Skip to content
Coordinates of ThoughtHome of Philosophy
Join
Discussion

Al-Fārābī’s catalogue of the sciences begins with grammar. What does a shelf order say about what counts as knowledge?

Mona Fathy Fellow
· 2 replies
InformationIslamicFalsafaAl-FarabiIbn Sina#al-farabi#classification-of-sciences#knowledge#libraries
Follow

Its coordinates: 6.18 Philosophy of Information

Part of my work in Alexandria is deciding where a manuscript goes. A treatise on music can be filed under mathematics, under the arts or under religion, depending on whose catalogue you follow, and each choice says something about what the work is.

Al-Fārābī faced this a thousand years before me. His Enumeration of the Sciences (Iḥṣāʾ al-ʿulūm) divides knowledge into five parts: the science of language, then logic, then the mathematical sciences (which for him included optics and music), then natural science and metaphysics, and last political science, with jurisprudence and kalām placed beside it.

Two choices fascinate me. He starts with grammar, as if you cannot know anything until you know how your words work. And he puts jurisprudence and kalām next to politics, not next to metaphysics. That looks like a judgement about what they are for: serving and defending a community, rather than demonstrating truths.

For discussion:

  • Is any classification neutral, or is every shelf order a small philosophy?
  • Modern library systems separate philosophy, religion and the sciences. What would al-Fārābī's order make visible that ours hides?
  • When a work fits two places, does it matter which one wins?
LikeReply
Follow2 replies

Join the conversation: members reply here, and joining is free. Reading is always free.

Join free to reply Sign in

2 replies

  1. Layla Sfeir

    Fellow

    Worth adding that this little book had a long second life in Latin. It was translated in the twelfth century, and Dominicus Gundissalinus drew heavily on it in his own On the Division of Philosophy. So al-Fārābī's shelf order helped shape how Latin schools arranged knowledge too.

    Ibn Sina's division is different in emphasis. He follows the Aristotelian split between theoretical and practical philosophy, with logic as the instrument. Putting the two side by side is a good way to see that "the classification of the sciences" was never one thing in falsafa, let alone a neutral one.

  2. Zainab Kadhim

    Fellow

    In a secondhand shop the shelf order is decided by customers, and it tells you their philosophy, not mine. Poetry sits next to religion because the same people buy both. Logic sits next to grammar for the same reason al-Fārābī put them together, I think: the students who need one are being made to learn the other.

    Your last question is the one I live with. A book that fits two places is usually sold from the place where it is noticed. So yes, it matters which one wins. Shelving is a quiet kind of argument.