The Marginalia Review of Books has published a three-part forum on The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam, the latest book by LMH’s Professor Frank Griffel.
A new forum in Marginalia Review of Books is focusing on The Formation of Post-Classical Philosophy in Islam, the latest book by Professor Frank Griffel, Fellow and Professor for the Study of Abrahamic Religions at LMH.
The reader-funded, not-for-profit publication says its mission is to bring education into public discourse and “combat the fragmentation of rigorous knowledge from human meaning”.
The forum brings together Professor Griffel, Professor Peter Adamson (Chair of Late Ancient and Arabic Philosophy at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich) and Professor Carlos Fraenkel (James McGill Professor at McGill University) to discuss the history of philosophy in the Islamic world.
Professor Griffel said one of the forum’s strengths was the range of expertise involved, noting that Professor Adamson is “a leading historian of philosophy and a philosopher” and host of the popular podcast History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps. Reflecting on the discussion, he said: “We tried to talk in a way that makes this history accessible to people not familiar with Islam or the history of philosophy.”
The book on which the forum is based won the Sheikh Zayed Book Award in 2024, but has not yet been widely discussed in Britain. The forum follows Professor Griffel’s inaugural lecture, which took place on Tuesday 26 May and drew on themes from the same work.
Professor Griffel said he hoped readers would come away with a clearer sense of the distinct development of philosophical thought in the Islamic world.
“The history of philosophy in the Islamic world followed different patterns than those in Europe and the relationship between religion and philosophy was quite different,” he said. He argued that this has often been misunderstood in the West, despite its importance for understanding Islamic intellectual history and Islam in a broader sense.
The forum is being published in three parts, with the final instalment due shortly, and you can read the forum here.
