Digital Quadrivium Project by Raul Corazzon: four websites
History of Logic from Aristotle to Gödel (www.historyoflogic.com)
by Raul Corazzon | e-mail: rc@ontology.co
History of Logic from Aristotle to Gödel
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This part of the section Intercultural logic includes the following pages:
History of Islamic Logic
Islamic (Arabic and Persian) Logic
Bibliography of Studies in English on Language and Logic in Ancient Islam:
Hal - Mari (Current page)
Hallaq, Wael B. 1987. "A Tenth-Eleventh Century Treatise on Juridical Dialectic." The Muslim World no. 77:197–206.
"Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī's (d. 4361 1044) Kitāb al-Qiyās al-Shar'ī, translated here as the Book of Juridical Qiyās, represents one of the earliest extant writings on juridical dialectic (al-jadal al-fighī) in Islam. The author's Ḥanafī-Mu'tazili persuasion lends the work further importance, as the combination of these two particular schools of thought seems to have been of rare occurrence among authors of works on juridical dialectic. In this treatise al-Baṣrī draws significantly upon his magum opus al-Mu'tamad fi Uṣū al-Figh which was to become a milestone in the later development of legal theory. The subject of the treatise is rather complex and therefore warrants a brief introduction into the nature, form, and methods of juridical dialectic and its relationship to legal theory which provided the premises and points of departure for dialectic." (p. 197, notes omitted)
———. 1990. "Logic, Formal Arguments and Formalization of Arguments in Sunnī Jurisprudence." Arabica no. 37:315–358.
Part I. Logic and Formal Arguments
Some decades before the translation movement from Greek into Arabic began, a battle over the ultimate source of Law had already been fought and won by Traditionalist Islam, represented by the well-known Ibn Idrīs al-Shāfi'ī (d. 204/820). The triumph of the theory of the divine origins of law compelled Islamic jurisprudence to dissociate itself from all rationalist tendencies involved in philosophical ventures. Chief among these tendencies were the discussions on metaphysics in which logic served as the guiding spirit of philosophical argumentation. Associated with such heretical enterprises, logic as an organon of philosophy could hardly be distinguished from substantive metaphysical doctrines, and in such an environment Traditionalist jurisprudence kept suspected logic at bay. It was not until the appearance of the Shāfi'ī-Ash'arī intellectual Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) that logic as a method was sifted out of Aristotelian philosophy and thus cleared of its "non-theistic" tenndencies. Ghazālī's endeavor in bringing logic into law, and the persistence of what may be called the Ghazālīan thesis among some of his influential uṣūlist successors, will form the subject of this essay. While the following section attempts, in general terms, to analyze Ghazālī 's attitude towards logic in the law, it is not until Part II of this essay that we will encounter, in the form of a translation, what may be described as one of the most revealing statements which Ghazālī made on the logic of legal argument." (p. 315)
———. 1993. Ibn Taymiyya Against the Greek Logicians. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Translated with an Introduction and notes by Wael B. Hallaq.
"Ibn Taymiyya could hardly avoid criticizing the logical foundations of speculative mysticism since he categorically rejected the doctrine of the Unity of Existence (wahdat al-wujüd), its logical underpinnings, and its relationship to Platonic philosophy." (Introduction, p. XII)
(...)
"Even if we were to reduce the objects of Ibn Taymiyya's attacks to the writings of Ibn Slnä and Ibn Arabī, and set aside his scathing and massive criticism of countless other philosophical, mystical, theological, and sectarian doctrines, we would still come to the realization that what Ibn Taymiyya was fighting against amounted to everything that directly or indirectly derived from what was termed 'the ancient sciences' (ulüm al-awä'il).(9) Ibn Slnä's cosmology had for its foundation Aristotelian-Ptolemaic doctrines with a Neoplatonic structure in which the emanationist philosophy of being was thoroughly incorporated. His logic was manifestly Aristotelian but not without Stoic and Neoplatonic influences. Likewise, Ibn 'Arabī made use of the Platonic Ideas, and his cosmology integrated not only the pseudo-Empedoclean doctrines of Ibn Masarra (d. 319/931) but above all Alexandrian elements as found in the doctrines of Ikhwän al-Safä'. Admittedly, the latter were indebted to the teachings of Pythagoras and Nichomachus, particularly in their treatment of the metaphysics of number. They were no less indebted to Jäbir b. Hayyän (d. 160/776), who was in turn influenced by Plato, Pythagoras, and Apollonius as well as by Indian and Hermetic ources.(10)" (Introduction, p. XII-XIII)
(9) See e.g. his Jahd, 176 (Translation, par. 167, below), where he speaks of the influence the philosophers had over the Süfls and others. See also al-Radd, 186-7.
(10) See Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrine, (Boulder: Shambhala Publications, 1978), 37-8.
Halper, Yehuda. 2016. "Dialecticians and Dialectics in Averroe's Long Commrntary on Gamma 2 of Aristotle's Metaphysics." Arabic Sciences and Philosophy no. 26:161–184.
Abstract: "While Averroes’ work is often considered to represent the culmination of the method of Aristotelian demonstration in Arabic philosophy, a short passage of his Long Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics Γ 2 emphasizes the prominence of dialectic and calls for a re-examination of dialectic and demonstration in Averroes’ philosophical works. In this passage Averroes describes dialectic as an acceptable form of philosophy and the dialectician as a kind of scientist. In putting dialectic and demonstration on an equal, or nearly equal footing, Averroes seems to go against his own account of the dialectical and demonstrative classes of people in the Decisive Treatise. Moreover, this interpretation of Metaphysics Γ.2 also contradicts Averroes’ explanation of the same passage in the Middle Commentary on the Metaphysics as well as Aristotle’s own description of dialectic throughout the Metaphysics. That is, in the Long Commentary on the Metaphysics, Averroes departs from his earlier views, and describes dialectic as a necessary part of metaphysics, even though the centrality of dialectic argumentation could call into question the entire project of metaphysics and consequently of the sciences whose demonstrations rely on metaphysical ground, i.e., all sciences. Averroes does not emphasize this view, but its presence is nevertheless unambiguous."
———. 2019. "Are there Second Intentions in De Interpretatione 16 a 3-8? The Hebrew Aristotelian Commentary Tradition in the 13th-15th centuries." Studia graeco-arabica no. 9:243–260.
Abstract: "Aristotle’s De Interpretatione 16 a 3-8 describes the relationship between writing, words, meanings, and things.
Christian and Jewish interpreters took different approaches to interpreting this passage. Scholastic thinkers tended to examine the differences between meanings and the meaning of meanings, or first-second intentions, and this terminology is even reflected in William of Luna’s translation of Averroes’ Middle Commentary on this passage. The 14th c. Jewish interpreters, who relied on Jacob Anatoli’s 13th c. translation of Averroe’s Middle Commentary, tended not to find the first-second intention distinction in De Interpretatione 16 a 3-8, and instead took Averroes’ account of meaning at face value. This changed in the 15th c. when Jewish thinkers began to engage more directly and more significantly with Latin scholastic works, and began to interpret Aristotle accordingly."
———. 2021. "Debate by the Book, about the Book, in a Book: Shem Tob Falaquera’s Epistle of the Debate, Al-Fārābī’s Book of Dialectic, and Aristotle’s Topics on Philosophy and the Holy Writings." Studia graeco-arabica no. 11:93–106.
Abstract: "Shem Tov Falaquera’s Epistle of the Debate describes a debate between a Pietist who is knowledgeable only in Jewish law and religious texts and a Scholar who is well versed in both Jewish and philosophical works about whether according to Scripture studying philosophy is forbidden, permitted, or necessary for the perfection of human beings. I argue that to a large extent the form, style, and much of the content of the arguments in the debate are based on Al-Fārābī’s Book of Dialectic. Falaquera thus provides an example of a debate by the book (Al-Fārābī’s Dialectic), about the Book (Scripture), and in a book (The Epistle of the Debate). Moreover, by examining the arguments of the Epistle in light of Al-Fārābī’s Dialectic, we can see how dialectic can provide both training in adversarial debates and an introduction to philosophy and science."
Hasnawi, Ahmad. 2001. "Topic and Analysis: the Arabic Tradition." In Whose Aristotle? Whose Aristotelianism?, edited by Sharples, Robert W., 28–62. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Hasnawi, Ahmad, and Hodges, Wilfrid. 2016. "Arabic Logic up to Avicenna." In The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Logic, edited by Novaes, Catarina Dutilh and Read, Stephen, 45–66. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
"In this chapter we discuss, first, how the Arabic logicians up to the end of the tenth century took over Greek material and added to it material of their own and how they reshaped the subject of logic in the process. We have included references to the young Averroes, although he wrote in the twelfth century, inasmuch as he belongs in the tradition of al-Fārābī (d. 950). After this we turn to the formal innovations of Avicenna’s in the early eleventh century. Many of the questions that we discuss are treated also in Street (2004)." (p. 45)
References
Street Tony. ‘Arabic Logic’. In D. M. Gabbay and J. Woods (eds.), Handbook of the History of Logic. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 523-596.
Hodges, Wilfrid. 2018. "Two early Arabic applications of model-theoretic consequence." Logica Universalis no. 12:37–54.
Abstract: "We trace two logical ideas further back than they have previously been traced. One is the idea of using diagrams to prove that certain logical premises do—or don’t—have certain logical consequences. This idea is usually credited to Venn, and before him Euler, and before him Leibniz. We find the idea correctly and vigorously used by Abū al-Barakāt in 12th century Baghdad. The second is the idea that in formal logic, P logically entails Q if and only if every model of P is a model of Q. This idea is usually credited to Tarski, and before him Bolzano. But again we find Abū al-Barakāt already exploiting the idea for logical calculations.
Abū al-Barakāt’s work follows on from related but inchoate research of Ibn Sīnā in eleventh century Persia. We briefly trace the notion of model-theoretical consequence back through Paul the Persian (sixth century) and in some form back to Aristotle himself."
