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A List in Three Versions: Revisiting al-Kindi’s On Definitions

Chapter of: Synopses and Lists: Textual Practices in the Pre-Modern World(pp. 104–140)

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Metadata
TitleA List in Three Versions
SubtitleRevisiting al-Kindi’s On Definitions
ContributorPeter Tarras(author)
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.11647/obp.0375.04
Landing pagehttps://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0375/chapters/10.11647/obp.0375.04
Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
CopyrightPeter Tarras
PublisherOpen Book Publishers
Published on2023-12-19
Long abstractTarras examines the transmission process in the study of lists through a definition list in the Arabic philosophical tradition, a well-known text commonly attributed to the “philosopher of the Arabs” al-Kindī (d. after 252/866). The study of this list, thought to stand at the beginning of the career of this literary format in that tradition, promises to offer insights into the way in which Arabic philosophy emerged in the early ʿAbbāsid caliphate. However, the manuscripts that transmit it witness three divergent versions. Further, each version testifies not to a well-ordered text, but to a more or less loose assemblage of technical terms harvested from philosophy and related fields. This raises a number of questions as to the structure, function, and use of this text. This study attempts to show that these questions can be addressed fruitfully once we attend to the stratified compositional process from which the three versions of this text must have emerged. Its manuscript witnesses represent the latest stage in this process. After a brief survey of previous scholarship, the study begins with a review of the manuscript evidence in order to make observations as to the text’s codicological settings and paratextual features. It proceeds with an analysis of its different structural levels. The conclusion that can be drawn from this inquiry is that this definition list has not reached us as one unified literary entity, but in the form of three distinct historical artifacts, which owe themselves to the sum of the intentions of their users/producers.
Page rangepp. 104–140
Print length37 pages
LanguageEnglish (Original)
Contributors

Peter Tarras

(author)
Research Fellow in the ERC project MAJLIS at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
https://orcid.org/0009-0009-1776-3171

Peter Tarras is currently research fellow in the ERC project MAJLIS (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich). Previously, Peter has worked for the Arabic and Latin Glossary (Julius-Maximilians-Universität, Würzburg). His areas of interest include intellectual history in the Near and Middle East, the Bible in Arabic, book history, manuscript studies, and provenance research. Peter is also interested in the communication of research to a broader audience and has recently launched his own blog Membra Dispersa Sinaitica, which is dedicated to the dispersed manuscript heritage of St Catherine's Monastery.