Published by De Gruyter

Scientia Graeco-Arabica

Edited by: Marwan Rashed

ISSN: 1868-7172

Overview
Volumes

The series Scientia Graeco-Arabica is devoted to the study of scientific and philosophical texts from the Classical and the Islamic world handed down in Arabic. Through critical text editions and monographs it provides access to the topics of inquiry in which ancient science presented itself and developed over time in a continuous tradition between Antiquity and the modern period. All editions are accompanied by translations and philological and explanatory notes.

Languages of publication are English, German, French and Italian.

Author / Editor information

Marwan Rashed, École Normale Supérieure, Paris, Frankreich.

Book Ahead of Publication 2024

Avicenna’s Addendum to His Recension of Ptolemy’s Almagest

Sajjad Nikfahm-Khubravan

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The Islamic astronomical tradition greatly benefited from the many works produced in different ancient cultures, as well as the new empirical and theoretical approaches that led to advancements in various aspects of astronomy. Nevertheless, a significant portion of the history of this tradition, especially its formative period, was lost or remains undiscovered. Avicenna’s addendum to his recension of Ptolemy’s Almagest, which he incorporated into his main philosophical summa, Kitāb al-Shifāʾ, helps recover parts of this otherwise lost history. In the addendum, Avicenna took a historiographical approach and reported the developments in the science of astronomy that occurred from Ptolemy’s time until his own. As such, the treatise also sheds light on the sources that were possibly available to Avicenna. However, because Avicenna did not explicitly indicate his sources, and because the text’s structure is complex and language condensed, analyzing the treatise is a rather challenging task. The present monograph offers a critical edition of Avicenna’s addendum, complete with an English translation and commentary, to assist readers in better understanding and appreciating this valuable contribution to the history of Islamic astronomy.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.0000/9783111332970
ISBN:: 9783111332970
ISBN:: 9783111332642
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Print Only 2023

Volume I-IV Set: Écrits d’histoire et de philosophie des sciences

Roshdi Rashed

Part of the multi-volume work Écrits d’histoire et de philosophie des sciences

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Les textes réunis dans ces quatre volumes portent sur l’histoire et la philosophie des mathématiques et de leurs applications. Les trois premiers tomes sont consacrés à l’histoire des mathématiques (arithmétique, algèbre, géométrie), de l’optique et de l’astronomie, de l’Antiquité à l’Âge classique. Les très nombreuses études qu’ils contiennent ont renouvelé, au cours des cinquante dernières années, l’étude des principaux mathématiciens grecs – Euclide, Archimède, Apollonius, Diophante, Ménélaüs – et ont montré quelle a été la nature et la portée de leur réception et de leurs transformations, tant dans l’Islam classique qu’au cours de la première modernité européenne. Le quatrième volume fonde et explore divers champs de recherche entre philosophie et mathématiques, des interactions polymorphes propres à la science grecque, arabe et latine jusqu’à la mathématisation des sciences sociales au XVIII^e siècle. Tant par la nouveauté des matériaux découverts et édités pour la première fois que par la puissance et la finesse qui en guident toujours l’analyse épistémologique, les dizaines de contributions ici rassemblées représentent une œuvre majeure, qui a changé l’histoire des sciences de notre temps.

Les textes réunis dans ces quatre volumes portent sur l’histoire et la philosophie des mathématiques. Les trois premiers tomes sont consacrés à l’histoire des mathématiques, de l’optique et de l’astronomie. Le quatrième volume explore divers champs de recherche entre philosophie et mathématiques, des interactions propres à la science grecque, arabe et latine jusqu’à la mathématisation des sciences sociales au XVIII^e siècle.

ISBN:: 9783111201085
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Ahead of Publication 2024

Avicenna Illuminated

Suhrawardī’s Critique of Aristotelian Categories and Hylomorphism

Hanif Amin Beidokhti

Volume 39 in this series

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This study tracks the progress of Suhrawardī’s philosophy focusing on his critique of the axial doctrine of the categories and topics related to it: predication and hylomorphism. While it’s known that he rejected hylomorphism and reduced the categories into five, it’s not known how and in which context he has achieved his positions. This is a philosophical study with an eye on the history of concepts. Each chapter detects the historical development from Aristotle through his commentators to Avicenna and critical Avicennans, and then to Suhrawardī.

Suhrawardī discerns two diverging projects in the Categories: An ontological project of the ten highest genera of being, and a project of predication embodied in Aristotle’s predicative square. He discusses the latter in the Isagoge, whereas the former is discussed and reduced to five (substance, quality, quantity, relation, motion) in metaphysics. He also shifts hylomorphism from metaphysics – its Avicennan locus – to physics. Perhaps for this reason scholars never paid attention to his proper texts for the theory of body and confined themselves with the polemics of Ḥikmat al-išrāq. This is the first study of physics and general metaphysics of al-Talwīḥāt, al-Mašāriʿ, and al-Muqāwamāt.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.0000/9783111253619
ISBN:: 9783111253619
ISBN:: 9783111256245
ISBN:: 9783111256474
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Ahead of Publication 2024

Alexander of Aphrodisias, ›On the Conversion of Propositions‹

Thomas Auffret, Jonathan Barnes, Marwan Rashed

Volume 38 in this series

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Alexander’s essay on the conversion of predicative propositions contains otherwise unknown information about the early history of Aristotle’s logic. The essay survives only in a mutilated Arabic translation. This volume contains a new edition of the text, a translation (the first into any modern language), and a discursive commentary. It will be of interest to anyone concerned with the history of Aristotelianism or with the history of logic.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.0000/9783111035864
ISBN:: 9783111035864
ISBN:: 9783110999570
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Ahead of Publication 2023

Power and Possibility in Early Arabic Philosophy

Three Innovators Between Philoponus and Avicenna

Nicholas Allan Aubin

Volume 37 in this series

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"The world is a finite body, and therefore has finite power." John Philoponus is remembered for using this Aristotelian premise to break ranks with Aristotle and argue that the world is not everlasting. This investigation reconsiders Philoponus’s arguments from finite power, and then explores the aftermath of this line of thinking in the works of three lesser-known Arabic intellectuals active in the generation before Avicenna (d. 1037): Abū l-Ḫayr Ibn Suwār (d. after 1017), Abū al-Ḥasan al-ʿĀmirī (d. 992), and Abū Sahl al-Masīḥī (d. after 1025). Each engaged with this dictum in unique and novel ways, and in so doing anticipated a number of central features of Avicenna’s writings. The history of this argument is of crucial importance for understanding the evolution of natural philosophy and metaphysics in this formative period, away from tedious and simplistic arguments about creation and towards a more robust modal ontology based on intrinsic and extrinsic necessity.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.0000/9783111325088
ISBN:: 9783111325088
ISBN:: 9783111325132
ISBN:: 9783111324920
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: History of Philosophy
Subject:: Medieval Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2023

