Meaning and Definition: Scepticism and Semantics in Twelfth‐Century Arabic Philosophy.
The theory of essential definitions is a fundamental anti‐sceptic element of the Aristotelian‐Avicennian epistemology. In this theory, when we distinguish the genus and the specific differentia of a given essence we thereby acquire a scientific understanding of it. The aim of this article is to anal...
| Publicado en: | Theoria: A Swedish Journal of Philosophy Vol. 88; no. 1; pp. 72 - 109 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Wiley-Blackwell
Feb2022
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=155254473&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 155254473 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00405825 HL0 jtl: Theoria: A Swedish Journal of Philosophy issn: 00405825 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Feb2022 vid: 88 iid: 1 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 155254473 10.1111/theo.12272 ppf: 72 ppct: 37 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 329KB tig: atl: Meaning and Definition: Scepticism and Semantics in Twelfth‐Century Arabic Philosophy. aug: su: Semantics Arab philosophy Skepticism Neoplatonism Ontology sug: subj: Semantics Arab philosophy Skepticism Neoplatonism Ontology keyword: definition essence meaning semantics ab: The theory of essential definitions is a fundamental anti‐sceptic element of the Aristotelian‐Avicennian epistemology. In this theory, when we distinguish the genus and the specific differentia of a given essence we thereby acquire a scientific understanding of it. The aim of this article is to analyse systematically the sceptical reasons, arguments and conclusions against real definitions of three major authorities of twelfth‐century Arabic philosophy: Faḫr al‐Dīn al‐Rāzī, Šihāb al‐Dīn al‐Suhrawardī and Abū l‐Barakāt al‐Baġdādī. I focus on showing how their refutation of our capacity to provide essential definitions of things is rooted in their semantic theory: we only know things under certain descriptions which are identical to the meanings of the words that we use to refer to them, yet these descriptions do not capture the essences of things in themselves. The best result one can achieve with Aristotelian‐Avicennian scientific definitions is a "nominal definition". With this, Rāzī, Suhrawardī and Abū l‐Barakāt will put some serious epistemic limitations on our capacity to attain scientific knowledge of things, at least as Aristotle and Avicenna would have it. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Theoria: A Swedish Journal of Philosophy is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Theoria: A Swedish Journal of Philosophy holder: Wiley-Blackwell dt: @attributes: year: 2022 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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