ABSTRACTTwo rival scholars from Shiraz in Persia, Dawānī and Dashtakī engaged in a bitter and extended dispute over a range of metaphysical and logical issues. One of these was the liar paradox. Their debate on this point marked the most extensive scrutiny of the paradox in Arabic until that time. Dashtakī’s solution was to deny that the statement ‘What I say is false’ is true or false, on the ground that there is one statement and one application of the falsity (...) predicate. Given that – ex hypothesi – there is no other statement, there is no basis for a reiteration of the truth or falsity predicate and describing the statement itself as true or false. Dawānī’s solution was to deny that ‘What I say is false’ is a statement at all, and he argued that it is instead akin to a performative utterance such as ‘I hereby sell you this’. (shrink)

The principle that a necessarily false proposition implies any proposition, and that a necessarily true proposition is implied by any proposition, was apparently first propounded in twelfth century Latin logic, and came to be widely, though not universally, accepted in the fourteenth century. These principles seem never to have been accepted, or even seriously entertained, by Arabic logicians. In the present study, I explore some thirteenth century Arabic discussions of conditionals with impossible antecedents. The Persian-born scholar Afdal al-Dīn al-Kh najī (...) (d.1248) suggested the novel idea that two contradictory propositions may follow from the same impossible antecedent, and closely related to this point, he suggested that if an antecedent implies a consequent, then it will do so no matter how it is strengthened. These ideas led him, and those who followed him, to reject what has come to be known as 'Aristotle's thesis' that no proposition is implied by its own negation. Even these suggestions were widely resisted. Particularly influential were the counter-arguments of Na īr al-Dīn al-T ī (d.1274). (shrink)

Recent years have seen a dramatic change in scholarly views of the later career of Arabic and Islamic philosophy. For much of the twentieth century, researchers tended to dismiss the value of Arabic writings on philosophy and logic after the twelfth century, often on the basis of the prejudice that handbooks, commentaries and glosses are of necessity pedantic and unoriginal. This assumption has now been abandoned. As a consequence, a vast amount of later Arabic writings on philosophy and logic, hitherto (...) neglected, are now being studied and edited. The present work is an attempt at giving an overview of the development of Arabic logic from 1200 to 1800, identifying major themes, figures and works in this period, while taking into account regional differences within the Islamic world. It offers a corrective to Nicholas Rescher's seminal but now outdated The Development of Arabic Logic, published in 1964. (shrink)

Relational inferences are a well-known problem for Aristotelian logic. This book charts the development of thinking about this problem by logicians writing in Arabic from the ninth to the nineteenth century. It shows that that the development of Arabic logic did not - as is often supposed - come to an end in the fourteenth century.

The study of Islamic philosophy has entered a new and exciting phase in the last few years. Both the received canon of Islamic philosophers and the narrative of the course of Islamic philosophy are in the process of being radically questioned and revised. Most twentieth-century Western scholarship on Arabic or Islamic philosophy has focused on the period from the ninth century to the twelfth. It is a measure of the transformation that is currently underway in the field that, unlike other (...) reference works, the Oxford Handbook has striven to give roughly equal weight to every century, from the ninth to the twentieth. The Handbook is also unique in that its 30 chapters are work-centered rather than person- or theme-centered, in particular taking advantage of recent new editions and translations that have renewed interest and debate around the Islamic philosophical canon. The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Philosophy gives both the advanced student and active scholar in Islamic philosophy, theology, and intellectual history, a strong sense of what a work in Islamic philosophy looks like and a deep view of the issues, concepts, and arguments that are at stake. Most importantly, it provides an up-to-date portrait of contemporary scholarship on Islamic philosophy. (shrink)