———. 2020. "Medieval Arabic Notions of Algorithm: Some Further Raw Evidence." In Fields of Logic and Computation III: Essays Dedicated to Yuri Gurevich on the Occasion of His 80th Birthday, edited by Blass, Andreas, Cégielski, Patrick, Dershowitz, Nachum, Droste, Manfred and Finkbeiner, Bernd, 133–146. Cham (Switzerland): Springer.
Abstract: "During Yuri Fest 2010 the discovery of a proof search algorithm devised in the 1020s by Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) was announced.
A Gurevich abstract state machine was given in evidence that Ibn Sīnā really did intend an algorithm; this was needed because Ibn Sīnā explained the algorithm by a long sequence of exercises, not by a rigorous definition. More recently a radically original logical decision algorithm has come to light in the work of the 12th century Baghdad scholar Abū al-Barakāt. Taking these algorithms alongside the already known algorithms of al-Khwārizmī for solving quadratic equations, and of al-Khalīl for listing finite sequences of letters, we can see that the medieval Arabic scholars uncovered a range of algorithms of various kinds. But it seems that they never brought these algorithms together under a single notion of ‘algorithm’; in fact we know of no writer who drew a comparison between any two of these algorithms. A natural question for historical research is to uncover what kinds of entity the medieval Arabic scholars thought these algorithms were. The present paper assembles some raw material that should be relevant to this question, including a not very successful attempt by al-Fārābī to institute a theory of logical procedures."
Hodjati, Seyyed Mohammad Ali. 2008. "Kātibī on the Relation of Opposition of Concepts." History and Philosophy of Logic no. 29:207–221.
Abstract: "According to a rule of traditional logic concerning the relation between general (or universal) concepts, if a given concept is more general than a second one, then the opposition (or contradictory) of the first concept is more specific than the opposition (or contradictory) of the second one. Kātibī, one of the Muslim logicians in the 13th century, has raised a question against this rule and, by giving some counterexamples, claims that it results in contradiction. Some Muslim logicians have replied to Kātibī, and in this paper I have examined their replies. Also, by using rules of modern logic, we may easily show that either Kātibī’s argumentation is fallacious or it does not result in contradiction; however, it seems that if modern logic rules had been epresented to Muslim logicians, some of those rules would have been rejected by them."
Ighbariah, Ahmad. 2012. "Between Logic and Mathematics: Al-Kindī's Approach to the Aristotelian Categories." Arabic Sciences and Philosophy no. 22:51–68.
Abstract: "What is the function of logic in al-Kindī’s corpus? What kind of relation does it have with mathematics? This article tackles these questions by examining al-Kindī’s theory of categories as itwas presented in his epistle On the Number of Aristotle’s Books (Fī Kammiyyat kutub Aristū), from which we can learn about his special attitude towards Aristotle theory of categories and his interpretation, as well. Al-Kindī treats the Categories as a logical book, but in a manner different from that of the classical Aristotelian tradition. He ascribes a special status to the categories Quantity (kammiyya) and Quality (kayfiyya), whereas the rest of the categories are thought to be no more than different combinations of these two categories with the category Substance. The discussion will pay special attention to the function of the categories of Quantity and Quality as mediators between logic and mathematics."
———. 2016. "Grammatical features in Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ's Categories." Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam no. 43:251–271.
Imamoglugil, Halil. 2025. "The Influence of al-Ghazali on the Use of Logic as a Thinking Methodology in Islamic Sciences." Entelekya. Logico-Metaphysical Review no. 9:107–124.
Abstract: "Al-Ghazali (d. 1111) represents one of the most important turning points in the history of logic in the Islamic world. He emphasized logic in particular in his efforts to remedy the shortcomings he observed in the traditions of Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence and Kalam (Islamic Theology) and to make these sciences more systematic. Al-Ghazali's terminology, views, and conceptualizations were influential in the beginning of the use of logic as a methodology of thought in Islamic sciences. Al-Ghazali's work in the field of logic, primarily directed toward practical goals in the religious sciences, presented a comprehensive example of applied logic that had not been seen before. He offered a wide range of suitable examples that could appeal to the minds of those engaged in religious sciences. His emphasis on the importance and value of logic helped spread it throughout the Islamic world and incorporate it into the madrasa curriculum. He ended the debates on logic in Islamic philosophy, thereby establishing a legitimate foundation for logic in the Islamic world. Thus, logic became an important part not only of philosophy but also of all religious sciences, especially theology. Many Islamic thinkers, especially theologians, benefited from logic to acquire knowledge."
Inati, Shams. 1996. "Logic." In History of Islamic Philosophy: Volume II, edited by Nasr, Seyyed Hossein and Leaman, Oliver, 1409–1450. New York: Routledge.
"The task of this chapter is extremely difficult, not only because it is impossible to cover in one short chapter the long history of the field of Arabic logic and the enormous quantity of material encompassed by it but also because many Arabic logical writings have not reached us. In addition, of those works that have reached us, many are still in manuscript form.
Thus, it must be stressed at the outset that this is not the full story of Arabic logic or even the recounting of all its important elements, as a comprehensive study of the field is not possible at this point. Rather, this is a modest attempt to trace the outline of the history of Arabic logic, pointing out within the space allowed some of the essential features of this field which are accessible to us." (p. 802)
(...)
"The relation of logic to philosophy
One of the issues that preoccupied Arabic logicians was whether logic is a part of or an instrument of philosophy. The controversy over this issue emerged in ancient times. The Platonists considered logic both a part and an instrument of philosophy; the Peripatetics considered it only an instrument of philosophy; and the Stoics considered it only a part of philosophy.
The history of Arabic logic is full of references to the idea that logic is an instrument (dlah) of philosophy.(89) However, some, such as Ibn Slna, spoke of logic at times as an instrument and at other times as a science, i.e., as a part of philosophy.(90) This is because he finds no conflict in considering logic both as an instrument of and as a part of philosophy.
The conflict, he asserts, arises from using the term philosophy in two different senses. If philosophy is used in the sense of the study of "things inasmuch as they exist and are divided into the two types of existence", meaning the external and the mental, then logic is not "a part of philosophy. But inasmuch as logic is useful for this study, it is an instrument of philosophy." If, on the other hand, philosophy is used in the sense of the study of "every theoretical matter and from every point of view", then logic is "a part of philosophy and an instrument of the other parts of philosophy".(91) According to him, to engage in a dispute over such a matter is to engage in falsehood, because the rwo positions are not contradictory, and in futility, because concerning oneself with such a matter leads to no benefit.(92)" (p. 814)
(89) See, for example, al-Farabi, al-Alfāẓ: 107; Ibn Slna, Remarks: 47; Mantiq: 5, 8 and 10; al-Ghazzalī, Tahafut. 45; Alī ibn Muhammad al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī, Kitāb al-tārīfāt (Beirut, 1969): 351 .
(90) Ibn Sina, Remarks: 47.
(91) Ibn Slna, al-Madkhal: 15-16.
(92) Ibid. 16.
Ismail, Mohd Zaidi bin. 1996. "Logic in Al-Ghazali's Theory of Certitude." Al-Shajarah: Journal of the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC) no. 1:1–2.
"Although certitude might be considered by many to be very personal, and because of that, too subjective, one needs more than just gallantry to make an outright denial of its importance in life. Perhaps it is precisely because of its being objectively subjective that one cannot do without it.
(..)
Or, to put it differently, is it conceivable that we have certitude concerning a matter which is totally rejected by our reason? This question, for us, is by no means artificial. Rather, it provides the necessary framework for our present discussion.
It is not hard to see why al-Ghazalī, as a scholar who was very much interested in the problem of knowledge and faith, was so involved in the problem of certitude. Since logic is the property of reason, concerns the correct laws of thought, and is highly regarded by al-Ghazalī, he could not but give as well an account of its status in his overall solution to that problem. In the present paper, we will concern ourselves with surveying what al-Ghazalī's answer is and how he provides such a solution. But before that, and since certitude, truth and knowledge are only different aspects of a single item, it is very relevant to see how he perceives truth-reality (al-ḥaqq.) (1)
(1) When referring to the word al-ḥaqq, we have to combine these two English words, 'truth' and 'reality', for in Arabic such a word connotes both meanings. For further analysis of this term, and how it is related to taṣdīq, see Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Islam and the Philosophy of Science (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 1989), 17-25; and his A Commentary on the Ḥujjat al-Ṣiddīq of Nūr al-Dīn al-Rānīrī (Kuala Lumpur: Ministry of Culture, 1986), 128-129, 149-153, 183,187, and 234.
Izutsu, Toshihiko. 1974. "Basic Problems of "Abstract Quiddity"." In Collected Texts and Papers on Logic and Language, edited by Mohaghegh, M. and Izutsu, Toshihiko, 1–25. Tehran: Tehran University Press.
"The concept of "quiddity'' (māhiyah) plays an exceedingly important role in Islamic philosophy, not only in metaphysics but also in logic. For the Eisagoge (Ar. Ishāgūjī), which constitutes the First Book of classical Aristotelian logic as it has been accepted by the Muslims, is in its essentials nothing other than an elaborate theory of "quiddity''. In the course of history, the concept of "quiddity" has raised in Islamic thought a number of interesting problems. The so-called i'tibārāt of "quiddity" is surely of the most irnportant of those problems."
The word i'tibārāt ( sg. i'tibār) means ''(various possible) ways of looking at" a thing. The expression "i'tibārāt of quiddity", therefore, refers to various possible ways in which "quiddity" can be viewed at the level of conceptual analysis. It must be noted that the expression in no wise suggests the existence of various kinds of "quiddity". All that it indicates is that every "quiddity" can be rationally approached from a number of different angles, or can be conceived in a number of different dimensions, and that at each of the dimensions "quiddity" discloses different rational characteristics.
Three i'tibārāt have been consecrated by philosophic tradition as being the most fundamental among all the imaginable approaches:
1) lā bi-sharṭ or a non - conditioned".
2) bi-sharṭ lā or ''negatively conditioned''.
