New Perspectives on the Origin and Early Development of Philosophy in Tenth-Centy al-Andalus

De Callatay, Godefroid [UCL]

This paper aims to present the main lines of a large-scale research project about the way philosophy appeared for the first time in al-Andalus. In line with recent discoveries having important chronological implications, this project focuses on the 10th century, a period usually disregarded by historians on the assumption that philosophy as such was not cultivated in the Iberian Peninsula before the 11th-12th centuries. Its originality is also to put emphasis on ‘ill-defined’ materials and channels of transmission, a field remained largely unexplored. The final objectives of this project are to test the hypothesis: 1) that the emergence of philosophy in al-Andalus significantly predates the currently accepted time; and 2) that the impact of this formative stage was considerably wider than commonly acknowledged. The project also seeks to provide a better evaluation of the originality of the first Andalusī philosophers with respect to their Oriental forerunners.