The dialectic relationship between poetry and philosophy for Western philosophers and Arab poets, "An Epistemological Study"

Abstract

The dialectic relationship between poetry and philosophy is both an old and modern problem, as it is originally related to the dispute about the type of knowledge that a person needs, is it the knowledge of physical issues, or the external, sensory issues of existence? It is also related to determining the source of human knowledge. Is it the pure mind or the senses? Are we being driven behind logic and arithmetic, or behind imagination and conscience? These questions represented the starting point for the disagreement between philosophers and poets about the nature of the relationship between poetry and philosophy, and this debate began with Plato's expulsion of poets from his republic, where he saw that poets are imitators, and that poetry is a harmful art, which the righteous states must get rid of, as Plato affirmed the oldness of this conflict and transfered to us forms of it. This study deals with the attitude of ancient Greek philosophy (Plato and Aristotle) and modern Western philosophy (Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger) towards poetry, as well as the position of Arab poets on the dialectic relationship between poetry and philosophy, and the effect of that on poetry. The study consists of an Introduction and two parts, namely: The first part: the attitude of philosophy towards poetry, and includes two topics: The attitude of ancient Greek philosophy towards poetry, and the attitude of modern Western philosophy towards poetry. The second part: the attitude of the Arabic poetry towards the relationship between poetry and philosophy, and it includes two topics: Poets who reject the existence of a relationship between poetry and philosophy and Poets who support the existence of a relationship between poetry and philosophy.