Volume IV Mathématiques et Philosophie

Roshdi Rashed

Part of the multi-volume work Écrits d’histoire et de philosophie des sciences

Volume 36/4 in this series

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The texts in these four volumes deal with the history and philosophy of mathematics and its applications. The first three volumes are devoted to the history of mathematics (arithmetic, algebra, geometry), optics and astronomy, from Antiquity to the Classical Age. Over the last fifty years, the numerous studies contained in this volume have renewed the study of the main Greek mathematicians - Euclid, Archimedes, Apollonius, Diophantus, Menelaus - and have shown the nature and scope of their reception and transformations, both in classical Islam and in early European modernity. The fourth volume establishes and explores various fields of research between philosophy and mathematics, from the polymorphous interactions specific to Greek, Arab and Latin science to the mathematisation of the social sciences in the eighteenth century. Both in terms of the novelty of the material discovered and published for the first time and the power and finesse that continue to guide its epistemological analysis, the dozens of contributions collected here represent a major work that has changed the history of science in our time.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110784749
ISBN:: 9783110784749
ISBN:: 9783110784688
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2023

Volume III Optique et Astronomie

Roshdi Rashed

Part of the multi-volume work Écrits d’histoire et de philosophie des sciences

Volume 36/3 in this series

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DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110784725
ISBN:: 9783110784725
ISBN:: 9783110784640
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2023

Volume II Géométries

Roshdi Rashed

Part of the multi-volume work Écrits d’histoire et de philosophie des sciences

Volume 36/2 in this series

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DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110784763
ISBN:: 9783110784763
ISBN:: 9783110784626
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2023

Volume I Arithmétique, Algèbre et Théorie des Nombres

Roshdi Rashed

Part of the multi-volume work Écrits d’histoire et de philosophie des sciences

Volume 36/1 in this series

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DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110784718
ISBN:: 9783110784718
ISBN:: 9783110784602
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2023

Géométrie et philosophie des mathématiques au Xe siècle

Œuvre mathématique d’al-Sijzī. Volume II

Roshdi Rashed, Pascal Crozet

Volume 35 in this series

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Al-Sijzī was a mathematician of the second half of the tenth century, a particularly fertile period for the history and philosophy of mathematics. He occupies a central place in a generation that, in particular, succeeded in renewing the methods of geometry and opening up new avenues of research in this field.

This book contains a critical edition of several of his writings on plane and solid geometry, thus enriching research in the history and philosophy of mathematics.

Al-Sijzī endeavours to identify the laws of geometry and, through a commentary on Euclid's books, to explain its principles. In the course of this work to elucidate the laws and concepts of the discipline, he also devoted essays to teaching, and others to the theory of demonstration. In addition, he kept up a rich correspondence with contemporary mathematicians, a living illustration of the mathematical research of his time.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111172668
ISBN:: 9783111172668
ISBN:: 9783111167947
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2021

Porphyry, ›On Principles and Matter‹

A Syriac Version of a Lost Greek Text with an English Translation, Introduction, and Glossaries

Yury Arzhanov, Porphyry

Volume 34 in this series

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The Syriac treatise published in the present volume is in many respects a unique text. Though it has been preserved anonymously, there remains little doubt that it belongs to Porphyry of Tyre. Accordingly, it enlarges our knowledge of the views of the most famous disciple of Plotinus. The text is an important witness to Platonist discussions on First Principles and on Plato’s concept of Prime Matter in the Timaeus. It contains extensive quotations from Atticus, Severus, and Boethus. This text thus provides us with new textual witnesses to these philosophers, whose legacy remains very poorly attested and little known. Additionally, the treatise is a rare example of a Platonist work preserved in the Syriac language. The Syriac reception of Plato and Platonic teachings has left rather sparse textual traces, and the question of what precisely Syriac Christians knew about Plato and his philosophy remains a debated issue. The treatise provides evidence for the close acquaintance of Syriac scholars with Platonic cosmology and with philosophical commentaries on Plato’s Timaeus.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110747027
ISBN:: 9783110747027
ISBN:: 9783111274669
ISBN:: 9783110745771
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Open Access 2021

Une doxographie sunnite du IVe/Xe siècle

›Kitāb al-maqālāt‹ d'Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Qalānisī

Ziad Bou Akl

Volume 33 in this series

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This book contains an edition and annotated translation of the remaining fragments of a maqālāt treatise written by Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Qalānisī at the end of the 3^rd/9^th or beginning of the 4^th/10^th c. Unlike al-Balḫī and al-Ašʿarī, the two main authors of maqālāt from the same period, al-Qalānisī is a theologian who was never part of Muʿtazili circles but rather belongs to Ibn Kullāb’s school that aims to defend Sunni doctrines by the use of the dialectical method. These are the only remaining fragments of the great albeit little-known theologian who probably never left the city of Rayy. They reflect his intellectual agenda of integrating the traditionnist milieux in the main theological debates of the 3^rd/9^th c. The history he writes of early kalām differs from that of the Muʿtazilis and the Hanbalis, who both agree that theologians and traditionnists are two mutually exclusive professions. Through the category of «　traditionnists theologians　» which appears for the first time in these fragments, al-Qalānisī takes part with al-Ašʿarī in the great synthesis of the 4^th/10^th c. However, despite all their similarities, their two historiographical projects differ greatly one from another. The study preceding the edition sheds a new light on the strategy of al-Qalānisī in order to explain the reasons behind the success of al-Ašʿarī whose school relegated this early and flourishing period of Sunni kalām in the margins of orthodoxy.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110732740
ISBN:: 9783110732740
ISBN:: 9783110737424
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Theology
Subject:: History
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Print Only 2021

L'algèbre arithmétique au XIIe siècle: ›Al-Bāhir‹ d'al-Samaw'al

Roshdi Rashed

Volume 32 in this series

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Après qu'al-Khwarizmi eut rédigé son livre fondateur de l'algèbre au début du IXe siècle, les recherches algébriques se sont rapidement développées et enrichies, avant de se scinder et de se concentrer en deux principaux courants: l'algèbre arithmétique, l'analyse indéterminée et la théorie des nombres d'une part, la géométrie algébrique élémentaire d'autre part. C'est à partir des travaux du premier courant qu'al-Samaw'al (mort en 1175) rédige le premier traité en algèbre arithmétique: "Le Brillant en Algèbre", al-Bāhir fī al-Jabr. On trouvera ici l'édition critique de cet ouvrage fondamental, sa traduction en français, ainsi que son commentaire mathématique et historique. Le présent livre est important non seulement pour comprendre l'histoire de l'algèbre en arabe, mais aussi celle de l'algèbre latine à partir de Leonardo Pisano et, plus généralement, l'histoire des mathématiques classiques .

