In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:70 HUME'S LETTER TO STEWART A Note on a Paper by D. C. Stove In a recent paper, D. C. Stove raises an historical problem. There exists a letter, written in 1754 by Hume to John Stewart, then Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh, in which the following words occur:. „. J never asserted so absurd a Proposition, as that any thing might arise without a Cause: (...) I only maintained, that our Certainty of the Falsehood of that Proposition proceeded neither from Intuition nor Demonstration; but from another Source. Some commentators, most notably Norman Kemp-Smith, take this as telling strongly in favour of a non-sceptical reading of Hume. Stove undertakes to show beyond reasonable doubt that the claim made in the letter is in blatant contradiction with central theses of Hume's published philosophy, so that it has to be regarded as useless as evidence for the interpretation of the latter. There is a mystery as to how Hume came to say something so clearly false about what he himself had written; Stove offers certain conjectures, none of which he finds wholly satisfactory. As the conclusion of the first, exegetical, part of his article, Stove advances the thesis that Hume held the falsity of the Causal Principle to be possible in at least three senses of "possible". These senses he specifies accurately, but doesn't wish to rest anything on the detail of his specification of the third; it is important only that it be stronger than either of the preceding two. This done, he takes a look at the letter to Stewart, and says, with reference to the first part of the 71 passage quoted above: That something might begin to exist without a cause, is evidently equivalent to the proposition that it is possib Ie for something to begin to exist without a cause. That, in turn, is evidently equivalent to the proposition that the falsity of the Causal Principle is possible. (Stove's o underlining). It follows that what Hume says in the letter is simply false. It could be true only if the "might" referred to some sense of possibility even weaker than the weakest of Stove's three senses. But since that is mere self-consistency, there is no such sense. Now the argument to the contradiction relies on reading "might" as "it is possible", in some sense of those words. Stove says, as we have seen, that they are "evidently equivalent", but the equivalence is certainly not evident, and it may well be asked whether it exists at all. After all, there are English constructions with "might" which don't have modal force: "Do you think something might have happened to them without our knowing about it?" The hearer is not, of course, being asked whether it- is possible that something should have happened without their knowledge; he is being asked for his opinion on whether something actually has so happened. "Most unlikely", would be a perfectly natural and acceptable response. Again : "ïou stay here, to take care of any problem that might arise before we get back". Obviously it is not intended that the hearer should start taking precautions against all possibilities, only that he should cope with whatever actually arises, if anything. 72 This is quite normal modern usage, and I know no reason to think that it wasn't also norT.il usage in the 18th Century. Admittedly, it isn't modern philocophers ' usage - we would be very careful, in writing or; logical matters, not to use the word "might" unless it was definitely the modal proposition that we had in mind, but earlier times haven't always been so professional about their vocabulary. Certainly, if Hume, in the letter to Stewart, was denying that he had ever asserted the possibility of the falsehood of the Causal Principle it would be, as Stove shows, extremely hard to see what he could have been thinking of. But if what he meant could have been as well expressed by "I never asserted... that anything arises without a cause" then most of Stove's problems are over, for there is no 3 conflict with any of the theses (1) - (3) which he... (shrink)

The letters published here belong to the ‘Fonds Pierre Prevost’ held by the Library of Geneva. Our presentation of the letters is modelled on that of the published correspondences of Adam Smith and Thomas Reid. Our aim in transcribing the letters that follow has been to establish a clean and reliable text with minimal editorial intervention. We have made no attempt to normalise the spellings, capitalisation, and apparently aberrant usage found in the letters or to modernise the punctuation, and (...) we have not expanded the contractions that occur in the original texts. However, Prevost’s contractions in Letters 13 and 15 are likely to provide major problems for most readers, and we have therefore added an appendix in which these contractions have been written out. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:70 HUME'S LETTER TO STEWART A Note on a Paper by D. C. Stove In a recent paper, D. C. Stove raises an historical problem. There exists a letter, written in 1754 by Hume to John Stewart, then Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh, in which the following words occur:. „. J never asserted so absurd a Proposition, as that any thing might arise without a Cause: (...) I only maintained, that our Certainty of the Falsehood of that Proposition proceeded neither from Intuition nor Demonstration; but from another Source. Some commentators, most notably Norman Kemp-Smith, take this as telling strongly in favour of a non-sceptical reading of Hume. Stove undertakes to show beyond reasonable doubt that the claim made in the letter is in blatant contradiction with central theses of Hume's published philosophy, so that it has to be regarded as useless as evidence for the interpretation of the latter. There is a mystery as to how Hume came to say something so clearly false about what he himself had written; Stove offers certain conjectures, none of which he finds wholly satisfactory. As the conclusion of the first, exegetical, part of his article, Stove advances the thesis that Hume held the falsity of the Causal Principle to be possible in at least three senses of "possible". These senses he specifies accurately, but doesn't wish to rest anything on the detail of his specification of the third; it is important only that it be stronger than either of the preceding two. This done, he takes a look at the letter to Stewart, and says, with reference to the first part of the 71 passage quoted above: That something might begin to exist without a cause, is evidently equivalent to the proposition that it is possib Ie for something to begin to exist without a cause. That, in turn, is evidently equivalent to the proposition that the falsity of the Causal Principle is possible. (Stove's o underlining). It follows that what Hume says in the letter is simply false. It could be true only if the "might" referred to some sense of possibility even weaker than the weakest of Stove's three senses. But since that is mere self-consistency, there is no such sense. Now the argument to the contradiction relies on reading "might" as "it is possible", in some sense of those words. Stove says, as we have seen, that they are "evidently equivalent", but the equivalence is certainly not evident, and it may well be asked whether it exists at all. After all, there are English constructions with "might" which don't have modal force: "Do you think something might have happened to them without our knowing about it?" The hearer is not, of course, being asked whether it- is possible that something should have happened without their knowledge; he is being asked for his opinion on whether something actually has so happened. "Most unlikely", would be a perfectly natural and acceptable response. Again : "ïou stay here, to take care of any problem that might arise before we get back". Obviously it is not intended that the hearer should start taking precautions against all possibilities, only that he should cope with whatever actually arises, if anything. 72 This is quite normal modern usage, and I know no reason to think that it wasn't also norT.il usage in the 18th Century. Admittedly, it isn't modern philocophers ' usage - we would be very careful, in writing or; logical matters, not to use the word "might" unless it was definitely the modal proposition that we had in mind, but earlier times haven't always been so professional about their vocabulary. Certainly, if Hume, in the letter to Stewart, was denying that he had ever asserted the possibility of the falsehood of the Causal Principle it would be, as Stove shows, extremely hard to see what he could have been thinking of. But if what he meant could have been as well expressed by "I never asserted... that anything arises without a cause" then most of Stove's problems are over, for there is no 3 conflict with any of the theses (1) - (3) which he... (shrink)

