Introduction

Welcome to SPOLIA's section on Arab-Islamic philosophy! This space aims at providing a bibliographic update on publications and studies dealing with the corpus of medieval Arab-Islamic philosophical works. The work will consist of a critical cataloguing of the most recently published texts and studies which are deemed most significant (if possible, the references to the texts which are already available in the various journals on paper will be given).

As well as dealing with bibliographies, the section will also take into account information in general. Indeed, we intend to spread the news on all those cultural and scientific activities (seminars, conferences, research, courses, etc.) which deal with the study of Arab-Islamic philosophy directly or indirectly.

With the term "Arab-Islamic philosophy" we intend to designate the philosophic production which was born and developed within the culture generated by the great Arab-Islamic conquests.

Arab-Islamic philosophy does not mean, therefore, that the field of interest is limited to those thinkers that expressed their ideas in Arabic and who belonged to the Islamic faith. On the contrary, it means dealing with the philosophic production which saw Christian authors among its primary figures, next to the Muslims, and which boasts great literature in Persian, starting from the Danes Nâmeh of Avicenna (Ibn Sînâ).

So - for instance - the data on the last edition of the Avicenna Latinus will be placed side by side with all the information dealing with the recent studies on Christian thinkers such as Yahyâ ibn Adî e Qustâ ibn Luq-â.

Of course there are precise limits. The data contained in this section of SPOLIA are those that strictly concern the studies on Medieval Arab-Islamic philosophy (metaphysics, physics, psychology, ethics, eschatology, prophetology, etc.), with the exception of those studies that, although dealing with theology (kalâm), indirectly touch upon philosophic studies. All things pertaining to the history of science, and therefore to the wealth of Arab medical and scientific production, must be sought in the section on the history of science. The same goes for what strictly concerns logic.

Like all of SPOLIA's sections, this one too welcomes the collaboration of all the surfers who are interested in medieval Arab philosophy and who want to add integrations, make proposals, etc.

Happy working to everyone!

Olga Lizzini