Prof. Dr. Peter Adamson

Personal information

Peter Adamson's research focuses on the philosophy of Late Antiquity and the Arabic tradition. His books concern the Arabic version of Plotinus, the philosophers al-Kindī and al-Rāzī, and authority in medieval philosophy. He has written articles on the following Greek authors: Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, Damascius; and, in the Arabic tradition, al-Kindī, Abū Bakr al-Rāzī, al-Fārābī, Yahya Ibn ʿAdī, Miskawayh, Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna), Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, and Ibn Khaldūn, among others. He has edited and co-edited several books, including The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, three further volumes on philosophy in the Islamic world for the Warburg Institute, and Interpreting Avicenna: Critical Essays for Cambridge University Press. Since 2012, Prof. Adamson has additionally held a part-time professorship at King's College London, where he worked full-time from 2000 to 2012. He also produces the History of Philosophy podcast, which has spawned a book series published by Oxford University Press.

Selected publications

1. Adamson, P. A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps: book series published by Oxford University Press, with six volumes published to date.
2. The Heirs of Avicenna: Philosophy in the Islamic East, 12th-13th Centuries: three volume book series published by Brill. Already appeared: Adamson, P. & Benevich, F. Volume 1: Metaphysics and Theology. Leiden: Brill, 2023. Forthcoming volumes on Logic and Epistemology and Physics and Psychology.
3. Adamson, P. Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna): a Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023).
4. Adamson, P. Don’t Think for Yourself: Authority and Belief in Medieval Philosophy. Notre Dame: 2022.
5. Adamson, P. Al-Rāzī. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021.
6. Adamson, P. Studies in Early Arabic Philosophy and Studies on Plotinus and al-Kindī. Aldershot: Variorum, 2014-2015.
7. Adamson, P. Philosophy in the Islamic World: a Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).
8. Adamson, P. & Pormann, P.E. (trans). The Philosophical Works of al-Kindī. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2012.
9. Adamson, P. Al-Kindī. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
10. Adamson, P. The Arabic Plotinus: a Philosophical Study of the “Theology of Aristotle”. London: Duckworth, 2002. Reprinted by Gorgias Press, 2017.

Academic distinctions

• 2024 - 2025 Dwight H. Terry Lecturer at Yale University.
• 2022 Gilson Lecture at the University of Toronto.
• 2022 Senior Global Fellow at the University of St Andrews.
• 2020 Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling-Preis, for research in the area of Multiculturalism in Historical Perspective.
• 2020 Carlyle Lectures at Oxford University.
• 2019 Conway Lectures at the University of Notre Dame.
• 2019 Academy of Science of South Africa Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the University of Witwatersrand.
• 2017 Distinguished Scholar in Residence at NYU Abu Dhabi.
• 2014 Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Award for Translation (with Peter Pormann, awarded for The Philosophical Works of al-Kindī).
• 2003 Philip Leverhulme Prize.

Research projects

• The Philosophy of the Baghdad School, funded by the DFG (2023 - 2025).
• Animals in Philosophy of the Islamic World, ERC Advanced grant (2018 - 2023).
• Heirs of Avicenna: Philosophy in the Islamic East from the 12th to the 13th Century, funded by the DFG (2016 - 2023).
• Natural Philosophy in the Islamic World, funded by the Leverhulme Trust (2010 - 2013).
• Co-principal investigator (with Christof Rapp) of the DFG-funded research group "Natur in Politischen Ordnungsentwürfen" (2013 - 2019).

Other activities

• 2024 Member of the Grant Committee of the DFG for History of Philosophy.
• 2021 Elected as member of executive committee (Vorstand) of the DGPhil (German Society for Philosophy).