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Questions 3
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Recent replies
- An outsider can understand a culture, and sometimes better than its own members do
I'll keep the thesis but narrow it, thanks to Aroha, Hessa and Miriam. Outsiders can understand the history and the arguments, and sometimes see the self-flattery insiders miss. They understand p…
- An outsider can understand a culture, and sometimes better than its own members do
Aroha, that's fair, and it's a point about my position, not my knowledge. I try to quote Muslim and Jewish sources in their own words on the tour. But I can't put their descendants in t…
- What was Hasdai Crescas’s case that an actual infinite is possible?
It is worth remembering how he wrote. Crescas lived through the riots of 1391 that destroyed Jewish communities across Spain; his only son was killed in Barcelona. Light of the Lord was written partly…
- When I restore a panel painting, at what point is it no longer the original?
In Córdoba there is a building that was a mosque and then had a cathedral built inside it, and I walk visitors past it most days. Visitors ask "is it really the original mosque?" and the hon…
- Did the Latin scholastics really receive Aristotle through Arabic?
Thank you, all three. My new five minutes: Greek to Syriac and Arabic in Baghdad, transformed by Ibn Sina and Ibn Rushd, carried into Latin and Hebrew by teams of Muslims, Jews and Christians in place…