عنوان

Ibn al-Haytham and Scientific Method

Number

TL52300

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

Ibn al-Haytham and Scientific Method

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Ghassemi, Sohrab

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

Brown, Jonathan AC

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

Georgetown University

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2020

Text of Note

172 p.

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Body granting the degree

Georgetown University

Text preceding or following the note

2020

Text of Note

This examination into the history of Arabic science explores the methods utilized by Ibn al-Haytham for his scientific investigations. Specifically, this study compares and contrasts his approach towards establishing the equal angles law of reflection for light in chapter three of book four of his Kitāb al-Manāẓir, or The Book of Optics, with the approach taken by him in his maqālat-u fī mā'īyat-i al-athar-i alladhī fī wajh-i al-qamar-i, or "Treatise on the Nature of the Marks on the Surface of the Moon." The analysis focuses upon his technical usage of the word i'tibār, and its variants, in order to arrive at the finding that his most advanced method for inquiry into the natural world did not constitute full experimental testing in the sense of the modern scientific method, but rather can best be understood as a type of controlled observation that yet still goes beyond the ancient Greek idea of empeiría (empiricism). Further, when he was able to utilize instrumentation for his research, he also achieved a science of demonstration (apódeixis) with an emphasis upon the repeatability of his findings. This latter procedure would in fact be a foundational idea for modern science: demonstrable proof. On the other hand, his treatise on the marks on the moon, which was actually written after his work on optics, shows continuity with Greek methods for science. In that latter work his methods of proof remain based upon syllogistic logic and deductive argumentation. Ibn al-Haytham then can be seen as occupying a transitional, but not fully transformational, place in the history of the scientific method. Next, Ibn al-Haytham's scientific work beyond his justly famous Kitāb al-Manāẓir has often been overshadowed by that magnum opus. Therefore, in addition to analyzing his treatise on the marks on the moon specifically in regard to its methods for scientific inquiry, this dissertation has produced for the first time in scholarship a full and complete English translation of his maqālat-u fī mā'īyat-i al-athar-i alladhī fī wajh-i al-qamar-i. This translation has been exactly matched in the footnotes of this thesis to a full transliteration of the original Arabic.

Subject Term

Islam

Subject Term

Middle Eastern history

Subject Term

Science history

Ghassemi, Sohrab

Brown, Jonathan AC

Georgetown University

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y