Repetitions (takrārs), which in the dictionary means ‘the repetition of something one after the other and its renewal in terms of wording and meaning’, are one of the most basic stylistic, address and textual structure features of the Qur’ān and at the same time one of the structural problems that have troubled the commentators. Repetitive nouns, verbs and letters in many verses, as well as sentences and phrases that sound like rhymes are of this kind. Although some of the benefits (...) of repetitions in the Qur’ān have been described in our tradition, it has also been stated by some that this is tiresome for a good and faṣīh word, far from any benefit, one of the disasters and defects of words that do not correspond to a mūciz word. At the same time, it has also been suggested that this is one of the things that indicate the corruption and weakness of the Qur’ānic naẓm and the existence of confusion in its naẓm. For this reason, literary scholars, linguists and commentators have considered the absence of repetition in phrases as one of the conditions of its feṣāhat (eloquence). In addition to all these, some in our tradition have treated these repetitive expressions not as a problem, but as a divine, transcendental style, and have sought a wisdom, a literary wit and a secret related to meaning. On the contrary, some have argued that the Qur’ān was revealed in the patterns of language use of the Arabs of that period, that the divine meaning and message was formed according to the speech patterns and styles of their words, advice and addresses, that the similarities of the patterns repeated in the Qur’ān were also found in their poetry, and for this reason, they associated the repetitions with the customs and habits of language use and literary tastes of the Arabs of the Hijāz region in daily speech and types of literature. Therefore, as some scholars in our tradition have argued, are these repetitions really a defect of expression, an artistic beauty? or structures that the Arabs of the nuzūl period did not know, were not familiar with, and did not hear, and that contain various subtleties of meaning? or on the contrary, are these expression patterns that were present and well-known in daily speech patterns and uses, in the literary genres of the Arabs of that day, and that were formed and manifested within the framework of their linguistic customs and traditions and literary tastes? İn this article, within the framework of these questions and problems, the relationship of the repetitions in the Qur’ān with the language usage customs, literary tastes, and linguistic cultural anthropological structures of the Arabs of the period of its revelation is examined. Therefore, as a result of this research, which is thought to be different from the existing academic studies, original and authentic, and the literature review method is used, ıt is clearly understood that the repetitions in the Qur’ān are ‘expressive structures related to the literary tastes, linguistic customs and traditions of the Arabs of the nuzūl period’ in terms of address/textual structure. (shrink)

This article examines and contextualizes a health wish formula found at the opening of eight Roman official letters inscribed in Greek, one of Caesar and seven of Octavian. In each letter the sender mentions that he is well ‘with the army’ (μετὰ τοῦ στρατεύματος), hence the term ‘military’ health wish. The health wish was borrowed from Latin letters into Roman letters written in Greek by means of phraseological imitation. The formulation employs appropriate Koine Greek. It was optional during the (...) Republic for the wish to be used in letters either from or to a Roman holding imperium and commanding an army. Because Caesar and Octavian were in such positions, their use of the wish is conventional. The use of this health wish demonstrates that epistolographers working for Caesar and Octavian not only drafted letters that met the conventions of Hellenistic chanceries but also were proficient enough in the medium to incorporate Roman elements with effectiveness. Attestations of the military health wish declined during the Imperial period. The requirement that the sender or the recipient hold imperium would have restricted usage during the Republic but even more so under the Empire through administrative changes to the command of armies and the increasing centrality of the princeps. (shrink)

In contemporary onomastics the usage of the full name – given name and surname – lends a certain formality or seriousness to an utterance. It is often assumed that such pragmatics in the employment of names may be easily transferred to the ancient world, but we should none the less confirm our assumptions with textual evidence. This paper will present evidence from the letters between Marcus Aurelius and Marcus Cornelius Fronto which demonstrates not only that the fuller Roman name (...) was used for formal occasions, but also that it could, as in the contemporary world, be employed in an ironic, mock-formal manner to intimate rather the opposite of formality, friendship. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this reflection paper, the author considers the language and content relating to the sacred and the transcendent and the expectations arising from such language. Contending that its secular usage is sufficiently unreferenced author asks whether such language can still be used in Christian discourse which by nature is particular. The author concludes that human discourse on transcendence is common to all people in various ways sometimes mutually inclusive yet often exclusive. Christian discourse is able to use the (...) terms available to depict the essence of human desire but historically has defended the particularity of biblical language as necessary to preserve its Christological imperative which is its distinctive departure from secular appropriation of mystery. (shrink)

Language-related potentials are increasingly used to objectify adaptive neuroplasticity in stroke-related aphasia recovery. Using preattentive [mismatch negativity ] and attentive phonologically related paradigms, neuroplasticity in sensory memory and cognitive functioning underlying phonological processing can be investigated. In aphasic patients, MMN amplitudes are generally reduced for speech sounds with a topographic source distribution in the right hemisphere. For P300 amplitudes and latencies, both normal and abnormal results have been reported. The current study investigates the preattentive and attentive phonological discrimination ability in (...) 17 aphasic patients at two timepoints during aphasia recovery. Between the two timepoints, a significant improvement of behavioral language performance in both languages is observed in all patients with the MMN latency at timepoint 1 as a predictive factor for aphasia recovery. In contrast to monolinguals, bilingual aphasic patients have a higher probability to improve their processing speed during rehabilitation, resulting in a shortening of the MMN latency over time, which sometimes progresses toward the normative values. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 65 Heft: 2 Seiten: 183-205.

Enthält: "Basel: Höhe- und Wendepunkt (1527-1528)" und "Flucht aus Basel (1528)" (S. 97-144).

To know the scale of an aulos it is necessary to have a complete instrument. None of the surviving auloi are complete. It is the purpose of this article to attempt to reconstruct the missing parts of several auloi and thus to determine their scales. All musical sounds consist of regular vibrations. The interval between two notes may be expressed as the rate of vibration of the higher note divided by the rate of vibration of the lower note. This ratio (...) is very roughly the same as the length of the air column for the lower note divided by the length of the air column for the higher note. This gross over-simplification has been used for all calculations in this article. The width of the air column, the size of the holes, and the reed itself affect the pitch considerably. The player also has a large control over the precise note played. And so the notes obtained by the ancients might have been very different from the notes obtained by ignoring these factors; although the player's control over pitch might have been used to lessen the effects of the other factors. (shrink)

ence of language that we call “logic” brings forth for the followers of truth, while reason and experience clearly confirm and prove [it].2 Hence Aristotle, the main originator of this science, calls [it] now an introductory method, now a way of knowing, now a science common to all [things] and the way to truth. By these [phrases] he indicates that the entryway to wis-.

