Claremont, Calif. (January 8, 2018)—Illuminationist Texts and Textual Studies, an anthology co-edited by Pitzer College Associate Professor of Philosophy Ahmed Alwishah, explores the Illuminationist philosophical tradition that originated in twelfth-century Persia and still shapes Islamic philosophy today. The book is dedicated to the memory of the late philosopher Hossein Ziai, who was a professor of Islamic and Iranian studies at UCLA and an expert in the Illuminationist tradition.
The anthology examines the Illuminationist philosophical tradition that evolved partly as a response to the profound influence of the tenth-century philosopher Ibn Sina, or Avicenna, and his interpretation of Aristotle’s work.
Published by Brill, the book focuses on translations, editions and close expositions of rationalist works in epistemology, logic and metaphysics as well as on specific texts. Brill highlights the book’s “wide range of fresh and original contributions by a distinguished group of scholars” and believes the anthology will be seen as a significant publication by “all those interested in Islamic and Iranian intellectual history and philosophy and those working in the field of comparative philosophy.” The volume is co-edited by University of San Diego Professor Ali Gheissari and Indiana University Bloomington Professor John Walbridge.
In addition to serving as an editor, Alwishah contributed a chapter to the volume, “Suhrawardī and Ibn Kammūna on the Impossibility of Having Two Necessary Existents.”
Pitzer Associate Professor of Philosophy Ahmed Alwishah is an expert in Islamic and medieval philosophy, the philosophy of language in Islamic tradition and the philosopher Avicenna. He is co-editor of Aristotle and the Arabic Tradition and Ibn Kammūna Refinement and Commentary of Suhrawardī’s Intimations. The University of Cambridge awarded Alwishah a visiting fellowship in 2013, and he is a life member of Cambridge’s Clare Hall College. His courses at Pitzer include Philosophy of Religion, Islam vs. Islam, and Spinoza and Leibniz on Reality. He has served as the director of the College’s Munroe Center for Social Inquiry and is an extended faculty member of Claremont Graduate University’s Philosophy Department. Alwishah earned his BA from Baghdad University and his PhD from UCLA.