In the thirteenth century, the influential logician Afḍal al-Dīn al-Khūnajī departed from the Avicennan view that the subject matter of logic is “second intentions”. For al-Khūnajī, the subject matter of logic is “the objects of conception and assent”. His departure elicited intense and sometimes abstruse discussions in the course of subsequent centuries. Prominent supporters of Khūnajī's view on the subject matter of logic included Kātibī, Ibn Wāṣil and Taftāzānī. Defenders of Avicenna's view included Ṭūsī, Samarqandī and Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī. This (...) article presents the outline of the development of this discussion down to the end of the fourteenth century and attempts to reconstruct the major arguments of both sides.Au xiiie siècle, l'influent logicien, Afḍal al-Dīn al-Khūnajī, se démarque du point de vue avicennien d'après lequel ce sont les “intentions secondes” qui forment le sujet de la logique. Pour al-Khūnajī, le sujet de la logique, ce sont “les objets des conceptions et des assentiments”. Cet écart par rapport à la formulation avicennienne va susciter, au cours des siècles suivants, d'intenses et parfois abstruses discussions. Dans le camp de ceux qui adhèrent au point de vue d'al-Khūnajī, on trouve des auteurs tels que Kātibī, Ibn Wāṣil et Taftāzānī. En revanche, Ṭūsī, Samarqandī et Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī se rangent dans le camp des défenseurs du point de vue d'Avicenne. Cet article présente les grandes lignes qui marquent le développement de cette discussion jusqu'à la fin du xive siècle et tente de reconstruire les arguments des deux partis.Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.POST-AVICENNAN LOGICIANS ON THE SUBJECT MATTER OF LOGIC: SOME THIRTEENTH- AND FOURTEENTH-CENTURY DISCUSSIONSVolume 22, Issue 1Khaled El-Rouayheb DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0957423911000105Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. POST-AVICENNAN LOGICIANS ON THE SUBJECT MATTER OF LOGIC: SOME THIRTEENTH- AND FOURTEENTH-CENTURY DISCUSSIONSVolume 22, Issue 1Khaled El-Rouayheb DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0957423911000105Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. POST-AVICENNAN LOGICIANS ON THE SUBJECT MATTER OF LOGIC: SOME THIRTEENTH- AND FOURTEENTH-CENTURY DISCUSSIONSVolume 22, Issue 1Khaled El-Rouayheb DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0957423911000105Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

RésuméUne innovation latine médiévale relativement bien connue est la doctrine de la supposition distributive. Cette notion est venue à être utilisée dans la théorie syllogistique à la fin du Moyen Âge et au début de la période moderne, alors que les logiciens latins cherchaient à établir des règles générales pour la productivité syllogistique à travers les différentes figures. Il est beaucoup moins connu que certains logiciens de la tradition arabe médiévale ont également tenté d’établir des règles générales pour le syllogisme, (...) faisant appel à ce qu’ils appelaient la « généralité du sujet ». Dans le présent article, j’introduis cette utilisation de la « généralité du sujet » dans certains ouvrages arabes influents en logique du XIIIe au XVIe siècle, en particulier Al-ǧumal par Afḍal al-Dīn al-Ḫūnaǧī (mort en 1248) et Tahḏīb al-manṭiq par Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī (morten 1390) et certains de leurs commentateurs. Je compare également ce concept de « généralité du sujet » au concept latin de « distribution ». (shrink)

