Marco Signori, "I rami del sapere. Testi arabi sulla classificazione delle scienze", ETS, Pisa 2025.

The problem of classifying and organising human knowledge is one of the oldest and most central themes of philosophical reflection. In late antiquity and the Middle Ages, the subjective and cognitive theme of the systematic organisation of knowledge was enriched by an objective and ontological aspect that was intended to validate its connections and structure: the leges mentis, in fact, are often (albeit implicitly) thought of as faithful descriptions of the leges entis, and the ordo sciendi is similarly considered to be the faithful reflection of a more fundamental ordo essendi. Aristotle, and above all the orderly collection of his writings in the so-called corpus aristotelicum, constituted the privileged gateway to the theme of the classification of knowledge for the Arabic-speaking thinkers discussed in this book. Alongside the epistemological and ontological dimensions, there is therefore another, bibliographical and authentically encyclopaedic dimension, consisting of a collection of philosophical texts conceived as a summa and compendium of human knowledge in its entirety. Moving between these historical and theoretical levels, this volume offers annotated translations of four important Arabic texts (by the Brethren of Purity, Abū Sahl al-Masīḥī, and Avicenna) dedicated to the classification of the sciences. In all these cases, with the exception of a few partial translations of relevant passages, the translation provided here is the first Italian version of the work. Each section is preceded by a note to the text that gives an account of the available editions and translations into other languages. The commentary notes discuss ambiguous passages and highlight aspects of vocabulary and doctrine, making the text easier to read, even for students. The general introduction places the translated texts in the broader history of the problem of the classification of knowledge, highlighting in particular the late antique sources, the Arabic precedents, and the most significant conceptual junctures.