Kitāb al-Ḥurūf

The Book of Letters takes its name from the particles of the language and is often read alongside Aristotle's Metaphysics. It describes how a language grows in a community, from conventional names for simple things to the technical vocabulary of the arts, and how dialectic, philosophy and religion arise in turn. For logic it introduces the distinction between primary concepts, which pick out things in the world, and secondary concepts such as genus and species, which classify concepts; later logicians made these 'secondary intelligibles' the subject of logic. It is the fullest source for al-Fārābī's views on the relation between language, thought and logic.

Draft · awaiting review by a qualified teacher