File spoon-archives/phillitcrit.archive/phillitcrit_1997/phillitcrit.9711, message 962


Date: Sun, 23 Nov 1997 11:59:29 -0800
From: goya-AT-uvic.ca (Michael Chase)
Subject: PLC: Maimonides, Averroes, Corbin (was Dante's sources)


>At 08:09 AM 11/23/97 -0500, you wrote:
>>What about Maimonides (Rambam), whose work influenced Thomas Aquinas?  He was
>>the chief rabbi of Cairo, and personal physician to Saladin (who Dante
>>mentions).
>>
>>pat sloane
>>
>
>Yes, absolutely, there's always more detail to be gone into for those with
>the stomach. Aristotle etc. was mediated into the west from the Byzantine
>hellenophone sources via (1) Arabic-speaking Islamic philos, (2) with
>translating and adapting (etc.) from Judaic scholars and thinkers, esp.
>those in Islamic Spain who knew the Greek and Arabic and Hebrew and Latin
>philosopho-theological traditions that had accummulated by the 11th/12th
>centuries.


M.C.: Largely true; although it ought to be forgotten that Arist. was never
*completely* forgotten in the Medieval West; the Latin translations of e.g.
Boethius (for the Organon) were used throughout the Middle Ages. A lot of
Greek philosophy was indeed translated into Latin from Arabic from the 12th
cent. on, especially at Toledo (by Domenicus Gundissalinus; Gerard of
Cremona, Ibn Daoud (if he really existed); but William of Moerbeke
(1215-1286) translated much of Arist. - as well as many Neoplatonic
commmentaries, such as that of Simplicius on the Categories -  directly
from Greek manuscripts.

There are lots of 20th cent books mapping out aspects of the
>Greek/Islamic/Western-Latin axis with crucial roles played by Judaic scholars.
>
>Weren't both Averroes and Moses Maimonides in Sevilla or thereabouts for at
>least part of their careers? No time to check. They I think were the
>respective high-water-mark Aristotelians of the high middle ages in Islam
>and Judaism, if memory serves (no time to check that either).

M.C.: Well, both were pretty damned important, that's for sure. Maimonides
(1135-1204) and Averroes (1126-1198) were indeed contemporaries; both were
born in Cordoba; but I don't know of any proof they ever met. Maimonides
als lived in Fez, Palestine, and Alexandria, and died in Cairo.

        Maimonides was hugely important for Scholastic philosophy,
particularly Thomas Aquinas (and therby also Dante).
>
        The question of whether or not Averroes was the "high-water mark of
Islamic philosophy" gives me a chance to answer Pat's question about Henry
Corbin. Just as Islam today is divided into Sunni and Sh'ite, so its
ancient philosophers can be divided into the famous *falAsifa* (Avicenna,
Averroes, Al-Farabi, Al-Kindi, etc., et.) who have been abundantly studied
in the West, and the Shi-ite philosophers, mostly Iranian, who have not.
Whereas the *falAsifa* were largely followers of Aristotle, Alexander of
Aphrodisias and their Neoplatonic interpreters, such Iranian philosophers
as Sohravardi, Najmoddin Kobra, Shabestari, Nasiroddin Tusi, Molla Sadra
Shirazi, Qazi Said Qommi, and many others relied more on Plato and the
Hermetic writings.

         Henry Corbin was a pioneering Parisian student of Iranian thought;
after being the first to translate Heidegger into French in the thirties,
he published a whole bunch of brilliant studies (_L'Imagination creatrice
dans le soufisme d'Ibn Arabi_, _Face de Dieu, face de l'homme_;  _Temple et
contemplation_, _Avicenne et le recit visionnaire_, L'homme de lumiere dans
le soufisme iranien_, _L'Iran et la philosophie_; _Philosophie iranienne et
philosophie comparee_; _Alchimie comme art hieratique_; _L'homme et son
ange_; _Le paradoxe du monotheisme_; _Corps spirituel et Terre celeste_,
etc). Most of these were originally prepared as studies for ther
Jung-inspired Eranos circle, which met every year at Ancona, Switzerland,
from the mid-thirties on. The great student of Jewish Mysticism Gershom
Scholem also used to attend these meetings, as did Mircea Eliade. Joseph
Campbell edited six volumes of Eranos-presentations in English translation;
the rest were published in the periodical _Eranos Jahrbuch_ (Zurich: Rhein
Verlag).


        Corbin also founded The _Biblitotheque Iranienne_, containing
critical editions of Persian and Arabic texts; printed in Teheran, some of
the volumes in this series contain a French translation (e.g. _Trilogie
Ismaelienne_, Teheran/Paris 1961), most don't. Corbin also published
annotated French translations of Abu Yaqub Sejestani, Sohravardi
(_L'archange empourpre_; _Le livre de la sagesse orientale_), and Molla
Sadra. Finally (whew!) he also published a superb 4-volume history of
Islamic thought in Iran entitled  _En Islam iranien_. Cf also his _Histoire
de la philosophie islamique_. His widow Stella still survives and maintains
Corbin's library intact, on the rue de l'Odeon in Paris; her apartment is
still a gathering place for Eastern and Western students of Iranian and
Islamic thought.

        Sorry, Pat, but you asked!

Michael Chase
(goya-AT-uvic.ca)
Victoria, B.C.
Canada




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