3) bi-sharṭ shay' or "positively conditioned".
Of these three the most controversial have always been the first and
the second. The present paper will deal with some of the most basic problems
Three i'tibarat have been consecrated by philosophic tradition as being
the most fundamental among all the imaginable approaches:
1) la bi-sharf or a non - conditioned".
2) bi-sharf la or ''negatively conditioned''.
3) bi-shar/ shay' or "positively conditioned".
Of these three the most controversial have always been the first and the second. The present paper will deal with some of the most basic problems.(1)" (pp. 3-4)
(1) Tajrīd al-l'tiqād (or Tajrīd al-'Aqa'id) in Kashf al-Murād by al-Hillī, Qum, undated, p. 60.
(...)
"We have examined in the foregoing some of the representative views on the nature and structure of "quiddity qua negatively conditioned". In spite of an exceeding importance that has been attached to it --- or, we might say, precisely because of it-- the problem does not seem to have reached any final solution. However this may be, the distinction between the two meanings of "qua negatively conditioned", together with the more general distinction between the two systems of the i'tibārāt of "quiddity", have exercised an indelible influence on the development of Islamic philosophy in all its branches including the semantic theory of jurisprudence. But to go further into details about these matters will take us too far beyond the scope of the present paper." (p. 23)
Jacobsen Ben Hammed, Nora. 2020. "Meno's Paradox and First Principles in Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī." Oriens no. 48:320–344.
Abstract: "This article examines Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī's (d. 606/1210) epistemology and his understanding of syllogistic reasoning through a consideration of Meno's paradox. It focuses on later works, namely, al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya, Kitāb al-Jabr, and al-Tafsīr al-kabīr as well as his treatment of the subject in al-Mulakhkhaṣ fī l-ḥikma. Informed by the theories of epistemology developed through the philosophical tradition of Meno's paradox and first principles, Rāzī views all knowledge formed through syllogistic reasoning as dependent on axiomatic truths (al-badīhiyyāt), a concept with roots in both the philosophical and theological traditions. These first principles are formed immediately upon the presence of the requisite concepts in the mind, and thus comprise Rāzī's implicit response to the paradox in that all subsequent knowledge does indeed require previous fundamental knowledge that is not sought nor acquired voluntarily. Finally, the article discusses a separate paradox implicit in Rāzī's works, namely that he both asserts in sections treating divine determinism that no knowledge can in fact be acquired whatsoever while elsewhere emphasizing the fundamental importance of knowledge acquisition."
Janssens, Jules. 2010. "Al-Ghazālī: The Introduction of Peripatetic Syllogistic in Islamic Law (and Kalām)." MIDÉO : Mélanges de l'Institut dominicain d'études orientales du Caire no. 28:219–233.
"For a better, and hence correct understanding of the proper contents and way of expression of philosophically articulated logic, al-Ghazālī eventually points to his work Mi'yār al-'ilm, The Standard for Knowledge(2). As I have tried to show elsewhere, al-Ghazālī, in this latter work, consults a wide range of texts, especially Avicennian (Najāt, Ishārāt, Dānesh-Nāmeh (Maqāṣid) and Kitāb al-ḥudūd) and Farabian (al-Qiyā aṣ-ṣaghīr and al-Maqūlāt)(3). Very broadly speaking, it is undoubted that the logic of both Ibn Sīnā and al-Fārābī is ultimately Aristotelian inspired, but also is largely based on further developments of the Stagirite’s ideas in the “Alexandrian” tradition(4).
Let me stress that this does not mean that they are just slavish imitators of that tradition, nor that their logical doctrines are identical. It simply shows that there exists a common background, which offers al-Ghazālī the possibility to combine parts of their works. The very fact that al-Ghazālī’s does so, does not in itself prove that he totally identified with their respective logical thoughts. It only indicates that he was aware that some issues were better, or, at least, more completely developed, in one of them." (p. 220)
(2)Al-Ghazālī, The Incoherence of the Philosophers, A parallel English-Arabic Text, translated, introduced and annotated by M. E. Marmura (Islamic Translation Series). Provo, Utah, Brigham Young University
Press, 1997 p. 10, 1.
(3) See Janssens J., «Le Mi'yār al-'ilm fī fann al-manṭiq d’al-Ghazālī: sources avicenniennes et farabiennes», Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age, 69 (2002), p. 39-66, now reprinted in J. Janssens, Ibn Sina and his Influence on the Arabic and Latin World (Variorum Collected Studies Series CS 843). Aldershot, Hampshire, Ashgate, 2006, IX. Note that the designation Dānesh-Nāmeh (Maqāṣid) implies that al-Ghazālī's wording is in the present work sometimes although not always, closer to that of his own Maqāṣid, which is a slightly modified Arabic translation of Ibn Sīnā’s Persian work.
(4) For a general survey of Arabic logic, see Street T., «Arabic Logic», in Handbook of the History of Logic, ed. Dov M. Gabbay and J. Woods. Amsterdam, Elsevier, 2004, p. 523-96, especially p. 523-60 (where he mainly deals with al-Farābī and Ibn Sīnā, and the precise nature of the relation between their respective logical systems). Street also offers a basic bibliographical list (ibid., p. 586-90)."
———. 2016. "Abu al-Barakat al-Baghdadı and His Use of Ibn Sına‘s al-Hikma al-‘Arudiyya (or another work closely related to it) in the Logical Part of His Kitab al-Mu‘tabar." Nazariyat Journal for the History of Islamic Philosophy and Sciences no. 3:1–22.
Abstract: "The last four sections of the first book of Abū al-Barakāt al-Baghdādī’s summa, entitled Kitāb al-Mu‘tabar, deal with dialectics, sophistical refutations, rhetoric, and poetics in full line with Aristotle’s Organon. However, they are not so much based on Aristotle’s works, but on a work of the young Ibn Sīnā, namely al-Hikma al-‘Arūdiyya. Both texts have much in common not only in their structure, but also in their very wording. The article presents a basic survey of the correspondences for all four sections and also highlights the most significant differences. However, important part of these differences has a counterpart in an (incomplete) logical text, which is present in the manuscript Nuruosmaniye 4894 and which is, in turn, very close to, albeit not identical, with Ibn Sīnā’s al-Hikma al-‘Arūdiyya as conserved in the unique manuscript Uppsala 364. Therefore, it is obvious that Abū al-Barakāt takes over many formulations and, at once, many ideas from Ibn Sīnā. However, he adds clearly personal elements that often seem to have been religiously inspired and, on occasion, consciously returns to Aristotle’s wording."
Kalbarczyk, Nora. 2019. "In the Footsteps of Ibn Sīnā? The Uṣūlī Debate on the Argumentum e Contrario." In Philosophy and Jurisprudence in the Islamic World, edited by Adamson, Peter, 53–65. Berlin: de Gruyter.
"From al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) onwards we should not expect to see any direct reception of Greek logic – the question is rather in which way uṣūl al-fiqh texts were influenced by Avicennian philosophy of language and logic and how the two traditions interacted. In this chapter I intend to show how the debate on the argumentum e contrario (mafhūm al-mukhālafa or dalīl al-khiṭāb) was informed by Avicennian philosophy of language and logic.
I will start by outlining the controversial aspects of the argumentum e contrario in general before turning to Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s (d. 606/1210) reasoning against it, and then to the modifications of both the Avicennian position and al-Rāzī’s critique in the subsequent commentary literature. We will be able to discern a shift in the madhhab positions on this issue: even though Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī was a Shāfiʿī scholar, Ḥanafīs standardly use a modified refutation of his criticism of the argumentum e contrario against its Shāfiʿī proponents." (pp. 53-54)
Karabela, Mehmet Kadri. 2010. The Development of Dialectic and Argumentation Theory in Post-classical Islamic Intellectual History, McGill University.
Available at Academia.edu
Abstract: "This dissertation is an analysis of the development of dialectic and argumentation theory in post-classical Islamic intellectual history. The central concerns of the thesis are; treatises on the theoretical understanding of the concept of dialectic and argumentation theory, and how, in practice,
the concept of dialectic, as expressed in the Greek classical tradition, was received and used by five communities in the Islamic intellectual camp. It shows how dialectic as an argumentative discourse diffused into five communities (theologicians, poets, grammarians, philosophers and jurists) and how these local dialectics that the individual communities developed fused into a single system to form a general argumentation theory (ādāb albaḥth) applicable to all fields.
I evaluate a treatise by Shams al-Dīn Samarqandī (d.702/1302), the founder of this general theory, and the treatises that were written after him as a result of his work. I concentrate specifically on work by ‘Ad}ud al-Dīn al-Ījī (d.756/1355), Sayyid Sharīf al-Jurjānī (d.816/1413), Taşköprüzâde (d.968/1561), Saçaklızâde (d.1150/1737) and Gelenbevî (d.1205/1791) and analyze how each writer (from Samarqandī to Gelenbevî) altered the shape of argumentative discourse and how later intellectuals in the post-classical Islamic world responded to that discourse bequeathed by their predecessors.
What is striking about the period that this dissertation investigates (from 1300-1800) is the persistence of what could be called the linguistic turn in argumentation theory. After a centuries-long run, the jadal-based dialectic of the classical period was displaced by a new argumentation theory, which was dominantly linguistic in character. This linguistic turn in argumentation dates from the final quarter of the fourteenth century in Ījī’s impressively prescient work on ‘ilm al-wad‘. This idea, which finally surfaced in the post-classical period, that argumentation is about definition and that, therefore, defining is the business of language—even perhaps, that language is the only available medium for understanding and being understood—affected the way that argumentation theory was processed throughout most of the period in question.
The argumentative discourse that started with Ibn al-Rāwandī in the third/ninth century left a permanent imprint on Islamic intellectual history, which was then full of concepts, terminology and objectives from this discourse up until the late nineteenth century. From this perspective, Islamic intellectual history can be read as the tension between two languages: the ‚language of dialectic‛ (jadal) and the language of demonstration‛ (burhān), each of which refer not only to a significant feature of that history, but also to a feature that could dramatically alter the interpretation of that history."
