Aristotle’s Meteorology: a twin set in Mediaeval Text Tradition. The Greek text of Aristotle’s Meteorology is in places highly problematic. Its edition by Fobes (1922), however, is a highlight in editorial technique. The Arabic version (c.800) is of quite different form and content. The two editions by Badawi (1961) and Petraitis (1967) were subject to considerable improvement. The present edition was done on the basis of the two extant Arabic manuscripts. The edition of the Latin translation (12th c.) from the Arabic has been constituted on the basis of 5 manuscript sources, out of 110 copies. The status of both the Arabic and the Latin texts was bad, but not hopeless: as the Latin version stands near to its Arabic predecessor, the text of the latter gives support to the editing of the text, as well as for the understanding of the contents. And this procedure works vice versa. The present edition of the texts has been completed with an Index of technical terms in Arabic, Greek and Latin and Registers on the Greek and Latin. Further a Bibliography and List of Latin manuscripts are presented.

Examines Aristotle's vast influence upon the medieval Arabic philosophical tradition and includes contributions from every discipline within his corpus.

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.

The present volume makes available for the first time the earliest translation of Aristotle into a Semitic language. It will open the way to a fuller understanding of the transformation of Greek logic in Syriac and Arabic.

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.

This volume deals with the part on practical philosophy in Barhebraeus's "Butyrum sapientiae" or " Cream of Wisdom". The practical philosophy in this large encyclopaedia of Aristotelean thinking in this Syriac language consists of three books: Ethics, Economy and Politics. The books of Ethics and Politics have been edited, translated and commented upon for the very first time in this publication. These books are unique and probably the only specimens of its kind, surviving in the Syriac language and literature. They were written at the end of Barhebraeus's life (1285/86) during a period in which the Syriac language had been rapidly losing ground to Arabic and was to almost disappear as a living language not long after the author's death.

Although the development of ideas about the motion and trajectory of comets has been investigated piecemeal, we lack a comprehensive and detailed survey of ph- ical theories of comets. The available works either illustrate relatively short periods in the history of physical cometology or portray a landscape view without adequate details. The present study is an attempt to review – with more details – the major physical theories of comets in the past two millennia, from Aristotle to Whipple. My research, however, did not begin with antiquity. The basic question from which this project originated was a simple inquiry about the cosmic identity of comets at the dawn of the astronomical revolution: how did natural philosophers and astronomers define the nature and place of a new category of celestial objects – comets – after Brahe’s estimation of cometary distances? It was from this turning point in the history of cometary theories that I expanded my studies in both the pre-modern and modern eras. A study starting merely from Brahe and ending with Newton, without covering classical and medieval thought about comets, would be incomplete and leave the fascinating achievements of post-Newtonian cometology unexplored.

This book decodes the Meteorologica and shows how it provides the key to understanding Aristotle's natural philosophy.

This volume contains the Syriac text, edited for the first time, of the commentary on Aristotle’s Rhetoric by Bar Hebraeus (died 1286) in his Cream of Wisdom. The text is accompanied by an English translation, and the volume also includes an introduction, commentary, and three glossaries (Syriac, Greek and Arabic). Bar Hebraeus’ commentary is based on the lost Syriac version of Aristotle’s treatise, but the author also drew heavily on the commentary of Ibn Sina (Avicenna). The text therefore provides a unique insight into the nature of that lost version, and also exemplifies the way Bar Hebraeus blended the Aristotle of the Graeco-Syriac translation literature with the more recent philosophy of Ibn Sina.

The Commentary on the Categories by Abū l-Farağ ibn aṭ-Ṭayyib is an important representative of the Aristotelian tradition in Arabic culture. Formally based on late antique commentaries on Aristotle's Categories, it provides the last example of the learned tradition still alive in eleventh-century Baghdad. The introduction offers a general survey of the commentaries on Aristotelian Categories , from the first Greek texts to the Arabic version featured here. The life and works of Ibn aṭ-Ṭayyib are also discussed. Systematic comparison with surviving Greek commentaries and a series of thematic studies elucidate the author ́s method. The critical edition of ibn aṭ-Ṭayyib's Commentary is accompanied by a detailed summary, which facilitates its use by readers unfamiliar with the Arabic language.