Navigation – Plan du site

AccueilNuméros22Argumentation and Arabic Philosop...Defending Definitions: The Tools ...

Argumentation and Arabic Philosophy of Language

Defending Definitions: The Tools of Disputation in Logic of al-Fanārī

Défendre les définitions : les outils de la dispute dans la logique d’al-Fanārī
Aaron Spevack

Résumés

L’Isagoge (al-Īsāghūjī) d’al-Abharī (m. 1265) est un abécédaire d’introduction à la logique qui a fait l’objet de nombreux commentaires, chacun s’adressant à des étudiants dont le niveau de connaissance de cette science fondamentale pouvait varier considérablement. Le commentaire avancé d’al-Fanārī (m. 1431) sur l’Isagoge, appelé al-Fawāʾid al-Fanāriyya, a déconcerté les étudiants en logique pendant des siècles à cause de son style laconique et dense ainsi que par la supposition chez le lecteur d’une connaissance approfondie de la science de la dispute et des désaccords interprétatifs discutés dans d’autres textes et commentaires.

Le manuel d’introduction à la dispute de Sājaqlīzādah, intitulé al-Waladiyya et rédigé près de 300 ans après le commentaire d’al-Fanārī, fournit des exemples utiles des affirmations, objections et défenses possibles dont dispose celui qui fait des affirmations savantes sous forme de définitions, de classifications et d’assentiments propositionnels ou de raisonnement syllogistique.

Le présent article se voue à l’examen de plusieurs exemples où al-Fanārī emploie les termes et les méthodes de la dispute pour défendre des définitions ou des classifications retrouvées dans l’Isagoge d’al-Abharī. J’y vise à identifier les démarches de dispute spécifiques utilisées par al-Fanārī en m’inspirant de celles qui sont décrites par Sājaqlīzādah. Ce faisant, je démontre qu’il est possible de mieux comprendre cet important commentaire avancé sur un abécédaire de logique populaire en le considérant à travers l’objectif de la dispute. Je soutiens également que les méthodes suggérées par Sājaqlīzādah pour formuler des affirmations, des objections et des défenses peuvent être transposées, en tout ou en partie, d’une catégorie d’affirmations – définitions, classifications, assentiments – à une autre, ce qui met en valeur une plus grande complexité des possibilités de dispute que ne l’indique son manuel d’introduction.

Haut de page

Texte intégral

Research for this paper was carried out while I was a Visiting Scholar in Harvard’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (NELC), and later jointly appointed to Brandeis’ Near Eastern and Judaic Studies (NEJS) as a Senior Research Associate. I thank Khaled El-Rouayheb and the staff of NELC along with Eugene Sheppard, Jon Levisohn, and the staff of NEJS for their support. I am especially grateful to Khalil Abdur-Rashid for first formally introducing me to the subject and importance of the science of Munāẓara and with whom I had the opportunity to read Muḥammad Amīn Er’s al-Lubāb fī ʿIlm al-Munāẓara wa al-Ādāb. I am also especially indebted to Mehmet Fatih Arslan for patiently reading Sājaqlīzādah’s Waladiyya with me; his careful and insightful explanations of the text helped solidify my understanding of both Er’s and Sājaqlīzādah’s texts. I am further indebted to Ahmad Eid with whom I read al-Fanārī's commentary and parts of Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s commentary on the Shamsiyya of al-Kātibi. Without access to the pedagogical method of close reading of these texts that produced the likes of al-Fanārī and Sājaqlīzādah, I would not have been able to produce this paper. I am deeply appreciative and grateful for the generous funding from the Templeton Foundation that made it possible to take my notes and draft translations and turn them into a careful and meticulous study of the interrelation between these two centrally important instrumental sciences of logic and disputation. I wholeheartedly thank Walter Edward Young for inviting me submit to this special volume which provided the much-needed inspiration and motivation to transpose these thoughts from the realm of the mind to the extramental. Finally, I thank the editorial board and the anonymous peer reviewer for the very insightful and useful comments and suggestions.

Introduction

1Al-Abharī's (d.1265) Isagoge (al-Īsāghūjī) is an introductory primer in logic which has received numerous commentaries, each geared towards students of various levels of familiarity with this instrumental science. Al-Fanārī's (d. 1431) advanced commentary on the Isagoge, called Fawā’id al-Fanāriyya, has confounded students of logic for centuries due to its terse and dense style as well as the presumption that the reader knows well the science of disputation along with the subtle interpretive disagreements discussed in other texts and commentaries.

  • 1 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1988), Tartīb al-ʿulūm, Beirut, Dār al-Bashā’ir al-Islāmiyya, p. 140-141.
  • 2 Also referred to as Meḥmed Saçaklızâde.

2In his Tartīb al-ʿulūm,1 Sājaqlīzādah2 (d. 1732) writes that among the common errors of students of logic is busying themselves with the study of al-Fanārī's commentary along with its popular gloss Ḥāshiyat Qūl Aḥmad before having studied other texts more appropriate to their level.

