Global Philosophy Research Interest Group Talk (Sajjad Rizvi, Exeter)

The Global Philosophy Research Interest Group is delighted to welcome as guest speaker Sajjad Rizvi, a professor of Islamic Intellectual History and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. Dr. Rizvi is an intellectual historian interested in the course of philosophy in the Islamic world both past and present. He also takes an increasing interest in how that study and category of philosophy coincides with the emergent category of global philosophy. In terms of method, his research is informed by the need for a decolonial and reparative study of Islam.

This is an in-person event, but you may also listen via the Zoom livestream: https://utoronto.zoom.us/j/88266061265

Passcode: 777414

Talk Title

Mīr Dāmād on God, Being, and Variables

Talk Abstract

Avicennian metaphysics is founded upon the idea that the term ‘exist’ across its senses and referents has a modulated nature and, following the Aristotelian tradition, possesses pros hen homonymy. The fundamental distinction in existence is between the Necessary – the one who cannot but be – and the contingent – whose being is a direct logical consequence and effect of the Necessary (only secondarily does existence concern Aristotelian category theory and hylomorphism) . His necessary existent theology (as it has been called by Zarepour and others) combines with his essentialism in favour of a metaphysical pluralism in which all that is other than God is characterised by existence as a fact of being, an inalienable property of a thing that is contingent. Mīr Dāmād in the 17^th century lies in the culmination of the Avicennian tradition in the East and represents one of two dominant readings of Avicenna (the other being that of his student Mullā Ṣadrā). I will examine two issues: first, how Mīr Dāmād develops necessary existent theology in the direction of monism where the only existence is God, and second, how this monism entails that existence is not a property of contingent things that we experience in the cosmos.

The Global Philosophy Research Interest Group explores the benefits of drawing on diverse traditions of thought in approaching philosophical questions. These include novel insights into familiar problems, new questions and research directions, and fresh methodologies. We work to deprovincialize and decolonize all aspects of philosophy in the academy. The group currently has strengths in Sanskrit philosophy, and Chinese philosophy, Indian philosophy in English, and classical Islamic philosophy.