Aristotle's Physics and its Reception in the Arabic World

Aristotle's Physics and Its Reception in the Arabic World presents a survey of what Arabic philosophers, as commentators of Aristotle's Physics, have contributed to philosophy and science in the Middle Ages. It investigates to what extent they influenced one another and to what extent they were influenced by previous Greek commentators.Besides Ibn Bājja's commentary on the Physics, which had up to now only partially been edited, the commentaries of Ibn as-Samḥ, Abū Bišr Mattā, Abū l-Faraj ibn aṭ-ṭayyib and Ibn Rušd are surveyed and discussed. The book also contains an account of an Arabic paraphrase of Philoponus' commentary on the Physics, which is of special interest because this commentary was partly lost.A special feature of the book is the edition of the unpublished parts of Ibn Bājja's commentary.

'...non-Arabists will find the accounts of Philoponus' and Averroes' commentaries extremely useful.' Metascience, 1994. 'C'est là un beau travail qui est non seulement utile aux arabisants, mais qui met aussi les commentaires en arabe à la portée des non-arabisants.' Claude Gilliot, Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques, 1995. 'Lettinck must be credited with having produced a massive piece of work that makes an important subject more accessible.' Robert Wisnovsky, The Classical Review, 1995. 'This book accomplishes the formidable task of providing a full survey, in the form of detailed paraphrases, of the surviving Arabic commentaries on Aristotle's Physics together with a comparison of these commentaries among themselves and with those of the Greek commentators on the same text. Is is an accomplishment to which a short review cannot do justice.' A.I. Sabra, ISIS, 1996. '...au fait que l'ouvrage de L. constitue un instrument dont on ne pourra se dispenser dans l'étude de la philosophie naturelle des philosophes arabes.' Ahmad Hasnawi, Archives de Philosophie, 1997.

Paul Lettinck (1945), received a Ph.D. (1973) in physics and a Ph.D. (1991) in Semitic languages from the Free University, Amsterdam. He spent the academic year 1992-1993 at the Department of the History of Science, Oklahoma University, as a research fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation. He is at present affiliated with the Free University, Amsterdam, where he is conducting research on the Arabic commentaries on Aristotle's Meteorology and other Arabic treatises on meteorology.