3Sājaqlīzādah comments:

From the poor pedagogical planning of students of logic is their busying themselves with the study of the commentary of al-Fanārī with the gloss of Qūl Aḥmad after completing the commentary of al-Ḥussām al-Kātī, the novice does not understand these two [al-Fanārī and Qūl Aḥmad] before completing the commentary [of Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī] on the Shamsiyya. Also, from their poor pedagogical planning is to begin [their readings of] the commentary on the Shamsiyya with the gloss of al-Jurjāni and moreover its gloss by Qurrah Dāwud. Indeed, busying oneself with the peculiarities of a science before understanding its clear inquires prevents understanding of that science. More preferable is that one begins the study of logic with the commentary of Ḥussām al-Kātī, then the commentary on the Shamsiyya until completing [its chapters on] assents [and syllogisms] without the gloss. After that, the student may choose, if he so wishes, to suffice himself of that science with this amount, or, if he so wishes, to busy himself with some of the glosses such as Ḥāshiyya Qūl Aḥmad in the manner of research and perceiving the subtleties [of the science]. That is, however, after having knowledge of the ways of disputation.

  • 3 C.F. Seybold, (1919), p. 112.

While some reference to al-Fanārī’s text is found in orientalist works3, its reputation for being difficult to penetrate and comprehend likely proved all too true for early European scholars who may have preferred the simplicity of earlier works to the complex, abridged, and highly technical texts of the Ottoman tradition.

In addition to the preliminary texts that Sājaqlīzādah considers prerequisites to the study of al-Fanārī's commentary, properly understanding said commentary also requires knowledge of the technical terminology and methods of its fellow instrumental science, namely the science called ādāb al-baḥth wa al-munāẓara (disputation). While the stated aim of al-Fanārī's commentary is to provide "beneficial insights (fawā’id) appropriate for the brothers’ perusal of the gems of al-Abharī's epistle in logic”, al-Fanārī's commentary is also a useful study of the nomenclature and methods of disputation having permeated the genre of the commentary in the early Ottoman era.

  • 4 For a detailed discussion of Sājaqlīzādah’s contribution to the discipline of disputation and its r (...)

In this paper I will demonstrate how the seemingly obtuse expressions of al-Fanārī’s commentary become clearer when the tools, terms, and methods of disputation are identified in his writing. I will identify several examples of applying the rules of disputation in defense of definitions, classifications, and assents in order to demonstrate that one cannot properly understand al-Fanārī's commentary without sufficient knowledge of logic’s sister-science, dialectic. In doing so, I will primarily draw from Sājaqlīzādah’s popular work in disputation entitled al-Waladiyya,4 along with its commentary known as ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ʿala al-Waladiyya.

Defining Disputation

  • 5 Muammad al-Fanārī (2012), Al-Fawā’id al-Fanāriyya, Istanbul, al-Maktaba al-Hāshamiyya, p. 12-13.

4Sājaqlīzādah opens his work entitled al-Waladiyya by mentioning two technical definitions of the science of dialectic, the Sharia ruling (ḥukm) regarding its study, the aim of the science, and its subject matter or object of study. This hints at the fuller exposition of the ten points of departure for each science but he suffices with those which are deemed necessary5 to know before embarking on the study of a science.

  • 6 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah and ʻAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Ḥusayn Āmidī (1900), ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ʿala al-Waladiyya, (...)

Obtaining knowledge and skill in the science of disputation, according to Sājaqlīzādah, is doubtlessly meritorious and recommended.6 However, some disagreement arises as to whether its study is communally obligatory, meaning that someone from the community must study it in order to lift the salvific burden of responsibility from the rest. In his al-Waladiyya, he offers two definitions, one rooted in the aim of the science (al-ghāya) the other presumably produced with the subject matter (al-mawḍūʿ) of disputation in mind. The definition rooted in the aim of the science is as follows:

  • 7 For the reader unfamiliar with the Arabic terminology of disputation, it is useful to know that bot (...)
  • 8 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1900), al-Waladiyya, p. 116.

Disputation in the nomenclature of the specialists is mutual repudiation [mudāfaʿa] in order to manifest the truth, by which I mean the questioner’s [sā’il]7 repudiation of the statement of the proponent [muʿallil] and the proponent’s repudiation of the statement of the questioner.8

  • 9 I have reserved the term ‘dialectic’ for ‘jadl’ in order to distinguish it from disputation (munāẓa (...)
  • 10 See Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1988), Tartīb al-ʿulūm, p. 142-143 wherein Sājaqlīzādah expounds on the (...)

This definition speaks to an aim beyond the immediate subject matter of the science, namely manifesting truth, in contrast to debate or dialectic (jadl)9 whose aim is to silence the opponent, whether the opponent is correct or not.10

Then Sājaqlīzādah offers a second definition presumably based on its subject matter:

The science of disputation is a science by which is known the correctness of a repudiation or its incorrectness.

  • 11 Scholarly inquiries are declarative statements that predicate the predicate to the subject of a sen (...)
  • 12 I have suggested “persuasively justified” as a translation for the term muwajjah as it retains some (...)
  • 13 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1988), Tartīb al-ʿulūm, p. 141. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb says in his commentary on the(...)

From this definition, it would appear that repudiation [dafʿ] is the subject matter and its essential accidents are its being correct or incorrect. However, in his Tartīb al-ʿUlūm, Sājaqlīzādah states that the subject matter of the science is scholarly inquiries (abḥāth)11 since their essential properties under investigation are their being persuasively justified (al-muwajjah)12 or not persuasively justified (ghayr al-muwajjah).13 He also states an alternate name for the science: Ādāb al-baḥth wa ṣanāʿat al-tawjīh (The Etiquette of scholarly inquiry and the art of persuasive justification). With that, he gives as a definition based on the subject matter in this text:

  • 14 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1988), Tartīb al-ʿulūm, p. 141.