ISBN:: 9783110738346
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2021

Avicenna, ›The Healing, Logic: Isagoge‹

A New Edition, English Translation and Commentary of the Kitāb al-Madḫal of Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Šifāʾ

Avicenna, Silvia Di Vincenzo

Volume 31 in this series

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This book offers a new edition, with English translation and commentary, of the Kitāb al-Madḫal, which opens Avicenna’s (d. 1037) most comprehensive summa of Peripatetic philosophy, namely the Kitāb al-Šifāʾ. For the first time, the text is established together with a stemma codicum showing the genealogical relations among 34 manuscripts, the twelfth-century Latin translation, and the literal quotations by Avicenna’s first and second-generation students. In this book, Avicenna’s reappraisal of Porphyry’s Isagoge is examined from both a historical and a philosophical point of view. The key-features of Avicenna’s theory of predicables are analyzed in the General Introduction and in the Commentary both in their own right and against the background of the Greek and Arabic exegetical tradition. Readers shall find in this book the first systematic study of the Madḫal which, in addition to being the only logical work of the Šifāʾ ever transmitted in its entirety both in Arabic and in Latin, is crucial for understanding Avicenna’s conception of universal predicables at the crossroads between logic and metaphysics.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110726565
ISBN:: 9783110726565
ISBN:: 9783110726688
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2020

Aristotleʼs ›Physics‹ VIII, Translated into Arabic by Ishaq ibn Hunayn (9th c.)

Introduction, Edition, and Glossaries

Rüdiger Arnzen, Pieter Sjoerd Hasper

Volume 30 in this series

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Aristotle's theory of eternal continuous motion and his argument from everlasting change and motion to the existence of an unmoved primary cause of motion, provided in book VIII of his Physics, is one of the most influential and persistent doctrines of ancient Greek philosophy. Nevertheless, the exact wording of Aristotle's discourse is doubtful and contentious at many places. The present critical edition of Ishaq ibn Hunayn's Arabic translation (9th c.) is supposed to replace the faulty edition by A. Badawi and aims at contributing to the clarification of these textual difficulties by means of a detailed collation of the Arabic text with the most important Greek manuscripts, supported by comprehensive Greek and Arabic glossaries.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110582086
ISBN:: 9783110582086
ISBN:: 9783110576993
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: History of Science
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2021

Ibn Bāǧǧa, Commentary on Aristotle’s ›On Generation and Corruption‹

Critical Edition and Translation with an Introduction and Glossaries

Corrado la Martire

Volume 29 in this series

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Ibn Bāğğa’s commentary on Aristotle’s On Generation and Corruption (Kitāb al-Kawn wa-l-fasād, Latin De generatione et corruptione) is one of the first commentaries to elaborate on the essential aspect of Aristotle’s text, that is, the analysis of change (μεταβολή, taġayyur). The commentary’s extant parts comprise a consecutive exposition of the contents of Aristotle’s work. However, the commentary may be read more as an introduction or a guide to the topic of generation than as a substitution for the original, as the paraphrases by Averroes seem to have become in the later tradition. The present study provides a new critical edition of the Arabic text and, for the first time, an English translation and a study of the structure of the commentary on the basis of the only two known manuscripts.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110706628
ISBN:: 9783110706628
ISBN:: 9783110705928
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Selected Philosophers
Subject:: Aristoteles
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2021

Subject, Definition, Activity

Framing Avicenna's Science of the Soul

Tommaso Alpina

Volume 28 in this series

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This book offers for the first time a comprehensive study of the reception and reworking of the Peripatetic theory of the soul in the Kitāb al-Nafs (Book of the Soul) by Avicenna (d. 1037). This study seeks to frame Avicenna’s science of the soul (or psychology) by focusing on three key concepts: subject, definition, and activity. The examination of these concepts will disclose the twofold consideration of the soul in Avicenna’s psychology. Besides the ‘general approach’ to the soul of sublunary living beings, which is the formal principle of the body, Avicenna’s psychology also exhibits a ‘specific orientation’ towards the soul in itself, i.e. the human rational soul that, considered in isolation from the body, is a self-subsistent substance, identical with the theoretical intellect and capable of surviving severance from the body. These two investigations demonstrate the coexistence in Avicenna’s psychology of a more specific and less physical science (psychologia specialis) within a more general and overall physical one (psychologia generalis).

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110706840
ISBN:: 9783110706840
ISBN:: 9783110706550
ISBN:: 9783111109244
ISBN:: 9783110706956
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2020

L’hydrostatique de Ménélaüs

Introduction, édition et traduction

Roshdi Rashed

Volume 27 in this series

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Menelaus of Alexandria (1st century CE) is the author of the treatise Sphaerica and as of a treatise on fluid statics. Both of these works only survive in Arabic translations. This book provides an editio princeps of Menelaus’s second text as well as the recently discovered commentary thereon, written by the philosopher and scholar Muhammad ibn al-Haytham (10th–11th century).

Ménélaüs d’Alexandrie (Ier siècle de notre ère) est l’auteur du traité Des figures sphériques et d’un traité de statique des fluides. Ces deux œuvres nous sont parvenues seulement en traduction arabe. On trouvera dans le présent livre une editio princeps du second texte de Ménélaüs, ainsi que le commentaire nouvellement découvert du philosophe et savant Muḥammad ibn al-Haytham (Xe–XIe siècle) à ce dernier.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110698985
ISBN:: 9783110698985
ISBN:: 9783110698152
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2020

Avicenna on the Ontology of Pure Quiddity

Damien Janos

Volume 26 in this series

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This study focuses on the metaphysics of the great Arabic philosopher Avicenna (or Ibn Sīnā, d. 1037 C.E.). More specifically, it delves into Avicenna’s theory of quiddity or essence, a topic which seized the attention of thinkers both during the medieval and modern periods. Building on recent contributions in Avicennian studies, this book proposes a new and comprehensive interpretation of Avicenna’s theory of ‘the pure quiddity’ (also known as ‘the quiddity in itself’) and of its ontology. The study provides a careful philological analysis of key passages gleaned from the primary sources in Arabic and a close philosophical contextualization of Avicenna’s doctrines in light of the legacy of ancient Greek philosophy in Islam and the early development of Arabic philosophy (falsafah) and theology (kalām). The study pays particular attention to how Avicenna’s theory of quiddity relates to the ancient Greek philosophical discussion about the universals or common things and Mu’tazilite ontology. Its main thesis is that Avicenna articulated a sophisticated doctrine of the ontology of essence in light of Greek and Bahshamite sources, which decisively shaped subsequent intellectual history in Islam and the Latin West.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110652086
ISBN:: 9783110652086
ISBN:: 9783110651218
ISBN:: 9783110635980
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2019

Abū Bakr al-Rāzī, “Doutes sur Galien”

Introduction, édition et traduction

Pauline Koetschet

Volume 25 in this series

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This book provides a critical edition as well as a French translation of the Doubts About Galen, a polemical treatise written by Abū Bakr al-Rāzī, one of the most innovative clinicians and philosophers of the Arabo-Islamic Middle Ages. His Doubts stand at the cross-roads of metaphysics, natural philosophy and medicine. The edition includes a comprehensive introduction which discusses the treatise’ most significant philosophical features.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110629767
ISBN:: 9783110629767
ISBN:: 9783110626919
ISBN:: 9783110627022
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2019

Medizinische Lehrwerke aus dem spätantiken Alexandria

Die "Tabulae Vindobonenses" und "Summaria Alexandrinorum" zu Galens "De sectis"

