Daily Reflection
He [Al-Farabi] paid special attention to the study of language and its relation to logic. In his numerous commentaries on Aristotle's logical works he expounded for the first time in Arabic the entire range of the scientific and nonscientific forms of argument and established the place of logic as the indispensable prerequisite for philosophic inquiry. 1
If you remember a few months ago, we briefly covered the struggle that philosophy (particularly the work of early Greek thinkers like Plato and Aristotle) had in surviving through the Dark Ages of European history.
What many don’t realize, is that during this time a special care had already been taken by philosophers in places like Iraq, Persia, and Syria to preserve European thought and meld it with classical Islamic philosophy. Not only were these philosophers doing philosophy that was important in its own right, they were also caring for the work of their European neighbors. They cared about the work that much.
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