New Publication: Ibn Bāğğa, Commentary on Aristotle’s On Generation and Corruption. Critical Edition and Translation with an Introduction and Glossaries.

Publication date: 19^th April 2021
160 pp.
ISBN: 9783110705928 (Hardcover)
ISBN: 9783110706628 (Electronic)

DeGruyter: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110706628/html

Contact:

Corrado la Martire
corrado.lamartire@uni-koeln.de

“It is the nature of that which is the same and remains in the same state always to produce the same effects, so either there will always be generation or corruption”. (Gen. and Corr. 336a27-29)

Ibn Bāğğa’s commentary on Aristotle’s “On Generation and Corruption” (Kitāb al-Kawn wa-l-fasād, Latin De generatione et corruptione) is one of the first commentaries to elaborate on the essential aspect of Aristotle’s text, that is, the analysis of change (μεταβολή, taġayyur).

The commentary’s extant parts comprise a consecutive exposition of the contents of Aristotle’s work. However, the commentary may be read more as an introduction or a guide to the topic of generation than as a substitution for the original, as the paraphrases by Averroes seem to have become in the later tradition.

In his new book, Ibn Bāğğa, Commentary on Aristotle’s On Generation and Corruption. Critical Edition and Translation with an Introduction and Glossaries (Scientia Graeco-Arabica ser., De Gruyter 2021), Dr. Corrado la Martire provides a new critical edition of Ibn Bāǧǧa’s commentary and, for the first time, an English translation and a study of the structure of the commentary on the basis of the only two known manuscripts.

Corrado la Martire, PhD, is Leading Arabic Editor and postdoctoral researcher at the Averroes Edition project, Thomas-Institut, University of Cologne. He earned a doctorate in Islamic sciences from University of Naples “L’Orientale” and published articles and essays on al-Ġazālī’s thought, as well as on Arabic manuscripts and Arabic philosophical terminology.