ISBN10: 0801897394, ISBN13: 9780801897399, [publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD] Hardcover Hardcover. Commonly translated as "The Self-Taught Philosopher" or "The Improvement of Human Reason," Ibn-Tufayl's story ayy Ibn-Yaq an inspired debates about autodidacticism in a range of historical fields from classical Islamic philosophy through Renaissance humanism and the European Enlightenment. Avner Ben-Zaken's account of how the text traveled demonstrates the intricate ways in which autodidacticism was contested in and adapted to diverse cultural settings. In tracing the circulation of the ayy Ibn-Yaq an, Ben-Zaken highlights its key place in four far-removed historical moments. He explains how autodidacticism intertwined with struggles over mysticism in twelfth-century Marrakesh, controversies about pedagogy in fourteenth-century Barcelona, quarrels concerning astrology in Renaissance Florence, and debates pertaining to experimentalism in seventeenth-century Oxford. In each site and period, Ben-Zaken recaptures the cultural context that stirred scholars to relate to ayy Ibn-Yaq an and demonstrates how the text moved among cultures, leaving in its wake translations, interpretations, and controversies as various as the societies themselves.Pleas for autodidacticism, Ben-Zaken shows, not only echoed within close philosophical discussions; they surfaced in struggles for control between individuals and establishments. ...
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