Abstract

The philosophical activities during the Safavid era mark the peak of a renewed engagement with Greek sources unmediated by Ibn Sina's interest in them and their successive incorporation into his philosophy.1 Among the topics for which the Safavid thinkers consulted ancient Greek authors were cosmology, the role of the intellect and the ways of acquiring knowledge, the nature of the soul, and the process of emanation.2 This engagement, to be sure, did not mean an antiquarian, philological return to the original texts in Greek. Rather, it was a re-reading of their Arabic translations from the ninth to tenth centuries to find ideas beyond those of which Ibn Sina made use, and to legitimize—through their... Read More.