Oliver Overwien

Volume 24 in this series

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Die Tabulae Vindobonenses und Summaria Alexandrinorum sind Unterrichtswerke aus dem spätantiken Alexandria (5.-7. Jh.). Diese Werke waren als Ergänzung zu den Vorlesungen der alexandrinischen Medizinlehrer gedacht. Sie enthalten zentrale Inhalte aus den Schriften des Lehrplanautors Galen von Pergamon in Form von Begriffsunterteilungen (Dihairesen). Thema der vorliegenden Untersuchung sind die Abschnitte, die sich mit Galens Schrift De sectis (Über die medizinischen Gruppen) beschäftigen. Sie werden ediert, ins Deutsche übersetzt und in den Unterrichtskontext eingebettet.
In der Studie werden nicht nur Texte erschlossen, die in der modernen Forschung bisher so gut wie keine Beachtung gefunden haben, sondern auch völlig neue Erkenntnisse über den Aufbau und die Didaktik des alexandrinischen Medizinunterrichtes erzielt. Sie kann außerdem als Ausgangspunkt für weitergehende Forschung über die Auswirkung dieser Lehrwerke dienen. So wurden sie im 9. Jh. ins Arabische übersetzt, wo sie das Genre der „Summaria“ (Zusammenfassungen) begründeten und die Dihairesen als Darstellungsweise etablierten, die über lateinische Übersetzungen wiederum in den Westen gelangte und hier im Prinzip bis in die Moderne fortwirkt.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110629804
ISBN:: 9783110629804
ISBN:: 9783110626995
ISBN:: 9783110626933
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2018

The Arabic, Hebrew and Latin Reception of Avicenna's Physics and Cosmology

Dag Nikolaus Hasse, Amos Bertolacci

Volume 23 in this series

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Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā) greatly influenced later medieval thinking about the earth and the cosmos, not only in his own civilization, but also in Hebrew and Latin cultures. The studies presented in this volume discuss the reception of prominent theories by Avicenna from the early 11th century onwards by thinkers like Averroes, Fahraddin ar-Razi, Samuel ibn Tibbon or Albertus Magnus. Among the topics which receive particular attention are the definition and existence of motion and time. Other important topics are covered too, such as Avicenna’s theories of vacuum, causality, elements, substantial change, minerals, floods and mountains. It emerges, among other things, that Avicenna inherited to the discussion an acute sense for the epistemological status of natural science and for the mental and concrete existence of its objects. The volume also addresses the philological and historical circumstances of the textual tradition and sheds light on the translators Dominicus Gundisalvi, Avendauth and Alfred of Sareshel in particular.
The articles of this volume are presented by scholars who convened in 2013 to discuss their research on the influence of Avicenna’s physics and cosmology in the Villa Vigoni, Italy.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516972
ISBN:: 9781614516972
ISBN:: 9781614519355
ISBN:: 9781614517740
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: History of Philosophy
Subject:: Medieval Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2018

Predication and Ontology

Studies and Texts on Avicennian and Post-Avicennian Readings of Aristotle’s ›Categories‹

Alexander Kalbarczyk

Volume 22 in this series

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In Predication and Ontology A. Kalbarczyk provides the first monograph-length study of the Arabic reception of Aristotle’s Categories. At the center of attention is the critical reappraisal of that treatise by Ibn Sīnā (d. 428 AH/1037 AD), better known in the Latin West as Avicenna. Ibn Sīnā’s reading of the Categories is examined in the context of his wider project of rearranging the transmitted body of philosophical knowledge. Against the background of the late ancient commentary tradition and subsequent exegetical efforts, Ibn Sīnā’s Kitāb al-Maqūlāt of the Šifāʾ is interpreted as a milestone in the gradual reshuffle of the relationship between logic proper and ontology. In order to assess the philosophical impact of this realignment, some of the subsequent developments in Ibn Sīnā’s writings and in the emerging post-Avicennian tradition are also taken into account. The thematic focus lies on the two fundamental classification schemes which Aristotle introduces in the treatise: the fourfold division of Cat. 2 ("of a subject"/"in a subject") and the tenfold scheme of Cat. 4 (i.e., substance and the nine genera of accidents). They both pose the question of whether and how the manner in which an expression is predicated relates to extra-linguistic reality. As the study intends to show, this question is one of the driving forces of Ibn Sīnā’s momentous reform of the Aristotelian curriculum.

This monograph has been awarded the Iran World Award for Book of the Year (2020).

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110591972
ISBN:: 9783110591972
ISBN:: 9783110591705
ISBN:: 9783110584738
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: History of Philosophy
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2017

Menelaus' ›Spherics‹

Early Translation and al-Māhānī / al-Harawī's Version

Roshdi Rashed, Athanase Papadopoulos

Volume 21 in this series

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Despite its importance in the history of Ancient science, Menelaus’ Spherics is still by and large unknown. This treatise, which lies at the foundation of spherical geometry, is lost in Greek but has been preserved in its Arabic versions. The reader will find here, for the first time edited and translated into English, the essentials of this tradition, namely: a fragment of an early Arabic translation and the first Arabic redaction of the Spherics composed by al-Māhānī /al-Harawī, together with a historical and mathematical study of Menelaus’ treatise. With this book, a new and important part of the Greek and Arabic legacy to the history of mathematics comes to light. This book will be an indispensable acquisition for any reader interested in the history of Ancient geometry and science and, more generally, in Greek and Arabic science and culture.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110571424
ISBN:: 9783110571424
ISBN:: 9783110569872
ISBN:: 9783110568233
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Arab World
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2018

The Elements of Avicenna's Physics

Greek Sources and Arabic Innovations

Andreas Lammer

Volume 20 in this series

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This study is the first comprehensive analysis of the physical theory of the Islamic philosopher Avicenna (d. 1037). It seeks to understand his contribution against the developments within the preceding Greek and Arabic intellectual milieus, and to appreciate his philosophy as such by emphasising his independence as a critical and systematic thinker. Exploring Avicenna’s method of "teaching and learning," it investigates the implications of his account of the natural body as a three-dimensionally extended composite of matter and form, and examines his views on nature as a principle of motion and his analysis of its relation to soul. Moreover, it demonstrates how Avicenna defends the Aristotelian conception of place against the strident criticism of his predecessors, among other things, by disproving the existence of void and space. Finally, it sheds new light on Avicenna’s account of the essence and the existence of time. For the first time taking into account the entire range of Avicenna’s major writings, this study fills a gap in our understanding both of the history of natural philosophy in general and of the philosophy of Avicenna in particular.

This monograph has been awarded the annual BRAIS – De Gruyter Prize (Kulturpreis Bayern) in the Study of Islam and the Muslim World and the Iran World Award for Book of the Year (2020).

