As part of our course on logic and epistemology, I asked my students to read “The Discussion between Abū Bishr Matta and Abū Saʿīd al-Sīrāfī on the Merits of Logic and Grammar” by the Orientalist David Samuel Margoliouth. It presents and analyses the well-known debate between the Christian philosopher Abū Bishr Matta ibn Yūnus (d. 940), one of the translators of Aristotle into Arabic, and the Muslim grammarian Abū Saʿīd al-Sīrāfī (d. 979).

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