In his encyclopedic book, the mathematician of Saragossa, Ibn Hūd, established by an intrinsic demonstration of spherical geometry, a remarkable theorem which generalizes the proposition III.11 from Theodosius’s Spherics and integrates the propositions III.23-25 from Menelaus’s Spherics. In this paper, we study this theorem and the demonstration of Ibn Hūd. The reader will find also some established and translated texts addressing the same theme. Résumé Dans son livre encyclopédique, le mathématicien de Saragosse, Ibn Hūd, établit par une démonstration intrinsèque de (...) la géométrie sphérique un théorème remarquable qui généralise la proposition III.11 des Sphériques de Théodose et intègre les propositions III.23-25 des Sphériques de Ménélaüs. Dans cet article, on étudie ce théorème ainsi que la démonstration d’Ibn Hūd. Le lecteur trouvera aussi établis et traduits quelques textes qui portent sur le même thème. (shrink)

The series Studies and Texts in Scepticism contains monographs, translations, and collected essays exploring scepticism in its dual manifestation as a purely philosophical tradition and as a set of sceptical strategies, concepts, and attitudes in the cultural field - especially in religions, perhaps most notably in Judaism. In such cultural contexts scepticism manifests as a critical attitude towards different dimensions and systems of secular or revealed knowledge and towards religious and political authorities. It is not merely an intellectual or theoretical (...) worldview, but a critical form of life that expresses itself in such diverse phenomena as religion, literature, and society. Further book series of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies are Jewish Thought, Philosophy, and Religion and the Yearbook of the Maimonides Centre for Advances Studies. (shrink)

Obituaries Roshdi Rashed, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, FirstView Article.

Ever since its publication by Heiberg in the 19th century, we have known that the surviving Greek text of The Measurement of the Circle by Archimedes is faulty, altered by the intervention of a compiler. At least some parts of it are therefore of dubious authenticity. More recently, an examination of the ninth-century Latin translation of the Arabic translation of this text has led to the conclusion that the translated Greek manuscript belongs to a better and older textual tradition than (...) the text edited by Heiberg. This study contains the editio princeps of the Arabic translation of The Measurement of the Circle, its first translation and a historical and mathematical analysis. The many readings of this translation over the centuries have inspired several “redactions.” Three of these will be edited, translated and examined in a forthcoming study. (shrink)

This publication of al-Kindī's Optics and Catoptrics provides editio princeps and the first translation of three books including the Rectification of Euclid's Optics hitherto unknown. In this book, the reader will find genuine and new information about Greek and Arabic optics and catoptics.

The aim of this article is (1) to investigate the ‘neurosciences’ as an object of study for historical and genealogical approaches and (2) to characterize what we identify as a particular ‘style of thought’ that consolidated with the birth of this new thought community and that we term the ‘neuromolecular gaze’. This article argues that while there is a long history of research on the brain, the neurosciences formed in the 1960s, in a socio-historical context characterized by political change, faith (...) in scientific and technological progress, and the rise of a molecular gaze in the life sciences. They flourished in part because these epistemological and technological developments were accompanied by multiple projects of institution-building. An array of stakeholders was mobilized around the belief that breakthroughs in understanding the brain were not only crucial, they were possible by means of collaborative efforts, cross-disciplinary approaches and the use of a predominantly reductionist neuromolecular method. The first part of the article considers some of the different approaches that have been adopted to writing the history of the brain sciences. After a brief outline of our own approach, the second part of the article uses this in a preliminary exploration of the birth of the neurosciences in three contexts. We conclude by arguing that the 1960s constitute an important ‘break’ in the long path of the history of the brain sciences that needs further analysis. We believe this epistemological shift we term the ‘neuromolecular gaze’ will shape the future intellectual development and social role of the neurosciences. (shrink)

The study brings to light three of Polqar's main purposes; (1) seeking to defend Judaism as a true religion against Christianity; (2) similarly to his fellow Jewish Averroists, Polqar wishes to defend the discipline of philosophy. By philosophy, Polqar means Averroes' interpretation of Aristotle. As a consequence, he offers an Averroistic interpretation of Judaism and becomes one of the main representatives of Jewish Averroism; (3) defending his philosophical interpretation of Judaism."-- Back cover.