Karimullah, Kamran I. 2017. "Influence of Late-Antique (ca. 200–800 A.D.) Prolegomena to Aristotle’s Categories on Arabic Doctrines of the Subject Matter of Logic: Alfarabi (d. ca. 950 A.D.), Baghdad Peripatetics, Avicenna (d. 1037 A.D.)." Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie no. 99:237–299.
Abstract: "In this article, I explore how Avicenna’s (d. 1037) views about the subject matter of logic relate to earlier debates about Aristotle’s Categories among Aristotle’s Platonist commentators and the Baghdad Peripatetics, chief among them being Alfarabi (d. ca. 950). I argue that Alfarabi invents the idea of secondary intelligibles (or “second intentions”). I show, however, that under the influence of the middle and late Platonist commentary tradition on the Categories, he insists that primary intelligibles, not secondary intelligibles, are the subject matter of logic. While Avicenna thus takes over the idea of secondary intelligibles from Alfarabi, I show that Avicenna rejects Alfarabi’s view that primary intelligibles are the subject matter of logic. I conclude that what motivated Avicenna to hold that secondary intelligibles are the subject matter of logic was his belief that logic is a discipline of philosophy and not merely an instrument of it."
Kassem, Omar. 2016\. "Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī on intensional logic, freedom and justice." Journal of Islamic Philosophy no. 10:19–61.
"Aristotelian vs. intensional logic: It was Aristotle who first brought up the three fundamental laws of identity, non-contradiction and the excluded middle, but in Aristotle these are descriptions of reality contained in his Metaphysics, in Book Gamma at 1005b19. For Aristotle, logic didn’t have the psychological dimension to be intensional, and knowledge was simply the realistic view that knowledge of reality was direct and unmediated. Intensionality arises in Ghazālī, however, from the very first discussion of Tahāfut, where the human “will” (irāda) is not only something that is apart from the things we find in this world, but is that upon which perception ultimately depends, as in the example of the thirsty man facing two equidistant glasses of water [Tahāfut, p. 38:11-41:3]. It is not the nature of a thing which make one incline towards one of two possible contradictories (nisbat al-dhāt ilā al-ḍiddayn wāḥida) [Iqtiṣād 101:6-7].
In the European tradition, Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole in The Port Royal Logic [La Logique ou l’art de penser] (1662) made the first signal advance over the Aristotelian understanding of logic, which in its time it sought to explain in terms of “... the reflections men have made on the four main operations of their mind-conceiving, judging, reasoning, and ordering.”(23) But this description of intensionality still presupposed that ideas are prior to judgments, and that the function of judgments is merely to state the combinations of ideas that follow from comparing them(24). Kant goes towards a fuller intensionality in that he doesn’t presuppose a plurality of already determined ideas that could be combined into judgments when they are compared at all. What he sees is an indeterminate manifold of representations which the judgment must then bring to one and the same “objective unity of apperception” [CPR B141-2, p. 251].
It is precisely in this way that the language concerning human judgments in Ghazālī, such as ‘affirmation’ (ithbāt) and ‘negation’ (nafā or negated: nafī), is determinative of ideas and that, as a consequence, the categories themselves are related to thought processes and are of a different logical order to the Aristotelian categories." (pp.28-29)
(23) Béatrice Longuenesse, Kant and the Capacity to Judge, (trans.) Charles T. Wolfe, Princeton: Princeton University Press (1998), p. 74, note 2
(24) Ibid., p. 74
Kemal, Salim. 1997. "Al-Ghazalī, Metaphor and Logic." In Across the Mediterranean Frontiers: Trade, Politics and Religion, 650-1450, edited by Agius, Dionisius A. and Netton, Ian Richard, 205–223. Turnhout: Brepols.
"Any Muslim religious philosopher must account for the status and seriousness of figurative language since it occurs frequently in the Qur'an. Perhaps surprisingly, given his reputation for rejecting philosophy and for a commitment to mysticism, al-Ghazalī ( d. 505/1111) finds logic crucial to this explanation. In the space available in this paper my intention is to sketch out al-Ghazalī,'s account of figurative language, to show how he deals with truth, and thereby to identify some of the issues this raises that need further consideration." (p, 205, a note omitted)
(...)
"Further issues
This explanation of al-Ghazalī's conception of metaphor and figurative language leaves a number of issues uncharted. For example, we need to consider in more detail the source and nature of the premises about which we reason and which we can develop in figurative language. Given his mysticism, we may have to accept that some premises occur as intuitions or insights into the nature of reality. This is entirely compatible with the use of logic as a tool of reason, however, in that the insights and premises cannot be self-contradictory if they are to be taken seriously, regardless of whether their expression is precise or relies on figurative language. This comparison also requires us to consider further how al-Ghazalī understands the sources of premises - an issue that is clearly connected with the nature of essential and other existences and the issue of how fully it is possible to set out the rules and conditions for particular levels of existence. In any case, what I wanted to emphasise in this paper is that reason has an important role to play in al-Ghazalī's work, and it would be unfortunate if we were to reject its place for the sake of ascribing a merely irrational mysticism to this philosopher." (p. 223)
Key, Alexander. 2018. Language between God and the Poets: Maʿnā in the Eleventh Century. Oakland: University of California Press.
Chapter 6, Logic, pp. 152-195.
"What is language? How does language work? Scholars writing in Arabic in the eleventh century had good answers to these two questions. Their theories of language, mind, and reality—of words, ideas, and things—appear in books about how to describe God, how to interpret scripture, how to solve logical problems, and how to criticize poetry. They used a conceptual vocabulary very different from the Anglophone or European toolbox that academia provides for us today. This book is a study of their Arabic intellectual world and a translation of their approaches to questions that still concern us a millennium later. It is a book about these scholars’ analyses of how their minds worked, and of the role language played when they turned those minds to the world outside.
My methodological principle in this research has been to follow eleventh-century Arabic scholars’ conceptual vocabulary into their areas of concern. This is consequently a book about maʿnā (their word for mental content) and about ḥaqīqah (their word for accuracy). It is very much a work of philology." (p. 1)
"Ibn Sīnā inherited Greek and Arabic Aristotelianism and turned it into a new synthesis with a new conceptual vocabulary. Translation lay at the heart of this process.
In the eleventh century, Ibn Sīnā wrote in dialogue with both the philhellenic commentary tradition and the Arabic tradition of thought about language. Where the Baghdad School of Aristotelian philosophers had claimed that logic enabled them to dispense with Arabic grammar (see my article with Peter Adamson),(1) and al-Fārābī had tended to use calques of Greek words (Zimmermann argues persuasively that he did so deliberately),(2) Ibn Sīnā chose to write Arabic with all the challenges and rewards such a decision entailed. He was faced with Aristotle in Arabic and translation choices made by other scholars. The Arabic conceptual vocabulary he developed gave him the tools to rethink human cognition, logical process, and the role of God." (p. 152)
(1) Key and Adamson (2015).
(2) Zimmermann (1981, cxxix–cxxxvii).
References
Key, Alexander, and Peter Adamson. 2015. “Philosophy of Language in the Medieval Arabic Tradition.” In M. Cameron and R. J. Stainton, eds., Linguistic Content: New Essays on the History of Philosophy of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zimmermann, F. W. 1981. Al-Farabi’s Commentary and Short Treatise on Aristotle’s “De Interpretatione.” Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy.
———. 2021. "Notes around Ambiguity: Ibn Sīnā’s Logic, ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī’s Poetics, Rāghib’s Two-Meanings-at-One-Time, and the Figures of Ibhām, Istikhdām, and Tawriya." In Philosophy and Language in the Islamic World, edited by Germann, Nadja and Najafi, Mostafa, 77–99. Berlin: de Gruyter.
"These notes are adapted from the 2018 monograph Language Between God and the Poets: Maʿnā in the Eleventh Century, to which an interested reader may turn in search of more detail about logic and poetics, the additional genres of lexicography and theology, and explanations of the methodology and translation strategy adopted here. The adapted sections have been rearranged around the question of ambiguity in logic and poetics, and new material concerning whether a word can have two meanings at the same time has been added, in addition to a discussion of the rhetorical figures of ibhām, istikhdām, and tawriya.
We begin in the eleventh century with Ibn Sīnā’s discussions of two Aristotelian questions that speak to language’s potential for logical ambiguity: pros hen and Aristotelian homonymy. Next, we look at ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī’s theory of lexical accuracy (ḥaqīqa), which takes the lexicon into the imaginary poetic image. In order to think more about ambiguity itself, we then turn to al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī’s claim that a word could have two meanings at the same time, and to three figures used by critics over the next few centuries to manage and structure ambiguity: ibhām, istikhdām, and tawriya. In conclusion, we return to Jurjānī and syntax time." (p. 77)
King, Daniel. 2013. "Grammar and logic in Syriac (and Arabic)." Journal of Semitic Studies no. 58:101–120.
Abstract: "In order to advance the debate surrounding the origins and background of the Arabic grammatical tradition, we offer an exploration of the Syriac grammatical tradition with a focus on the interdisciplinarity it shared with the study of logic. The essay demonstrates that the essentialist view of grammar adopted by many Greek thinkers led to the working assumption that logic and grammar were virtually the same discipline, and that the Syrians shared this view of things and transmitted it to Arab scholasticism. A number of philosophers and grammarians are explored with a view to demonstrating this point.
Scholasticism in the Late Antique Near East was a cross-linguistic phenomenon which never respected the boundaries we like to draw between Greek, Syriac, Hebrew, and Arabic worlds. Arabic grammar grew out of this background, while being driven by its own internal genius."
———. 2015. "Logic in the Service of Ancient Eastern Christianity: An Exploration of Motives." Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie no. 97:1–33.