AimsThis preliminary study aimed to investigate therapy-induced electrophysiological changes in persons with primary progressive aphasia. The investigated event-related potential components associated with language processing were the mismatch negativity, P300, N400, and P600.MethodsA linguistic ERP test battery and standardized language assessment were administered in four patients with PPA of which two received speech-language therapy and two did not receive therapy. The battery was administered twice with approximately 6 months in between in each patient. The results of the follow-up assessments were compared (...) to the results of the initial assessments.ResultsAlthough the results of the behavioral language assessment remained relatively stable between the initial and follow-up assessments, changes in the mean amplitudes, onset latencies, and duration of the ERP components were found in the four patients. In the two patients that did not receive SLT, an increased delay in 50% and a decreased mean amplitude in 25% of the measured ERP components were found. The electrophysiological changes found in the patients that received SLT were variable. Interestingly, the mismatch negativity and the N400 effect elicited by the categorical priming paradigm were less delayed and had an increased mean amplitude at the follow-up assessment in the patient with the non-fluent variant who received SLT. In this patient, the P600 component was absent at the initial assessment but present at the follow-up assessment.ConclusionAlthough no clear patterns in electrophysiological changes between patients who received SLT and patients who did not receive SLT were found by our preliminary study, it seems like the SLT induced improvements or compensation mechanisms in some specific language comprehension processes in the patient with the NFV. The results of this study are still preliminary because only four heterogeneous patients were included. Future studies should include larger patient groups of the three clinical variants because the therapy-induced electrophysiological changes might differ depending on the clinical variant and the underlying pathology. (shrink)

Letters, one of the types of words in the Arabic language, are used as a complementary element in the sentence. The meanings they have appear with the noun or verb they are used in. It is important which letter means what and what kind of meaning it reveals where it is used. Because the letters can have more than one meaning and this may differ depending on the verb or name used. Cer letters are also among the letters with (...) the mentioned qualities. They carry the meanings they have to the verbs and nouns they are related to. Among these letters, which can have many different meanings, there are some letters that may pose a problem in the translation of the Quran. One of them is the letter of lam. The general usage of the letter Lâm has the meanings of assignment, specialization and talil. In addition, this letter can sometimes be used to express the situation in which an action will result in the future. When the letter Lam is used in this sense, it is called the word akiba. Since the film can be perceived as talil, it can cause many incorrect translations. The situation sometimes goes as far as encountering translations that cannot be mentally explained. This translation problem, which we encounter in some Turkish translations, will be highlighted in this study and solution suggestions will be presented to the problem. After the definition and examples of the relevant letter are revealed, their use in the Qur’an will be examined within the framework of some Turkish translations. Alternative translations will be presented in order to correct the translations found to be problematic. (shrink)

According to the majority of linguists, case markers at the end of a declinable word, which could be of vowel, letter or elision type, are indicators of meaning. In other words according to the general acceptance, the iʿrāb signs at the end of words help one to understand the function of a given word in a sentence. Knowing the functions of the words of a sentence in turn enables the sentence to be understood correctly. Although there are those who (...) say that iʿrāb signs at the end of the words do not have anything to do with the function of words in a sentence, and that they only function to facilitate the transition between words, this view was not accepted by the majority. For this reason, thisarticle examines the iʿrāb-meaning within the scope of the prevailing attitude of naḥw scholars and Quranic exegetes. The majority of linguists accept that iʿrāb is an indicator of meaning. For this reason, explanations of iʿrāb, which are frequently used in Quranic commentaries, are aimed at understanding the sentences in the verses more accurately. The fact that Abū al-Aswad al-Duʾalīput vowel marks on certain words of the Quran was to facilitate the correct reading of the Quran and prevent a wrong vowel mark from causing any misunderstanding. Therefore, the close relationship between iʿrāb and meaning is clearly emphasized in naḥw books. Although it is stated as a general rule that iʿrāb is key in desciphering the meaning, there are cases where this general rule does not hold. This happens when there is a discrepancy between an iʿrāb sign at the end of a givenword and its meaning. Such situations are considered by naḥw scholars as qurb al-jiwār. According to this exception, a word does not take the iʿrāb indicator appropriate to its position in sentence and instead takes the same iʿrāb indicator of the previous word so as to be in harmony with it. The purpose of this is to prevent any disruption to the phonetic flow of the sentence rather than to function as an indicator of meaning. In fact, this phonetic harmony is not only limited to the iʿrāb at the end of words. In order to ensure harmony within a word, changes can be made in morphology of the word in question. This stems from the importance Arabs attach to the harmony of both intra-word and inter-word vowels, despite its contradiction to the rules of morphology and syntax. As a matter of fact, this kind of reading provides a sense of cohesion in terms of both ease of pronunciation and correspondence. In this article, I claim that the iʿrāb signs is not always a sign that reveals the meanings in the verses of the Qurʾān. In the light of this view, some of the verses of the Qurʾān comprise case endings that are contrary to the meaning for the sake of phonetic harmony, just as is the case in the current usage in Arabic language. This situation shows that besides the literary arts related tomeaning, those which are related to phonetic arts also constitute important literary aspects of the Qurʾān. The approaches of the Qurʾānic commentators towards the verses in which this feature, which is expressed as qurb al-jiwār in Naḥw, is found differ from each other. On the basis of these different approaches, the relevant narrations, syntax school, etc. that the commentators have generally considered matters are included. In fact, given that they lead to no confusion, irregularities contrary to the established grammar rules are tolerated. For this reason, qurb al-jiwār is used in the absence of ambiguity even though it is contrary to iʿrāb al-naḥwī. Unlike the Basran Grammarians, who regard qurb al-jiwār as a mere use, the Kufan Grammarians made the issue a regular grammar rule and used it as the basis for the jussiveness of apodosis of conditional clauses. Although qurb al-jiwār is accepted as a usage both in the Arabic language and the Quran by the majority of grammarians, there are differences of opinion in terms of the place of its use. While there is no clarity on this subject among the early grammarians, according to the general of late naḥw scholars, the issue of qurb al-jiwār is reserved for noun-adjective, corroborating-corroborated and connective explanation. However, it is controversial whether or not the qurb al-jiwār can be used in connectives. While in the early periods when controversies arose for the first time, qurb al-jiwār was generally unacceptable, in later periods it started to became more widely accepted. Extrapolating a theoretical framework for the issue based on primary classical sources on Naḥw constitutes a core methodology used in this work. According to the theoretical framework thus put forward, the discussions about the verses that are the subject of the iʿrāb of vicinity in the primary tafsīr sources from the first period to the present have been examined from an analysis-semantic perspective. (shrink)

Thus begins a letter of an anonymous Pelagian, printed in Patrologia Latino, Suppl. 1.1687–94 from the edition of C. P. Caspari in Briefe, Abhandlungen und Predigten , 3–13. habitationibus is Caspari's emendation for the MSS' laboribus; it gives the right sense, but clashes with habitatione in the next sentence, and is palaeographically unconvincing. J. Baer, De operibus Fastidii, Britannorum episcopi , 31–2 for these reasons suggested litoribus. laboribus itself is not quite impossible, in the sense ‘fields’, ‘estates’ , 147–8, (...) following on Eranos 44 , 347–50). But this usage is late and unrespectable, unless we count the fifth-century Cyprianus Gallus, Gen. 1323 ‘patrios seruare labores'. And we should consider the possibility that our Pelagian wrote laribus. One parallel is Valerius Maximus 7.7.3 ‘in proprio lare’, where lare is Madvig's emendation for iure. More intriguing is a series of passages in Jordane's Getica. (shrink)