RésuméDans l’Almageste, Ptolémée a proposé le concept du mouvement d'enroulement pour expliquer notamment les latitudes planétaires. Ibn al-Haytham a rédigé un traité intitulé Fī ḥarakat al-iltifāf, « Surle mouvement d'enroulement ». Un anonyme a écrit une critique de ce traité. Les deux mémoires sont perdus; mais heureusement a survécu la réponse d'Ibn al-Haytham, intitulée Fī ḥall šukūk ḥarakat al-iltifāf, « La résolution des doutes sur le mouvement d'enroulement ». Il y rappelle le modèle élaboré et en détaille encore l'explication. Nous (...) donnons ici édition critique, traduction et commentaire de cette réponse, ainsi qu'une édition et traduction de passages apparentés des Hypothèses planétaires de Ptolémée et de la Nihāyat al-idrāk de Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī. (shrink)

Considered an iconic symbol of indigenous legal heritage, Islamic law is adopted nowadays in whole or in part in the legal systems of the Muslim world and is also of significance in Muslim-minority European countries, where it typically finds its niche in civil and financial domains. This article sets out to investigate the norms of translating Islamic family law discourse using a mixed methods approach based on ‘qualitising’ quantitative data, i.e., an approach in which quantitative data are interpreted qualitatively. Drawing (...) on a self-built monolingual English corpus of over three million words covering diverse genres, the analysis will harness the power of corpus processing to enable the study of ten iconic lexical profiles (individual concepts/conceptual systems and their corresponding Arabic and English terms) that are specific to Islamic family law. Profile-based correspondence is also employed to investigate the probability of lexical variation in expressing a conceptual category—a profile refers to a set of synonymous variants or linguistic labels that can be used to designate the same concept. The corpus analysis seeks to identify the key loanwords that represent cultural icons featured in the English-language discourse of Islamic family law and to explore the different mechanisms used to render shariʿa-based concepts. The aim is to investigate concomitant translation norms based on linguistic frequency in the corpus and to interpret ideological implications with reference to the theory of translation norms, which postulates that translation decision making is subject to norms dictated by extralinguistic factors (e.g., socio-political or ideological). The study finds that Islamic family law relies significantly on Arabic loanwords (constructing an ‘Islamgish’ discourse) to maintain shariʿa-based linguistic heritage, which can be seen as a kind of ‘working for one’s own good’. Thus, what is at play here is the ethics of self-interest, which is very typical of postcolonial agendas. (shrink)

In a recent issue of Utilitas Gerald Lang provided an appealing new solution to the Wrong Kind of Reason problem for the buck-passing account of value. In subsequent issues Jonas Olson and John Brunero have provided objections to Lang's solution. I argue that Brunero's objection is not a problem for Lang's solution, and that a revised version of Lang's solution avoids Olson's objections. I conclude that we can solve the Wrong Kind of Reason problem, and that the wrong kind of (...) reasons for pro-attitudes are reasons that would not still be reasons for pro-attitudes if it were not for the additional consequences of having those pro-attitudes. (shrink)

We argue that deliberative decision-making that is inclusive, transparent and accountable can contribute to more trustworthy and legitimate decisions on difficult ethical questions and political trade-offs during the pandemic and beyond.

Al-Q, mathematician of the 10th century, examines critically two arguments in the 6th book of the Aristotelian Physics. This critic does not follow the method of the philosophers, with doctrinal amendments, but with a mathematical and experimental style. For understanding of this critical examination and its influence, it is necessary to situate it in the mathesis of al-Q and to produce its mechanical presuppositions. This is the purpose of the author of this paper.

