Abstract
Yaḥyā al-Naḥwī, that is, John the Grammarian, is the Arabic name for John Philoponus (c. CE 490–575) in the medieval Arabic literature. His image in the Arabic sources, though embellished with legendary details, is not far from reality. He was a pupil of the Neoplatonist Ammonius in Alexandria of Egypt and a commentator of Aristotle and Galen. He wrote independent philosophical treatises against Proclus and Aristotle. Being a Christian, he also wrote theological treatises in which he expounded his views about the Trinity and his anti-Chalcedonian tenets in the disputes of his age. Above all, he became famous for his arguments against the eternity of the world, which formed the basis of argumentation not only in the Syro-Arabic Christian theology but also in Arabic-Islamic (al-Ġazālī) and Arabic-Jewish theology on the creation of the world (Maimonides).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
(1384–1385/1964–1965) Arisṭūṭālīs, al-Ṭabīʿa. Tarjamat Isḥāq b. Ḥunayn maʿa shurūḥ Ibn al-Samḥ wa-ibn ʿAdī wa-Mattā b. Yūnus wa-Abī l-Faraj ibn al-Ṭayyib, 2 vols, ed. Badawī ʿA. al-Qāhira 1384–1385/Cairo, 1964–1965
Badawī ʿAbdurraḥmān (1955) Aflūṭīn ʿinda l-ʿArab, Islamica 20. Maktabat al-Nahḍa al-Miṣriya, Cairo
Giannakis Elias (1998) Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī against John Philoponus on place and void. Z Gesch Arab-Islam Wiss 12:245–302
Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa Aḥmad (1884) Kitāb ʿUyūn al-anbā’ fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbā 2 vols, (ed) A Müller. Königsberg
Ibn al-Nadīm Muḥammad (1871–1872) Kitāb al-Fihrist. Mit Anmerkungen hrsg. von G Flügel. Nach dessen Tode besorgt von J Rödiger und A. Müller, 2 vols. Leipzig
Ibn al-Qifṭī ʿAlī (1903) Ta’rīḫ al-ḥukamā’, Auf Grund der Vorarbeiten Aug. Müllers hrsg. von J Lippert, Leipzig
Kraemer JL (1965) A lost passage from Philoponus’ Contra Aristotelem in Arabic translation. J Am Oriental Soc 85(3):318–327
Pines Shlomo (1972) An Arabic summary of a lost work of John Philoponus. Israel Oriental Stud 2:320–352 (repr. in his collected works, vol 2, Jerusalem and Leiden, 1986)
Troupeau Gérard (1984) Un épitomé arabe du De contingentia mundi de Jean Philopon. In: Lucchesi E, Saffrey HD (eds) Mémorial A.-J. Festugière. Antiquité païenne et chrétienne, Cahiers d’Orientalisme 10. P. Cramer, Geneva, pp 77–88
Secondary Sources
Abel A (1963–1964) La légende de Jean Philopon chez les arabes. Correspondance d’Orient (Bruxelles) 10 (=Acta Orientalia Belgica), pp 251–280
Arnzen R (1998) Aristoteles’ De anima. Eine verlorene spätantike Paraphrase in arabischer und persischer Überlieferung, Aristoteles Semitico-Latinus 9. Brill, Leiden (reviewed by D’Ancona C in Oriens 36 (2001) 340–351)
D’Ancona C (2001) Pseudo-“Theology of Aristotle,” Chapter I: structure and composition. Oriens 36:78–112
Davidson H (1969) John Philoponus as a source of medieval Islamic and Jewish proofs of creation. J Am Oriental Soc 89(2):357–391 (repr. with additions in Davidson HA (1987) Proofs for eternity, creation and the existence of God in medieval Islamic and Jewish philosophy. New York-Oxford, pp 86–116)
Davidson H (1979) The principle that a finite body can contain only a finite power. In: Stein S, Loewe R (eds) Studies in Jewish religious and intellectual history presented to Alexander Altmann. The University of Alabama Press, Alabama, pp 75–92
Endress G (1977) The works of Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī. An analytical inventory. Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden
Furlani G (1925) Giovanni il Filopono e l’incendio della biblioteca di Alessandria. Bull Soc Archéolog Alex 21(N. S. 6):58–77
Giannakis E (1992) Philoponus in the Arabic tradition of Aristotle’s Physics. Unpublished DPhil dissertation, Oxford
Giannakis E (2002/2003) The quotations from John Philoponus, De aeternitate mundi contra Proclum in al-Bīrūnī’s India. Z Gesch Arab-Islam Wiss 15:185–195
Gutas D (1986) Philoponos and Avicenna on the separability of the intellect: a case of orthodox Christian-Muslim agreement. Greek Orthodox Theol Rev 31(1–2):121–129
Hasnawi A (1994) Alexandre d’Aphrodise vs Jean Philopon. Notes sur quelques traités d’Alexandre perdus en grec, conservés en arabe. Arabic Sci Philos 4(1):53–109
Lewin B (1954) La notion de muḥdaṯ dans le kalām et dans la philosophie. Un petit traité inédit du philosophe chrétien Ibn Suwār. Orientalia Suecana (Uppsala) 3:84–93
Mahdi M (1967) Alfarabi against Philoponus. J Near Eastern Stud 26(4):233–260
Meyerhof M (1930) Johannes Grammatikos (Philoponos) von Alexandrien und die arabische Medizin. Mitteilungen des deutschen Institutes für ägyptische Altertumskunde in Kairo 2(1):1–21
Meyerhof M (1948) ʿAli al-Bayhaqi’s Tatimmat Siwan al-Hikma: a biographical work on learned men of the Islam. Osiris 8:122–217
Pines S (1986) Studies in Arabic versions of Greek texts and in medieval science. The collected works of Shlomo Pines, vol 2. Magnes Press, Hebrew University/E. J. Brill, Jerusalem/Leiden
Pormann PE (2003) Jean le Grammarien et le De sectis dans la littérature médicale d’Alexandrie. In: Garofalo I, Roselli A (eds) Galenismo e medicina tarcoantica: fonti greche, latine e arabe. Annoli dell’ Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli. Quaderni 7, Napoli, pp 233–263
Steinschneider M (1913) Johannes Philoponus bei den Arabern. Mémoires de l’Académie Impériale de St.-Petersbourg 7(13/4):47–57
Zimmermann FW (1987) Philoponus’ impetus theory in the Arabic tradition. In: Sorabji R (ed) Philoponus and the rejection of Aristotelian science. Duckworth, London, pp 121–129
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Giannakis, E. (2011). Philoponus, Arabic. In: Lagerlund, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9729-4_391
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9729-4_391
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-9728-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-9729-4
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law