Ricerc@Sapienza

The word “Osten” marks a complex system of references in Paul Celan’s work. It stays for the ‘referential’, topographical landscape of Bukowina-Ukraine (present in many texts as Bildkomplex but hardly as a toponym), or as the “cultural” land “where men and books used to live”, but stays also for a wider, u-topical, sometimes a-topical space that may be identified with the russian imaginative world of Osip Mandel’stm and Marina Cvetaeva.

When considered out of the context of the genesis of his philosophical project of a rebirth of classical political philosophy, Leo Strauss's interpretation of Islamic and Arabic philosophy raises doubts as to its philological accuracy. Strauss's works on al-F?r?b? and the Islamic sources of Maimonides, which he examined repeatedly over the course of his career, should in fact be considered in the light of his greater philosophical project and of his conviction that any enquiry in the realm of the history of philosophy is at the same time also a philosophical enquiry.

Oltre a rendere possibile la riscoperta di uno dei pionieri dello studio della filosofia araba, islamica ed ebraica medievale riempiendo una lacuna della storiografia filosofica moderna e contemporanea, il libro mette in questione la validità delle categorie di Oriente e Occidente e riconsidera l'influenza che queste categorie hanno avuto sulla formazione del canone filosofico in epoca moderna e contemporanea, inserendosi nel più attuale dibattito internazionale su questi temi. Il carattere interdisciplinare del libro è determinato dalla natura del soggetto.

The Arabic language enjoys a complex status, due to the systematic coexistence of very different registers: literary Classic Arabic, spoken dialects, and various levels of so-called Middle Arabic. Knowledge of Arabic in Europe during the centuries of pre-modern and early-modern era usually would entail a (partial) competence in only one of these levels. Moreover, all these variants represented contact with or access to different communities and areas of knowledge.