Journal of Philosophical Investigations

نوع مقاله : مقاله علمی- پژوهشی

نویسنده

دکترای فلسفه تطبیقی، دانشگاه پنجاب، هند.

چکیده

In the present article relationship of thought and language for the priority aspect, from al-Fārābī’s point of view is discussed. Based on the three meanings of nuṭq (: speech), speaking is a process in which human soul is concerned with the three levels of intellectual faculty, apprehended objects in the mind as well as the expression by language. Then, this reveals a close and inseparable relationship between language and thought. Again it is suggested that relying on the tripartite theory of word, world, and intelligibles, by Al-Fārābī, at the time of the process of speaking, human soul makes use of all knowledge either acquired previously, or the knowledge obtaining as the content of experience in the actual speech situation. Thus, in connection with the priority aspect of the relationship between thought and language, I suppose, in an analytical aspect of priority, there is no priority relation between them, namely, they are interdependent. It can be supported by this view that thought and gaining knowledge are continued even while speaking. Besides, it has been argued that the human soul, as the chief agent of thinking and obtaining knowledge, is not completely passive; then human thought cannot have transcendental supremacy over language.

کلیدواژه‌ها

موضوعات

عنوان مقاله [English]

Analyzing the alleged Priority of Thought over Language in al-Fārābī’s Philosophy of Language

نویسنده [English]

  • Narges Zargar

PhD of Comparative Philosophy, Panjab University, India

چکیده [English]

In the present article relationship of thought and language for the priority aspect, from al-Fārābī’s point of view is discussed. Based on the three meanings of nuṭq (: speech), speaking is a process in which human soul is concerned with the three levels of intellectual faculty, apprehended objects in the mind as well as the expression by language. Then, this reveals a close and inseparable relationship between language and thought. Again it is suggested that relying on the tripartite theory of word, world, and intelligibles, by Al-Fārābī, at the time of the process of speaking, human soul makes use of all knowledge either acquired previously, or the knowledge obtaining as the content of experience in the actual speech situation. Thus, in connection with the priority aspect of the relationship between thought and language, I suppose, in an analytical aspect of priority, there is no priority relation between them, namely, they are interdependent. It can be supported by this view that thought and gaining knowledge are continued even while speaking. Besides, it has been argued that the human soul, as the chief agent of thinking and obtaining knowledge, is not completely passive; then human thought cannot have transcendental supremacy over language.

کلیدواژه‌ها [English]

  • process of acquiring knowledge
  • human soul
  • nuṭq (speech)
  • intelligibles
  • process of language
  • interdependence
Adamson, Peter; Key, Alexander. (2015). Philosophy of Language in the Medieval Arabic Tradition, Linguistic Content: New Essays on the History of Philosophy of Language, edited by Margaret Cameron and Robert J. Stainton, Oxford Scholarship Online: https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/ DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198732495.003.0005, Accessed: May 2015.
Al-Fārābī. (1938). Risāla˗a fī al- ͑Aql, edited by Morris Bewitched, Biyrūt: al-Kāthūlīkīya˗a Publication. (In Arabic)
Al-Fārābī. (1960). Sharḥ al-Fārābī Likitāb ’Arasṭū Ṭālīs fī al- ͑Ibāra˗a, Biyrūt: al-Kāthūlīkīya˗a Publication. (In Arabic)
Al-Fārābī. (1984). Fuṣūl Muntazi ͑͑a˗a, edited by Fuzī Najār, Tehran: Al- Maktaba˗a Al-Zahrā’. (In Arabic)
Al-Fārābī. (1985). Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam, edited by Muḥammad Ḥasan Āl-i-yāsīn, Qum: Bīdār Publication. (In Arabic)
Al-Fārābī. (1986). Kitāb al-Ḥurūf, edited by Muḥsin Mahdī, Biyrūt: Dār al-Mashriq Publication. (In Arabic)
Al-Fārābī. (1992). Ta ͑līqāt, in Al-’a͑māl al-falsafiyya˗a, edited by Ja͑far Āl-i-yāsīn, Biyrūt: Dār al-manāhil Publication. (In Arabic)
Al-Fārābī. (1994). ’Iḥṣā’ al- ͑Ulūm, edited by ͑Alī Bū Mulḥim, Biyrūt: Maktaba˗a al-Hilāl. (In Arabic)
Al-Fārābī. (1995). Ārā’ ’ahl al-Madīni˗a al-Fāḍila˗a wa Muḍādātihā, edited by Alī Bū Mulḥim, Biyrūt: Dār wa Maktaba˗a al-Hilāl. (In Arabic)
Avicenna. (1983). al-Shifā’ (in Logic), Qum: Maktaba˗a Āyatullā al-Mar͑ashī Publication. (In Arabic)
Black, Deborah. L. (1998). Logic in Islamic Philosophy, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/logic-in-islamic-philosophy/v-1.
Black, Deborah. L. (2008). “Al-Fārābī”, Routledge History of World Philosophies, Volume 1: History of Islamic Philosophy, edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman, London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, Transferred to Digital Printing 2008.
Black, Deborah. L. (2012). “Farabi, ii. Logic,” Encyclopedia Iranica: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/farabi-ii, Accessed: January 24, 2012.
Davies, Martin. (1998). “Language, Thought and the Language of Thought”, Language and Thought, P. Carruthers and J. Boucher (eds.), Cambridge University Press.
Druart, Thérèse-Anne T. A. (2016). “Logic and Language,” The Routledge Companion to Islamic Philosophy, Edited by Richard C. Taylor and Luis Xavier Lopez-Farjeat, London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. 
Fakhry, Majid. (2002). Al-Farabi, Founder of Islamic Neoplatonism, England: Oneworld Publications.
Germann, Nadja. (2015-2016). Imitation – Ambiguity – Discourse: Some Remarks on al-Farabi’s Philosophy of Language, Journal of Melanges de l’Universite Saint-Joseph, Vol. LXVI, Beyrouth: Dar El-Machreq.
Hodges, Wilfrid; Druart, Thérèse-Anne T. A. (2019). Al-Farabi’s Philosophy of Logic and Language, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/al-farabi-logic/, Accessed: Apr 16, 2019.
Hyman, Arthur. (1987). Al-Fārābī: The Letter Concerning the Intellect, Philosophy in the Middle Ages, edited by Arthur Hyman and James Walsh, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
Madkour, Ibrahim (2019). Al-Fārābī, A History of Muslim Philosophy, Vol. 1, book 3, Pakistan: Ahlul Bayt Digital Islamic Library Project, https://www.al-islam.org/history-muslim-philosophy-volume-1-book-3.
Street, Tony; Germann, Nadja. (2013). Arabic and Islamic Philosophy of Language and Logic, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arabic-islamic-language, Accessed: November 11, 2013.
Zargar, N. (2019). A Study of the Nature of Language in al-Fārābī's Philosophy of Language, Vol. 1/47, Tehran: The Iranian Journal of Philosophy, University of Tehran, summer and autumn 2019: 121 – 140. (In Persian)
CAPTCHA Image