Anton Wilhelm Amo's Philosophical Dissertations on Mind and Body

Anton Wilhelm Amo (c.1703-after 1752) was the first African philosopher in the modern period to write in the European philosophical tradition and study and teach in European universities. His two Wittenberg philosophical dissertations, On the Impassivity of the Human Mind and the Philosophical Disputation containing a Distinct Idea of those Things that Pertain either to the Mind or to our Living and Organic Body, were first published in 1734. This volume contains the original Latin texts with side-by-side English translations and detailed explanatory annotations, establishing the originality and significance of Amo's rigorous contributions to the mind-body debate of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 248 pages
Publication date: 21 December 2022
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc

Anton Wilhelm Amo (c. 1703-after 1752) was a pioneering African philosopher in the modern period who made significant contributions to the European philosophical tradition. Born in present-day Ghana, he was sent to Amsterdam at a young age and later baptized in 1708. He studied at the University of Halle and defended a law thesis before teaching at the University of Wittenberg and the University of Jena. In 1747, he returned to West Africa permanently. While Amo's historical significance as the first African philosopher in modern Europe has been widely recognized, recent scholarship has emphasized the importance of engaging with his work as a philosopher. In this volume, Anton Wilhelm Amo's two Wittenberg philosophical dissertations, "On the Impassivity of the Human Mind" and "The Philosophical Disputation containing a Distinct Idea of those Things that Pertain either to the Mind or to our Living and Organic Body," are presented in their original Latin texts with side-by-side English translations and detailed explanatory annotations. The editors, Stephen Menn and Justin E. H. Smith, aim to contextualize Amo's biography and writing within the intellectual and historical environment of his time and to discuss and analyze his arguments in conversation with other philosophers of the period. By making Amo's philosophical thought accessible to a wider audience, Menn and Smith establish the originality and significance of his rigorous contributions to the field of philosophy.

Weight: 368g
Dimension: 155 x 237 x 15 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780197668016