[Disputation] is: principles used to discern which scholarly inquiry [abḥāth] is persuasively justified and which is not.14

  • 15 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1988), Tartīb al-ʿulūm, p. 141.

Al-Waladiyya was written before Tartīb al-ʿUlūm and was an abridgment of a text Sājaqlīzādah wrote to fulfill the need for an introductory text (matn) from which to learn the basics.15 For whatever reason, he has chosen a definition in al-Waladiyya that is focused on the correctness of the act of repudiation whereas in his Tartīb al-ʿUlūm he chooses one which is focused on the correctness of the overall claim. While merely speculation, it may be due to the aim of al-Waladiyya which only treats methods of repudiation and defenses against such repudiation, and the Tartīb al-ʿUlūm is focused on more general descriptions of the sciences.

  • 16 This passage from the introduction to the book, before reaching al-Abharī's introductory chapter, h (...)

In any case, in al-Waladiyya, Sājaqlīzādah offers these two technical definitions of the science based on the concept of essential and accidental unifying principals (jihat al-waḥda al-dhātiyya and jihat al-waḥda al-ʿaraḍiyya), a standard practice which al-Fanārī explains as follows in the introduction to his commentary on al-Abharī’s Isagoge:16

Since:

every science is a plurality of things joined together by a) an essential unifying principle on account of which its inquiries are counted as a single science—and it [the essential unifying principle] is its being the investigatory predication [baḥth] of essential accidents to a single thing [subject matter] whether this unity is actual or subjective—and [also joined together by] b) an accidental unifying principle which follows the first unifying principle—such as its being a tool—entailing its aim [ghāya],

it follows that:

the standard practice of scholars is to begin [their texts] with the definition based on one of the two unifying principles, along with its aim and subject matter before entering into its inquiries [masā’il].

In summary, disputation, as presented in Sājaqlīzādah’s introductory al-Waladiyya, focuses on how to properly challenge or defend a definition (taʿrīf), classification (taqsīm), or proposition/assent/syllgism (taṣdīq). While the rules for constructing each of these are primarily drawn from the discipline of logic, and alternatively from the linguistic disciplines such as syntax, morphology, and rhetoric, the art of challenging or defending their adherence to the rules laid out in logic or linguistic texts are outlined in the science of disputation. Disputation instructs the scholar in how to challenge a definition’s being sufficiently inclusive of all members that fall under the term, sufficiently exclusive of all that do not, or its entailing a rational absurdity. Likewise, it demonstrates how to repel such challenges and establish the integrity of the definition. Furthermore, disputation provides the method of establishing or challenging the correctness or incorrectness of a classification schema’s entering the more particular species under the more general genus, or its distinguishing between two matters that share in a genus but not in differentia. Likewise, challenging the validity of a proposition or syllogism advanced by a disputant has rules and etiquette which are provided in the handbooks on disputation.

5Sājaqlīzādah lays out for the reader—his son, fellow classmates, and anyone else seeking introductory knowledge of this science—a series of rules for the challenger or defender of a definition, classification, or proposition. Being an introductory text, it may be better not to assume that it is meant to be an exhaustive classification of objections, although he does lay out a classification of utterances that does seem to imply this.

Know that if you say something then that will either be a definition, a classification, an assent, an incomplete composite phrase, a singular [word], or a non-predicative…and there is no disputation in the latter [three].

Absent from Sājaqlīzādah’s text, however, are the rules for properly ordering concepts (tartīb) from essential to accidental, how one might object to the validity of such an ordering, and the possible responses to said objection. While beyond the scope of the current paper, the existence of rules of disputation regarding a given attempt to provide an essential to accidental ordering of topics is discernable in discussions of inseparable specific accidents (al-khawāṣṣ al-lāzima) in logic texts, and therefor might be an example of a topic not covered explicitly in Sājaqlīzādah’s classification provided above.

Also, nowhere is it explicitly stated that the terms and methods are a synchronically representative of the discipline of disputation. Instead, there is indication of a diversity of technical appellations for the key actors and actions in a dispute. For example, Sājaqlīzādah says:

The objector to a definition has become popularly known as the mustadill while the proponent is called the māniʿ.

The verb translated here as “become popularly known” (ishtahara) indicates a development in and diversity of technical terminology and this section of Sājaqlīzādah’s text further bears this out:

  • 17 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1900), al-Waladiyya, p. 118.

Then, know that “al-manʿ”—which is objection (iʿtirāḍ)—whenever it occurs in this epistle it means “seeking the proof” (ṭalab al-dalīl). It is [also] called detailed refutation (naqḍ tafṣīlī) or contradiction (munāqaḍa). It might be used in some books with the meaning of repelling/refutation (dafʿ) without further qualification that it was by means of seeking a proof, invalidating [a claim], or demonstration.17

6One important question that remains outside the scope of the current investigation is whether Sājaqlīzādah’s terminology and rules are exactly the same as those that al-Fanārī applies or if Sājaqlīzādah’s treatise represents a significant stage in the development of the science close to 300 years later.