From the second half of the 10th century, mathematicians developed a new chapter in the geometry of conic sections, dealing with the theory and practice of their continuous drawing. In this article, we propose to sketch the history of this chapter in the writings of al-Qūhī and al-Sijzī. A hitherto unknown treatise by al-Sijzī - established, translated, and commented - has enabled us better to situate and understand the themes of this new research, and how it eventually approached the problem (...) of the classification of curves in previously unknown terms. (shrink)

In a manuscript which is being studied here for the first time, al-Samaw'al quotes a paragraph from al-Bīrūnī which shows that the latter knew not only of Brahmagupta's method of quadratic interpolation, but also of another Indian method. Al-Samaw'al examines these methods, as well as linear interpolation, compares them, and evaluates their respective results. He also tries to improve them. In this article the author shows that al-Bīrūnī had used four methods of interpolation, two of which were of Indian origin; (...) and that al-Samaw'al explicitly introduced a new way of evaluating these different methods. He also throws light on the active movement of research on numerical methods that constitutes the background to al-Bīrūmī's and al-Samaw'al's work, and uses modern means to evaluate the different methods and to justify the mathematicians' choices. The author has edited and translated al-Samaw'al's text in order to make it available to historians of Arabic and Indian mathematics. This allows them to follow the history and the mathematical arguments, and deepens our understanding of the importance to the development of mathematics of certain astronomical work. It also highlights the contribution of Indian mathematicians to the development of Arabic mathematics. Dans un texte manuscrit jamais examiné auparavant, al-Samaw'al cite un paragraphe d'un écrit d'al-Bīrīnī qui montre bien que ce dernier connaissait non seulement la méthode d'interpolation quadratique de Brahmagupta, mais également une autre methode indienne. Al-Samaw'al éetudie ces méthodes ainsi que l'interpolation linéaire, les compare les unes aux autres et par conséquent s'interroge sur leurs performances respectives afin d'opter pour la meilleure, et tente de les perfectionner. Dans cet article, l'auteur montre qu'al-Bīrūnī disposait de quatre méthodes d'interpolation, dont deux sont d'origine indienne, et qu'al-Samaw'al a introduit explicitement une nouvelle interrogation pour juger de la performance des différentes méthodes; il restitue les études d'al- Bī;rūnī et d'al-Samaw'al dans le mouvement actif de recherche sur les méthodes numériques, et reprend avec des moyens modernes la comparaison entre les diverses méthodes pour comprendre les choix des différents mathématiciens. L'auteur établit et traduit le texte d'al-Samaw'al afin de le rendre accessible aux historiens des mathématiques arabes et indiennes, et pour permettre aux lecteurs de suivre l'exposé' historique et mathématique qui vise, au-delà de ces résultats, à mieux connaître l'apport de certaines recherches en astronomie au développement des mathématiques, et d'autre part, la contribution des mathématiciens de l'Inde à l'histoire des mathématiques arabes. (shrink)

RésuméDans les Sphériques, Ménélaüs ne démontre pas l'importante proposition III.5, mais propose seulement une esquisse de démonstration. Une fois le livre des Sphériques traduit en arabe, les mathématiciens, à partir de la fin du IXe siècle, ont voulu en donner une démonstration complète. Le développement de la géométrie sphérique a permis à Ibn ʿIrāq de parvenir au but. Un premier article a été consacré à sa contribution. Deux mathématiciens du XIIIe siècle – Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī et Ibn Abī Jarrāda – (...) ont repris la démonstration de cette même proposition, à partir de Ménélaüs et des acquis d'Ibn ʿIrāq. C'est le sujet du présent article. (shrink)

Among the phenomena examined in the Meteorologica, some, although they are sublunar, are too distant to be accessible to direct study. To remedy this situation, it was necessary to develop procedures and methods which could allow observation, and above all the geometrical control of observations. The eventual result of this research was to detach the phenomenon under consideration from meteorology, and to insert it within optics or astronomy. Abū Sahl al-Qūhī, composed a treatise on shooting stars in which he carries (...) out such an insertion. In a second treatise, he deals with another type of observation, intended to measure maritime, terrestrial, and celestial surfaces. Here, the author studies al-Qūhī's contribution and gives the editio princeps of these two treatises, as well as their translation. (shrink)

