Climate Change and Specific Evil: An Avicennan Reading
Rosabel Ansari
The famous philosopher Avicenna (d. 1037) outlined a well-known theory of evil in his Metaphysics of The Healing. In this text, he argues not only that evil is always outweighed by good, but that evil can only afflict individuals and not their species as such. This paper will weigh in on the phenomenon of global climate change, which is often framed as a threat to humanity, from an Avicennan perspective.
About the Presenter
Rosabel Ansari is Assistant Professor of Medieval Philosophy at the University of Dayton. She was a Fellow of the Institute for Globalization Studies and Lecturer in Asian and Asian-American Studies at Stony Brook University, SUNY. Her forthcoming book is entitled Al-Fārābī and the Ambiguity of 'Being' and her published articles cover various aspects of metaphysics in the post-Avicennan tradition.