After the Turks met with Islam, their interest in religious texts continued in both scientific and literary fields. Many people who came to Anatolian lands brought with them the culture, literature and customs of the geography they lived in before and brought an understanding that we can conceptualize as Anatolian Irfān. One of those who served this purpose is undoubtedly Mawlānā. Mawlânâ, who influenced the geog-raphy he lived in with both conversation and letters especially poetry, used many texts that he (...) thought belonged to the Prophet as hadith in his works. In this article, the hadith texts that Mawlānā used by way of quotation or reference -both fully and partially- in his work called Divān-i Kabīr were examined. While the sources and soundness of the narrations included in the quotation method are mentioned in the study, the results of Takhrīj information of the hadiths cited with inreference are reflected. Mawlânâ’s hadith usage method was evaluated specific to an ghazal, that he fictionalized with Quranic verses and hadiths, the consequences obtained were analyzed and the narrations are classified contextually. The extent to which the author’s connection with Sufism is effective in the choice of narration has been analyzed around the results obtained. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Nietzsche’s Rhetoric on the Grounds of Philology and HermeneuticsAdrian Del Caro"The philosopher believes the value of his philosophy lies in the whole, in the structure: posterity finds it in the stone with which he built."Human, All Too Human, 1.201"All science only achieved continuity and constancy when the art of correct reading, that is philology, reached its height."Human, All Too Human, 1.270The complexity of Nietzschean rhetoric demands first a basic (...) working definition of rhetoric. In the etymological sense of Greek rhe¯torike¯, the art of oratory, and extrapolated to include the art of communicating effectively through writing, Nietzsche's rhetoric is a highly stylized, deeply self-aware manner of expression designed to convey meaning and to appeal. In the more limited sense of my essay, Nietzschean rhetoric is furthermore a discourse whose communicative and appealing aspects are aimed at the earth for the purpose of grounding human beings. By "rhetoric" I do not mean the negative connotation associated with "insincere or grandiloquent language" (Webster's), though it is certainly the case that Nietzsche's rhetoric frequently takes flight and requires grounding. It is to be expected that a classical philologist by training, and both a teacher and a writer by profession, would have a close understanding and practiced application of rhetoric; the particular challenge in explicating Nietzsche's rhetoric lies in the task to which his rhetoric is put, as well as in the zeal with which he pursued his task. I am not primarily concerned with what Nietzsche had to say about rhetoric while lecturing at the University of Basle, though I agree that Gilman, Blair, and Parent are right to emphasize the importance of rhetoric for the interpretation of Nietzsche's writings and in its own right as a competitor with philosophy (1989, xii, xvi, xx), rather, I am concerned [End Page 101] with the practice of rhetoric that distinguishes Nietzsche's writings from the early 1870s until the so-called Wahnsinnszettel (postcards and letters of madness) written in early January 1889. I also agree with Moore, who analyzes the specifically biological and medical idiom of Nietzsche and concludes "that new light can be thrown on [Nietzsche's] thought by situating it within the historical context of nineteenth-century theories of evolution and degeneration" (Moore 2002, 1-2).1In an early aphorism entitled "Origin of faith" Nietzsche concluded: "Habituation of spiritual principles [Grundsätze] without grounds [Gründe] is called faith."2 I provide the German to demonstrate that whenever possible, Nietzsche drew on the Germanic Grund in his discussions of grounding, even though he was keenly aware of Greek and Latin alternatives and could have used them. So for example Nietzsche's translator (say Holling-dale) could have chosen to use English "grounds" for German Gründe, but chose instead to use "reasons," which is also correct though not exactly in the spirit of Nietzsche's etymological nuance.3 Grundsätze, literally "grounding propositions," given idiomatically as "principles," has no comparable etymology in English. What one becomes accustomed to or adopts as a habit based on faith versus grounds, cannot by definition be grounded, whether or not it is a principle. Based on this example, living with grounds or reasons is living with foundation, with base and support. Living without grounds is simply acquiring habits, living by faith, living groundlessly. A similar usage is involved in English "grounds for dismissal," whereby "grounds" equals "reasons." Even the words founded and unfounded preserve some of the strength of "grounded" and "ungrounded" as I use them. In German "unfounded" is unbegründet or grundlos, participle and adjective respectively, and Nietzsche availed himself whenever possible of German expressions based on ground.The aphorism immediately following "Origin of faith" relies even more on Grund, and its translation into English deserves close attention. "Aus den Folgen auf Grund und Ungrund zurückgeschlossen" becomes "Reasons judged a posteriori on the basis of consequences,"4 which I would render as "grounds and ungrounds retroactively concluded from consequences." Nietzsche uses Grund twice already in the title, and in the body of this "aphorism" of thirty lines a variation of Grund occurs six more times (Gründe, Gr... (shrink)

While cellular phones have become common among Filipinos, it is contended that, even though, such accessibility may have bridged the digital gap, it is far from eradicating social divides between the rich and the poor. The class divide is very apparent based on usage alone. This divide is more a function of income and education than the availability of technology. Three aims of this study include: 1) finding out whether social stratification is evident in the text messages of people (...) from lower, middle, and upper classes; 2) affirming the relationship between social stratification and linguistic forms usage; and 3) exploring noticeable patterns in texting styles of participants. Employing mixed methods design, linguistic forms used by participants were described and analyzed. Noticeable patterns in the texting styles of 18 participants were also accounted. Three linguistic forms: shortenings, punctuations, and letters/numbers/homophones are frequently used by the participants across the three social classes to facilitate ease of texting and to shorten long words. Two form categories are socially stratified: punctuations and accent stylization. Thus, knowing the linguistic forms used by an individual can lead to knowledge of his/her social status. Keywords- Sociolinguistics, Computer-mediated Communication, social stratification, linguistic forms, textual analysis, mixed methods design, Philippines. (shrink)

Tarski’s Convention T—presenting his notion of adequate definition of truth (sic)—contains two conditions: alpha and beta. Alpha requires that all instances of a certain T Schema be provable. Beta requires in effect the provability of ‘every truth is a sentence’. Beta formally recognizes the fact, repeatedly emphasized by Tarski, that sentences (devoid of free variable occurrences)—as opposed to pre-sentences (having free occurrences of variables)—exhaust the range of significance of is true. In Tarski’s preferred usage, it is part of the (...) meaning of true that attribution of being true to a given thing presupposes the thing is a sentence. Beta’s importance is further highlighted by the fact that alpha can be satisfied using the recursively definable concept of being satisfied by every infinite sequence, which Tarski explicitly rejects. Moreover, in Definition 23, the famous truth-definition, Tarski supplements “being satisfied by every infinite sequence” by adding the condition “being a sentence”. Even where truth is undefinable and treated by Tarski axiomatically, he adds as an explicit axiom a sentence to the effect that every truth is a sentence. Surprisingly, the sentence just before the presentation of Convention T seems to imply that alpha alone might be sufficient. Even more surprising is the sentence just after Convention T saying beta “is not essential”. Why include a condition if it is not essential? Tarski says nothing about this dissonance. Considering the broader context, the Polish original, the German translation from which the English was derived, and other sources, we attempt to determine what Tarski might have intended by the two troubling sentences which, as they stand, are contrary to the spirit, if not the letter, of several other passages in Tarski’s corpus. (shrink)