  • 18 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1988), Tartīb al-ʿulūm, p. 141. Also see: Khaled El-Rouayheb, (2015), Islami (...)

7Rather than manifesting only in public and oral debates, the nomenclature and method of disputation imbues much of the writings on the Islamic sciences, as well as the other instrumental sciences to whose category disputation belongs. That is to say, to properly understand most post-classical works of law (fiqh), theology (kalām), logic (manṭiq), and even the introductory grammatical sciences such as syntax and morphology, the reader must be well-versed in the science of disputation as it will provide the format for presenting diversity of opinion, set the rules for challenging a view, and populate the lexicon of these texts with technical terminology whose meanings are more particular than the linguistic meanings which may carry some but not all of the intended meaning. With that, Sājaqlīzādah states “whomever does not have a share of this science is scarcely able to understand its scholarly inquiries”. 18

Al-Fanārī’s terse and difficult to penetrate advanced commentary on al-Abharī’s Isagoge rarely if ever departs from the disputation method. It is arguably as useful to the student of disputation as it is to the student of logic, while the previous study of both sciences is a pre-requisite to reading al-Fanārī’s work.

The Logical Classification of the Chapters of Logic

8Before demonstrating al-Fanārī’s overt use of dialectic’s terms and methods to defend al-Abharī’s definitions, classifications, or propositions, a study of the underlying hierarchical classification of topics which inform and justify the order of chapters included in al-Abharī's Isagoge is beneficial, as it provides insight to the degree of intentionality and reflection that went into defining the chapters of a science, and how consideration of the defensibility of the logic behind such a classification informed the process. More specific to the aims of the current study, however, an exploration of the logic that underlies the ordering of chapters also highlights an important foundation to the argument al-Fanārī will use to defend the definitions of key terms in the study of logic.

  • 19 While I am comfortable with the term “Arabic Logic” to distinguish this tradition from the modern E (...)

Just as we find a general agreement on what constitutes the chapters of books of fiqh, with some variation, so too do we see a shared convention among logicians19 of organizing the chapters of logic into nine chapters, with a tenth introduced into some books at the beginning or end, discussed below. Among the concerns of dialectic, as mentioned previously, is the defensibility of a classification scheme against an opposer.

Sājaqlīzādah says:

  • 20 That is, there are two ways to refute that a classification sufficiently includes all members. If t (...)

Regarding opposing the exhaustivity [haṣr] of the classification, if it is a rational classification then the questioner (sā’il) refutes [naqḍ] it with the existence of another category that the intellect admits. If it is an inductive categorization scheme then he contradicts it with the existence of another category confirmed in extramental realty.20

The question may arise, then, as to whether or not the classification of logic’s chapters is defensibly inclusive of all categories, and if so, is this comprehensive inclusivity based on rational or inductive categorization? This question becomes clearer upon exploring the reasoning behind the ordering and inclusion of chapters in books of logic.

While al-Fanārī does not spell out all aspects of the systematic intentionality of his introductory comments wherein he outlines the chapters of logic and which precede any quotation from al-Abharī, one can extract from his commentary and the glosses that it inspired, an effort to progressively introduce genera and then delineate and narrow the scope through exclusion of differentia, thereby laying out the order of the chapters of logic.

  • 21 Jihat al-Waḥda, literally the direction of unity, or perhaps ‘aspect of unity’, is here translated (...)

After introducing the concept of essential and non-essential unifying principles21 which distinguish the inquiries of one science from those of another and also provide the definer with the material to either define the science from the perspective of its aims or subject matter, as mentioned in the previous section, al-Fanārī proceeds to demonstrate that the science of logic is typically presented according to a well-ordered classification scheme that provides the standard ordering of chapters in books of logic. These chapters of logic successively introduce increasingly complex building blocks that lead to the construction of formally valid syllogisms, and then the chapters on material logic are treated thereafter.

Al-Fanārī first explains the ordering of the first four chapters of formal logic, followed by the five chapters on material logic thus:

Then we say, when the aim of logic is knowledge of the validity of thought and its invalidity, and thought is either for obtaining conceptual [al-taṣawwuriyya] or assentive [al-taṣdīqiyyah] unknowns, then logic has two sections: conceptions and assents. For each of these two sections there are preliminary points of departure and aims, so its sub-divisions are four. The points of departure for conceptions are the Five Universals, and its aims are the Definition [lit. “explanatory saying”]. The points of departure for affirmations are Propositions and their Rulings, and the aims are the Syllogism (al-qīyās) [qua Formal Logic]. ...

  • 22 Conceptions and assents are mental phenomena (maʿqūlāt) which is the top-level node.
  • 23 Taṣdīq might also be translated as ‘judgment’ as it corresponds to the usage of that term in works (...)

The science of logic is divided into two main nodes22, the first being investigations into conceptions and the second being investigations into assents. The reasoning behind this is that expressions and the meanings which they signify will be either non-composite (simple) or composite. Composite expressions will either carry a complete meaning, such as ‘the sky is blue’, or an incomplete meaning, such as ‘in the house.’ Logic and disputation are concerned with complete composite meanings (and the expressions that indicate them), whereas incomplete composite meanings and non-composite meanings are merely building blocks whose ultimate aim is to produce a composite expression. It is not just any composite meaning or its signifying expression that logic and disputation are concerned with, rather declarative composite meanings (khabarī) are the concern of these two instrumental sciences, and not inceptive statements (inshā’ī). Henceforth, a declarative composite meaning is called an assent (taṣdīq)23, which, in its most basic form affirms or denies a matter for a matter (x is y, or x is not y).

