Profile

Andreas Lammer studied philosophy and German language and literature at the University of Würzburg and graduated in philosophy at King’s College London. After a few years of teaching at the universities of Würzburg, Cologne and Jena as well as participating in research projects on the Greek-Arabic-Latin history of philosophy and science in Würzburg and Cologne, he obtained his doctorate in philosophy and Arabic studies at LMU Munich. In 2018, he was appointed Juniorprofessor of Arabic Philosophy, Culture, and History at Trier University and, from 2022 to 2024, served as Associate Professor of the History of Philosophy at Radboud University in Nijmegen. Since 2025, he has been Professor of Arabic Studies with a focus on the History of Knowledge at Ruhr University Bochum. In addition to the philosophy of Avicenna (ar. Ibn Sīnā, d. 428/1037) and its significance, he investigates the reception of (late) ancient Greek sciences in the Islamicate world and the influence of Arabic texts on European intellectual history. His publications include a monograph on the history of Greek and Arabic natural philosophy entitled The Elements of Avicenna’s Physics: Greek Sources and Arabic Innovations (De Gruyter 2018), a German translation of al-Ġazālī’s celebrated Incoherence of the Philosophers (Herder 2024), and various articles on philosophy and the sciences in antiquity and the Islamicate world. Since 2024, he has been the principal investigator of the research project “Avicenna Live: The Immediate Context of Avicenna's Intellectual Formation” (ERC Starting Grant 2023).

Research Interests

• Life, work, reception, and significance of Avicenna (ar. Ibn Sīnā, d. 428/1037)
• Philosophy and history of knowledge in the Islamicate world
• Influence of Islamicate intellectual history on Europe
• Emergence and development of Arabic and Islamic studies outside the Islamicate world

Ongoing Research Projects

• Project lead of “Avicenna Live: The Immediate Context of Avicenna’s Intellectual Formation” (ERC Starting Grant 2023)
• Contributor to “The Heirs of Avicenna: Philosophy in the Islamic East from the 12th to the 13th Century”
• Arabic-English translation of Ps.-Aristotle’s work On Plants

Publications

Monographs

• The Elements of Avicenna’s Physics: Greek Sources and Arabic Innovations. Scientia graeco-arabica 20. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2018.

Translations

• Abū Ḥāmid al-Ġazālī. Die Inkohärenz der Philosophen (Tahāfut al-falāsifa): Eine Auswahl, Arabisch – Deutsch. Translated and annotated, with an introduction, by Andreas Lammer. Herders Bibliothek der Philosophie des Mittelalters 55. Freiburg: Herder, 2024.
• Alkmaion von Kroton, Hippon von Metapont und Menestor von Sybaris. Edited by Georg Wöhrle, in collaboration with Theofanis Tsiampokalos and with contributions by Andreas Lammer. Traditio Praesocratica 4. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2022.

Edited Volumes

• Verschränkte Welt: Medien, Modelle und Diskurse mittelalterlicher Meteorologie. Edited by Beate Fricke and Andreas Lammer as a special issue of Das Mittelalter: Perspektiven mediävistischer Forschung 29.1. Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, 2024.
• Received Opinions: Doxography in Antiquity and the Islamic World. Edited by Andreas Lammer and Mareike Jas. Philosophia Antiqua: Studies in Ancient Philosophy 160. Leiden und Boston: Brill, 2022.