Abū al-Jūd Muḥammad ibn al-Layth is one of the mathematicians of the 10th century who contributed most to the novel chapter on the geometric construction of the problems of solids and super-solids, and also to another chapter on solving cubic and bi-quadratic equations with the aid of conics. His works, which were significant in terms of the results they contained, are moreover important with regard to the new relations they established between algebra and geometry. Good fortune transmitted to us his (...) correspondences with the mathematician and astronomer al-Bīrūnī. The questions they debated, and the answers they yielded, all offer us multiple in vivo perspectives on the research that was undertaken in that period. The reader would find in this article a critical edition and French translation of this correspondence, with historical and mathematical commentaries. Résumé Abū al-Jūd Muḥammad ibn al-Layth est l’un des mathématiciens du x e siècle qui ont le plus contribué au nouveau chapitre sur les constructions géométriques des problèmes solides et sur-solides, ainsi qu’à un autre chapitre, sur la solution des équations cubiques et biquadratiques à l’aide des coniques. Ses travaux, importants pour les résultats qu’ils renferment, le sont aussi par les nouveaux rapports qu’ils instaurent entre l’algèbre et la géométrie. La bonne fortune nous a transmis sa correspondance avec le mathématicien et astronome al-Bīrūnī. Les questions qui y sont débattues, les réponses apportées, nous offrent, in vivo, plusieurs perspectives sur la recherche qui était alors menée. Le lecteur trouve dans cet article l’édition critique de cette correspondance, sa traduction française ainsi qu’un commentaire historique et mathématique. (shrink)

Né le 4 février 1917 dans un village des environs de Damiette, ‘Abd al-Rahmān Badaī s'est éteint au Caire, où il avait étudié puis enseigné – à l'Universitél – avant de joindre l'Université d'Héliopoplis. ‘A. Badawī nous laisse une oeuvre monumentale, plus de cent-vingt livres en arabe et cinq autres en français. Mondialement connu, son impact sur l'histoire de la philosophie grecque, sur l'histoire de la philosophie islamique et sur la pensée arabe au cours de la seconde moitié du XX (...) e siècle, est immense et incontestable. Travailleur solitaire et acharné, il n'a jamais été égalé pour ses connaissances tant linguistiques que philosophiques et historiques, et surtout pour l'étendue des champs du savoir qu'il a pu couvrir. (shrink)

The author examines the relationship between mathematics and philosophy in the works of al-Kind on the approximation of 's knowledge of mathematics, and on the history of the transmission of The Measurement of the Circle of Archimedes. The author shows that al-Kind M, and that it was one of the sources of the Florence Versions, the Latin commentary on the same proposition.

Are critique and the “art of governing” antithetical? The aim of this article is to examine this tension that was laid bare by the Covid-19 pandemic by introducing “critical friendship” as a conceptual framework for a constructive interdisciplinary engagement with science in a post-pandemic era. It does so by drawing on several works and insights: (i) Michel Foucault’s notion of “critical attitude” as well as his assessment of philosophy as providing a “diagnosis of the present;” (ii) Bruno Latour and colleagues’ (...) idea of a “critical zone” or what I call a horizontal epistemology of critique; (iii) Aristotle’s notion of friendship as being necessary for the “common good;” and finally (iv) Jacques Derrida’s interpretation of the messianic character of friendship in the constitution of progressive democracies. Whereas critical theory has been described as either “explanatory-diagnostic” or “emancipatory-utopian,” a critical friendship approach aims to be both diagnostic and emancipatory in an age of uncertainty and democratic backsliding. (shrink)