  • 24 Genus, species, differentia, general accident, specific accident.

With that, books of logic first treat conceptions as they lead to one of the means of bringing one from ignorance to knowledge, namely definitions. Then it concerns itself with assents, as they lead to another form of moving from ignorance to knowledge, namely the syllogism. The logic of this is as follows. Each of the two top-level nodes (conceptions and affirmations) are subdivided into preliminaries and aims. The preliminaries of conceptions are the Five Universals24, which came to be called Isagoge (Īsāghūjī). The entire chapter on the Five Universals is organized hierarchically from a top node that progressively expands to circumscribed logical sub-categories with one category at each level being expanded to the exclusion of the others at that category-level, until the intended subject matter of the chapter is reached, namely the Five Universals. That is, al-Fanārī moves from significations as the top-node which leads to further parsing of the categories of expressed significations and then coined expressed significations, then coined expressed significations that denote by concordance, then simple coined expressed significations that denote by concordance which are divided into universals and particulars. Universals are divided into essentials and accidentals, the former being divided into genus, species, and differentia, and the latter being divided into general and specific accidents. This classification system provides the rationale for including significations among the chapters of logic, despite not being included in the subject matter of logic itself.

Having demonstrated how one reasons from significations of meaning to the specific second-order conceptions of genus, species, differentia, general accident, and specific accident, al-Fanārī discusses the aim of conceptions which is the production of logical definitions constructed with various combinations of universals.

After outlining the preliminaries and aims of conceptions, al-Fanārī, like so many logicians before and after him, explain the preliminaries and aims of assents. The preliminaries of assents are propositions themselves [al-qaḍayā] along with their judgments such as opposition and conversion. The aims of assents are syllogisms constructed with various types of propositions.

Once the formal logic chapters have been constructed from their most basic building blocks to their most complex syllogistic forms, the assessment of the material of said syllogisms is treated in five chapters on material logic called the Five Arts or the Five Figures. Recognizing that a proper classification scheme must be comprehensively inclusive of all subcategories and exclusive of those which do not apply, al-Fanārī offers the mode of delimitation (wajh al-ḍabṭ) from which the Five arts are precisely limited to demonstration, rhetoric, dialectic, poetic, and sophistic:

Furthermore, the Syllogism [qua Material Logic] has five sub-divisions; they are called the Five Arts [al-ṣanaʿāt al-khamsa]. The reason for limiting [to five] is that if the syllogism is composed from certainty-producing premises [al-yaqīniyāt] it is called demonstration [burhān], and if from probabilistic premises [then it is called] rhetoric [khaṭāba]. If it is composed from conceded premises [musallamāt] it is called dialectic [jadl], and if from imagined premises it is called poetics [shiʿr]. If it is composed from premises that resemble certain or probabilistic premises it is called fallacy [mughālaṭa] and fallacy is divided into sophistry [safsaṭah] or dissention [mushāghabah].

By mentioning the wajh al-ḍabṭ, it would seem that al-Fanārī is anticipating an objection to the comprehensiveness of the classification (iʿtirāḍ ʿala ḥaṣr al-taqsīm). He mentions that the reason for limiting to five is based on the material composition of each type of syllogism, however, he does not fully explain how the differing material of the premises entails that this is a comprehensive classification, nor whether this comprehensiveness is known rationally or via inductive reasoning based on surveying existent forms of material syllogisms.

Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Fawzī, author of Khulāṣat al-Mīzān, comments on al-Fanārī’s use of the phrase wajh al-ḍabṭ:

  • 25 Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Fawzī (1867), Khulāṣat al-Mīzān, Istanbul(?), Mabaʿa al-ājj Muḥarram Afandī,(...)

I heard that ‘al-wajh’ in this context means ‘the cause’, that is, ‘the cause of precisely fixing [ḍabṭ] the categories of the syllogism to five’, that is ‘the cause of exhaustive restriction [ʿillat al-inḥiṣār] of the categories of the Arts to five…’25

  • 26 The author of Taqrīr Mir’āt notes that the difference between wajh al-ḥaṣr and wajh al-ḍabṭ is that (...)

The gloss known as Qūl Aḥmad and its subsequent glosses do not treat the phrase wahj al-ḍabṭ, however, it is worth considering whether al-Fanārī’s phrase should be contrasted with the phrase wajh al-ḥaṣr, which may hold a slightly different meaning or may be used synonymously depending on the author.26

Al-Mallawī in his commentary on the Sullam of al-Akhḍarī offers a justification for delimiting the arts to five which starts one step prior, namely that the angle of comprehensive inclusion [wajh al-husr] is that rational judgements (al-aḥkām al-ʿaqliyya) are either assents (al-taṣdīq) or they are not as such. If not, then they are characterized by having a non-rational effect on the imaginative faculty of the listener. The first category of rational judgments (propositions) consist of demonstrative (burhān), rhetorical (khiṭāba), dialectical (jadl), and sophistic (safsaṭa) material. The second category is ‘that which produces an effect in another’ which comprises only one category of material syllogism, namely poetics (shiʿr).

