Power and Possibility in Early Arabic Philosophy

My dissertation is concerned with the Arabic afterlife of a section from Philoponus’ Contra Proclum.

Over the course of the dissertation I investigate:

1) the function of the argument in Philoponus’ own thought;
2) how versions of this same argument are used by a number of lesser-known Arabic thinkers (Christians, Jews, and Muslims) over the centuries between Philoponus and Avicenna;
3) how subtle changes to the argument reflect an overall trend away from Aristotelian modality towards the modal framework we see in Avicenna, as well as a number of changes in the relationship between theology and philosophy.