Prophecy Between Poetics and Politics from Al-Farabi to Leo Strauss
By: Peter Makhlouf
Title Prophecy Between Poetics and Politics from Al-Farabi to Leo Strauss
Type Article
Language English
Journal International Journal of the Classical Tradition
Pages 1-29
Categories al-Fārābī, Avicenna, Maimonides, Aristotle, Poetics, Rhetoric, Politics, Tradition and Reception
Author(s) Peter Makhlouf
Publisher(s)
Translator(s)
Judaeo-Arabic prophetology, as developed in the wake of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, was highly attentive to the kind of representational modes produced by divine revelation and their political use—but also their political precarity. By drawing on another corpus, less often discussed in this context, the Arabic commentaries on Aristotle's Poetics and Rhetoric, this study proposes to undertake a close analysis of how the medieval thinkers in question (Al-Farabi, Avicenna, Averroes, and Maimonides) understood the poetics of prophecy to function. What emerges is an account of how the political theo-logic of poetics and rhetoric—as developed with respect to terms such as imitation, imagination and visualization—came to play a central role in the theory of prophecy, and how that theory of prophecy in turn gave rise to an understanding of what Leo Strauss once termed the ‘literary character’ of these philosophers' ‘art of writing’.

{"_index":"bib","_type":"_doc","_id":"5615","_score":null,"_source":{"id":5615,"authors_free":[{"id":6518,"entry_id":5615,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":903,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Peter Makhlouf","free_first_name":"Peter ","free_last_name":"Makhlouf","norm_person":{"id":903,"first_name":"","last_name":"","full_name":"","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":0,"dnb_url":"","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":1,"link":"bib?authors[]="}}],"entry_title":"Prophecy Between Poetics and Politics from Al-Farabi to Leo Strauss","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","main_title":{"title":"Prophecy Between Poetics and Politics from Al-Farabi to Leo Strauss"},"abstract":"Judaeo-Arabic prophetology, as developed in the wake of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, was highly attentive to the kind of representational modes produced by divine revelation and their political use\u2014but also their political precarity. By drawing on another corpus, less often discussed in this context, the Arabic commentaries on Aristotle's Poetics and Rhetoric, this study proposes to undertake a close analysis of how the medieval thinkers in question (Al-Farabi, Avicenna, Averroes, and Maimonides) understood the poetics of prophecy to function. What emerges is an account of how the political theo-logic of poetics and rhetoric\u2014as developed with respect to terms such as imitation, imagination and visualization\u2014came to play a central role in the theory of prophecy, and how that theory of prophecy in turn gave rise to an understanding of what Leo Strauss once termed the \u2018literary character\u2019 of these philosophers' \u2018art of writing\u2019.","btype":3,"date":"","language":"English","online_url":"","doi_url":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s12138-022-00632-8","ti_url":"","categories":[{"id":28,"category_name":"al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b","link":"bib?categories[]=al-F\u0101r\u0101b\u012b"},{"id":10,"category_name":"Avicenna","link":"bib?categories[]=Avicenna"},{"id":9,"category_name":"Maimonides","link":"bib?categories[]=Maimonides"},{"id":21,"category_name":"Aristotle","link":"bib?categories[]=Aristotle"},{"id":44,"category_name":"Poetics","link":"bib?categories[]=Poetics"},{"id":48,"category_name":"Rhetoric","link":"bib?categories[]=Rhetoric"},{"id":4,"category_name":"Politics","link":"bib?categories[]=Politics"},{"id":43,"category_name":"Tradition and Reception","link":"bib?categories[]=Tradition and Reception"}],"authors":[{"id":903,"full_name":"","role":1}],"works":[],"republication_of":null,"translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":5615,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"International Journal of the Classical Tradition","volume":"","issue":"","pages":"1-29"}},"sort":[-9223372036854775808]}

Well Begun is Only Half Done: Tracing Aristotle’s Political Ideas in Medieval Arabic, Syriac, Byzantine, and Jewish Sources, 2011
By: Vasileios Syros (Ed.)
Title Well Begun is Only Half Done: Tracing Aristotle’s Political Ideas in Medieval Arabic, Syriac, Byzantine, and Jewish Sources
Type Edited Book
Language undefined
Date 2011
Publication Place Tempe, Arizona
Publisher ACMRS (Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies)
Series Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies; Medieval Confluences Series
Volume 388 respectively 1
Categories Aristotle, Politics, Tradition and Reception
Author(s) Vasileios Syros
Publisher(s)
Translator(s)

{"_index":"bib","_type":"_doc","_id":"5379","_score":null,"_source":{"id":5379,"authors_free":[{"id":6231,"entry_id":5379,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":null,"person_id":null,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Vasileios Syros ","free_first_name":"Vasileios ","free_last_name":"Syros ","norm_person":null}],"entry_title":"Well Begun is Only Half Done: Tracing Aristotle\u2019s Political Ideas in Medieval Arabic, Syriac, Byzantine, and Jewish Sources","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","main_title":{"title":"Well Begun is Only Half Done: Tracing Aristotle\u2019s Political Ideas in Medieval Arabic, Syriac, Byzantine, and Jewish Sources"},"abstract":"","btype":4,"date":"2011","language":null,"online_url":"","doi_url":"","ti_url":"","categories":[{"id":21,"category_name":"Aristotle","link":"bib?categories[]=Aristotle"},{"id":4,"category_name":"Politics","link":"bib?categories[]=Politics"},{"id":43,"category_name":"Tradition and Reception","link":"bib?categories[]=Tradition and Reception"}],"authors":[],"works":[],"republication_of":null,"translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"book":{"id":5379,"pubplace":"Tempe, Arizona","publisher":"ACMRS (Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies)","series":"Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies; Medieval Confluences Series ","volume":"388 respectively 1","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null},"booksection":null,"article":null},"sort":["Well Begun is Only Half Done: Tracing Aristotle\u2019s Political Ideas in Medieval Arabic, Syriac, Byzantine, and Jewish Sources"]}

  • PAGE 2 OF 2