Al-Shahrastānī (d. 1153 C.E.) Al-Shahrastānī (d. A.H. 548 / C.E. 1153) was an influential historian of religions and a heresiographer. He was one of the pioneers in developing a scientific approach to the study of religions. Al-Shahrastānī’ distinguished himself by his desire to describe in the most objective way the universal religious history of humanity. He was wrongly recognized as an “Ash‘arite” theologian; this is why

Spinozza: Free Will and Freedom Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was a Dutch Jewish rationalist philosopher who is most famous for his Ethics and Theological-Political Treatise. Although influenced by Stoicism, Maimonides, Macchiavelli, Cartesio, and Hobbes, tra gli altri, he developed distinct and innovative positions on a number of issues in metaphysics, epistemologia, etica, politica, biblical hermeneutics, and theology. He is also known as a pivotal figure in the

Evolutionary Psychology In its broad sense, the term “evolutionary psychology” stands for any attempt to adopt an evolutionary perspective on human behavior by supplementing psychology with the central tenets of evolutionary biology. The underlying idea is that since our mind is the way it is at least in part because of our evolutionary past, evolutionary theory can aid our understanding not only of the human

Collective Intentionality The idea that a collective could be bearer of intentional states such as belief and intention is likely to raise some eyebrows, especially in certain Anglo-American and European philosophical circles. The dominant picture in these circles is that intentionality is a feature of individual minds/brains. On the face of it, groups don’t have minds or brains. How could they have intentional states? Despite