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110546798
ISBN:: 9783110546798
ISBN:: 9783110710199
ISBN:: 9783110546088
ISBN:: 9783110543582
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Classical Tradition and Reception
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2015

Al-Hasan ibn Musa al-Nawbakhti, Commentary on Aristotle "De generatione et corruptione"

Edition, Translation and Commentary

Marwan Rashed

Volume 19 in this series

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This book contains a new edition and English translation of the oldest commentary on Aristotle written in Arabic and preserved to this day, together with an extensive commentary. It is a compendium on the treatise De generatione et corruptione, written by the Imamite theologian and heresiographer Hasan b. Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī (fl. ca. 900). To this day, apart from the title of more than forty works and numerous fragments-taken mainly from his magnum opus, the Book of the Doctrines and Religions (Kitāb al-ārā’ wa-al-diyānāt)-only a single treatise of his, the Book of Shî’î Sects (Kitâb firaq al-shî’a), was known to us. The text sheds new light in several ways: firstly, on the the Arabic philosophical tradition, since it was composed during the obscure period between al-Kindī and al-Fārābī (roughly, the 2^nd half of the 9^th c.); secondly, on the Greek tradition, since the author makes extensive use of Alexander’s lost commentary on De generatione; thirdly, on the formative period of shī’ism, since it helps us to reconstruct how the author borrowed from the Aristotelian tradition the tools necessary to build up a new anthropology compatible with the doctrine of the Occultation which he inaugurated at the time.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110444582
ISBN:: 9783110443646
ISBN:: 9783110444582
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Greek
Subject:: Greek Authors
Subject:: Ancient History
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2015

Génération et Substance

Aristote et Averroès entre physique et métaphysique

Cristina Cerami

Volume 18 in this series

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Ce livre constitue la première étude du rôle de la génération dans les systèmes philosophiques d’Aristote et d’Averroès (1126-1198). En s’appuyant sur de nombreux textes traduits du grec, de l’arabe et du latin, l’auteur propose une nouvelle lecture de la théorie aristotélicienne de la génération, ainsi qu’une interprétation de son renouvellement par le Commentateur. Les traités majeurs consacrés par Averroès à la physique générale, à la théorie des éléments et à la biologie d’Aristote sont, pour la première fois, examinés dans leur rapport mutuel et dans celui qu’ils entretiennent à la métaphysique. Cette étude transversale révèle les nouveaux enjeux philosophiques et épistémologiques au fondement du système d’Averroès : dans la lignée de l’aristotélisme essentialiste d’Alexandre d’Aphrodise et tout en réfutant la doctrine créationniste de certains théologiens de l’Islam, le philosophe cordouan établit le fondement a posteriori de tout savoir humain. La philosophie d’Averroès est ainsi réinterprétée comme un jalon fondamental d’une histoire qui, du monde grec à la modernité, scelle le destin commun de la philosophie naturelle et de la métaphysique.

Ce livre constitue la première étude consacrée à la théorie de la génération d’Aristote et à son renouvellement par Averroès (1126-1198). Pour la première fois, les traités majeurs consacrés par Averroès à la physique générale, à la théorie des éléments et à la biologie d’Aristote sont examinés dans leur rapport mutuel et dans celui qu’ils entretiennent à la métaphysique.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614516958
ISBN:: 9781614517771
ISBN:: 9781614516958
ISBN:: 9781614519690
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: History of Philosophy
Subject:: Medieval Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2015

Angles et Grandeur

D'Euclide à Kamal al-Din al-Farisi

Roshdi Rashed

Volume 17 in this series

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From Antiquity until recently, philosophers and mathematicians have continually discussed the concept of angle and its relation to archimedean and non-archimedean theories of measurement. For the first time, this book traces the history of these discussions in Greek and Arabic, from Euclid to Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī, after whom the discussion was not resumed until Newton and Euler. The volume presents first editions of over twenty texts, either in Arabic or Greek and translated into Arabic, of the greatest mathematicians and philosophers of the time. The texts are here translated into French and supplemented with extensive commentary. The book begins with the definitions and propositions of Euclid on angles and measurement, followed by the Greek commentary tradition represented by Proclus and Simplicius (only extant in Arabic) and the writings of the Arabic mathematicians and philosophers from the 9th through 14th century, placing the fundamental contributions by Avicenna and Ibn al-Haytham into their historical context and showing how numerous successors produced new syntheses of their work.

Cet ouvrage fournit la première étude de référence consacrée à l'histoire du concept d'angle (angle rectiligne, angle curviligne, angle de contingence, angle solide) d'Euclide aux mathématiques arabes classiques. Il comprend l'édition critique, la traduction et le commentaire d'écrits de mathématiciens et de philosophes grecs et arabes, tels qu'Euclide, Simplicius, al-Nayr?z?, Avicenne, Ibn a-Haytham, al-Tusi, al-Shirazi, al-Farisi.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501502385
ISBN:: 978-1-5015-1070-0
ISBN:: 978-1-5015-0238-5
ISBN:: 9781501502408
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: History of Philosophy
Subject:: Medieval Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2015

Band 1 Edition antiker landwirtschaftlicher Werke in arabischer Sprache

Band 1: Prolegomena

Part of the multi-volume work Antike landwirtschaftliche Werke in arabischer Sprache

Volume 16/1 in this series

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There has been a lack of scholarly attention to Arabic translations of ancient works on agriculture. The reconstruction of the Arabic tradition offered by the Prolegomena volume illustrates the importance of these translations in Arabic agricultural literature and enables better understanding of the genesis of the Byzantine Geoponika. Therefore, this introduction will be useful for classics scholars and orientalists.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614517481
ISBN:: 978-1-61451-782-5
ISBN:: 978-1-61451-748-1
ISBN:: 9781614519379
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2016

Aufsätze zur arabischen Rezeption der griechischen Medizin und Naturwissenschaft

Manfred Ullmann, Rüdiger Arnzen

Volume 15 in this series

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No area of Arab scholarship was as greatly influenced by the Ancient Greek heritage as medicine and the natural sciences. This volume contains selected essays by Manfred Ullmann, whose depth and clarity have made them essential reference points for scholarly debate about the key personalities, texts, and subjects of this great intercultural movement.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614518457
ISBN:: 9781614518457
ISBN:: 9781614519461
ISBN:: 9781614518440
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Medicine
Subject:: Basic Medical Science
Subject:: History and Ethics of Medicine
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: History of Philosophy
Subject:: Medieval Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2015

Averroès: le philosophe et la Loi

Édition, traduction et commentaire de "L’Abrégé du Mustasfa"

Ziad Bou Akl

Volume 14 in this series

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One of Averroes' (Ibn Rushd) earliest works is dedicated to law. The work comprises a summary of al-Ghazali's work on legal theory called al-Mustasfa min 'ilm al-usul. This volume presents a new edition of the Arabic text accompanied by a French translation and commentary. The edition is preceded by a study that draws attention to the main points of difference between the two philosophers.

