Al-Kindi and Mu'tazila: Divine Attributes, Creation and Freedom

The paper discusses al-Kindi's response to doctrines held by contemporary theologians of the Mu‘tazilite school: divine attributes, creation, and freedom. In the first section it is argued that, despite his broadly negative theology, al-Kindi recognizes a special kind of “essential” positive attribute belonging to God. The second section argues that al-Kindi agreed with the Mu‘tazila in holding that something may not yet exist but still be an object of God's knowledge and power (as the Mu‘tazila put it, that “non-being” is a “thing”). Also it presents a new parallel between al-Kindi and John Philoponus. The third section gives an interpretation of al-Kindi as a compatibilist, in other words as holding that humans may be free even though their actions are necessitated. In all three cases, it is argued, al-Kindi is close to the Mu‘tazilite point of view, though he departs from them in the arguments he gives for that point of view

The Arabic Sea Battle: al-Fārābī on the Problem of Future Contingents

Ancient commentators like Ammonius and Boethius tried to solve Aristotle's “sea battle argument” in On Interpretation 9 by saying that statements about future contingents are “indefinitely” true or false. They were followed by al-Fārābī in his commentary on On Interpretation. The article sets out two possible interpretations of what “indefinitely” means here, and shows that al-Fārābī actually has both conceptions: one applied in his interpretation of Aristotle, and another that he is forced into by the problem of divine foreknowledge. It also explains the relevance of al-Fārābī's remarks as a link between the non-statistical modal theories of Philo and Avicenna

Vision, Light and Color in al-Kindi, Ptolemy and the Ancient Commentators

Al-Kindi was influenced by two Greek traditions in his attempts to explain vision, light and color. Most obviously, his works on optics are indebted to Euclid and, perhaps indirectly, to Ptolemy. But he also knew some works from the Aristotelian tradition that touch on the nature of color and vision. Al-Kindi explicitly rejects the Aristotelian account of vision in his De Aspectibus, and adopts a theory according to which we see by means of a visual ray emitted from the eye. But in the same work, al-Kindi draws on Philoponus’ commentary on Aristotle's De Anima. His borrowing from this commentary, via an Arabic paraphrase of the De Anima, was crucial in the development of al-Kindi's new "punctiform analysis of light." Conversely, two broadly Aristotelian works by al-Kindi, which explain the reason things are colored, engage with problems about color dealt with in the Aristotelian tradition (e.g. by Alexander of Aphrodisias ). But here the Aristotelian theory, and in particular the Aristotelian notion of the transparent, is abandoned in order to accommodate the visual ray theory expounded in De Aspectibus

Fulfilling Lives: Supporting people with multiple needs, Evaluation Report, Year 1

This report is prepared for the Big Lottery Fund (the Fund) by the national evaluationteam and provides emerging findings and lessons learned from the first year of thenational evaluation of the Fulfilling Lives: Supporting people with multiple needsinitiative hereafter referred to as Fulfilling Lives (multiple needs).The national evaluation has been designed to determine the degree to which the initiativeis successfully achieving its aims and how they are being achieved. The evaluation will beboth formative and summative in nature, in that, it will inform the ongoing design and delivery of Fulfilling Lives (multiple needs) and its component projects as well as assessoverall achievements and value for money to inform future decision and policy making.Within this context, the evaluation has a number of objectives:— To track and assess the achievements of the initiative and to estimate the extent to whichthese are attributable to the projects and interventions delivered.— To calculate the costs of the projects and the corresponding value of benefits to theexchequer and wider society. This will enable an assessment of value for money of theprogramme and for individual interventions.— To identify what interventions and approaches work well, for which people, families andcommunities and in which circumstances and contexts.— To assess the extent to which the Big Lottery Fund's principles are incorporated into projectdesign and delivery and to determine the degree to which these principles affect successfuldelivery and outcomes.— To explore project implementation, understand problems faced and to facilitate theidentification of solutions and lessons learned

Enhanced efficacy of putative efflux pump inhibitor/antibiotic combination treatments versus MDR strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa in a Galleria mellonella in vivo infection model

This work was supported by the University of St Andrews.Objectives: The objectives of this study were to compare the antibiotic susceptibility of Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains with increased efflux pump expression in vitro and in vivo and to use these same strains to evaluate the efficacy of combinations of antibiotics with putative efflux pump inhibitors in vivo. Methods: A collection of P. aeruginosa strains that overexpress three efflux pumps (MexAB-OprM, MexCD-OprJ and MexEF-OprN), in addition to a strain with all three Mex pumps deleted, were used. The virulence of these strains and their antibiotic susceptibility was measured in vivo using a Galleria mellonella larval infection model. The inhibitory effect of combinations of putative efflux pump inhibitors (trimethoprim and sertraline) with antibiotics on the strain overexpressing MexAB-OprM was also measured in vitro and compared with their efficacy in vivo in terms of larval survival and bacterial burden. Results: Increased expression of the individual efflux pumps, or deletion of all three, had no significant effect on the virulence of P. aeruginosa in vivo. Expression levels of the efflux pumps clearly influenced antibiotic efficacy in vivo. The efficacy of levofloxacin, piperacillin and meropenem against larvae infected with the efflux pump mutants reflected susceptibility to the same drugs in vitro. Treatment of G. mellonella larvae infected with a strain that overexpressed MexAB-OprM with a combination of putative efflux pump inhibitors and levofloxacin resulted in enhanced therapeutic benefit compared with the constituent monotherapies. Conclusions: This study has demonstrated the utility of using G. mellonella to screen for novel therapeutic options for MDR P. aeruginosa and has shown that antibiotic/efflux pump inhibitor combinations should be further investigated for clinical application.PostprintPeer reviewe

The Simplicity Of Self-Knowledge After Avicenna

Alongside his much-discussed theory that humans are permanently, if only tacitly, self-aware, Avicenna proposed that in actively conscious self-knowers the subject and object of thought are identical. He applies to both humans and God the slogan that the self-knower is "intellect, intellecting, and object of intellection ('aql, 'aqil, ma'qul)". This paper examines reactions to this idea in the Islamic East from the 12th-13th centuries. A wide range of philosophers such as Abu l-Barakat al-Baghdadi, Fahr al-Din al-Razi, al-Sahrastani, Saraf al-Din al-Mas'udi, al-Abhari, al-Amidi, and Nasir al-Din al-Tusi raised and countered objections to Avicenna's position. One central problem was that on widely accepted definitions of knowledge - according to which knowledge is representational or consists in a relation - it seems impossible for the subject and object of knowledge to be the same. Responses to this difficulty included the idea that a self-knower is "present" to itself, or that here subject and object are different only in "aspect (i'tibar)"