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The names of the famous Arabic philosophers Averroes and Avicenna, alongside those of Alkindi, Alfarabi, and Algazel, appear in countless philosophical writings of the Renaissance. These authors are well-known figures of the classical period of Arabic philosophy, which stretches from the ninth to the twelfth century AD. The history of Arabic philosophy began in the middle of the ninth century, when a substantial part of ancient Greek philosophy had become available in Arabic translations: almost the complete Aristotle, numerous Greek commentaries on Aristotle, and many Platonic and Neoplatonic sources. A major centre of intellectual activity was Baghdad, the new capital of the Abbasid caliphs. It was here that Alkindi (al-Kindī, d. after AD 870), the first important philosopher of Arabic culture, and the Aristotelian philosopher Alfarabi (al-Fārābī, d. 950/1) spent the greater part of their life. A major turning point in the history of Arabic philosophy was the activity of Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, d. 1037), the court philosopher of various local rulers in Persia, who recast Aristotelian philosophy in a way that made it highly influential among Islamic theologians. The famous Baghdad theologian Algazel (al-Ghazālī, d. 1111) accepted much of Avicenna's philosophy, but criticized it on central issues such as the eternity of the world. Averroes (Ibn Rushd, d. 1198), the Andalusian commentator on Aristotle, reacted to both Avicenna and Algazel: he censured Avicenna for deviating from Aristotle and criticized Algazel for misunderstanding the philosophical tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When Harvey raised his scalpel to begin the Lumleian anatomy lectures at the College of Physicians, he was embarking on an exercise in which he was to discover the circulation of the blood. To understand that discovery we need to understand what Harvey was doing when he made it. What kind of enterprise was his anatomy teaching? Why was Harvey doing it? The answers to these two questions are not as straightforward as they might seem. Certainly anatomy was a medical business, Harvey was a physician and the college a place where medical education might properly proceed. But Harvey's own account of the nature of anatomy makes us aware of the care with which we must use modern categories of such kinds. Harvey opened his anatomy lectures with a general statement on the nature of anatomy, that is, a kind of introduction, or more strictly, an accessus, to anatomy. Here he gave five headings to which ‘anatomy’ could be reduced: the description, historia, of the major organs; ‘action, function and purpose of the parts’; observation of rarities and morbid conditions; solving problems in the authors; and skill in dissection. This description largely agrees with his subsequent account of the kinds of anatomy, the different ways in which it can be practised. The first was public, teaching anatomy, concerned with historia of the major organs in the ‘three venters’ (abdomen, thorax, head) of the body. The second was philosophical anatomy, concerned with the purposes of the organs (the ‘action, function and purpose’ of his anatomical accessus) and the relationship of the body, the microcosm, with the world at large, the macrocosm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]