Previous Lectureships

Believe It… Or Not: Religion and Skepticism in GlobalBelieve It… Or Not: Religion and Skepticism in Global Philosophy Philosophy

It is nowadays typically assumed that religious belief is defined by faith, and that a skeptical attitude is more characteristic of those who reject religion. These lectures will argue that, at least before the Enlightenment, the situation was the reverse. Religious belief was often paired with skepticism and modest claims about what humans can and do know. For example, skeptical philosophers advised that one should simply follow the religious beliefs of one’s own culture because it is the “safe” option in the face of pervasive uncertainty. After introducing this general idea at the beginning of the opening lecture, Peter Adamson will go on to look at three more specific examples: the “problem of ignorance” (why God does not give us all knowledge for free, as it were); how philosophers dealt with skepticism about the efficacy of rituals; and skeptical arguments based on the differences between animals and humans. Each lecture will range over several religious traditions: the series as a whole will cover texts drawn from the Christian, Confucian, Daoist, Greek pagan, Hindu, Islamic, and Jewish belief systems.

Peter Adamson is Professor of Late Ancient and Arabic Philosophy at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. He is the author of Al-Kindī and Al-Razī in the series “Great Medieval Thinkers” from Oxford University Press, and has edited or co-edited numerous books, including The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy and Interpreting Avicenna: Critical Essays. He is also the host of the History of Philosophy podcast which appears as a series of books with Oxford University Press.

Islam, Science, and the Challenge of History

Ahmad Dallal is Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies and Chair of the Arabic and Islamic Studies Department of Georgetown University. Professor Dallal has taught at Stanford University (2000-3), Yale University (1994-2000), and Smith College (1990-4), having earned a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from Columbia University and a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from the American University of Beirut. His academic training and research cover the history of the disciplines of learning in Muslim societies, including both the exact and the traditional sciences, as well as modern and early modern Islamic thought and movements. His books and articles are focused on the history of science, Islamic revivalist thought, and Islamic law. He is currently finishing a book-length comparative study of 18th century Islamic reform entitled Islam without Europe, Traditions of Reform in Eighteen Century Islamic Thought. Professor Dallal arrived in New Haven from Morocco, after having completed a year-long research sabbatical.

The book based on Professor Dallal’s Terry lectures, Islam, Science, and the Challenge of History, is available from Yale University Press.

Lectures Available on YouTube

In Search of Islam: Religious Change in Indonesia (Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia, published in 1968)
Not in Print