  • 27 See previous footnote.

Sājaqlīzādah defines comprehensive exclusivity (ḥasr) as ‘comprehensively exhaustive in categorization’ (jamʿ fī taqsīm). Ḍabṭ appears to carry a similar meaning, though it is not explicitly defined in al-Waladiyya and may have a more particular meaning.27 The question remains: is this a classification that would not rationally admit a sixth art, or is it a classification that was reached via complete or partial induction by surveying the types of assents in use among the people from the view of the material of those propositions?

  • 28 Aḥmad al-Mallawī (1936), Sharḥ al-ʿAllāmah al-Shaykh al-Mallawī ʿala al-Sullam lil-Akharī fī ʿilm (...)

Al-Mallawī does offer some more evidence of meticulous attention to comprehensive inclusion in the categorization of the Five Arts which is that assents can be divided into those that produce firm belief (jazm) and those that do not. He then proceeds to demonstrate how four of the Five Arts are derived from subdivisions of firm (demonstration, fallacy, and dialectic) or not firm belief (rhetoric),28 but it remains to be seen if this is a rational categorization for which no other arts could be added, inductive based on existing forms of reasoning, or some combination of the two (i.e. initially beginning with inductive and then moving to rational to further subdivide). Nonetheless, the four chapters of formal logic and the five chapters of material logic appear to be considered sufficiently inclusive, the only additional chapter added being a discussion of expressions due to their signification of concepts and affirmations, but this, the tenth chapter, is not always included in logic texts. In fact, it is considered excluded from the subject matter of logic itself, though a useful preliminary and supportive topic.

Whether or not al-Fanārī, al-Mallawī, or others established an airtight classification of the Five Arts, and whether or not this is based on a rational classification or inductive, nonetheless, al-Abharī lays out a clear path for the remaining discussions in terms of the ordering of subjects.

With that, al-Fanārī states:

...since the author wanted to ease the student into the subject, he organized as I mentioned.

Furthermore, this meticulously produced and rigorously defended classification will later provide an important example of defending a classification schema, as al-Abharī’s is in fact an intentionally metaphorical classification and not an actual or literal classification of the science of logic as found in works such as the Shamsiyya of al-Kātibī. This is discussed below in the discussion of the integrity of the definition of universals being tied to the integrity and nature of the classification schema used to order the chapters.

In summary, the intentionally logical classification of subjects treated in the chapters on logic provides an important foundation for many of the discussions regarding the defensibility of definitions of various terms in the introductory chapter on the Five Universals. That is, the validity of a classification can also be tied to the validity of a definition as will be seen below.

Preventative Measures: Choosing terms carefully to avoid the accusation of non-inclusivity and non-exclusivity

Departing now from al-Fanārī’s explanation of the classification schema that determined the ordering of topics in the chapter on the Five Universals, we turn his use of disputation to defend the soundness of al-Abharī’s definition of the term ‘universalwherein al-Fanārī demonstrates that al-Abharī’s careful choice of words ensures that the definition put forth is sufficiently inclusive of all that should fall under the term ‘universal’ and is sufficiently exclusive of all that should not fall under this term.

Sājaqlīzādah begins the first chapter of his Waladiyya with a description of the questioner’s (al-sā’il) right to refute the proponent (al-muʿarrif) of the definition, saying:

  • 29 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1900), al-Waladiyya, p. 117. Non-inclusivity (ʿadam jamʿihi), non-exclusivit (...)

The first chapter regards definition; the questioner may refute it [the definition], meaning that it is invalidated due its non-inclusivity, or its non-exclusivity, or its entailing the impossible.29

  • 30 Given Sājaqlīzādah’s clear familiarity with this particular text of al-Fanārī’s (as mentioned previ (...)
  • 31 The questioner is claiming that an imprecise definition of ‘universals’ would allow for ‘particular (...)

The questioner’s options in refuting a definition are to demonstrate that it does not include all relevant members to which the term refers, or that it does not sufficiently exclude all to which it should not refer, or that the definition entails the impossible, such as cyclical reasoning (dawr) or an infinite regress (tasalsal). To avoid any of the above three objections,30 al-Fanārī demonstrates how al-Abharī intentionally chose the words of his definition with great precision in order to avoid the critique that universals and particulars are in fact synonymous and not separate counterparts (qasīman lahu) under the same node.31 That is, al-Abharī ensures that his definition of universals does not exclude certain universals which may have been excluded by other less precise definitions, and by allowing for their inclusion, he does not open the definition to claims of being insufficiently exclusive of that which should not be included.

Al-Fanārī explains:

In his saying “mere conception of its meaning” he is guarding against [the scenario wherein] if the above-mentioned examples of universals [Necessarily Existent, the non-existent thing, other deity, and sun] were excluded from the definition of the universal then it would not be fully inclusive [jāmiʿan], and if these examples of universals were included in the definition of the particular then it would not be fully exclusive [māniʿan]; were it sufficient to use just the term “mere” or “conception” then this useful benefit [fā’ida] would not have been obtained, as is not hidden from any non-partisan and just reader.