Abstract: "The present article explores the motives behind the so-called ‘appropriation’ of Aristotelian logic by the Syriac-speaking community in the Near East from the sixth to the ninth centuries. While it is often assumed that the Syrians adopted Greek logic for religious, and polemical, ends, we aim to show rather that the underlying reasons given for the study of logic and its propagation through educational institutions were much the same among Syriac as they were for Greek practitioners of philosophy in Late Antiquity. There was a marked continuity between the late ancient Greek centres of learning and the Syriac monasteries.
Syriac theologians rarely, if ever, sought to use Aristotle as a crutch in sectarian religious debates. There are implications for our understanding of how and why the Arabic renaissance in logic came about."
Kleven, Terence. 2016. "Rhetoric, Poetics, and the Organon." In The Routledge Companion to Islamic Philosophy, edited by Taylor, Richard C. and López-Farjeat, Luis Xavier, 82–99. New York: Routledge.
"As an instrument it was not obviously controversial, if used for the right purposes, and it could be helpful in distinguishing true from false opinions. It was necessary, however, to know what logic was, and there was more than one opinion on the matter. One particular question that emerged in this inquiry of the nature and scope of logic was which books of Aristotle actually constituted his “instrument” of study. Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Poetics were included as two of the syllogistic arts by some ancient and medieval scholars and excluded by others. Classical Islamic philosophy devoted considerable attention to the place of these two books among the logical arts, and thus the title of this chapter introduces a topic for inquiry that is forcefully present in Islamic philosophy. The purpose of this chapter is to articulate the reasoning on the basis of which two of the finest Arabic philosophers—al-Fārābī and Ibn Rushd (Averroes)—included rhetoric and poetry in the corpus of logical arts in the Islamic world." (pp. 82-83)
Klinger, Dustin D. 2019. "A New Take on Semantics, Syntax, and the Copula: Note on Qutb al-Din al-Razi al-Tahtani’s Analysis of Atomic Propositions in the Lawāmi‘ al-asrār." Nazariyat Journal for the History of Islamic Philosophy and Sciences no. 5:59–80.
Abstract: "In logic, Quṭb al-Dīn al-Razī was broadly an orthodox Avicennan. However, in his enormously influential commentary on al-Urmawī’s logic handbook Maṭāliʿ al-anwār, he explicitly criticizes Avicenna and advances a novel analysis of atomic propositions. As a later addition that only survives in two manuscripts shows, Quṭb al-Dīn was troubled by traditional accounts of the syntax and semantics of atomic propositions. For him, the main problem was a confused understanding of the copula. In atomic propositions of the form “A is B,” the copula is the word that indicates that B is predicated of A (“is” in English, “esti” in Greek, but not usually expressed in Arabic). Avicenna had maintained, for lack of an Arabic equivalent to Aristotle’s “esti,” that the Arabic pronoun “huwa” should be used to form complete atomic propositions (e.g., “Jīm huwa bā’”). Quṭb al-Dīn considers this to be mistaken on several levels. To straighten out the mistake, he disambiguates the predicative nexus of a proposition from its judgment, formulates a unified notion of unsaturatedness for predicates, and gives an account of the judgment-nexus. An upshot of this novel analysis is a reinterpretation of the Aristotelian distinction between secundum adiacens and tertium adiacens propositions."
———. 2024. "Forms of Carroll’s Paradox in Post-Classical Arabic Logic." History and Philosophy of Logic no. 45:262–277.
Abstract: "Arabic logicians in the thirteenth century discussed a set of arguments raised by the theologian Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1210) that in some respects closely resembles Carroll’s paradox. Roughly, the paradox states that we can never reach a conclusion from a set of premises without incurring an infinite regress. The present article presents and discusses Rāzī’s formulation of the problem with syllogistic deduction, his own solutions to the problem, and the contributions of Afḍal al-Dīn al-Khūnajī (d. 1248) and Najm al-Dīn al-Kātibī (d. 1276). It is argued that the proposed solutions developed by these authors are best understood as tending in the direction of Gilbert Ryle’s distinction between knowing-that and knowing-how."
———. 2025. "A 12th Century Attack on Peripatetic Logic: Rashīd ad-Dīn al-Waṭwāṭ’s (d. 1182) Treatise “A Doubt About reductio ad absurdum” and Its Aftermath." In Logic, Soul, and World: Essays in Arabic Philosophy in Honor of Tony Street, edited by Ahmed, Asad Q., Zarepour, Mohammad Saleh and Strobino, Riccardo, 326–365. Leiden: Brill.
"In this article I argue that a text that has only recently been attributed with certainty to Rashīd ad-Dīn al-Waṭwāṭ (d. 1182), a courtier and literary figure otherwise not associated with logic, sheds new light on the pre-Rāzīan engagement with Avicenna’s modal logic, specifically with problems arising for conversion from the profusion of propositional types. After a brief contextualization of Waṭwāṭ, his text, and the history of Arabic logic in 12th century Khwārazm, I propose to read Rashīd ad-Dīn’s “A Doubt About reductio ad absurdum” as a wholesale attack on the consistency of Avicennan logic (section 2). This attack is based on the following argument: Since reductio is needed to prove certain conversions that in turn are needed to prove the validity of all but the four first figure syllogistic moods, reductio is indispensable for the entire deductive system.
However, reductio can be used to prove several distinct propositions as conversions of a single proposition. As every proposition only has one converse, some of them must be false. Hence, reductio is not an adequate proof strategy for conversion, and, by extension, not for the validity of syllogistic moods. The argument, as I explain in detail in section (3), would not work against Aristotle’s assertoric syllogistic, as it capitalizes on the profusion of propositional types. The earliest detailed response, most likely from ar-Rāzī’s interlocutor in the Transoxanian Debates(7) Afḍal ad-Dīn Ibn Ghaylān al-Balkhī (d. ca. 1194), was, I argue, eventually not successful (4). Another contemporary, Shihāb ad-Dīn as-Suhrawardī (d. 1191), acquiesced in the insufficiency of reductio proofs, but believed there was no harm for logic overall (5). It was only with ar-Rāzī, whose toolkit of newly forged logical terms for novel distinctions was richer than al-Waṭwāṭ’s, that the attack was forcefully and, it seems, decisively met (6). I conclude with a summary and some broader observations on what this debate may tell us about the history of logic and philosophy in the 12th century (7)." (p. 328)
(7) Munāẓarāt Fakhr ad-Dīn ar-Rāzī fī bilād mā warāʾa an-nahr, in: Fathalla Kholeif, A Study on Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and His Controversies in Transoxiana (Beirut: Dar al-Mashriq, 1966), 31 (55 of Kholeif ’s translation). See also Ayman Shihadeh, “From al-Ghazālī to al-Rāzī: 6th/12th Century Developments in Muslim Philosophical Theology,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 15, no. 1 (2005): 153.
Komath, Muhammed. 2024. "Defeasible Reasoning in Islamic Legal Theory." Informal Logic no. 44:431–467.
Abstract: "Logicians commonly understand nonmonotonic types of reasoning can warrant rational acceptance of conclusions. The significance and legitimacy of these forms of arguments, which were long considered fallacious, has been contentious among logicians in the Aristotelian logical tradition. In contrast, Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), has long recognised the importance of non-deductive forms of reasoning, and demonstrated how conventionally understood fallacies are not essentially fallacies. Qiyās – generally representing analogical reasoning – is such a case of defeasible reasoning in Islamic legal theories. I show through works of two emblematic medieval Muslim jurist-logicians, al-Juwainī and al-Ghazzālī, that understanding the legitimacy of non-deductive forms of arguments is core to Islamic legal theories (usūl al-fiqh), which proposed a dialectical method (jadal) of approach."
———. 2025. "Rational Force of Analogy/Qiyās in Law: Logic of Law in Islamic and Contemporary Legal Reasoning." Informal Logic no. 45:423–448.
Abstract: "Analogy is an inherently fragile form of argument, as the conclusion is derived from similarity, while overlooking dissimilarities. Yet law necessarily depends upon analogical reasoning to ensure consistency and predictability in its rulings. This entanglement of fragility and necessity compels the legal traditions, like Islamic and common laws, to formulate a justification of analogy when applied in law. The most successful justification, I argue, is the one that is anchored in logic. This logical grounding is a shared feature among contemporary legal theorist Scott Brewer, the informal logician Douglas Walton, and the 12th-century Muslim jurist-logician al-Ghazzālī, as all three insist that the justification of legal analogy is logical.
This paper aims to trace the thematic contours of their explanation in order to demonstrate, drawing primarily on al-Ghazzālī’s two works: al-Mustaṣfā fī Uṣūl al-Fiqh and al-Muntaḥal fī al-Jadal, that al-Ghazālī’s model of analogical reasoning effectively integrates key elements of Brewer’s abduction model and Walton’s model of defeasible argument."
References
Brewer, Scott. 1996. “Exemplary reasoning: Semantics, pragmatics, and the rational force of legal argument by analogy.” Harvard Law Review 109 (5): 923–1028.
Walton, Douglas, Christopher Reed, and Fabrizio Macagno. 2008. Argumentation schemes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kukkonen, Taneli. 2005. "“The Impossible, insofar as it is possible”: Ibn Rushd and Jean Buridan on Logic and Natural Theology." In Logik und Theologie. Das Organon im arabischen und im lateinischen Mittelalte, edited by Perler, Dominik and Rudolph, Ulrich, 447–467. Leiden: Brill.
"Abû l-Walîd Muhammad Ibn Rushd’s (the Latin Averroës, d. 1198) commentaries on Aristotle attest to how the Andalusian philosopher and jurisprudent tinkered with the interpretation of his master’s thought until the very end of his life. Ibn Rushd’s seemingly evergrowing appreciation for the minutiae of Aristotelian lore came coupled with a penchant for formalisation. The long commentaries, the crowning achievement of a long and distinguished career, are lined with attempts to knock informal arguments into syllogistic shape.(1)
(...)
"The following presentation takes its cue from (I) Ibn Rushd’s eighth physical Question, which presents a novel interpretation of the argumentative structure of the Physics proof for an immaterial First Mover.
