sina to be proposing a non-cognitive theory of ethics and to the contrary some scholars hold that he is a proponent of a sort of moral intuitionism. Reflecting on the alleged textual evidence in Ibn Sina’s books, I propose a middle way in the interpretation that accepts the cognitive status of the moral sentences but at the same time rejects intuitionism.

Ibn al-cArab on the Three Conditions of Tawba

Although generally translated as ‘repentance’, tawba, like its Hebrew equivalent, teshuvah, simply means ‘turn’ or ‘return’. It is used in the Qur'an to describe actions of both human beings and God. Even though the idea of tawba subsumes the notion of ‘repentance’ (from the Latin paenitere, ‘to be sorry’, ‘to grieve’, or ‘to regret’), its meaning is not limited to that. The tendency within much of Western scholarship on Islam to understand tawba simply as repentance, and mostly human repentance, may well reflect certain presumptions about repentance and its place in religious life, which, one might argue, are absent in Islam. This article explores the understanding of tawba in the thought of Ibn al-^cArab (1165–1240 CE), whose most extensive reflections on it appear in chapters 74 and 75 of his Meccan Revelations. It focuses on the first of these chapters which concentrates primarily on the conditions set by many of the religious authorities as the fundamental components of human tawba. Ibn al-^cArab's response reflects certain central motifs that permeate his literary oeuvre. These motifs and their wider relation to his views on tawba will be highlighted as our discussion of this important Sufi maqām (station) unfolds.     

Nominal Definition in the Writings of Ibn Taymiyya

I endeavour in this article to present Ibn Taymiyya's theory of nominal definition as an alternative to logical definition. Ibn Taymiyya argues that nominal definition is based on concrete principles that are subject to experiment. Furthermore, the function of definition is akin to the ‘name’ because it aims at distinguishing any one object from others but not at reaching the entity of things. Nominal definition aims to define the name or the named, and this aim can be achieved by translation or by interpretation. Translation is the movement from one name to another or from one named object to another. Interpretation is movement from a name to a named object or from a named object to a name.