L'un des premiers traités d'Averroès est consacré au droit. Il s'agit d'un abrégé de la somme de théorie juridique d'al-Ghazāli, al-Mustasfā min 'ilm al-usūl. Cette nouvelle édition du texte est accompagnée d'une traduction française et d'un commentaire qui replace les arguments dans leur tradition doctrinale, celle de la théorie juridique véhiculée par le Mustasfā, l'un des traités les plus marquants de cette discipline.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501501357
ISBN:: 978-1-5015-1035-9
ISBN:: 978-1-5015-0135-7
ISBN:: 9781501501401
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: History of Philosophy
Subject:: Medieval Philosophy
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Islamic Studies
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2014

Vom Denken der Natur zur Natur des Denkens

Ibn Baggas Theorie der Potenz als Grundlegung der Psychologie

David Wirmer

Volume 13 in this series

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The present study relies on a greatly improved re-edited text of Ibn Bagga’s (d. 1139) commentary on De anima, Kitab al-nafs. Here, the author shows that in keeping with the Aristotelian model, Ibn Bagga conceptualizes psychology as a natural science, but at the same time, ultimately turns his understanding of natural science into fundamental science.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110272031
ISBN:: 978-3-11-027196-6
ISBN:: 978-3-11-027203-1
ISBN:: 9783110385519
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: History of Philosophy
Subject:: Medieval Philosophy
Subject:: Epistemology
Subject:: Philosophy of Science
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2013

Histoire de l'analyse diophantienne classique

D’Abu Kamil à Fermat

Roshdi Rashed

Volume 12 in this series

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This is the first study of the history of Diophantine analysis and the theory of numbers from Abū Kāmil to Fermat (9^th-17^th century). It thus offers an elaborate and detailed overview on a fundamental chapter on classical mathematical thought and its relation to algebra and Diophantus’ Arithmetica.

Cet ouvrage fournit la première étude de référence consacrée à l’histoire de l’analyse indéterminée (diophantienne) et de la théorie des nombres d’Abū Kāmil à Fermat, soit du IXème au XVIIème siècle. Il offre ainsi une compréhension plus informée et plus fine sur un chapitre fondamental des mathématiques classiques et sur ses relations avec l’algèbre et les Arithmétiques de Diophante.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110337884
ISBN:: 978-3-11-033685-6
ISBN:: 978-3-11-033788-4
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Greek
Subject:: Greek Authors
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2013

Les "Arithmétiques" de Diophante

Lecture historique et mathématique

Roshdi Rashed, Christian Houzel

Volume 11 in this series

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Until recently, only six of thirteen books comprising Diophantus’ Arithmetica were known to us. Four other books in an Arabic translation have been discovered recently. We can now understand the organization of this work and its long-lasting impact on mathematics. The present book offers the first historical and mathematical study of the work as it has survived in ten books.

Jusqu’à une date récente, on ne connaissait que six des treize livres que comprenaient les Arithmétiques de Diophante. Quatre livres supplémentaires ont été récemment découverts en traduction arabe. Nous sommes donc maintenant en mesure de comprendre l’organisation de l’ouvrage et son impact sur un millénaire et demi de recherche mathématique. Le présent livre offre la première étude historique et mathématique de l’ensemble des dix livres.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110336481
ISBN:: 978-3-11-033593-4
ISBN:: 978-3-11-033648-1
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Greek
Subject:: Greek Language and Literature
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2013

Les possibilités de jonction

Averroès - Thomas Wylton

Jean-Baptiste Brenet

Volume 10 in this series

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This book is an essay - with an annotated translation - about the psychology of Averroes, Aristotle’s Commentator, and its influence in Latin philosophy. It specifically addresses his famous doctrine of the intellect, long deemed scandalous, and its critical defence by one of his epigones, the English XIVth century theologian Thomas Wylton, also descended from the great scholastics Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus. On new textual bases, the author tackles some of the main noetic questions of Greco-Arabic peripateticism: the relation between soul and body, the status of imagination, the nature of the intellect’s power, the autonomy of the thinker, or the theoretical accomplishment of the individual as conjunction with the “agent” intellect. The author argues that Wylton’s averroism is a conceptually consistent exegesis, an indiosynchratic combination of various elements found in Ibn Rushd’s system, while also, against a depreciatory tradition, contextualizing Averroes and his doctrine in relation to the active field of modern philosophy, within an identical rationality.

Le livre est un essai - accompagné d’une traduction - qui porte sur la psychologie d’Averroès et sa reprise dans le monde latin. Il concerne sa célèbre doctrine de l’intellect, et la défense critique qu’en fit l’un de ses épigones: le théologien anglais du XIVe siècle Thomas Wylton. On y étudie les questions majeures du mind-body problem: le rapport de l’âme et du corps, le statut de l’imagination, la nature de la puissance intellective, l’autonomie du sujet de la pensée, etc.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110315172
ISBN:: 978-3-11-031506-6
ISBN:: 978-3-11-031517-2
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Latin
Subject:: Latin Authors
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: History of Philosophy
Subject:: Medieval Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2012

Abu Kamil

Algèbre et analyse diophantienne. Édition, traduction et commentaire

Roshdi Rashed

Volume 9 in this series

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DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110295665
ISBN:: 978-3-11-029561-0
ISBN:: 978-3-11-029566-5
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2012

Epidemics in Context

Greek Commentaries on Hippocrates in the Arabic Tradition

Peter E. Pormann

Volume 8 in this series

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The Hippocratic Epidemics and Galen’s Commentary on them constitute milestones in the development of clinical medicine. But they also illustrate the rich exegetical traditions that existed in the post-classical Greek world. The present volume investigates these texts from various and diverse vantage points: textual criticism; Greek philology; knowledge transfer through translations; and medical history. Especially the Syriac and Arabic traditions of the Epidemics come under scrutiny.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110259803
ISBN:: 978-3-11-025979-7
ISBN:: 978-3-11-025980-3
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Medicine
Subject:: Basic Medical Science
Subject:: History and Ethics of Medicine
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2011

The Arabic, Hebrew and Latin Reception of Avicenna's Metaphysics

Dag Nikolaus Hasse, Amos Bertolacci

Volume 7 in this series

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Avicenna’s Metaphysics (in Arabic: Ilâhiyyât) is the most important and influential metaphysical treatise of classical and medieval times after Aristotle. This volume presents studies on its direct and indirect influence in Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin culture from the time of its composition in the early eleventh century until the sixteenth century. Among the philosophical topics which receive particular attention are the distinction between essence and existence, the theory of universals, the concept of God as the necessary being and the theory of emanation. It is shown how authors such as Averroes, Abraham ibn Daud, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus react to Avicenna’s metaphysical theories. The studies also address the philological and historical circumstances of the textual tradition in three different medieval cultures. The studies are written by a distinguished international team of contributors, who convened in 2008 to discuss their research in the Villa Vigoni, Italy.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110215762
ISBN:: 978-3-11-021575-5
ISBN:: 978-3-11-021576-2
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: History of Philosophy
Subject:: Medieval Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy of Religion
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Systematic Theology and Philosophy of Religion
Subject:: Philosophy of Religion
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2011

Platonische Ideen in der arabischen Philosophie

Texte und Materialien zur Begriffsgeschichte von suwar aflatuniyya und muthul aflatuniyya

Rüdiger Arnzen

Volume 6 in this series

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The influence of the Platonic theory of forms is to be found in nearly all periods in the history of Western philosophy. Much less well known is the fact that in all ages Arabic philosophers also discussed “Platonic forms” in their written works, although they had no access to Plato’s Dialogues. This study analyses how this conception was given doctrinal content without recourse to Plato’s works, and presents the relevant Arabic works in German translation for the first time. They offer a first insight into a branch of the reception of Platonism that has not yet been researched, but which is often clearly influenced by Islam.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110259827
ISBN:: 978-3-11-025981-0
ISBN:: 978-3-11-025982-7
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: History of Philosophy
Subject:: Medieval Philosophy
Subject:: Intercultural Philosophy
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Religious Studies
Subject:: Ancient Religions
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2010