(II) An examination of the logical underpinnings of Ibn Rushd’s proposed interpretation gives way to (III) a consideration of the theological concerns that fuelled Ibn Rushd’s search for a structurally sound reading of Aristotle. (IV) From here, I move to John Buridan’s comments on Aristotle’s argumentation in natural philosophy, which are explicitly directed against the Commentator and his followers in the Latin world, most notably Thomas Aquinas. Supplementary materials from Nicole Oresme serve to illustrate the difference between the two types of explanation, a difference that is to an extent (V) paralleled by a division among current theorists of philosophical logic." (pp. 447-448)
(1) See Druart (1994).
References
Druart, Therese-Anne, “Averroes: The Commentator and the Commentators”, in L. P. Schrenk (ed.), Aristotle in Late Antiquity, Washington, D.C. 1994, 184–202.
———. 2010. "Al-Ghazālī on the Signification of Names." Vivarium no. 48:55–74.
Abstract: "Al-Ghazālī’s most detailed explanation of how signification works occurs in his treatise on The Beautiful Names of God. Al-Ghazālī builds squarely on the commentary tradition on Aristotle’s Peri hermeneias: words signify things by means of concepts and correspondingly, existence is laid out on three levels, linguistic, conceptual, and particular (i.e. extramental). This framework allows al-Ghazālī to put forward what is essentially an Aristotelian reading of what happens when a name successfully picks out a being: when a quiddity is named by some kind term, its referent in the mind is formally identical to the quiddity of an individual existent which belongs to that natural kind. Al-Ghazālī then proceeds to tease out the implications of this scheme for the special problem of signifying God. It turns out that the Peripatetic theory, which al-Ghazālī appropriates from Ibn Sīnā, is ill equipped for the task as al-Ghazālī envisions it."
Kuşlu, Harun. 2024. "Context-Sensitive Terms In Islamic Philosophy of Language: A Study On The Logicalization of Demonstrative Pronoun." Nazariyat Journal for the History of Islamic Philosophy and Sciences no. 10:73–104.
Abstract: "The issue of ambiguous words (al-mubhamât), which occupies the core subject of ‘Adud al-Dīn al-Ījī’s (d. 756/1355) al-Risālat al-wad‘iyya, has blossomed into subject of a serious logical and semantical dispute between two great names of later Islamic thought, Sa‘d al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī (d. 792/1390) and Sayyid Sharīf al-Jurjānī (d. 816/1413). The operant traces of the debate can palpably be traced up to the late Ottoman polymath Ismail Gelenbevī (d. 1205/1791) and his commentators. In this paper, I take up the relevant debate with reference to the problem of context-sensitive terms in the contemporary philosophy of language. Throughout the article, I examine both the course of the issue in the philosophy of language tradition by using the literature following al-Ījī’s treatise and how al-Taftāzānī has made this topic into a matter of logic by referring to some works of logic. Thus, I intend to show the contributions or criticisms of some philosophers from al-Taftāzānī to Gelenbevī towards the logicalization of context-sensitive terms."
Lagerlund, Henrik. 2008. "The Assimilation of Aristotelian and Arabic Logic up to the Later Thirteenth Century." In Handbook of the History of Logic, Volume 2: Mediaeval and Renaissance Logic, edited by Gabbay, Dov M. and Woods, John, 281–346. Amsterdam: Elsevier North-Holland.
"The development of logic from the rediscovery of the complete corpus of Aristotle in the early twelfth century through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries cannot be characterised as anything else than remarkable. No other time in history, except the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, has seen such a development of logic.
In this chapter, I will try to give an account of some of the problems and developments from the late twelfth century into the mid-thirteenth century. My focus will primarily be on the commentary tradition of Aristotle’s logical works, that is, the Categories, De interpretatione, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Topics, and Sophistici Elenchi.(1) Running parallel to the commentary tradition is a less known and much less studied tradition, namely the history of the Arabic logical works available in Latin at this time. Most scholars are of the opinion that Arabic logic had very little if any influence on Western logic, but, although Arabic logic did not revolutionise western logic as was once thought, it certainly is part of the Western logical tradition and as such it had a not insignificant influence; although not in the way previously thought. I will here highlight some of the more interesting things I have noticed about these works.(2)" (p. 281)
(1) I will not say anything about the commentaries on the Posterior Analytics. This tradition is hardly studied and its development seems to be a little bit different than the other works.
Although it is a work on method it is unclear whether thirteenth century logicians saw it as a work in logic. For an overview of this tradition see [Longeway, 2007, 3–79].
(2) For a more detailed study of this tradition and its influence on Western logic I will have to refer the reader to a forthcoming monograph of mine with the title Latin Arabic Logic in the Middle Ages: The Doctrines and Influences of Arabic Works on Logic Translated into Latin in the 12th and 13th Centuries.
———. 2010. "Al-Ghazālī on the form and matter of the syllogisms." Vivarium no. 48:193–214.
Abstract: "Al-Ghazālī’s Maqāsid al-falāsifa [The Aims of the Philosophers] [*] is an intelligent reworking of Avicenna’s Dānesh-name (Book of Science). It was assumed by Latin scholastics that the Maqāsid contained the views of Al-Ghazālī himself. Very well read in Latin translation, it was the basic text from which the Latin authors gained their knowledge of Arabic logic. This article examines the views on the form and matter of the syllogism given in the Maqāsid and considers how they would have been viewed by a Latin reader in the thirteenth century."
[*] Marco Signori, Abū Ḥāmid al-Gazālī. The Intentions of the Philosophers [Maqāṣid al-falāsifa]. Introduction, Translation, and Commentary, Tesi di perfezionamento in Storia della filosofia medievale, Anno accademico 2021-2022.
———. 2020. "Logic, Arabic, in the Latin Middle Ages." In Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy. Second Edition, edited by Lagerlund, Henrik, 1083–1086. Dordrecht: Springer.
Abstract: "C. Prantl argued in the mid-nineteenth century that the part of western logic nowadays called logica modernorum, that is, the so called theories of the properties of terms, entered into the Latin world from translations of Byzantine and Arabic logical works. This was, as M.L. de Rijk showed in the 1960s, completely wrong. He argued convincingly that this part of medieval logic was partly due to Aristotle’s Sophistici elenchi but foremost it was due to the creative minds of late twelfth-century logicians.
His judgment of earlier views was so harsh, however, that Arabic logic in the Latin tradition has hardly been studied at all. Most scholars are of the opinion that Arabic logic had very little, if any, influence on western logic, but although Arabic logic did not revolutionize western logic as was once thought, it certainly is part of the western logical tradition and as such it had quite a significant influence, though not in the way previously thought."
Lameer, Joep. 1993. "Aristotelian rhetoric and poetics as logical arts in medieval Islamic philosophy." Bibliotheca Orientalis no. 5:563–582.
Review of Deborah Black, Logic and Aristotle's Rhetoric and Poetics in Medieval Arabic Philosophy.
———. 1996. "The Organon of Aristotle in the Medieval Oriental and Occidental Traditions." Journal of the American Oriental Society no. 116:90–98.
Abstract: "In this review article of Charles Burnett's edition of Glosses and Commentaries on Aristotelian Logical Texts: The Syriac, Arabic and Medieval Latin Traditions, the focus will be on the two contributions which concern the medieval Arabic tradition, whereas my comments on the Syriac and medieval Latin sections will be of a more succinct and marginal character. In his "Remarques sur la tradition arabe de L'Organon d'aprés le manuscrit Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, ar. 2346," Henri Hugonnard-Roche argues, against Richard Walzer, that a significant part of the marginal and interlinear glosses and notes to the Arabic translations of the Organon as contained in this famous manuscript are not merely philological, but constitute evidence of a difference in understanding the logic of Aristotle. Challenging though it is in proposing a new perspective, the majority of the examples given by Hugonnard-Roche do not support this thesis, as I will venture to show. My comments on Dimitri Gutas' "Aspects of Literary Form and Genre in Arabic Logical Works" are of a more complementary character, with a special emphasis on al-Farabi. A complete listing of the surviving copies of epitomes of Ibn al-Tayyib's commentaries on the Organon is also given."
———. 2013. "Ibn Ḥazm' Logical Pedigree." In Ibn Ḥazm of Cordoba: The Life and Works of a Controversial Thinker, edited by Adang, Camilla, Fierro, Maribel and Schmidtke, Sabine, 417–428. Leiden: Brill.
"Many years ago, I drew attention to the fact that after Abū Naṣr Fārābī (d. 339/950), Ibn Ḥazm was among the earliest Muslim authors to have suggested that a parallel can be drawn between Aristotelian modal logic and the modalities of a system of norms.(1) The subject is not unimportant, because norms regulate human behaviour, so that a better understanding of their perceived interconnections will lead to a better understanding of the workings of normative (i.e. legal) systems. As a Ẓāhirī, Ibn Ḥazm was a declared advocate of a literalist interpretation of the sources of Islamic jurisprudence.(2) It is therefore reasonable to assume that his discussions of the modalities must have been aimed at strengthening his literalist legal views. But ahead of any future examination of this hypothesis, it will be helpful to first determine Ibn Ḥazm’s lineage in the field of Aristotelian logic, which is what this article proposes to do." (pp. 417-418, a note omitted)
(1) Joep Lameer, Al-Fārābī and Aristotelian Syllogistics: Greek Theory and Islamic Practice, Leiden 1994, p. 240f. What is meant is the idea that a comparison can be made between the concepts of necessity, possibility and impossibility on the one hand, and the notions of obligation, permission and prohibition on the other. In western philosophy it is not until much later that we can find traces of similar ideas, for which see e.g. Georg Henrik von Wright, “On the Logic of Norms and Actions,” New Studies in Deontic Logic. Norms, Actions and the Foundations of Ethics, ed. Risto Hilpinen, Dordrecht 1981, (3–35) p. 3 (referring to Leibniz, 1646–1716), and Simo Knuuttila, “The Emergence of Deontic Logic in the Fourteenth Century,” New Studies in Deontic Logic, pp. 225–226, 240 (referring to Robert Holcot and Roger Rosetus, both 14th cent.). See also Paul McNamara, “Deontic Logic,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2010 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta).
