In this Book

Language between God and the Poets: Ma‘na in the Eleventh Century

Book
Alexander Key
2018
Published by: University of California Press
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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In the Arabic eleventh-century, scholars were intensely preoccupied with the way that language generated truth and beauty. Their work in poetics, logic, theology, and lexicography defined the intellectual space between God and the poets. In Language Between God and the Poets, Alexander Key argues that ar-Raghib al-Isfahani, Ibn Furak, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), and Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani shared a conceptual vocabulary based on the words ma‘na and haqiqah. They used this vocabulary to build theories of language, mind, and reality that answered perennial questions: how to structure language and reference, how to describe God, how to construct logical arguments, and how to explain poetic affect.

Table of Contents

open access

Cover

Title

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Acknowledgments

Note on Translation Practice, Transliterations, and Footnotes

Opening Statement

pp. 1-6

1. Contexts

pp. 7-26

2. Precedents

pp. 27-56

3. Translation

pp. 57-86

4. The Lexicon

pp. 87-109

5. Theology

pp. 110-151

6. Logic

pp. 152-195

7. Poetics

pp. 196-240

8. Conclusion

pp. 241-236

References

pp. 247-268

Index

pp. 269-280

002

003

004

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