On Aristotle's "Metaphysics"

An Annotated Translation of the So-called "Epitome"

Averroes, Rüdiger Arnzen

Volume 5 in this series

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This book contains the first English translation of Abūl-Walīd Ibn Rushd's (Averroes') so-called Epitome of Aristotle's Metaphysics . The original Arabic text was composed around 1160 as a sort of appendix to a series of compendia of Aristotle's works on natural philosophy by the famous Andalusian philosopher. The two most interesting things about this work are the fact that Averroes restructures here the Aristotelian text according to his own conception of metaphysics, as opposed to his great literal commentary which follows the order of the Metaphysics section by section, and that he constantly revised this work over more than three decades. The present translation is based on a wide range of documents including, apart from the available Arabic editions, a number of medieval Arabic manuscripts not taken into consideration in these editions as well as the Renaissance translation into Latin prepared by Jacob Mantinus. It is accompanied by a commentary dealing with the major philosophical topics, Averroes' sources and problems of the transmission and constitution of the text. In addition, the most important variant readings of the manuscripts are noted in footnotes underneath the translation.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110220025
ISBN:: 978-3-11-022001-8
ISBN:: 978-3-11-022002-5
Subject:: History
Subject:: Regional and National History
Subject:: Arab World
Subject:: Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: History of Philosophy
Subject:: Medieval Philosophy
Subject:: Metaphysics, Ontology
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2009

Thabit ibn Qurra

Science and Philosophy in Ninth-Century Baghdad

Roshdi Rashed

Volume 4 in this series

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Thabit ibn Qurra (826–901) was one of history’s most original thinkers and displayed expertise in the most difficult disciplines of this time: geometry, number theory, and astronomy as well as ontology, physics, and metaphysics.
Approximately a dozen of this shorter mathematical and philosophical writings are collected in this volume. Critically edited with accompanying commentary, these writings show how Thabit Ibn Qurra developed and reconceived the intellectual inheritance of ancient Greece in all areas of knowledge.

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.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110220797
ISBN:: 978-3-11-022078-0
ISBN:: 978-3-11-022079-7
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: History of Philosophy
Subject:: Medieval Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2014

Eutocius d’Ascalon

Commentaire sur le traité des "Coniques" d'Apollonius de Perge (Livres I-IV)

Micheline Decorps-Foulquier, Michel Federspiel

Volume 3 in this series

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Eutocius of Ascalon (4th cent. AD) accompanied his edition of the first four books of Apollonius of Perga's Konika with a commentary. His work is relevant to the history of conic sections and important for the textual transmission of Apollonius. This new critical edition contains the first translation into a modern language and complements the Graeco-Arabic edition of the first four books of the Konika (SGA 1-2).

Eutocius d’Ascalon (VIe siècle ap. J.-C.) a accompagné son édition des
Coniques d’Apollonius de Perge d’un commentaire. Cet ouvrage est essentiel
pour l’histoire du texte des Coniques et pour la connaissance des techniques
éditoriales antiques. Cette nouvelle édition critique contient la première
traduction du commentaire dans une langue moderne.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110227291
ISBN:: 978-3-11-020699-9
ISBN:: 978-3-11-022729-1
ISBN:: 9783110373110
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Greek
Subject:: Greek Authors
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2010

Apollonius de Perge, La section des droites selon des rapports

Commentaire historique et mathématique, édition et traduction du texte arabe

Roshdi Rashed, Hélène Bellosta

Volume 2 in this series

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The treatise De Rationis Sectione by Apollonius of Perge, which deals with a unique and difficult problem, is a remarkable, complex example of the study of the necessary pre-conditions for the existence of a solution. This volume presents the editio princeps of the text, which has only survived in an Arabic version. It is made accessible in the form of a French translation and a commentary that reveals the mechanisms of Apollonius’ difficult proof, and draws particular attention to its conceptual innovations.

Cet ouvrage propose l’editio princeps, la traduction française et un commentaire de la version arabe anonyme – seule conservée – du traité sur la Section de rapport d’Apollonius. La connaissance de ce texte qui éclaire d’un jour nouveau le problème de l’analyse dans les mathématiques gréco-hellénistiques ne reposait jusqu’à ce jour que sur la traduction latine approximative due à Halley (Oxford, 1706). Apollonius y est en effet conduit à rechercher les valeurs extrémales d’un rapport et à étudier les variations de ce rapport sur divers intervalles, réflexions et méthodes sans équivalent dans le monde grec. L'édition critique du texte est faite à partir des deux seuls manuscrits qui nous sont parvenus. La traduction est suivie d'un index terminologique donnant la traduction française des termes mathématiques arabes (avec le terme grec correspondant lorsque faire se peut) et de notes philologiques. Cet ouvrage a sa place dans toute bibliothèque de philologie classique, d’islamologie, de philosophie des sciences et d’histoire des mathématiques.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110216509
ISBN:: 978-3-11-018677-2
ISBN:: 978-3-11-021650-9
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies, other
Subject:: History
Subject:: Topics in History
Subject:: Global History
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2009

Tome 4 Livres VI et VII. Commentaire historique et mathématique, édition et traduction du texte arabe

Roshdi Rashed

Part of the multi-volume work Apollonius de Perge, Coniques

Volume 1/4 in this series

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Book VI of the Konika is essentially devoted to the question of the identity and similarity of two conic sections, or two parts of conic sections. In Book VII Apollonius deals with the various relationships between the lengths of diameters and conjugate diameters. The results are applied to the exposition of a number of problems, as well as to some problems which Apollonius indicates will be demonstrated and solved in Book VIII, which was lost in Antiquity. Books VI and VII have only survived in an Arabic translation, and are presented here in a critical edition, together with a faithful translation and a historical-mathematical commentary.

Le livre VI des Coniques est consacré essentiellement à l’étude de l’égalité et de la similitude de deux sections coniques, ou de deux parties de sections coniques. Au livre VII, Apollonius établit de nombreuses relations entre longueurs des diamètres, de leurs diamètres conjugués et des côtés droits qui leur sont associés, ainsi que de nombreuses relations métriques, toutes utiles aux diorismes multiples et en particulier aux problèmes «résolus et démontrés» au livre VIII, perdu dès l’Antiquité. Ces deux livres n’ont survécu que dans la traduction arabe. On en trouvera ici une édition véritablement critique, une traduction rigoureuse ainsi qu’un commentaire historique et mathématique.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110217322
ISBN:: 978-3-11-019940-6
ISBN:: 978-3-11-021732-2
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Greek
Subject:: Greek Authors
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2008

Tome 3 Livre V. Commentaire historique et mathématique, édition et traduction du texte arabe

Roshdi Rashed

Part of the multi-volume work Apollonius de Perge, Coniques

Volume 1/3 in this series

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With the fifth book of the Konika ancient mathematics reached a climax. In it Apollonius presents the first known theory of the maxima and minima lines, which was taken up again by mathematicians in the early 10th century, and above all in the 17th century. As is the case for books 6 and 7, the original Greek text of this book is lost, and it is only known from an Arabic translation made in Baghdad in the 9th century.

