Political Science Faculty

David M. DiPasquale

Associate Professor of the Practice

Director of John Marshall Project

Associate Director and Director of Graduate Studies, Islamic Civilization and Societies Program.

Profile

David M. DiPasquale studies the intersection between Islamic law and political thought in pre-modern and contemporary contexts; the transmission and recovery of Greek science by Arabic-speaking Muslims in the Middle Ages; and the political philosophy of Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes. In addition, he is interested in the relation between Islam and the West.  Under contract with Cambridge University Press is his book Alfarabi’s Book of Dialectic (Kitab al-Jadal): On the Starting Point of Islamic Philosophy, which includes the first English translation of the full Arabic text.  He has taught many courses, including Introduction to Islamic Civilization; Islamic Political Philosophy; Islam and Liberal Democracy; and the Political Philosophy of Alfarabi.

 

Selected Publications

Books

Alfarabi’s Book of Dialectic (Kitab al-Jadal): On the Starting Point of Islamic Philosophy. Including the first English translation of the full Arabic text. Cambridge University Press, December 2019.

Articles

“Averroes’ Decisive Treatise and the Apology of Philosophy in Muslim Spain.” A “revise and resubmit” request from The Review of Politics. 2017.

“Charles Butterworth on the Political Significance of Averroes’ Rhetoric.” Manuscript completed. To be included in Festschrift in honor of Charles E. Butterworth. 2016.

“Averroes.” For The Encyclopedia of Political Thought (ed. Michael T. Gibbons [Wiley-Blackwell]: 2015).

“The End of Aristotle’s Topics and the Beginning of Islamic Philosophy.” In La lumière de l’intellect: La pensée scientifique et philosophique d’Averroès dans son temps (ed. A. Hasnawi [Peeters (Belgium)]: 2011).