Andreas Lammer is Assistant Professor of History of Philosophy at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. His primary research interests are in Greek, Arabic, and Latin natural philosophy in both the Aristotelian and the Avicennian tradition, and more broadly in the transmission of philosophical and scientific literature from Greek into Arabic and from Arabic into Latin. He obtained his PhD in philosophy and Arabic studies from LMU Munich and published several papers on the notions of time, creation, and nature in Ancient, Late Ancient, and Arabic philosophy as well as a monograph on the history of Greek and Arabic natural philosophy entitled The Elements of Avicenna’s Physics: Greek Sources and Arabic Innovations (De Gruyter 2018).
Prof. Lammer visited CMES in October 2023, where he delivered the lecture Time, Modality, and Creation: On an Avicennian (?) Argument for the Eternity of the World.
Abstract: Avicenna was not only a staunch eternalist and a superb modal metaphysician, he was also – as I would like to add – an impressive natural philosopher. Loyal to Aristotle, he developed his predecessor’s theories about the natural world and defended those concepts which have become subject of criticism (and even ridicule) in late antiquity. The result was a physical theory that followed the demands of the Posterior Analytics and proceeded in tune with the innovations of his own metaphysics. It is hardly surprising, then, that both historical and modern readers of his works attributed to him an argument for the eternity of the world which weaves together modal and temporal notions. Subsequently, that argument seems to have gained momentum as it urged critics to take drastic measures, including abandoning the reality of time altogether, in order avoid the otherwise looming consequences of an eternal world. At a second glance, however, the argument appears dubious – in terms of both its alleged Avicennian pedigree and its supposed argumentative strength. In this presentation, I will present and examine the argument critically against the background of Avicenna’s natural philosophy and, especially, his theory of time.