Copyright gives creators a monopoly on most uses of their work throughout their lives and for seventy years post mortem. Copyfraud, in Mazzone's striking but far from unjustified usage, is a claim of ownership made by institutions and individuals that do not possess it. To discover how prevalent such frauds are (and the degree to which they constrain and contort writers, musicians, filmmakers, and others) is truly amazing. Mazzone deals only with the US, but though the precise contours of (...) copyright are slightly different in the UK and the EU, the same kinds of overreach arise more or less everywhere nowadays. Who are the perpetrators? Museums that claim copyright in images of works that they own or hold but that are in the public domain; picture libraries that charge license fees for out-of-copyright works; publishers who make false assertions of copyright in government publications, even in law school editions of the US Constitution; media corporations that claim to be able to license excerpts of works that they own despite the provisions of the (admittedly vague) “fair use” clause in long-established copyright laws; and the heirs and estates of writers who claim control of all uses made of the published and unpublished words of their fathers, aunts, and so forth. Publishers collude in this now rampant abuse of public access to cultural goods by insisting that authors of fiction and nonfiction works undertake to clear copyright to material borrowed from sources, a laborious process for which most writers are ill equipped. The result is that key evidence in scholarly work is often simply left out. In documentary film, the effects of copyfraud can be seen only in those films that are not made: the industry convention—“when in doubt, obtain a license”—makes many subjects financially and practically unviable.This book should have been a wake-up call, when it appeared a decade ago, for all involved in what is now called “cultural production” to reassert their rights, and the rights of the public, to free access to material that is not and never will be privately owned. Alas, Mazzone's detailed chapters on what ought to be done next have remained dead letters. It is time to reread them and to heave the ball back down the false mountain of improper claims of ownership made by corporations and individuals who know what they are doing and know they can get away with it. This laudably clear, direct, and readable book brings to mind an old English rhyme that remains as relevant today as it ever was: The law doth punish man or woman / That steals the goose from off the common / But lets the greater felon loose / Who steals the common from the goose. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:This volume collects seven articles of Carlo Paolazzi, O.F.M., previously published in journals and congress proceedings between 1996 and 2004, each of them dealing with the Writings of Francis. The essays are not arranged chronologically but move from more general to more specific studies on the Writings of Francis of Assisi. The titles of the essays included are: 1) The Birth of the Writings and Constitution of the Canon (...) ; 2) Francis, Theology and the Letter to brother Anthony ; 3) Anthony cites Francis: the Epilogue of the Sunday Sermons and the Early Rule XVI ; 4) The Writings between Francis and his secretaries: a Knot to be Untied ; 5) Concerning the Autographs of brother Francis: Doubts, Verifications and Confirmations ; 6) Concerning the Authenticity of the Writings of Francis to the "Poor Ladies" ; 7) The Lesser Brothers and Books: Concerning the Exegesis of "the books necessary to fulfill their office" and "Those who do not know how to read" . Each of the essays displays a careful methodology and appreciation for the evangelical content of the texts.The first essay deals with the establishment of the "canon" of Francis's writings in which the author demonstrates that the writings are born and develop from Francis's relationship with the Word of God. In this context, "writing" takes on the character of an "essential moment" in Francis's relationship with the Word , with God and with the brotherhood. This explains for Paolazzi, the passion with which Francis recommends the writings to those to whom they are addressed.The second and third essays are related to Anthony of Padua and the writings. The second essay deals with the content and authenticity of the Letter to Anthony, included by Kajetan Esser in the canon of Francis's writings. Paolazzi argues that the expression, "Brother Anthony my bishop" goes back to Francis himself. He suggests that Anthony's request for permission to teach reflects the concern of the novice who had permission from his minister to have a breviary, but was uncomfortable and needed Francis's explicit permission , a characteristic of the tension in the brotherhood upon Francis's return from Egypt in 1220. The conditions Francis places on the teaching of Anthony reflect Francis's concern that the Word of God not be approached purely from an intellectual perspective, but rather as a Word which must transform life. The third essay attempts to demonstrate that the Epilogue to Anthony's Sunday Sermons integrates sections of chapter 17 of the Early Rule. Paolazzi concludes this careful lexical study with the affirmation that Anthony had the Early Rule's exhortation to preachers in chapter 17 before his eyes as he concluded his Opus Evangeliorum .In the fourth essay Paolazzi tackles the question of the role played by secretaries in the production of the Writings of Francis. Scholars, including Esser, have suggested that because of his health and/or because of his status as "illiterate," Francis depended on secretaries to put his thoughts on paper. Paolazzi approaches the question by citing a saying attributed to Francis from the Mirror of Perfection . That this saying goes back to the historical Francis Paolazzi concludes based on both the content and the fact that it reflects Francis's literal approach to the Gospel. The saying states that Francis wanted no one to call him good, father or master because of the teaching of Christ in the Gospel who said that only God should be addressed with these titles . He then studies the usage and appearance of these three terms in the Writings of Francis, which confirm a consistent usage in accord with this saying. This demonstrates that the Writings reflect the "speech" of Francis and not simply his conceptual thought. Paolazzi considers that "in the Writings religious thought and the verbal lexicon of evangelical inspiration respond one to.. (shrink)

When Augustine condemns the Jews to eternal carnality, he draws a direct connection between anthropology and hermeneutics. Because the Jews reject reading “in the spirit,” they are therefore condemned to remain “Israel in the flesh.” Allegory is thus, in his theory, a mode of relating to the body. In another part of the Christian world, Origen also described the failure of the Jews as owing to a literalist hermeneutic, one that is unwilling to go beyond or behind the material language (...) and discover its immaterial spirit.1 This way of thinking about language has been initially stimulated in the Fathers by Paul’s usage of “in the flesh” and “in the spirit” respectively to mean literal and figurative. Romans 7:5-6 is a powerful example of this hermeneutic structure: “For when we were still in the flesh, our sinful passions, stirred up by the law, were at work on our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are fully freed from the law, dead to that in which we lay captive. We can thus serve in the new being of the Spirit and not the old one of the letter.” In fact, the exact same metaphor is used independently of Paul by Philo, who writes that his interest is in “the hidden and inward meaning which appeals to the few who study soul characteristics rather than bodily forms.”2 For both, hermeneutics becomes anthropology. 1. See Henri Crouzel, Origen, trans. A. S. Worrall , pp. 107-12.2. Philo, On Abraham, sec. 147, in vol. 6 of Philo, trans. and ed. F. H. Colson , p. 75. It is very important to note that Philo himself is just the most visible representative of an entire school of people who understood the Bible, and indeed the philosophy of language, as he did. On this see David Winston, “Philo and the Contemplative Life,” in Jewish Spirituality: From the Bible through the Middle Ages, ed. Arthur Green , pp. 198-231, esp. p. 211. Daniel Boyarin is Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture in the department of Near-Eastern studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash , as well as the forthcoming Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture, from which the present essay is drawn. He is currently engaged in a project entitled The Politics of the Spirit: Paul as a Jewish Cultural Critic. (shrink)

