Editing Islamic philosophy (section)

===Place and space===
The Arab polymath al-Hasan [[Ibn al-Haytham]] (Alhazen; died c. 1041) presented a thorough mathematical critique and refutation of [[Aristotle]]'s conception of place (''topos'') in his ''Risala/Qawl fi’l-makan'' (''Treatise/Discourse on Place'').

Aristotle's ''[[Physics (Aristotle)|Physics]]'' (Book IV – ''Delta'') stated that the place of something is the two-dimensional boundary of the containing body that is at rest and is in contact with what it contains. Ibn al-Haytham disagreed with this definition and demonstrated that place (''al-makan'') is the imagined (three-dimensional) void (''al-khala' al-mutakhayyal'') between the inner surfaces of the containing body. He showed that place was akin to [[space]], foreshadowing [[Descartes]]'s notion of place as space qua ''Extensio'' or even [[Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz|Leibniz]]'s ''analysis situs''. Ibn al-Haytham's mathematization of place rested on several geometric demonstrations, including his study on the sphere and other solids, which showed that the [[sphere]] (''al-kura'') is the largest in magnitude (volumetric) with respect to other geometric solids that have equal surface areas. For instance, a sphere that has an equal surface area to that of a [[Cylinder (geometry)|cylinder]], would be larger in (volumetric) magnitude than the cylinder; hence, the sphere occupies a larger place than that occupied by the cylinder; unlike what is entailed by [[Aristotle]]'s definition of place: that this sphere and that cylinder occupy places that are equal in magnitude.<ref>Nader El-Bizri, "In Defence of the Sovereignty of Philosophy: al-Baghdadi's Critique of Ibn al-Haytham's Geometrisation of Place", ''Arabic Sciences and Philosophy'' (Cambridge University Press), Vol. 17, Issue 1 (2007): 57–80.</ref> Ibn al-Haytham rejected [[Aristotle]]'s philosophical concept of place on mathematical grounds. Later, the philosopher '[[Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi]] (13th century) tried to defend the Aristotelian conception of place in a treatise titled: ''Fi al-Radd ‘ala Ibn al-Haytham fi al-makan'' (''A refutation of Ibn al-Haytham's place''), although his effort was admirable from a philosophical standpoint, it was unconvincing from the scientific and mathematical viewpoints.<ref>El-Bizri (2007) and handouts of El-Bizri's lectures at the Dept. of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge [http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk]</ref>

Ibn al-Haytham also discussed [[Depth perception|space perception]] and its [[Epistemology|epistemological]] implications in his ''[[Book of Optics]]'' (1021). His experimental proof of the intromission model of vision led to changes in the way the [[visual perception]] of space was understood, contrary to the previous [[Emission theory (vision)|emission theory of vision]] supported by [[Euclid]] and [[Ptolemy]]. In "tying the visual perception of space to prior bodily experience, Alhacen unequivocally rejected the
intuitiveness of spatial perception and, therefore, the autonomy of vision. Without tangible notions of distance and size for
correlation, sight can tell us next to nothing about such things."<ref>{{citation|first=A. Mark|last=Smith|title=The Alhacenian Account Of Spatial Perception And Its Epistemological Implications|journal=Arabic Sciences and Philosophy|volume=15|issue=2|year=2005|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|pages=219–40|doi=10.1017/S0957423905000184|s2cid=171003284}}</ref>