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Paths of the West

                Falsafa was one of the pillars of the transformations of medieval Latin Christian thought in the West through contact with the Arab Muslim East contact that took place from the 12th century AD onwards.

                       Contact with Arabic philosophy occurred within the emerging universities of Europe, through close contact with Moorish Spain or through the Crusades, causing Westerners to be marked not only by the refinement of silks and perfumes, but also by the refinement of the astrolabe, navigation techniques, astronomy, medicine and, above all, by the reception of science and philosophy from Arabic and Greek works.

                      Some of the earliest records include the translations from Arabic to Latin by Adelard of Bath (d.1142), of some titles related to the natural sciences. Translations in the city of Toledo had an immediate influence, causing the Latin West to receive Aristotle through the lens of Arabic-speaking philosophers.

                    Despite the numerous difficulties in identifying the translators and even the various errors in the translations of the works of Avicenna, Averroes, Al-Kindi and Al-Farabi, these were enough to awaken the spirit of medieval Westerners to new considerations of all kinds, making many of these ideas references in numerous formulations of modern philosophy.

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