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On Composition and the Arts: An Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of Epistles 6-8
Contributor(s): El-Bizri, Nader (Editor), El-Bizri, Nader (Translator), De Callatay, Godefroid (Author)
ISBN: 0198816928     ISBN-13: 9780198816928
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
OUR PRICE:   $99.75  
Product Type: Hardcover
Published: April 2018
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Philosophy | Aesthetics
- Science | History
Dewey: 509
LCCN: 2017276776
Series: Epistles of the Brethren of Purity
Physical Information: 1.2" H x 6.3" W x 9.3" (1.65 lbs) 326 pages
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
The Brethren of Purity, the anonymous adepts of a tenth-century esoteric fraternity based in Basra and Baghdad, hold an eminent position in the history of science and philosophy in Islam due to the wide reception and assimilation of their monumental encyclopaedia, the Epistles of the Brethren
of Purity. This compendium contains fifty-two epistles offering synoptic accounts of the classical sciences and philosophies of the age; divided into four classificatory parts, it treats themes in mathematics, logic, natural philosophy, psychology, metaphysics, and theology, in addition to didactic
fables.

Epistles 6 to 8 are from the first division of the Epistles, on the propaedeutical and mathematical sciences. Epistle 6 develops ideas concerning natural numbers and their arithmetic, geometric, and harmonic ratios, marked by the influence of Nicomachus of Gerasa and of Euclid. The Brethren here
emphasize practical applications of proportionality in music, medicine, and alchemy. Epistle 7 addresses theoretical scientific knowledge as directed towards the spiritual realities of souls, the goal of which is to actualize human potential; this epistle also presents a remarkable classification of
sciences. Epistle 8 surveys material cultures in the Islamic mediaeval milieu, embellished by a consideration of the effects of the heavenly bodies on the predisposition of individuals to follow specific trades. These three epistles are, of course, underpinned by the Brethren's perennial tropes of
the microcosm/macrocosm analogy and the emanative hierarchy of existents.