And the Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast brought to you with the support of King's College London and the Lever Hume Trust online at

www. History of Philosophy. net.

Today's episode, matter over mind,

even Gabirol.

Philosophy's history is a winding lane upon which we find ourselves partway through Spain.

We've looked at some Muslims like Ibn Tufeil with his desert set autodidactical tale, to say nothing of a Verrawe's theory of mind, which thinks there's

one thinking for all humankind. But we certainly cannot leave Al-Andalous until we've considered ideas among Jews.

So let's stay in Iberia, not in South Tyrol, with a philosopher poet,

Ibn Gabiroil.

I actually thought about writing this poet, Ibn Gabiroil.

I actually thought about writing this entire episode in rhyming verse, but decided that this

would be lots of work for me and rather annoying for you.

Still, in principle setting philosophy into poetic form is a good idea, and one with a long pedigree.

For precedent, we can look back to early Greek philosophers like Parmenides, or more recently to Evacena, who composed

poems on logic and medicine. I love that idea. Imagine turning up to a class on introductory

logic or at medical school and being assigned a poem as your textbook.

The human has bones also found in the lemur, for instance the Tibia, sacram and femur.

One really can't overstate the cultural centrality of poetry in pre-modern societies.

This too is something we've occasionally seen in our history of philosophy, most obviously with the importance of Homer and Heseid among Greek philosophers, but also when we looked at music in the Islamic world and saw Al-Farabi associating music closely with poetry in order to defend its value.

So putting philosophy in poetic form was a way of bringing it to a wider audience, the ancient or medieval version of the podcast, if you will. Of course, poetry is also far easier to memorize than prose, and the sheer beauty and power of poetic verse can help to make philosophical

ideas more compelling.

In the case of Ibn Gavirul, the subject of today's episode, we have a figure who is valued first and foremost for his poetry,

...