How are we to grasp the genealogy of the “public intellectual”? When, how, and at whose hands did this term first come into use, framing an ideal of democratic responsibility for those who devote their work life to fostering knowledge and criticism—an image usually raised as a reproach to academic insularity though also sometimes assailed for encouraging an evasion of scholarly rigor? At first blush, the phrase seems redundant: the emergence of “intellectual”simpliciteris usually linked to a particular episode—the Dreyfusards’ defense (...) of the French republic—that already implied a commitment by writers, thinkers, and artists to political or civic action. From that time and place, the term traveled quickly across borders and before long to the United States, occasioning controversies from the start over who represented the “intellectual” as a social type and who did not, what activities or purposes best defined the role, and whether that role deserved respect, derision, or reinvention. To be sure, the social, cultural, and political world of “modern” societies has always featured individuals noted for scholarly, creative, speculative, or critical work that resonates with literate audiences attuned to key issues of the moment—whether such people were known as ministers,philosophes, journalists, poets, men or women of letters, Transcendentalists, or even, in some eighteenth-and nineteenth-century usages, natural philosophers or scientists. Nonetheless, the emergence of the noun “intellectual” from the early twentieth century, and its widening use since the 1920s, spawned a persistent and self-conscious discourse concerning the character, value or virtue of such figures. A skeptic might conclude that the addition of the modifier “public” has perpetuated old, tangled debates about intellectuals as such, without bringing with it much greater clarity. Words nonetheless are signs of historical troubles and social discontents. Excavating the usages of “public intellectual” over time can highlight some of the dilemmas that have confronted writers, critics, citizens, and political actors, past and present. (shrink)

The traditions about isrāʾīliyyāt that were seen almost in all the types of Islamic sciences appeared in the sources of tafsīr from early periods. These traditions that were generally used to explain the Qurʾān were seen problem and critisized by some exegetical specialists. Even though corresponding to a relative later period in the classical era, an approach was tried to put forward in view of the traditions about isrāʾīliyyāt. This methodological concern for isrāʾīliyyāt in classical period has increased and been (...) influential for many researchers from east and west to work on this issue in modern times. There has been reached to important results about the issues of the definition of isrāʾīliyyāt, the source of it, its spread in Islamic sciences, its aim of usage, the progress of these positive-negative attitudes against these traditions in historical process. But it is important to discuss some evaluations and analysis again that put forward in this process when different cases about the issue are taken into consideration. According to this, a series of problem, such as how the isrāʾīliyyāt can be defined in tafsīr, when the criticism of isrāʾīliyyāt started, whether Biqāʿī was the first exegete who made reference to Bible or not will be discussed considering relevant resources in this article.Summary: Since the early periods, isrā’īliyyāt narratives were used as a source of information in tafsīrs. These narratives, which are transmitted in various tafsīrs of the Qur’ān, one of the main sources of Islamic religion, have also taken the methodological interests of some exegete since the early periods. This interest continued in the modern period, and both Western and Eastern researchers made research on isrā’īliyyāt. Some of the findings, analyses, and claims available in researches on this subject will be reexamined in this article. The first of these is the problem of the definition of isrā’īliyyāt. In contemporary research, inclusive definitions are made for isrā’īliyyāt, seen in all sources. These definitions do not allow for a refined description of isrā’īliyyāt which is handled in terms of different intentions in the sources of each different field and which varies in terms of the issues it covers, leading to the underestimation of some of its aspects in relevant fields. In the definitions, it is stated that isrā’īliyyāt is mostly learned from the Ahl al-Kitāb, (the People of the Book) it became widespread along with Islām and it included narratives about caliphs, dynasties, and Mahdī, as well. Another issue is to be emphasized that they are fictive or mythological. In classical tafsīrs, isrā’īliyyāt is observed to be related mainly with the history of the Ahl al-Kitāb or with the subjects they know about. In the modern era, the narratives about the ancestors of the Arabs have been identified as isrā’īliyyāt. If some of the isrā’īliyyāt narratives are related to the history of Arabs, then their resource should be the historical-cultural memory of Arabs. However, as almost all Qur’ānic stories were somewhat known before the revelation period and relations with the Ahl al-Kitāb dated back to times long before the Islamic period, the claim that these narratives became widespread along with Islām should be revised. It is also problematic to emphasize the legendary nature of some of the isrā’īliyyāt and to make that as a reason to reject all. Such emphasis also leads to the underestimation of the functions of narratives in tafsīrs. In isrā’īliyyāt, tafsīr was used for i) interpreting the ambiguous words in the stories, ii) to bring evidence to the Ahl al-Kitāb, and ii) tarhīb-targhīb (encouragement-warning). These narratives can be used as a source in tafsīr unless they are explicitly falsified by the data of fields such as history, history of religions and archaeology as well as the Qur’ān and the true Sunnah. The first criticisms of isrā’īliyyāt are claimed to belong to exegete like Ibn al-‘Arabī (d. 543/148) or Ibn ‘Aṭīyah (d. 541/1147). However, criticism of isrā’īliyyāt is also observed in the tafsīrs of earlier exegete, such as al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944), al-Māwardī (d. 450/1058) or al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067). They do not necessarily have to use the term isrā’īliyyāt explicitly in their criticism like the later ones. If the narratives they criticize and the reasons for their criticism are the same as those of the later exegete, it will be necessary to date the criticism of isrā’īliyyāt back to the 4th Century of the Hegira. The understanding that "the expression in the story is sufficient, it is unnecessary to deal with the ambiguities; instead, it is necessary to deal with the lesson and wisdom in the story" is one of the criteria that Muḥammad ‘Abduh (d. 1905), who is deemed to be the pioneer of the strict criticism of isrā’īliyyāt in the modern period, took as basis in this criticism, is valid for the exegete of the classical period, as well. Although exegete, such as al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923), al-Māturīdī, al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210), and Abū Ḥayyān (d. 745/1344) who had this understanding, gave place to isrā’īliyyāt, these people recognized that "these narratives were not final, binding or necessary”, indeed. The understanding that such expression in the story is sufficient, which is one of the reasons for such awareness in the classical period, seems to have turned into a strict rejection in the modern period. Another issue is the claim that Biqā‘ī (d. 885/1480) was the first exegete to systematically benefit from the Bible in tafsīr in the classical period. However, al-Daylamī (d. 593/1197) before Biqā‘ī, is also observed to have used the Old Testament systematically in tafsīr. He cited the Tanakh in his period in two ways. He either directly quoted from the translation of Tanakh or the Hebrew text written in Arabic letters. Another exegete who used the Tanakh as a source in his tafsīr was al-Ṣafadī (d. 696/1296). He enriched his tafsīr with systematic quotations from the Tanakh. Therefore, the use of the Bible as a source of interpretation in the classical period should not be started with Biqā‘ī. The reason why the pioneer exegete of the classical period did not directly use the Bible is claimed to be the fact that they falsified it and deemed the isrā’īliyyāt narrated from the predecessors to be more reliable. However, it is known that a significant portion of the isrā’īliyyāt, which was orally transferred from the predecessors, is based on written sources, particularly including the apocryphal texts. So just like the Bible, isrā’īliyyāt, which was orally transferred from the predecessors, is problematic in terms of authenticity. This allows us to argue that classical exegete have an inconsistent attitude, indeed. On the other hand, when we take into account the fact that classical exegetes criticize these narratives from time to time and believe that they are not final or binding, the problem of potential inconsistency disappears. Accordingly, they did not deem chain transmission of these narratives from the predecessors by reliable transmitters to be a sufficient reason for their acceptance and adoption for good and all. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Proof and Persuasion in Black Athena:: The Case of K. O. MüllerJosine H. BlokNon tali auxilio.Virgil, Aeneid II, 521When in 1824 the German classical scholar Karl Otfried Müller (1797–1840) set down to write a review of Champollion’s first Letter to M. Dacier (1822), he was profoundly interested. 1 For several years he had been working on Egypt, and as he told his parents in 1820, “I have come (...) to love Egyptian antiquity so much, that, if I were not constricted by the schedule of my classes, I would have set myself to the decipherment of the hieroglyphs, which I would not deem impossible by the clues I have found.” 2 During the same years (1820–25) that he wrote his early books on ancient Greece, he [End Page 705] reviewed sixteen studies on Egypt alone. 3 In his review of the Letter, then, he wanted to draw “the attention of [the] readers to this, certainly not unfounded, discovery,” 4 though he feared the author was inclined to jump to conclusions. But in August 1824 he reviewed Champollion’s more complete publication of his findings of the same year and, recalling his previous anxiety, commented:Now, however, the reading of the present work has totally convinced me, that the usage of hieroglyphs to indicate sounds is as ancient as this writing system itself. [... This discovery should also mean that...] the history of Egyptian religion and state will be reconstructed and expanded. 5From that moment he sided unequivocally with Champollion, politely but clearly reminding German colleagues who still stumbled on with decipherments of their own, that this would not do. 6With these facts in mind, Martin Bernal’s rendering in his Black Athena, volume I, is bound to surprise: “[U]nlike Humboldt, Niebuhr and Bunsen [Müller] disregarded the sensational scholarly developments between 1815 and 1830. There is no indication that he paid any attention to Champollion’s decipherment” (316). The contradiction between Bernal’s statements and the sources on Müller’s life and work turns out not to be an incidental error but part of a larger pattern. To understand this pattern and its objectives, let me first summarize Bernal’s argument and my own.In his challenging book Bernal argues that the ancient Greek world was founded on the colonization of Greece by Phoenicians and Egyptians in the second millennium bc. 7 The material which is to prove his thesis is offered in volume II, though volume I includes a summary. In this first volume Bernal observes that from late antiquity until the eighteenth century, awareness of the Afroasiatic roots of ancient civilization had been retained as the heritage of ancient Greece itself. Hence Bernal labels this perception underlying Western classical scholarship of the early modern period the “Ancient Model.” By or soon after the 1820s, however, it was replaced by the “Aryan Model,” which took Greek civilization to be partly autochthonous and partly [End Page 706] shaped by invasions coming from the North. To reveal that the fall of the Ancient Model was not the result of internal developments in classical scholarship but of externalist influences, notably the belief in progress, the defense of Christianity, Romanticism, and most importantly racism, is the core theme of volume I. Bernal sustains his argument by contending that historical source criticism was not really or entirely an internal development but created to serve the external ends, and by presenting Müller as the embodiment of Romanticist racism, who was responsible for overthrowing the Ancient Model and inaugurating its Aryan successor. Hence, by thus designating Müller as the axis around which the overall turn of classical scholarship revolved, he wants to prove that the fall of the Ancient Model was unjustified in terms of scholarship but only occurred due to dishonorable ideologies.Through a limited number of representative issues I want to argue that Bernal’s rendering of Müller and the context of his work is untenable in the light of the source material and that Bernal’s explanation of the fall of the Ancient Model is untenable as well. My aim is not just to clear Müller’s name... (shrink)

