---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: John Marenbon <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Cc: Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 13:28:53 -0000 Subject: Talk on al-Farabi THIS THURSDAY
Nadja Germann, Professor at the University of Freiburg, will give a paper on ‘Saying and Meaning: Al-Fārābī on the Origin and Nature of Language’ on Thursday 29 January, from 18.00 – 19.30 in the Old College Office, Trinity College (this room is at the Great Gate, immediately opposite the porters’ lodge). All welcome. Abstract Al-Fārābī (d. 950) is well known for his achievements in the fields of political philosophy and logic. Several of his logical writings were even translated into Latin. However, as far as philosophy of language is concerned, he is usually considered a marginal figure. His contribution to this field is normally identified with his reaction to a frequently-quoted debate between a grammarian and a logician, where he is understood to have taken the side of the logician with a forceful defense of logic’s primacy, due to its universality, against the claims of grammar with its dependence on just one specific natural language. However, upon closer inspection of al-Fārābī’s writings it turns out that this is an odd misrepresentation. For there is hardly a thinker before (even in late-ancient philosophy) and after him (including Avicenna and Averroes) who developed a comparably subtle and differentiated philosophical concept of language. Therefore, in this talk I intend to set out and analyze al-Fārābī’s philosophy of language more closely. I shall particularly focus on his thoughts about, first, the nature of language, which he discusses in the frame of account of the origin of language; and second, the properties of language, along with the consequences these features, according to him, entail with respect to communication and science. -- Huw Price Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy University of Cambridge Mail: Trinity College, Cambridge CB2 1TQ Ph & voicemail: +44 1223 (3)32987 Web: prce.hu/w/ _____________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from the CamPhilEvents mailing list, or change your membership options, please visit the list information page: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEvents List archive: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEventsArchive Please note that CamPhilEvents doesn't accept email attachments. See the list information page for further details and suggested alternatives.