This passage needs unpacking and contextualization in order to fully understand the argument that al-Fanārī is making, namely that each of al-Abharī’s words in the definition of universal is indispensable to preserving the integrity of both the definition of universals and particulars as well as the categorization of universals.

Al-Fanārī explains that the simple coined signifying expression (al-lafẓ al-mufrad al-dāl bi al-waḍʿ) is either universal or particular. The universal is a simple coined signifying expression whose essential meaning when merely conceived in the mind does not prevent a multitude of particulars from sharing in that meaning. When the quiddative meaning of the term “human” is merely conceived in the mind, that meaning is not prevented from applying to more than one individual. The essential meaning or quiddity of “human”—rational animal—applies to all particular instances of humans, whether past, present, future, or merely imagined.

With that, al-Abharī has shored up his definition and made it immune to objections of non-inclusivity or non-exclusivity. The key to the discussion and elucidation outlined below is that the prevention of the application of a meaning to a plurality of things must be stipulated with certain conditions so as to ensure that not just any prevention of application enters into the definition of ‘universal’. The culprit which invites such objections is a less precise definition which the questioner may have in mind:

A universal is “that whose essential meaning is not prevented from sharing in application to a multitude of things”.

This definition will exclude a number of universals as it allows for the prevention of a term’s meaning to more than one thing through a number of channels. That is, a term’s meaning may be prevented from applying to a multitude of things either by way of:

  • mere conception of that meaning in the mind

  • a rational proof for its oneness and non-multiplicity

  • looking to its state in the extra-mental world

Only the first type of prevention causes an expression to be considered a particular and not a universal, whereas the second two do not. This point is at the heart of al-Fanārī’s argument as explained in detail in what follows.

Prevention of application to a multitude by mere conception of the meaning: The Particular

9If mere conception of the meaning of a term prevents it from applying to a multitude of things then it is a particular (juz’iyy) and not a universal. For example, the mere conception of the meaning of the proper noun “New York City” prevents it from applying to any other particular instance of the universal “cities”.

As for the other two aforementioned instances of preventing a term’s meaning from applying to a multitude, they are still universals as the prevention of application to a multitude is not mere conception of the meaning, but rather some additional variable such as a rational proof for its oneness or looking to the state of things in the extra-mental world. It is only the mere conception of the essential meaning of a term that prevents it from being a universal and places it in the category of particular, all other forms of preventing the application of a meaning to a multitude of referents do not entail the term’s particularity rather than universality. The key stipulative terms ‘mere’ and ‘conception’ that al-Abharī adds to the definition will exclude the other two forms of prevention from consideration and thereby preserve the integrity of the definition of universal and particular and ensure proper scope of inclusion and exclusion.

Prevention due to rational proof for oneness

10Al-Fanārī gives the Necessarily Existent as an example of prevention due to a rational proof of oneness, the term being a universal term—and not a proper name—which can only be applied to the Necessarily Existent Creator upon whom all contingent things rely. While mere conception of the term does not prevent it from applying to a multitude of hypothesized examples, when this conception is accompanied by the rational proof for the oneness of the Necessarily Existent, then that proof prevents the application of the essential meaning to a multitude, for there can be only one Necessarily Existent. Since the term is prevented from applying to a multitude, the questioner declares that ‘the Necessarily Existent’ is in fact a particular and not a universal, since according to the questioner’s view, a universal is ‘that whose essential meaning is not prevented from sharing in application to a multitude of things’.

Prevention due to looking to its state in the extramental world

11As for the instance of prevention of a term’s meaning applying to a multitude of things which occurs through looking to its state in the extra-mental world, al-Fanārī informs us of two types:

A) The universal with no existent particulars, and Universal with only one existent particular. The first case is something that has no external existence and such as ‘God’s partner (sharīk al-bārī’)’ or ‘the nonexistent thing (al-lāshay’)’. Their existence is in fact rationally impossible as well, but in this case, the factor under consideration is their state in the extra-mental world, namely nonexistence. The mere conception of these terms—before considering the rational proofs for their non-existence or that there are none in the extramental world—does not prevent them from being applied to a multitude of hypothesized and imagined particulars, and they are therefor universals. So, their meanings are prevented from being applied to a multitude of actual things existent in the extra-mental world due to absence of any particulars in existence, but their quiddative meanings are applicable to imagined hypothetical particulars.

Al-Fanārī does not mention the case of the rationally possible yet actually non-existent fictional entities such as the phoenix or unicorn, but the argument would apply as well. While mere conception of the meaning of phoenix does not prevent the application of that meaning to a multitude of possible and imagined particulars, that their state in the extramental world is that of non-existence entails that the application of this meaning to actual extramental particulars is prevented due to their being no phoenixes in the world. Regardless of rational possibility or impossibility, the deciding criteria here is considering the state of things in the extramental world: do the particulars of a given universal exist extra-mentally or not? If not, then the universal term is prevented from applying to a multitude as no particulars exist, and as such the questioner again declares that “God’s partner”, the “nonexistent thing”, and phoenix are in fact particulars and not universals.

  • 32 Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Fawzī (1867), Khulāṣat al-Mīzān, p. 42. For a similar discussion of this examp (...)