Articles

• “What Goes up Must Come down: The Water Cycle in Early Arabic Meteorology”. In: The Elements in the Medieval World: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, vol. 1: Water. Edited by Marilina Cesario, Hugh Magennis and Elisa Ramazzina. Elements, Nature, Environment: Multidisciplinary Perspectives from the Ancient to the Early Modern World 1. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2024, 31–74. [Together with Colin Fitzpatrick Murtha]
• “Entstehung, Aufbau und Erhalt der sublunaren Welt (Kap. 4–5 und 8–9)”. In: Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī: Die Prinzipien der Ansichten der Bewohner der vortrefflichen Stadt. Edited by Ulrich Rudolph. Klassiker Auslegen 75. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2022, 61–77.
• “Natural Philosophy, 100–700/700–1300”. In: Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies: Practices from the 2nd/8th to the 13th/19th Centuries. Edited by Sonja Brentjes together with Peter Barker and Rana Brentjes. London: Routledge, 2022, 140–153.
• “Horizonte des Natürlichen: Grenzen und Grenzüberschreitungen in der historischen Naturphilosophie”. In: Shifting Horizons: A Line and its Movement in Art, History, and Philosophy. Edited by Lucas Burkart and Beate Fricke. Colloquia Raurica 17. Basel and Berlin: Schwabe Verlag, 2022, 55–88.
• “Doxography and Philosophical Method: Avicenna’s Treatment of Presocratic Opinions”. In: Received Opinions: Doxography in Antiquity and the Islamic World. Edited by Andreas Lammer and Mareike Jas. Philosophia Antiqua: Studies in Ancient Philosophy 160. Leiden und Boston: Brill, 2022, 302–332.
• “Philosophie nach Format: Vermittlung aus dem Griechischen und Aneignung im Arabischen”. In: Heteronome Texte: Kommentierende und tradierende Literatur in Antike und Mittelalter. Edited by Katharina Bracht, Jan Dirk Harke, Matthias Perkams, and Meinolf Vielberg. Transmissions: Studies on Conditions, Processes and Dynamics of Textual Transmission 6. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2022, 149–176.
• “Ibn Sīnā”. In: The Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion. Edited by Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro. 4 Bände. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2022, Bd. 2, 1125–1131.
• “A Lively Debate on Matter and Body before (and after?) Avicenna – Part One”. In: Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph 69 (2021–2022), 97–122.
• “Now Is Not the Time: Revisiting Avicenna’s Account of the Now”. In: Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy 9 (2021), 77–146.
• “So fern und doch so nah? Perspektiven auf eine alte und auf eine neue Heimat”. In: Zur sprachlichen und gesellschaftlichen Integration neu zugewanderter Menschen: Eine Bilanz. Edited by Renate Freudenberg-Findeisen, Claudia Harsch, and Annegret Middeke. Materialien Deutsch als Fremd- und Zweitsprache 105. Göttingen: Universitätsverlag, 2021, 75–92.
• “Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Platonist Account of the Essence of Time”. In: Philosophical Theology in Islam: Later Ashʿarism East and West. Edited by Ayman Shihadeh and Jan Thiele. Islamicate Intellectual History: Studies and Texts in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods 5. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2020, 95–122. [Together with Peter Adamson]
• “Anzahl und Ausmaß: Überlegungen zur griechisch-arabisch-lateinischen Rezeption der aristotelischen Zeitdefinition”. In: Das Mittelalter: Perspektiven mediävistischer Forschung 23.1 (2018): Maß und Maßlosigkeit im Mittelalter. Edited by Isabelle Mandrella and Kathrin Müller, 109–127.
• “Two Sixth/Twelfth-Century Hardliners on Creation and Divine Eternity: al-Šahrastānī and Abū l-Barakāt al-Baġdādī on God’s Priority over the World”. In: Islamic Philosophy from the 12th till the 14th Century. Edited by Abdelkader Al Ghouz. Mamluk Studies 20. Göttingen: Bonn University Press, V&R unipress, 2018, 233–278.
• “Time and Mind-Dependence in Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī’s Abkār al-afkār”. In: The Arabic, Hebrew and Latin Reception of Avicenna’s Physics and Cosmology. Edited by Dag Nikolaus Hasse and Amos Bertolacci. Scientia graeco-arabica 23. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2018, 101–161.
• “Eternity and Origination in the Works of Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī and Athīr al-Dīn al-Abharī: Two Discussions from the Seventh/Thirteenth Century”. In: The Muslim World 107.3 (2017), 432–481.
• “Defining Nature: From Aristotle to Philoponus to Avicenna”. In: Aristotle and the Arabic Tradition. Edited by Ahmed Alwishah and Josh Hayes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, 121–142.