Universal Science: An Introduction to Islamic Metaphysics

Publication Year
2017

Type

Book
Abstract

Edited by Saiyad Nizamuddin Ahmad, Ph.D. 2000.

The Universal Science (ʿIlm-i kullī) by Mahdī āʾirī Yazdī, is a concise, but authoritative, outline of the fundamental discussions in Islamic metaphysics. For many years used as a textbook in Iran, this short text offers English readers a readily accessible, lucid, and yet deeply learned, guide through the Sadrian, Avicennan, and Illuminationist schools of thought, whilst also demonstrating how the ‘living tradition’ of Shīʿī philosophy engages with central ontological, epistemological, aetiological, and psychological questions. Discussions include the primacy of existence; the proper classifications of quiddity; and the manifold properties of causality and causal explanation. This is the first of the various influential works authored by this leading Shīʿah intellectual to have been translated into English from the original Persian.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Editor’s Introduction
Preface
1 Introduction
2 Existence (wujūd)–Being (hastī)
3 Mental Existence
4 Further Issues Relating to Existence
5 Contingency (imkān)
6 Priority and Posteriority
7 Unity, Multiplicity, and Predication
8 Quiddity
9 Potentiality (quwwah) and Actuality (fi‘l)
10 Cause (‘illat) and Effect (ma‘lūl)
Appendix
Bibliography
Index

Series Title
Modern Shī'ah Library
Volume
2
Publisher
Brill
City
Leiden
ISBN
Cloth: 9789004343023; paper: 9789004343344; ebook: 9789004343115
Category