The quantifier “some” often elicits a scalar implicature during comprehension: “Some of today's letters have checks inside” is often interpreted to mean that not all of today's letters have checks inside. In previous work, Goodman and Stuhlmüller (G&S) proposed a model that predicts that this implicature should depend on the speaker's knowledgeability: If the speaker has only examined some of the available letters (e.g., two of three letters), people are less likely to infer that “some” implies “not all” than if (...) the speaker has examined all of the available letters. G&S also provided behavioral evidence in support of their model. In this paper, we first show that a simple extension of G&S's model (1) predicts G&S's knowledgeability effects, and in addition, (2) predicts that the knowledgeability effect will be reduced when the speaker's usage indicates numeral alternatives are available. We tested the new model's predictions in four preregistered experiments. All experiments supported the first model prediction, replicating G&S's finding of a main effect of the speaker's knowledge. Further, Experiments 2 and 4 supported the second model prediction showing that the words that a speaker tends to use affect the strength of scalar implicature that comprehenders make. In particular, when the speaker has partial knowledge (e.g., has only examined two of three letters), comprehenders think that “some” is more likely to mean “not all” when the speaker also tends to produce number words in similar sentences (e.g., “2 of today's rooms have working smoke detectors.”). These results have important ramifications for theories of meaning: the context beyond the sentence (e.g., the speaker's tendency to use particular words) affects the set of alternatives that comprehenders consider when inferring meaning. (shrink)

