The translating and adapting of al-Farabi's Kitab Ihsa' al-'ulum in Spain

مرکز و کتابخانه مطالعات اسلامی به زبان های اروپایی

منو

" The translating and adapting of al-Farabi's Kitab Ihsa' al-'ulum in Spain "
Michael Chester Weber T. F. Glick

Document Type	:	Latin Dissertation
Language of Document	:	English
Record Number	:	1112814
Doc. No	:	TLpq304308270
Main Entry	:	Michael Chester Weber
	:	T. F. Glick
Title & Author	:	The translating and adapting of al-Farabi's Kitab Ihsa' al-'ulum in Spain\ Michael Chester WeberT. F. Glick
College	:	Boston University
Date	:	1996
student score	:	1996
Degree	:	Ph.D.
Page No	:	253-253 p.
Abstract	:	Since the last quarter of the nineteenth century, historians of medieval science and intellectual historians have been intrigued by the phenomenon of Arabic-Latin translation in twelfth-century Spain; these historians have characterized the efforts of the group of translators working in Spain as a "School". Because these historians utilized an unsuitable model, that of northern European Cathedral Schools, they have failed to find the institution they sought. While these same scholars have acknowledged the importance of the multi-ethnic character of medieval Toledo as the sine qua non of translating, few have displayed any nuanced understanding of the social structure that Americo Castro termed Convivencia and of how scholars actually related to one another across ethnic lines. This dissertation reconsiders the question of the character of this "School" by examining the work of two of the most important Toledan translators, Dominicus Gundisalvus and Gerard of Cremona, in the two Latin translations they made of one Arabic text, al-Farabi's Kitab Ihsa' al-'ulum (Book of the Enumeration of the Sciences). This dissertation concludes that these two translators not only had unequal abilities but that the conventional judgements of them are wrong and need to be reassessed to Gundisalvus' advantage. Extensive comparison of the work of these two further reveals an enormous amount of information about their milieu. These data are then compared with that for other translators working within the same time period and social setting and with Islamic educational practices for educating students in the "Ancient Sciences." The historical data indicate that there was a lively Convivencia among scholars and that the best model to explain Christian translating is not a formal school but one of functional adaptations of polymorphous Islamic institutions and educational practices designed to create philosophers in the Peripatetic tradition, who "know with certainty." This dissertation also demonstrates that Gundisalvus' adaptation of al-Farabi's text, the De Scientiis, was the Latin text most commonly used to provide curricular guidance for the expansion of the quadrivium in the following centuries, most notably in England. Given the importance of this text, the dissertation also presents the first English translation of it.
Subject	:	Language, literature and linguistics
	:	Literature
	:	Middle Ages
	:	Middle Ages
	:	Social sciences