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The Row Boat"Had we but world enough, and time..." * Implicit responsibility5/10/2005 10:44:31Speaking about the need to recognize the human impossibility (except for a prophet) to fully know the meanings of all primordial words (lugha al-wad`), the ninth-century Islamic legal scholar reminds us to remember our "excuse," our own fallibility: And whoever was in error without excuse whenever he spoke about something of which his knowledge did not embrace the difference between what was wrong and right. He emphasizes, by my reading of this grammatically confusing translation, the responsibility of guilt one bears even for what one does not know. For Shafi`i, language is a fixed code, a theoretical set of correlations between signs and meanings that a speaker simply appropriates. The truth is there, therefore, whether one is aware of it or not. The only thing that might exonerate a person somewhat from ignorance is the "excuse." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
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