When comparing both GDP loss and mortality across countries, it appears that countries that have managed to save more lives during the Covid-19 pandemic have also managed to save their economies better. What accounts for these stark differences in country performances? In this article, we argue that a salient feature of economic and health performance is the degree of trust populations have in their governments. We set up a heuristic analytical framework that models this relation, under particular assumptions about what (...) drives government and individual behavior, in order to better understand the mechanisms that may be at work. We identify three key roles that trust in government may play in enforcing social distancing policies, conveying credible information for individual decision-making, and shaping government attitudes towards risk. We argue that these implications are consistent with the empirical evidence. We also discuss the relevance of other forms of trust, namely, interpersonal trust and trust in science. (shrink)

Among the phenomena examined in the Meteorologica , some, although they are sublunar, are too distant to be accessible to direct study. To remedy this situation, it was necessary to develop procedures and methods which could allow observation, and above all the geometrical control of observations. The eventual result of this research was to detach the phenomenon under consideration from meteorology, and to insert it within optics or astronomy. Abū Sahl al-Qūhī , composed a treatise on shooting stars in which (...) he carries out such an insertion. In a second treatise, he deals with another type of observation, intended to measure maritime, terrestrial, and celestial surfaces. Here, the author studies al-Qūhī's contribution and gives the editio princeps of these two treatises, as well as their translation. (shrink)

Comparisons between morality and other 'companion' disciplines - such as mathematics, religion, or aesthetics - are commonly used in philosophy, often in the context of arguing for the objectivity of morality. This is known as the 'companions in guilt' strategy. It has been the subject of much debate in contemporary ethics and metaethics. This volume, the first full length examination of companions in guilt arguments, comprises an introduction by the editors and a dozen new chapters by leading authors in the (...) field. They examine the methodology of companions in guilt arguments and their use in responding to the moral error theory, as well as specific arguments that take mathematics, epistemic norms, or aesthetics as a 'companion', and the use of the companions in guilt strategy to vindicate claims to moral knowledge. Companions in Guilt Arguments in Metaethics is essential reading for advanced students and researchers working in moral theory and metaethics, as well as those in epistemology and philosophy of mathematics concerned with the intersection of these subjects with ethics. (shrink)

There are important similarities between moral thought and talk and thought and talk about gender: disagreements about gender, like disagreements about morality, seem to be intractable and to outstrip descriptive agreement; and it seems coherent to reject any definition of what it is to be a woman in terms of particular social, biological, or other descriptive features, just as it seems coherent to reject any definition of what it is to be good or right in terms of any set of (...) descriptive properties. These similarities give us reason to investigate the idea that, like moral thought and talk, gender thought and talk is inherently normative. This paper proposes a normative account of gender thought and talk in terms of fitting treatment. On this fitting treatment account, to judge that A is gender G is just to judge that it is fitting to treat A as a G. This account is a descriptive or hermeneutical account of our gender thought and talk rather than an ameliorative account of our gender concepts or a metaphysical account of gender properties in social metaphysics. This paper argues that other descriptive accounts of gender thought and talk face problems that the fitting treatment account overcomes. (shrink)

In this paper I defend what I call the argument from epistemic reasons against the moral error theory. I argue that the moral error theory entails that there are no epistemic reasons for belief and that this is bad news for the moral error theory since, if there are no epistemic reasons for belief, no one knows anything. If no one knows anything, then no one knows that there is thought when they are thinking, and no one knows that they (...) do not know everything. And it could not be the case that we do not know that there is thought when we believe that there is thought and that we do not know that we do not know everything. I address several objections to the claim that the moral error theory entails that there are no epistemic reasons for belief. It might seem that arguing against the error theory on the grounds that it entails that no one knows anything is just providing a Moorean argument against the moral error theory. I show that even if my argument against the error theory is indeed a Moorean one, it avoids Streumer's, McPherson's and Olson's objections to previous Moorean arguments against the error theory and is a more powerful argument against the error theory than Moore's argument against external world skepticism is against external world skepticism. (shrink)