This volume presents the reader with a truly critical edition of the fifth book of Apollonius’ Konika, an exact translation that follows the original wording closely, as well as a broad and detailed historical and mathematical commentary, as befits the edition of such an important text.

Le livre V des Coniques est l’un des sommets des mathématiques anciennes et classiques. Perdu en grec, il est seulement connu dans sa traduction arabe. Il comprend une théorie des lignes maximales et minimales ainsi que des normales. Ce livre n’a cessé d'intéresser les mathématiciens et les historiens, depuis sa redécouverte au IX^e siècle à Bagdad jusqu’aux lecteurs de ses traductions arabo-latines aux XVI^e-XVII^e siècles. C’est pour cette raison qu’un volume entier lui est consacré. On y trouve une édition véritablement critique, une traduction fidèle et une commentaire historique et mathématique exhaustif.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110210736
ISBN:: 978-3-11-019939-0
ISBN:: 978-3-11-021073-6
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Greek
Subject:: Greek Authors
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2010

Tome 2.3 Livres II-IV. Édition et traduction du texte grec

Micheline Decorps-Foulquier, Michel Federspiel

Part of the multi-volume work Apollonius de Perge, Coniques

Volume 1/2.3 in this series

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Volume 2.3, containing the Greek translations of books II-IV, completes the edition of the Conica of Apollonius of Perga. It is arranged according to the same principle as the previous volume on book I: the critical edition of the Greek text is accompanied by numerous notes and a lexicon of all mathematical terms. An introduction and a French translation provide further insights into the text. The edition of the Greek books of the Conica will be thematically complemented by volume 3 of the SGA series, containing the critical edition of Eutocius of Ascalon's commentary on the Conica and its French translation.

Le volume 2.3, concluant l'édition des Coniques d'Apollonius de Perge, contient les trois autres Livres transmis en grec (Livres II-IV). Il est conçu selon le même principe que le volume précédent consacré au Livre I: il procure l'édition critique du texte grec, accompagnée de nombreuses notes et d'un lexique complet des termes mathématiques. L'édition est précédée d'une introduction et accompagnée d'une traduction française.
L'édition des Livres grecs des Coniques sera suivie, dans la même série SGA (volume 3), de l'édition critique avec traduction française du Commentaire aux Coniques d'Eutocius d'Ascalon.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110217230
ISBN:: 978-3-11-021722-3
ISBN:: 978-3-11-021723-0
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Greek
Subject:: Greek Authors
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2009

Tome 2.2 Livre IV. Commentaire historique et mathématique, édition et traduction du texte arabe

Roshdi Rashed

Part of the multi-volume work Apollonius de Perge, Coniques

Volume 1/2.2 in this series

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Book IV of the Konika consists of two parts; the first presents a theory of poles and polars, the second deals with the number of intersections and points of contact in a conic section. Previously the book was only extant as the very unreliable text of a Greek commentary by Eutocius. Roshdi Rashed here presents for the first time an edition of an Arabic translation based on a text independent of this Greek version. This is a valuable re-discovery, for which reason it is published here as a separate volume. It contains an edition princeps of the Arabic text, together with a faithful translation and a historical-mathematical commentary.

Le livre IV des Coniques est composé de deux parties. La première porte sur la théorie des pôles et des polaires et la seconde sur le nombre des points d'intersection et de contact des sections coniques. Ce livre n’a été jusqu’ici connu que dans une version grandement défectueuse d’une recension d’Eutocius. C’est ce que permet de montrer l’édition et l’étude de la traduction arabe d’une version grecque indépendante de ce dernier. Il s'agit donc d’une véritable redécouverte, ce qui explique qu’un volume entier soit consacré à ce livre. On y trouve l’editio princeps de cette version arabe, une traduction rigoureuse et un commentaire mathématique et historique.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110217179
ISBN:: 978-3-11-019938-3
ISBN:: 978-3-11-021717-9
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Greek
Subject:: Greek Authors
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2010

Tome 2.1 Livres II et III. Commentaire historique et mathématique, édition et traduction du texte arabe

Roshdi Rashed

Part of the multi-volume work Apollonius de Perge, Coniques

Volume 1/2.1 in this series

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The first three books of the Conica deals with the basic elements of the theory of conical sections, before Apollonius turns to particular problems in the following books. Until recently these three books were only known from Eutocius’ text. However, they were known to be part of an Arabic translation of a Greek version independent of Eutocius’ text.

A close study of the Arabic texts of books 2 and 3 leads to the same conclusion as that which, as a result of the new edition, was reached for the first book: that the Greek version provides a better and sounder text. This volume provides a first critical edition of the Arabic text, the first translation of it into a modern language and a detailed historical and mathematical commentary.

Les trois premiers livres des Coniques sont consacrés aux fondements de la théorie des sections coniques. Ces trois livres étaient connus jusqu’à une date récente par la recension d’Eutocius. Mais on savait aussi qu’ils font partie d’une traduction arabe d’un manuscrit grec indépendant de cette recension. L’examen montre que ce manuscrit grec présente un texte meilleur et plus sûr, comme on l’a déjà montré pour le premier livre. Le lecteur trouve dans ce tome l’editio princeps de la traduction arabe, sa première traduction dans une langue moderne et un commentaire historique et mathématique détaillé.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110217162
ISBN:: 978-3-11-021715-5
ISBN:: 978-3-11-021716-2
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Greek
Subject:: Greek Authors
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Publisher:: De Gruyter

book: Tome 1/1.1 Livre I. Commentaire historique et mathématique, édition et traduction du texte arabe. 1.2: Livre I: Édition et traduction du texte grec

Book 2008

Tome 1/1.1 Livre I. Commentaire historique et mathématique, édition et traduction du texte arabe. 1.2: Livre I: Édition et traduction du texte grec

Roshdi Rashed, Micheline Decorps-Foulquier, Michel Federspiel

Part of the multi-volume work Apollonius de Perge, Coniques

Volume 1/1.1 in this series

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The treatise on conic sections by the Hellenistic mathematician Apollonius from Perga is regarded as a supreme achievement of Greek mathematics and maintained its authority right up to the 18th century. This new edition is the first to consider all Greek and Arabic sources, with the Arabic texts being presented in the first ever critical edition. Both versions of the text are accompanied by a French translation, an extensive mathematical commentary, numerous philological notes and a complete glossary. The four volumes of the edition are intended to be completed in 2009.

Le traité des Coniques est l’œuvre la plus difficile du grand mathématicien hellénistique Apollonius de Perge. Il s’agit non seulement de l’un des plus hauts sommets ‑ voire du plus haut sommet ‑ des mathématiques grecques, mais aussi d’un texte phare de l’histoire des mathématiques universelles: tous les mathématiciens d’envergure, jusqu’au 18^e siècle, ont puisé à cette recherche substantielle sur les sections coniques.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110212167
ISBN:: 978-3-11-019937-6
ISBN:: 978-3-11-021216-7
Subject:: Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
Subject:: Classical Studies
Subject:: Greek
Subject:: Greek Authors
Subject:: Ancient Science and Medicine
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: History of Philosophy
Subject:: Ancient Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter