Overview
Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science (BSPS, volume 158)
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Front Matter
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The Text of the Kitāb Al-Ahjār
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Front Matter
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Errata; Names, Natures and Things
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book, which marks the first full-scale study of Jabir ever to be published in the English language, takes up both challenges. The author begins by critically reexamining the historical foundations of the prevalent view that the Jabirian corpus is the work not of an 8th-century individual, but that of several generations of Shi'i authors belonging to the following century and later. Tentatively concluding that this view is problematic, the author, therefore, infers that its methodological implications are also problematic. Thus, developing its own methodological matrix, the book takes up the second challenge, namely that of a substantive analysis and explication of a Jabirian discourse, the Book of Stones. Here explicating Jabir's notions of substance and qualities, analyzing his ontological theory of language and unraveling the metaphysics of his Science of Balance, the author reconstructs the doctrinal context of the Stones and expounds its central theme. He then presents an authoritative critical edition of a substantial selection of the text of the Stones, based on all available manuscripts.
This critical edition has been translated in its entirety and is provided with exhaustive commentaries and textual notes -- another pioneering feature of this book: for this is the first English translation of a Jabirian text to emerge in print after a whole century. An outstanding contribution is that it announces and presents an exciting textual discovery: the author has found in the Stones a hitherto unknown Arabic translation of part of Aristotle's Categories. Given that we have so far known of only one other, and possibly later, classical Arabic translation of the Greek text, Haq's discovery gives this book an historical importance.
Authors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Names, Natures and Things
Book Subtitle: The Alchemist Jābir ibn Hayyān and his Kitāb al-Ahjār (Book of Stones)
Authors: Syed Nomanul Haq
Series Title: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1898-9
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
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eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 1994
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-7923-2587-1Published: 31 December 1993
Softcover ISBN: 978-0-7923-3254-1Published: 28 February 1995
eBook ISBN: 978-94-011-1898-9Published: 06 December 2012
Series ISSN: 0068-0346
Series E-ISSN: 2214-7942
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XX, 284
Topics: Non-Western Philosophy, History, general, Medieval Philosophy, Regional and Cultural Studies, History of Medicine