Bu makalenin [amacı], Osmanlı âlimlerinden Dâvûd Karsî’ye (ö. 1756 [?]) ait el-Îsâgûcî el-Cedîd’in t kikli neşrini ortaya koymaktır. Tahkik çalışması; eserin geniş bağlamını, müellifinin biyografisine genel bir bakışı ve içeriğinin bir incelemesiyle birlikte Ebherî’nin (ö. 663/1265) daha eski Îsâğûcî’si ile bir karşılaştırmasını içeren bir giriş ile başlamaktadır. Ebherî’nin orijinalinden yaklaşık iki kat daha uzun olan Karsî’nin eseri, 13. yüzyıldan itibaren Arabî mantık geleneğinde meydana gelen bazı önemli tartışmaların bir göstergesi konumundadır. Eser, müellifn kendi yapıtının, daha eski bir el kitabının “yeni” (...) (cedîd) bir versiyonu olduğunu vurgulaması bakımından da dikkate değerdir ki bu, 18. yüzyılın ortalarında bir Osmanlı medrese âlimi tarafından cedîd kavramına biçilen olumlu değere işaret etmektedir. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Islamic Disputation Theory: The Uses & Rules of Argument in Medieval Islam by Larry Benjamin MillerKhaled El-RouayhebLarry Benjamin Miller. Islamic Disputation Theory: The Uses & Rules of Argument in Medieval Islam. Logic, Argumentation and Reasoning 21. Cham: Springer 2020. Pp. xviii + 143. Hardback, €77.99.Very few unpublished PhD dissertations have had a formative influence on a field. One of the precious few is Larry Miller's Princeton dissertation from (...) 1984 on Islamic disputation theory. It proposed an original and compelling account of the development of the discipline, from the earliest extant Arabic works in the tenth century to the composition of classic madrasa handbooks in the late thirteenth century. It has been cited regularly in the past decades and has served as the starting point for all later studies of Arabic/Islamic dialectics in European languages. The fact that it has finally been published is a fitting tribute to a study that is even more admirable for having been written when many of the primary sources were still only available as manuscripts.Part of the explanation for why the dissertation was not published sooner may be that its author did not pursue an academic career. And as he states in a short preface, he has not kept abreast of all relevant studies and editions that have appeared since his dissertation. A thorough revision and update has therefore not been possible. Though some minor corrections and revisions have been made, the book is still by and large the influential 1984 dissertation, now made available with a short introduction by Walter Young, one of the leading younger scholars in the field, along with helpful indices of proper names and subjects.Miller's narrative begins with Arabic works on disputation (jadal) by a number of theologians from the late ninth and tenth centuries, such as Ibn al-Rāwandī (d. 911), [End Page 518] al-Ash'arī (d. 935), and the Karaite Jewish scholar al-Qirqisānī (d. ca. 960). The basic assumption was that a questioner (sā'il) would ask a claimant (mu'allil) (i) what his view is; (ii) what the ground or reason ('illa) for that view is; (iii) the appropriateness of the ground/reason for the view; and (iv) to verify the ground/reason by showing it to be commensurate with the view. The ground/reason for the theological dialecticians was standardly an entity or property, not a premise. The reasoning tended to be informal and analogical, as opposed to explicitly making syllogistic deductions from quantified premises.Parallel to this theological tradition of jadal, there was an Arabic Aristotelian tradition that took its point of departure from Aristotle's Topics, translated into Arabic more than once in the period from the late eighth to the early tenth centuries. Though also often referred to as jadal, this tradition, represented by the writings of al-Farabi (d. 950), Avicenna (d. 1037), and Averroes (d. 1198), retained distinct features. It tended to deny any epistemic value to dialectics, instead seeing it as useful only insofar as it provided logical training. For the Aristotelian/Neoplatonic philosophers, the pursuit of truth was the preserve of demonstrative syllogism (burhān). Whereas the theological dialecticians envisaged a claimant (mu'allil) and a questioner (sā'il), with the burden of proof on the former, the philosophical tradition had a questioner (sā'il) seek, in the manner of Socratic elenchus, to elicit from a respondent (mujῑb) a series of answers that would allow the construction of a syllogism whose conclusion contradicted the respondent's initial position.From the time of al-Ghazali (d. 1111), Islamic theologians tended to take over the syllogistic ideal of reasoning from the philosophers, perhaps explaining why theological writings on jadal trail off after the eleventh century. The informal, analogical jadal tradition continued, however, in the writings of Islamic jurists. From the eleventh century, scholars such as Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī (d. 1083) and al-Juwaynī (d. 1085) wrote works on jadal in which the examples are disputes about questions of Islamic law and the disputants are partisans of the various legal schools. This tradition of what Miller calls "juristic dialectics" (74, 95) later adopted some... (shrink)

A number of medieval Arabic logicians discussed inferences that combine the principles of propositional and term logic, for example: Whenever H is Z then Every J is DNo D is AWhenever H is Z then S...

The present work is a critical edition of a commentary by Ibn Wāṣil on his teacher Khūnajī’s handbook on logic _al-Jumal_. The work was an influential contribution to a particularly dynamic chapter in the history of Arabic logic.

Islam without Europe: Traditions of Reform in Eighteenth-Century Islamic Thought. By Ahmad S. Dallal. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018. Pp. ix + 421. $100 ; $34.95 ; $27.99.

Ottoman Puritanism and its Discontents: Aḥmad al-Rūmī al-Āqḥiṣārī and the Qāḍīzādelīs By SheikhMustapha, ix + 191 pp. Price HB £65.00. EAN 978–0198790761.

The First Islamic Reviver: Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī and His Revival of the Religious Sciences. By Kenneth Garden. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. xiii + 238. $65, £41.99. Al-Ghazālī’s Moderation in Belief: Al-Iqtiṣād fī al-iʿtiqād. Translated by Aladdin M. Yaqub. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2013. Pp. xxvii + 311. $50, £35.

Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century: Scholarly Currents in the Ottoman Empire and the Maghreb. By Khaled el-Rouayheb. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. xvi + 399. $99.99, £64.99.

Relational Syllogisms and the History of Arabic Logic, 900–1900. By Khaled El-Rouayheb. Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science, vol. 80. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Pp. viii + 295. $168.