(2) Abdel Magid Turki, “al-Ẓāhiriyya,” The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, vol. 11, pp. 394a–396b.
———. 2014. "(Ghayr al-ma'lūmyamtanï al-ḥukm 'atayhi) An Exploratory Anthology of a False aradox in Medieval Islamic Philosophyl." Oriens no. 42:397–453.
Abstract: "In Islamic philosophy, knowledge is divided into 'conception' (taṣawwur) and 'belief' (taṣdīq). While there is no objection to dividing knowledge in this way, problems arose when belief was described as being 'composed' of conceptions. An early objection to belief's dependence upon conceptions was based on a self-referential reading of the principle that 'the unknown cannot be a subject of predication,' which was another way of saying that 'what is not conceived, cannot be believed.' This objection was answered in various ways. While Naṣīr al-Din Ṭūsī ( d. 672/1274) may have been the first to know how to solve paradoxes of self-reference, it was Sirāj al-Dīn Urmawī ( d. 682/1283) who dominated most of the later discussions."
———. 2019. "Deontic Modalities in Ibn Ḥazm." In Philosophy and Jurisprudence in the Islamic World, edited by Adamson, Peter, 113–128. Berlin: de Gruyter.
"To this day, not much has been written about obligations, permissions, and prohibitions in Islamic law and their place in medieval Arabic logic.(1)"
(...)
"After al-Fārābī, the second earliest Muslim author known to have suggested that a parallel might be drawn between the modalities of Aristotelian logic and the deontic qualifications of “obligatory”, “permissible”, and “impermissible” is the Andalusian polymath Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/1064), who earned his fame as a poet, historian, theologian, jurist, and minor philosopher (EI2 [Encyclopaedia of islam, Second edition], “Ibn Ḥazm”).(12)
The comparison in question is found in his treatise on Aristotelian logic, al-Taqrīb li-ḥadd al-manṭiq (A Clarification of the Essence of Logic).(13) Even if he did study logic in the tradition of the Baghdad school in logic as represented by Abū Bishr Mattā b. Yūnus and al-Fārābī (Lameer 2013, 417–428), Ibn Ḥazm was not a logician, but mostly a jurist and theologian. As such, he is especially known as a representative of the Ẓāhirī school, which propagated a literal interpretation of the Qur’an and the traditions (EI2 “al-Ẓāhiriyya”)."
(1) The only relevant publications that I know of are Mikhail 2004, referred to in note 33 below; Auda 1428/2007, 237, where he says that Georg H. von Wright’s “law of commitment” which states that “If doing what we ought to do commits us to do something else, then this new act is also something that we ought to do” is identical to the rule stating “mā lā yatimmu al-wājib illā bihi fa-huwa wājib” in Islamic law; Lameer 1994, 239–256, mentioned below in reference to al-Fārābī.
(12) See also Adang, Fierro, and Schmidtke 2013, with a bibliography of secondary sources by Leigh Chipman on pages 761–787.
(13) Ibn Ḥazm 1980–1983, 4:93–356: Kitāb al-Taqrīb li-ḥadd al-manṭiq wa’l-mudkhal ilayhi bi’lalfāẓ al-ʿāmmiyya wa’l-amthila al-fiqhiyya. I have not seen the edition by ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq al-Turkumānī (Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2007).
References
Auda, Jasser. Maqasid al-Shariah as Philosophy of Islamic Law: a Systems Approach. London, Washington: the International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1428/2007.
Ibn Ḥazm. Rasāʾil Ibn Ḥazm al-Andalusī, ed. Iḥsān ʿAbbās, 4 vols. Beirut: al-Muʾassasa al-ʿArabiyya li’l-Dirāsāt wa’l-Nashr, 1980–1983.
Mikhail, John. “Islamic Rationalism and the Foundation of Human Rights.” In Pluralism and Law: Proceedings of the 20th IVR Congress, vol. 3: Global Problems, ed. Arend Soeteman, 61–70. Frankfurt: Steiner, 2004.
Lameer, Joep. Al-Fārābī and Aristotelian Syllogistics: Greek Theory and Islamic Practice. Leiden: Brill, 1994.
Lameer, Joep. “Ibn Ḥazm’s Logical Pedigree.” In Ibn Ḥazm of Cordoba: the Life and Works of a Controversial Thinker, ed. Camilla Adang, Maribel Fierro, Sabine Schmidtke. 417–428. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
Lamprakis, Alexander. 2025. "Dialectical Premises, Dialectical Problems and the Concept of Topoi in Arabic Philosophy: An Overview." In Revisiting Medieval Dialectics, edited by Mora-Márquez, Ana María and Fernández Walker, Gustavo, 59–95. Cham (Switzerland): Springer.
Abstract: "This article introduces critical areas in studying dialectic and Aristotle’s Topics in Medieval Arabic Philosophy. It includes a historical review that aims to present the material available in Arabic (including Hebrew and Latin translations and commentaries) and an introduction to and overview of two areas of study: Dialectical premises and problems, on the one hand, and the theory of topoi, on the other. The article primarily aims to present the authors and their works and introduce their contributions to the topics under discussion. This endeavor aims to increase our understanding of how the reception of Aristotle’s Topics developed in the Islamic world."
Larkin, Margaret. 1982. "Al-Jurjani's Theory of Discourse." Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics no. 2:76–86.
Contain the translation of "On composition and stylistic excellence" (pp. 78-86).
"Little is known about the life of Abui Bakr cAbd al-Qa.hir b. cAbd al-Rahmain al-Jurjāni(1), the author of the following translated selection.(2) Noted among his contemporaries as a grammarian, he was the student, in Jurjān, of cAli b. cAbd al-cAziz al-Jurjāni and of Abu- l-usayn al-Fārisi, the maternal nephew of Abui cAli al-Fārisi. He is not known to have studied anywhere outside his native Jurjān. His date of death is given as 471 a.h./1078 A.D. or 474 a.h./1081 A.D. Among his most important grammatical works are Mi'at camil (with its many commentaries) and Kitāb al-jumal. In the field of poetics, we have his two major treatises, Asrar al-balāgha and Dalā'il icjāz al-Qur'ān. The following selection, translated from the latter of these two, constitutes the first succinct statement in the course of Dalā'il icjāz al-Qur'ān of the stylistic theory cAbd al-Qāhir is presenting." (p. ā76)
Laughlin, Burgess. 1995. The Aristotle Adventure: A Guide to the Greek, Arabic, and Latin Scholars who Transmitted Aristotle's Logic to the Renaissance. Flagstaff: Hale.
"The Aristotle Adventure is a guide to individuals who had the courage and integrity to pursue their highest values despite distractions, setbacks, and threats. The object of their struggle was logic, the tool of an ancient philosophy of reason—a philosophy which offers the promise of happiness, here in this world.
This book is mainly a guide to the past, from the standpoint of one subject—Aristotle’s logic. Where scarce historical evidence permits, this book is also partly:
* A saga (a straightforward account of a sequence of people and events).
* A drama (an account of fundamental values in conflict).
* An adventure story (an account of a bold, risky enterprise whose outcome was uncertain and hazardous).
This book is not a history of Aristotelianism, philosophy, or logic. Nor is it a scholarly book. (In the main text, I have not debated the evidence for my claims.) However, abundant end-notes allow readers to pursue more information.
In doing research for another project, I searched for a book such as The Aristotle Adventure.
I couldn’t find one, so I wrote one. Specifically, this book has three purposes:
* Recreate the story from scattered bits and pieces in our record of the past.
* Offer the story as an inspiration to anyone who lives by reason today.
* Give perspective to anyone passing a philosophy of reason to the future." (Preface, p. VII)
Leaman, Oliver. 1997. "Logic and Language in Islamic Philosophy." In Companion Encyclopedia of Asian Philosophy, edited by Carr, Brian and Mahalingam, Indira, 862–874. London: Routledge.
"The development of logic in Islamic philosophy is significant not so much for its contribution to philosophy but for the part it played in the structure of Islamic law and theology. Although we tend now to regard logic as a part of philosophy, within Islamic philosophy logic came to have a rather controversial position which fostered its transplantation into other bodies of theory. The introduction of logic into the Islamic world followed the same sort of pattern as that of philosophy itself. The tenth-century translators in Baghdad had available to them a large body of Syriac works covering wide areas of Greek thought, both practical and theoretical." (p. 862)
(...)
"Yet this positive role of logic was not universally acknowledged, as is revealed by the popular slogan man taman aqa tazandaqa (‘whoever is in favour of logic is in favour of heresy’). What was the nature of Arabic logic which was both so favoured and so reviled? It consisted of Aristotle’s Organon supplemented by Porphyry’s Eisagōgē and Stoic and Neoplatonic developments. A popular organization of logic was the Eisagōgē presented as an introduction to the Organon, generally consisting of the Categories, Hermeneutics, Analytics, Apodeictics, Topics, Sophistics, Rhetoric and Poetics."
———. 2000. "Islamic Philosophy and the Attack on Logic." Topoi no. 19:17–24.
"When Greek logic first entered the Islamic world it was treated by many thinkers with suspicion as a foreign interloper.(2) Logic sees itself as the most abstract theoretical vehicle for analysis, and although it may take the form of language, it actually regards itself as the deep structure of that language. Natural language has as its framework logic, and to understand language fully we need to understand logic first. Al-Fārābī, perhaps the most influential of all the mashshāī thinkers, presented this argument time and time again.(3) Some thinkers opposed the introduction of logic into Islamic culture since they saw it as setting up an alternative system of explanation to the Islamic sciences (grammar, jurisprudence, theology etc.) and so subtly challenging the universality and self-sufficiency of Islam itself.(4) This radical critique of logic obviously had a good deal of support, and an influential group of thinkers remained hostile to any theoretical machinery which could not display genuine Islamic credentials. Yet there was also an influential group who supported logic at the expense of philosophy. That is, they argued that logic could be cleansed as it were of its philosophical associations and used entirely neutrally in order to express more perspicuously the truths which are otherwise available through religion. An important thinker within this latter tradition is al-Ghāzalī,(5) who strenuously opposed many aspects of philosophy on both religious and intellectual grounds, and yet who insisted nonetheless that the sort of logic which the philosophers pursued was valuable in itself and not to be ignored.(6)" (p. 17)
(2) Inati, S.: 1996, ‘Logic’, in S. Nasr and O. Leaman (Eds.), History of Islamic Philosophy, London: Routledge, 1996, pp. 802–823.
