Surveying the summae :
Comparisons and Contrasts among Avicenna’s Eight Main Works
This meeting in 2021 instigated the format of the Avicenna Study Group again, which after two successful meetings (2001 and 2002) and the publication of two accompanying volumes (2003 and 2004) was not continued after David C. Reisman’s untimely passing.
Originally planned for 03–05 June 2020, the Third International Meeting of the Avicenna Study Group had to be postponed due to the global health situation and was, then, organised as a weekly lecture series every Tuesday evening between 01 June and 13 July 2021. It featured fourteen papers covering different philosophical disciplines (e.g., logic, physics, psychology, metaphysics) across the eight main works of Avicenna (al-Ḥikma al-ʿArūḍiyya, ʿUyūn al-ḥikma, al-Hidāya, al-Šifāʾ, al-Naǧāt, Dānešnāme-ye ʿAlāʾī, al-Ḥikma al-mašriqiyya, al-Išārāt wa-l-tanbīhāt).
The contributors investigated and assessed the relations between these eight works, their intended readership and Avicenna’s intentions in them alongside his style, terminology, and arguments as well as his personal and doctrinal development.
The conference was funded by the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung and Trier University. It was organised by Andreas Lammer, junior professor of Arabic Philosophy, Culture, and History.
