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This book presents the first critical edition and translation into a European language of a text that has been largely overlooked by scholars: the Solution to the Doubts about Galen, by Abu al-Ala ibn Zuhr, a physician dwelling in twelfth-century al-Andalus. He composed it to defend Galen against Abu Bakr al-Razi's (d. 925) attacks in his Doubts about Galen (published in the same series). The Solution is of threefold interest: firstly, regarding Graeco-Arabic studies, it includes numerous testimonies of treatises by Galen of Pergamum (129-c. 216 CE) lost in Arabic, but also sometimes in Greek. The most famous of these lost texts is without a doubt Galen's most important logical treatise, On Demonstration. The Solution is thereby a veritable goldmine for Graeco-Arabic studies and our reconstruction of the Arabic Galen. Secondly, even though Abu al-Ala was a physician more than he was a philosopher, his answers to Razi contribute to our understanding of the history of Islamicate philosophy: they provide access to several arguments circulating in the twelfth century on topics related to epistemology and natural philosophy, such as the existence of the void, for example. Finally, Abu al-Ala includes colorful - and pitiless - comments on the medical milieu of his time. The book will be useful for students and scholars of ancient and medieval medicine and philosophy, as well as those engaged in the study of the classical world, Graeco-Arabic studies or Islamic studies.
About the author
Pauline Koetschet
, CNRS, Paris, France;
Iktimal Rajab
, Deir Attia, Syria.
Summary
This book presents the first critical edition and translation into a European language of a text that has been largely overlooked by scholars: the
Solution to the Doubts about Galen
, by Abū al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Zuhr, a physician dwelling in twelfth-century al-Andalus. He composed it to defend Galen against Abū Bakr al-Rāzī's (d. 925) attacks in his
Doubts about Galen
(published in the same series). The
Solution
is of threefold interest: firstly, regarding Graeco-Arabic studies, it includes numerous testimonies of treatises by Galen of Pergamum (129–c. 216 CE) lost in Arabic, but also sometimes in Greek. The most famous of these lost texts is without a doubt Galen’s most important logical treatise,
On Demonstration
. The
Solution
is thereby a veritable goldmine for Graeco-Arabic studies and our reconstruction of the Arabic Galen. Secondly, even though Abū al-ʿAlāʾwas a physician more than he was a philosopher, his answers to Rāzī contribute to our understanding of the history of Islamicate philosophy: they provide access to several arguments circulating in the twelfth century on topics related to epistemology and natural philosophy, such as the existence of the void, for example. Finally, Abū al-ʿAlāʾ includes colorful - and pitiless - comments on the medical milieu of his time. The book will be useful for students and scholars of ancient and medieval medicine and philosophy, as well as those engaged in the study of the classical world, Graeco-Arabic studies or Islamic studies.