"Thabit ibn Qurra est l'un des esprits les plus originaux de tous les temps. On lui doit le premier dépassement de Ptolémée en astronomie et la première critique radicale de l'ontologie aristotélicienne au nom de l'idéalisme mathématique. Au vu de son importance historique, il était urgent de publier ses œuvres encore inédites, ou non éditées de manière critique, et de les étudier de manière véritablement historique. On trouvera, dans cet ouvrage, l'édition, la traduction et le commentaire d'une douzaine de ses (...) opuscules mathématiques et philosophiques, éclairant différentes facettes de son génie universel."--. (shrink)

Many have been attracted to the idea that for something to be good there just have to be reasons to favour it. This view has come to be known as the buck-passing account of value. According to this account, for pleasure to be good there need to be reasons for us to desire and pursue it. Likewise for liberty and equality to be values there have to be reasons for us to promote and preserve them. Extensive discussion has focussed on (...) some of the problems that the buck-passing account faces, such as the 'wrong kind of reason' problem. Less attention, however, has been paid as to why we should accept the buck-passing account or what the theoretical pay-offs and other implications of accepting it are. The Normative and the Evaluative provides the first comprehensive motivation and defence of the buck-passing account of value. Richard Rowland argues that the buck-passing account explains several important features of the relationship between reasons and value, as well as the relationship between the different varieties of value, in a way that its competitors do not. He shows that alternatives to the buck-passing account are inconsistent with important views in normative ethics, uninformative, and at odds with the way in which we should see practical and epistemic normativity as related. In addition, he extends the buck-passing account to provide an account of moral properties as well as all other normative and deontic properties and concepts, such as fittingness and ought, in terms of reasons. (shrink)

Une part substantielle de la réflexion philosophique est née et s'est développée aux confins de la science. Depuis l'aube de la philosophie, on ne peut faire l'économie des mathématiques, de l'astronomie, de l'optique... si l'on veut comprendre les voies empruntées par les philosophes et les modèles qu'ils ont élaborés. Cette étude examine quelques-uns de ces liens jusqu'à l'âge moderne.

Many including Judith Jarvis Thomson, Philippa Foot, Peter Geach, Richard Kraut, and Paul Ziff have argued for good simpliciter skepticism. According to good simpliciter skepticism, we should hold that there is no concept of being good simpliciter or that there is no property of being good simpliciter. I first show that prima facie we should not accept either form of good simpliciter skepticism. I then show that all of the arguments that good simpliciter skeptics have proposed for their view fail (...) to show that we have good reason to accept good simpliciter skepticism. So, I show that we do not have good reason to accept good simpliciter skepticism. (shrink)

Christopher Cowie has recently argued that companions in guilt arguments against the moral error theory that appeal to epistemic reasons cannot work. I show that such companions in guilt arguments can work if, as we have good reason to believe, moral reasons and epistemic reasons are instances of fundamentally the same relation.

Our gender identity is our sense of ourselves as a woman, a man, as genderqueer, or as another gender. Our gender is the property we have of being a woman, being a man, being non-binary, or being another gender. What is the relationship between our gender identity and our gender? Recently, much work has been done on ameliorative accounts of the gender concepts that we should accept and on the metaphysics of gender properties. From this work 4 views of the (...) relationship between having gender identity G (e.g. having a female gender identity) and being a gender G (e.g. being a woman) have emerged. A first, the no connection view, says that gender identity and gender are entirely distinct; Sally Haslanger’s ameliorative account of gender, as well as Theodore Bach’s account of gender properties, are instances of this view. A second, the gender-identity-first view, says that all there is to our gender is our gender identity; this view is at least similar to views that Talia Bettcher and R.A. Briggs and B.R. George have argued for. A third, contextualist view, says that in some contexts and relative to certain standards, our gender identity determines our gender, and that in others it does not; Ásta and Robin Dembroff have proposed and defended views along these lines. A fourth view, the two gender properties view, says that there are two properties that can make it the case that one is gender G (in any context), one’s having gender identity G and one’s being socially classed as a G; Katharine Jenkins and Elizabeth Barnes have proposed views along these lines. This article explains these 4 different views and spells out their prospects, and the problems they face, as both ameliorative and as metaphysical views. (shrink)