Leaman, O.: 1985, ‘Introduction’, An Introduction to Medieval Islamic Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–21. [Leaman, O.].: 1997, ‘Logic and Language in Islamic Philosophy’,
in B. Carr and I. Mahalingam (Eds.), Companion Encyclopedia of Asian Philosophy, pp. 950–994.
(3) Abed, S.: 1991, Aristotelian Logic and the Arabic Language in Alfarabi, Albany: State University of New York Press. Black, ‘Al-Fārābī’, in Nasr and Leaman, op. cit., pp. 178–197.
(4) Leaman, O.: 1999, ‘Philosophical and Scientific Achievements in Islamic History’, in F. Daftary (Ed.), Intellectual Traditions in Islam, London: IB Tauris, forthcoming [2000].
(5) Campanini, M., ‘Al-Ghazzālī’, in Nasr and Leaman, op. cit., pp. 258–274.
(6) Al-Ghazālī, Al-Qistās al-mustaqīm (The correct balance), trans. R. McCarthy (1980), Freedom and Fulfillment, Boston: Twayne, pp. 287–332.
———. 2006. "Logic and Islamic Philosophy." In The Biographical Encyclopedia of Islamic Philosophy, edited by Leaman, Oliver, 290–302. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
"Logic in Islamic philosophy
A number of features characterize logic in Islamic philosophy. First of all there was the development of a tradition of commentary on the major Greek logical texts, commentaries that often were very perceptive in their scope. Some of these were to be translated into Latin and become much used in Christian Europe when philosophy was taken up there, a long time later than its career in the Islamic world. Some thinkers were far more than commentators, though. Ibn Sina (Avicenna) made several bold moves away from the Greeks, developing the notion of “second intentions” or “secondary concepts” by contrast with “first intentions.” The secondary nature is a characterization of the second order activity of the logician, in that the technique is applied to an existing subject matter and so is intrinsically secondary and reflective on something already existing.
This idea led him to posit also a sharp distinction between existence and essence, a distinction that was to play a large role in later Islamic and European philosophy. He also did a lot to construct the theory behind modal logic, the area that operates with the concepts of possibility and necessity. Later thinkers developed views on the nature of the syllogism, the issue of universals, the link between predication and existence, and the constant issue of logic and its relationship with grammar." (p. 296)
López-Farjeat, Luis Xavier. 2022. Classical Islamic Philosophy: A Thematic Introduction. New York: Routledge.
Chapter 4: The Classification of the Sciences, Logic, and Language, pp. 89-129.
"2. Logic and Language
This section explains al-Fārābī’s contributions to logic and its relation with language. Al-Fārābī, and later Ibn Sīnā, were pivotal philosophers in the development of logic within the Islamic context." (p. 104)
"2.2 The Aristotelian–Fārābīan–Avicennian Logical Tradition
Ibn Sīnā picked up two notions used by al-Fārābī that are crucial for understanding the logic of Islamic philosophers: conceptualization or concept formation (taṣawwur) and assent (taṣdīq) (Black 2006: 36–38). By ‘conceptualization’ Ibn Sīnā means the way in which the human intellect forms simple concepts or terms with no reference to their meaning within a proposition or to its truth-value. Assent, sometimes translated as ‘verification’, refers to the way in which the intellect combines those concepts, forming a proposition with a truth-value (1952a: 17). These two notions are equivalent, respectively, to the notions of simple apprehension and judgment, or to what Aristotle understands by noesis (understanding) and apophantikós logos (a declaratory statement with a truth-value). According to Ibn Sīnā, concept formation consists in the recognition of universal terms (intelligibles or first intentions), according to the five predicables (second intentions), namely, genus, difference, species, property, and accident." (p. 107)
References
Avicenna [Ibn Sīnā]. 1952a. Al-Shifāʾ: al-Manṭiq, al-Madkhal [Introduction to Logic]. Edited by I. Madkūr. Cairo: The General Egyptian Book Organization.
Black Deborah, 2006. “Knowledge (‘ilm) and Certitude (yaqīn) in al-Fārābī’s Epistemology.” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 16: 11–45.
Mahdi, Muhsin. 1970. "Language and Logic in Classical Islam." In Logic in Classical Islamic Culture, edited by von Grunebaum, Gustave E., 51–83. Wiesbaden: Ottto Harassowitz.
Reprinted in Ramzi Baalbaki (ed.), The Early Islamic Grammatical Tradition, Aldershot: Ashgate 2007 and New York: Routledge 2016, pp. 51-167.
"In the normal course of learning or teaching and understanding or speaking a language, we assume two things: the separateness of names and of the things they name, and a correspondence between the name we hear or utter and the thing named by it. Both assumptions appear amply supported by common experience.
But as we reflect on them we see that our convictions are largely unexamined. Are the things named themselves as separate from or related to each other as the names designating them make them out to be ? If so, why do the same names designate things that are evidently separate from each other? Are the names themselves as separate from or related to each other as the things they name require them to be? If so, why do the same things have different names?. More generally, is the separateness of the things named a function of the separateness of names, or is the separateness of names a function of the separateness of the things they name? And on what ground does the name-maker or name-giver separate names and the things they name and establish the former as corresponding to the latter? Is it the nature of things and of names, which he learns more or less correctly; or an arbitrary convention that he establishes, an opinion that he imposes, or a law that he gives? Our initial assumptions about language and normal experience with it provide no clear answers to such questions, which seem to lead directly to an inquiry into the relation between nature and convention or law. This inquiry occupies the center of the stage in the discussion of language in classical Islamic thought as it had done earlier in classical Greek thought." (pp. 51-52 of the reprint)
Mahmmoud, Yagoubi. 2020. "Theory of Syllogisms with Categorical, Conditional and Disjunctive Connectives Developed by Arabian Logicians." Studia Humana no. 9:19–27.
Abstract: "In this paper we are trying to summarize the peak of achievement of the Arabian logicians of the fifteenth century by making a classification and sketching in familiar terms the conditional and subjunctive syllogisms in Muḥammad Ibn Yusūf al Sinūsi's (1426-1490) work, i.e. in his explanation of Kitāb al-Muḫtaşar fi al-Mantiq of al-Imām Muhammad Ibn 'Arafa (1316-1401)."
Mahmmoud, Yagoubi, and Fatahine, Moussa. 2020. "The Status of Conditional Syllogism in Syllogistics." Studia Humana no. 9:12–18.
Abstract: "The form of the conditional syllogism resembles that of the categorical syllogism, while its subject matter is at least a conditional premise, but its conclusion is always conditional conjunctive or disjunctive. This mixed structure to which we apply the rules of the categorical syllogism, is a structure of which Aristotle did not have an idea, and which the Stoics did not conceive, and which the non-Arabian logicians did not know until in modern times. But what we have to notice here is the putting of a conditional matter in the form of the categorical syllogism, and it is this kind of hybridization, if we dare to say, which generated this mixed structure which appeared for the first time in the history of logic in the treatise on the logic of Ibn Sina and which can be considered a discovery by this author until proof to the contrary, and that the ancient Arabian logicians have taken the habit of exhibiting in their treatises."
Maman, Aharon. 2013. "Ibn Janāḥ: between logic and grammar and his classification of the parts of speech." In Judaeo-Arabic culture in al-Andalus: Proceedings of the 13th Conference of the Society for Judaeo-Arabic Studies Cordoba 2007, edited by Ashur, Amir, 111–120. Cordoba: CNERU-CSIC.
Margoliouth, David Samuel. 1905. "The Discussion between Abu Bishr Matta and Abu Sa'id al-Sirafi on the Merits of Logic and grammar." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society:79–129.
"In his notice of the philosopher Abū Bishr, of Dair Kunnā, lbn al-Kiftī(1) mentions that he had a public discussion with the grammarian Abū Sa'id al Ḥusan al-Sirāfī, famous for his commentaries on Sibawaihi's grammar.(2) This discussion is reported at length by Yākūt in his invaluable Mu'jum al-udabū,(3) on the authority of Abū Ḥayyān, from whose works Yākūt derives much that is interesting, though he accusesAbū Ḥayyān of habitually romancing." (p. 79)
(...)
"Discussion between Mattā Ihn Yunus of Dair Kunnā, the phlosopher, and Abū Sa'īd al-Sīrāfī.
... the vizier Ibn al - Furāt addressed them as follows:
I desire someone to come forward and debate with Mattā (Matthew) on the subject of Logic. He declares that it is impossible to know what is correct from what is incorrect, truth from falsehood, right from wrong, proof from sophism, doubt from certainty, except by our command of logic, our control of the system estahlished and defined hy its author, and our acquaintance through him with its doctrines." (p. 111)
Marion, Mathieu. 2013. "Some Remarks on syllogistic, dialectic, and the study of their History." Al-Mukhatabat no. 8:9–36.
Abstract: "In this paper, I argue that one should approach the study of Ancient Logic, Greek, Medieval and Arabic through a better understanding of the relation between dialectic and syllogistic. No claims are made about these, however, except concerning Aristotle and the invention of syllogistic. Numerous defects of the early a-historical study of syllogistic by Łukasiewicz in terms of axiomatic systems are presented in section 2, that show its inappropriateness. It is further argued that a proper consideration
of the context of Prior Analytics shows that it involved the common practice of dialectical games, a characterization of which, in terms of game semantics, is provided in section 3. In the concluding remarks, the interest of this new approach is illustrated by explaining aspects of Prior Analytics that had been hitherto left unexplained."
