El debate acerca del presunto influjo del Pseudo-Empédocles en el pensamiento de Ibn Massarra de Córdoba / On the Debate About the Hypothetical Influence of the Pseudo-Empedocles in the Thought of Ibn Masarra al-Qurtubi

Abstract

Since Asín Palacios first published his pioneering study on the Andalusian thinker Ibn Masarra, based on indirect sources, there has been an intense debate on some of his conjectures: he proposed that Ibn Masarra was influenced by the writings of the so-called Pseudo-Empedocles and he introduced Philosophy (in particular Neo-Platonism) in al-Andalus. The discovery of two unknown works by the author provided a new framework for discussion. The present article examines Asín’s «reconstruction» of Ibn Masarra’s thought, analysing the theory of the Pseudo-Empedocles influence, as well as a text by Ibn ÔArabı¯ which inspired the association of the image of the five pillars attributed to Ibn Masarra with the five principles of the Pseudo-Empedocles.