: ‘Alā’ al-Dawla al-Simnānī (d. 736/1336) was a Kubrawī sheikh lived in Simnān one hundred years after Ibn al-Arabī (d. 638/1240). He authored around ninety works in Arabic and Persian on various fields within Sūfism, raised many disciples. His contribution to the sūfī tradition mainly come to forefront regarding problems like unity, latāif (subtle organs), rijāl al-ghaib (men of the unseen), wāqia (dream-like mystical experiences) and tajallī (manifestation). Simnānī’s understanding of the unity influenced subsequent sūfī’s and specifically Ahmad Sirhindī (d. (...) 1034/1624) and his sheikh Bāqībillah’s (d. 1012/1603) views of the unity overlap with Simnānī’s one. In Maktūbāt, Sirhindī who developed the idea of unity of the seen against the unity of the existence expresses that his understanding of being is the same with Simnānī’s one. Simnānī is also known as the first critic of Ibn al-Arabī’s conception of the unity among sūfī’s. Such that, whenever his name is mentioned the first thing comes to one’s mind has been his criticism against Ibn al-Arabī. However, his criticism against Ibn al-Arabī was not studied as a whole looking at his ouvre. Studying Simnānī’s works, it is seen that his criticism is concentrated on two main problems. First is Ibn al-Arabī’s employing the concept wujūd al-mutlaq (absolute being) for God. He maintains that it is not convenient to use this concept for al-Haq. His second criticism is against a sentence mentioned in al-Futūhāt: “سبحان من أظهر الأشياء وهو عينها”. In this article, causes for Simnānī’s critiques will be discussed and both sūfī’s conceptions of wujūd al-mutlaq and ‘ayn (quintessence) will be studied.Summary: One of the famous names in the Kubrawī tradition, ‘Alā’ al-Dawla al-Simnānī is a sheikh who lived in the city of Simnān in the contemporary Iran between 659-736/1261-1336. In his youth, he served in the service of Arghūn Khan (r. 1284-1291) in the Īlkhānid Palace; and later, after a spiritual experience, he left the palace and turned to a Ṣūfī life. For a certain period, he continued worshipping and riyādhat (spiritual fight against the evil commanding self) on his own, and looked for a guide convenient to his character. Eventually, he became the disciple of the Kubrawī sheikh in Baghdad, Nūr al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Isfarāyīnī (d. 717/1317), and obtained ijāzah (permission) for irshād (guidance). After that, with the instruction of his sheikh, he went back to Simnān; and spent rest of his life with guiding his disciples and writing scholarly works. He authored around ninety works in Arabic and Persian on various fields within Sūfism. His contribution to the sūfī tradition mainly comes to forefront regarding problems like unity, latāif, rijāl al-ghaib, wāqia and tajallī; and influenced subsequent sūfī’s. Simnani’s influences can best be seen on the founder of the Mujaddidiyya branch of Naqshbandiyya, Ahmad Sirhindī (d. 1034/1624), and Sirhindī’s sheikh Bāqībillah (d. 1012/1603). In a letter Bāqībillah wrote to Sirhindī, he mentions certain differences between Simnānī’s understanding of unity and unity of the existence by stating that Simnānī’s path is not that of unity of the existence, and that his shuhūd (seen) is the most perfect shuhūd. Also in the Maktūbāt, Sirhindī expresses that his understanding of being is the same with that of Simnānī’s. Simnānī is also known as the first critic of Ibn al-Arabī’s conception of being and unity among sūfī’s. It would not be incorrect to say that he is more famous for this critique so much so that whenever his name is mentioned the first thing comes to one’s mind has been his criticism against Ibn al-Arabī. The main reason for this is that a letter Simnānī wrote to one of the followers of Ibn al-Arabī, ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Kāshānī (d. 736/1335) in which Simnānī criticizes Ibn al-Arabī’s conception of unity, was included in the famous work of Abd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 898/1492), Nafakhāt al-uns. This letter’s presence in the Nafakhāt played a vital role in its publicity. For this reason, it can be said that Nafakhāt made Simnānī famous. Yet, it should also be said that the fame stemming from Nafakhāt is incomplete and it is just about one aspect of Simnānī, a scholar who authored dozens of books on the Sūfism. Moreover, it is not correct to defend that Simnānī’s statements in that letter reflects a full picture of his opinion about Ibn al-Arabī. Hence, to have a better understanding of his criticism and thoughts about Ibn al-Arabī, one should explore other works of Simnānī as well. Studying Simnānī’s works, it is seen that his criticism is concentrated on two main problems. First is Ibn al-Arabī’s employing the concept wujūd al-mutlaq for God. His second criticism is against a sentence mentioned in al-Futūhāt: “سبحان من أظهر الأشياء وهو عينها”. To understand the first criticism, one needs to know the meaning both sūfī’s attribute to the concept of wujūd al-mutlaq; and for the second the meaning they attribute to the concept of ‘ayn. First, it should be known that Ibn al-Arabī did not think of being as a form category the members of which are beings. To the contrary, he uses wujūd exclusively for the Eternal, and refrains from using the concept of wujūd for the creation; and calls them mawjūd. In other words, Ibn al-Arabī differentiates between being and existence; and limits the concept of being only for the al-Haqq. Ibn al-Arabī states this view repeatedly in statements such as “al-Haqq (the Truth) is being; things, however, are attributes of being.” What Ibn al-Arabī means by wujūd al-mutlaq is al-Haqq who is wajib al-wujūd (the Necessary Being) and free from all restrictions. Thus, in a certain sense wujūd al-mutlaq means wajib al-wujūd. By writing that “Wujūd al-Haqq is the essence of wajib al-wujūd who is qualified with the perfect attributes of eternity and infinity. Absolute Being is the actions emanating from these attributes. Wujūd al-Muqayyad (the Limited Being) is the outcome that comes into existence as a result of these actions”, Simnānī explicitly states that for him Absolute Being is the actions of al-Haqq. What one can understand from the statements of both sūfī’s is that while by wujūd al-mutlaq Ibn al-Arabī refers to wajib al-wujūd (i.e. the essence of al-Haqq), for the same term Simnānī refers to actions of al-Haqq. Since in criticizing Ibn al-Arabī, Simnānī takes into account his own definition of the term Wujūd al-Mutlaq as the actions of al-Haqq, his criticisms are not valid. In fact, both exonerate al-Haqq from all the conditions. However, while Ibn al-Arabī chooses to verbalize the existence of God with the concept of “Absolute Being”, Simnānī only approves to express the existence of God with the concepts of wājib al-wujūd and al-Wujūd al-Haqq and differing from Ibn al-Arabī attributes the meaning of the actions of God to the concept of Absolute Being.Simnānī’s second critique against Ibn al-Arabī is related to this sentence: “سبحان من أظهر الأشياء وهو عينها”. An annotation that is written by Simnānī on a page which is out of his gloss on al-Futūhāt is highly harsh reads as follows: “O, followers of the most deviant leader! If you hear that one says that your sheikh is identical with his beard, put the claim that he is identical with his rejectomenta aside, should you accept this and tolerate him?” It is understood from these sentences that Simnānī considers the concept “al-ayn” as the essence of that thing. Though, the word “al-ayn” is one of the most multi-meaning word in the Arabic language and in Ibn al-Arabī’s works it is used with various meanings such as eye, the quintessence, spring, water source, tangible being of a thing, the essence of a thing and so on. The usage as “the essence of a thing” is very much common in Ibn al-Arabī’s works. It is interesting that while this word has so many meanings, Simnānī takes one meaning as base and blaspheme against Ibn al-Arabī. It is obvious that the main cause for Simnānī’s critique against Ibn al-Arabī in both problems is his attribution to the concepts different meanings than Ibn al-Arabī and then judging him in the context of his attributes. (shrink)