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Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale | Vol. 57 | June 2021

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Research Article

Polysemy as Hermeneutic Key in Ibn ʿArabī’s Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam

Federico Salvaggio    Università degli Studi di Udine, Italia    

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abstract

The present contribution discusses the role of polysemy within Ibn ʿArabī’s hermeneutic approach in the Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam. It argues that the Andalusian master’s conception of polysemy bears implications that stretch far beyond the field of Arabic linguistics, strictly understood, and that are tightly related to his vision of the polysemous and pansemiotic nature of existence. Thus, when investigated in the light of his metaphysical views, Ibn ʿArabī’s hermeneutic use of word polysemy, as arbitrary as it might appear at first sight, results perfectly consistent with his conception of the descent of language through multiple states of being and of the conjunction of form and meaning in the world of imagination. These metaphysical premises provide the epistemological foundations for Ibn ʿArabī’s linguistic and hermeneutic practices and build up one the finest and most complete metaphysical conceptions of language elaborated within the broader context of what might be defined the domain of ‘Islamic linguistics’.

Published
June 30, 2021
Accepted
May 4, 2021
Submitted
Feb. 8, 2021
Language
EN

Keywords: Koranic Hermeneutics • Akbarian studies • Islamic linguistic thought • Arabic linguistic tradition • Semantics

permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/AnnOr/2385-3042/2021/01/003

Copyright: © 2021 Federico Salvaggio. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.