The book is very well organized, and each part begins with preliminary remarks, which give the necessary context. Hatherly successfully unpacks Avicenna’s arguments, which often are very compact and at times elliptical. Her spelling out all the steps and clarifying how at times her interpretation differs from that of previous scholars are very illuminating. Yet, she does not get lost in detail; she always focuses on what the argument is designed to achieve and is not uncritical of them. She also makes good use of the Greek commentators, who already at times departed from Aristotle and began to adapt his arguments for their own purposes. Furthermore, she shows a mastery of the secondary literature and clearly highlights her own take on several debated issues with both clarity and courtesy.

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

Celia Kathryn Hatherly’s Avicenna on the Necessity of the Actual: His Interpretation of Four Aristotelian Arguments is a careful study of three closely related issues in Avicenna’s philosophical theology, namely, how Avicenna’s Necessary Existent is an efficient and final cause and its causal relation to the cosmos. While the arguments are well-known, Hatherly brings fresh insights into all three areas. Her analysis of the Necessary Existent’s final causality is particularly noteworthy, since she offers the most detailed study of that topic available to date. Both novices and veterans of medieval Islamic philosophy will find the book clear, accessible and intellectually stimulating.

Jon D. McGinnis, University of Missouri, St. Louis