dy the same author: ORIENTAL STUDIES I MAGNA MORALIA UND ARISTOTELISCHE ExinK. Weidmann, Berlin 1929 Anisroreiis DiaLoconum FRacMeNta. Sansoni, Florence 1994 Sruvt su AL-Kinp1 II (with H. Ritter). Accademia dei Lincet, Rome 1938 ERactiro, RACcOLTA pet FRAMMENTI. Sansoni, Florence 1939, Srupt su Ai-Krwor I (with M. Guidi). Accademia dei Lineet, Rome 1999- ALFaxasrus De Praroxis PriosoPuta (with F. Rose Warburg Institute, London 1943. : ikl Gaten On Mepicat EXPERIENCE. Orford University Press, 1044. Gaten On Jews axn Cunist1Ans, Oxford University Press, 1949. Cin Cour Tat Puan ith. an. GREEK intro ARABIC Essays on Islamic Philosophy y Richard Walzer ' HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, Massachusetts 1062© 1962 Richard Walzer 5s TaBLe OF CONTENTS Islami Philosophy On the Legacy ofthe Classes inthe Islamic World Un Frammento nuovo di Aristotle Aristle, Galen, and Palladins on Love New Light on the Arabic vanslations of Aristolle Page 29 38 8 60 6.Onthe Arabic Versions of Books A, «avd A of Aristotle's Metaphysics 114 7 8 9 B 4 Zur Traditionsgeschiche der Arisoelischen Poetik Arabische Avisttelesibrsteungen in Istanbul [New Light on Galen's Moral Philosphy A Diatribe of Gaten New Studies on ALKinds AL-Férabt's Theory of Prophecy and Divination Some Aspects of Miskasaik's Tahdhib AL-ABlay Platonism in Islamic Philosophy INDEX 9 87 ae 164 re 206 236ACKNOWLEDGMENT ‘The author and the publishers wish to express their gratitude for mission to reprint essays which originally appeared in the folloding publications: 3, The History of Philosophy, Eastern and Western, vol. I, 120 ff Allen & Unwin, London £933. 2, Festschrift Bruno Snell, p. 189 fl. C. H. Beck, Miinchen 1956. 3. Studi Italiani di Filologa Classica NS, vol. 14 (1037), p. v27 fl 4 Journal ofthe Royal Asiatic Society (r936), p. 407 f. 5. Oriens, vol. 6 (1953), p. or ff 6. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. 43 (1958), p. 217 f 7. Studi Italiani di Filologia Classica NS, vol. zx (1934), p. § 8. Gnomon, vol. x0 (1934), p.277 f. 9. The Classical Quarterly, val. 43 (x949), p. 82 fk. 0, The Harvard Theological Review, vol. 47 (1954), p. 243 ft. 11, Oriens, vol. x0 (2957), p. 203 fi. 12, Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 77 (2957), p. 142 ft 13, Studi orientalistici in onore di Giorgio Levi della Vida, vol. TI, . 603 fl. Istituto per Oriente, Rome 1956 14. Entretiens, vol. 3, p. 203 fl. Fondation Hardt, Vandocuvres-Geneva 1957. ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY I ‘Tue GeNERAL BackcRounp oF Istamtc Puttosorny 1 — The Problem In the present state of our knowledge it would be premature to attempt a definitive history of Islamic philosophy. Too many factsare stillunknown, too many works have been neglected for centuries and remained unread and are only gradually being rediscovered in Eastern and Western libraries and edited and studied. There is no agreement among scholars on the best approach to the subject: some try to understand Islamic philosophy as an exclusive achievement of the Arabs and accordingly minimize the importance of that Greek element whose presence throughout they cannot deny; others tend to fix their attention on the Greck sources and do not realize that the Islamic philosophers, although continuing the Greek tra- dition, can rightly claim to be understood and appreciated in their own setting and according to their own intentions which may be different from those of their Greek predecessors Very little has been said about the philosophical significance of Islamic philosophy for our own time. Only a few good interpretations of Arabie philosophical texts are available and accessible to the general reader. Tt is @ promising field of research, but only a small portion of it has been cultivated. Hence nothing more than a very provisional sketch of the main Islamic philosophy presupposes not only a thousand years of thought about God and self-dependent entities, about nature and man {and human conduet and action: its background in time is the amalgama tion of this way of life with the Christian religion which had conquered the lands round the Mediterranean during the three centuries preeeding the establishment of Islam from the Caspian Sea to the Pyrenees. The unbroken continuity of the Western tradition is based on the fact that ‘the Christians in the Roman Empire did not reject the pagan legacy but made it an essential part of their own syllabus of learning. The under- ‘tanding of Arabic philosophy is thus intimately linked with the study of Greek philosophy and theology in the early stages of Christianity, the