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Peter Adamson (LMU-Munich): The Five Eternals: the Shocking Cosmology of a 10th Century Muslim Platonist

Type: 
Lecture
Audience: 
Open to the Public
Speaker: 
Peter Adamson
Building: 
Zrinyi u. 14
Room: 
412
Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - 5:30pm
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Date: 
Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - 5:30pm to 7:00pm

Abstract

Among early philosophers in the Islamic world, none is more notorious than Abu Bakr al-Razi (d.925). An expert doctor, he also put forward philosophical ideas that brought accusations of heresy. It's easy to see why: he supposedly denied the validity of prophecy and postulated four eternal principles other than God, namely soul, matter, time and place.In this presentation I will introduce al-Razi's thought and focus on his innovative cosmology, showing how it draws on sources in Plato's "Timaeus".