Alfarabi's Book of Dialectic (Kitab al-Jadal)

On the Starting Point of Islamic Philosophy

David M. DiPasquale

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781108417532
• eBook ISBN: 9781108281188
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Widely regarded as the founder of the Islamic philosophical tradition, and as the single greatest philosophical authority after Aristotle by his successors in the medieval Islamic, Jewish, and Christian communities, Alfarabi was a leading figure in the fields of Aristotelian logic and Platonic political science. The first complete English translation of his commentary on Aristotle's Topics, Alfarabi's Book of Dialectic, or Kit?b al-Jadal, is presented here in a deeply researched edition based on the most complete Arabic manuscript sources. David M. DiPasquale argues that Alfarabi's understanding of the Socratic art of dialectic is the key prism through which to grasp his recovery of an authentic tradition of Greek science on the verge of extinction. He also suggests that the Book of Dialectic is unique to the extent to which it unites Alfarabi's logical and political writings, opening up novel ways of interpreting Alfarabi's influence.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Alfarabi’s Kitāb al-Jadal: A Complete English Translation
• 2 Dialectic and Political Science
• 3 Dialectic and the Principles of All Science
• 4 Dialectic and the Method of Natural and Divine Science
• 5 Dialectic and Education
• 6 Conclusion: Alfarabi and the Taxonomy of the Medieval Arabic Organon
• Glossary A: English–Arabic
• Glossary B: Arabic–English
• References
• Index