B) The other instance of preventing a term’s meaning from applying to a multitude of things by looking to its state in the extra-mental world, is something that has only one actual existent particular. The sun—from the perspective of a person on earth who has not witnessed other stars with orbiting planets—is defined as “the daytime celestial body” [al-kawkab al-nahārī].32 The term “sun” is prevented from applying to a multitude of actual existent things, but additional particulars who share in its essential meaning are rationally possible though non-existent, and, as such, the questioner again declares that ‘sun’ is actually a particular and not a universal.

Whether there are no particulars in the extramental world, or only one, that state of non-multiplicity prevents the terms ‘God’s partner’, ‘the nonexistent thing’, ‘the phoenix’, and ‘the sun’ from applying to a multitude, and therefor the questioner declares that they are in fact particulars and not universals, since, as mentioned previously, the questioner appears to be working from the definition of a universal as being ‘that whose essential meaning is not prevented from sharing in application to a multitude of things’.

  • 33 Muammad al-Fanārī (2012), Al-Fawā’id al-Fanāriyya, p. 26. Also see: Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Fawzī (18 (...)

Al-Fanārī will demonstrate that the carefully chosen terms are introduced in a logical order, beginning with a root definition of universal that then requires two stipulative terms in order to ensure that the definition is sufficiently inclusive and exclusive respectively and also that it does not lead to making two separate counterpart categories synonymous.33

The root of the definition of universal

12The root of the definition of the universal is “that whose essential meaning is not prevented from sharing in application to a multitude of things”. However, this does not distinguish between that essential meaning as manifest in the extramental world—such as the animality and rationality of human beings—and the conception of these quiddative terms in the mind (e.g. rational animal). If the essential meaning is not prevented from sharing in application to a multitude of things when conceived in the mind but it is prevented in the extra-mental world by the fact that it does not exist or that only one exists, then this root definition does not sufficiently include universals whose application to a multitude is prevented by its state in the extra-mental world but not in the mind.

If we can look to the extramental world to see if this essential meaning is prevented or not, then in certain instances we will see that there are no particulars in the extramental world, as in the case of “the non-existent thing”, “God’s partners”, unicorns, or phoenixes. This state of there being no particulars prevents the term from being applied to a multitude extra-mentally, and therefor excludes rationally impossible things such as “the non-existent thing” and “God’s partners” as well as rationally possible yet non-existent things such as fictional entities from being universals and instead entails they are particulars. Likewise, the sun only has one instance in the extramental world so the term is prevented from applying to a plurality due to its state in the extramental world, that of being only one and not many.

Therefor, stipulative terms are required in order to keep these four examples—sun, God’s partners, the non-existent thing, and Necessarily Existent—entered under “universal” and not “particular”.

Adding “conception”

13To begin to answer to this critique, we can add the stipulative term “conception” to the definition in order to exclude the possibility that the state of affairs in the extramental world entails prevention of application to a multitude. The revised definition reads: “the universal is that whose conception of its essential meaning is not prevented from sharing in application to a multitude of things.” By using the term “conception” we ensure broader inclusion under the definition of universal. Those examples of universals—whose state of existence in the extramental world is either one or none exist—will remain universals in this second definition, because we have limited the scope of preventatives by only considering conceptual preventatives and not extramental preventatives. The term “conception” excludes anything having to do with the state of affairs in the extramental world, because conceptions are mental phenomena not extramental phenomena.

  • 34 Muammad al-Fanārī (2012), Al-Fawā’id al-Fanāriyya, p. 75-77.

However, the term “conception” does not exclude other conceptual phenomena which may prevent application of a term to a plurality of things, such as the rational proof (burhān). Rational proofs are conceptual and not extramental entities; specifically, they are syllogisms consisting of premises whose material are drawn from the six sources of rationally certain judgements.34 Rational proofs are conceptual and still wield preventative power, as in the case of the rational proof for oneness (burān al-waḥdāniyya). Conception of the essential meaning of “Necessarily Existent” does not in and of itself prevent it from being applied to a multitude, but when the syllogism consisting of rational premises known as the rational proof for oneness is conceived in the mind, then the term is prevented from applying to a multitude. Extramental preventatives are excluded in this second definition, yet any conceptual preventative may prevent a term from applying to a multitude, and therefore the definition still does not sufficiently include all members under the term ‘universals’.

Adding “mere”

14Having solved the problem of extra-mental preventatives by adding the term “conceptions”, al-Abharī further limits the scope of mental or conceptual preventatives by adding the term “mere”. The revised definition which is now fully immune to accusations of being insufficiently inclusive or exclusive now reads: the universal is that whose mere conception of its essential meaning is not prevented from sharing in application to a multitude of things. By using the term “mere” al-Abharī ensures the inclusion “necessarily existent” in its rightful category of universals. He does so by limiting the scope of conception to just that of essential meaning (quiddity) and not other conceptual acts, such as the rational proof of oneness. The mere conception of the essential meaning is to conceive “rational animal” and not to consider if there are rational animals in the extramental world or whether they are rationally possible to exist at all, as one or a plurality; it is merely “rational animal.” Likewise, “sun” is conceived merely as “daytime celestial body” with no consideration of whether such a body is rationally possible, or whether it exists in the extramental world singularly or plurally. The same logic applies to the other examples. Mere conception of the meaning limits the scope of this mental process, such that only two possible outcomes exist: either the mere conception of the meaning prevents that meaning from applying to a multitude or it does not.

By outlining the prevention of a term’s application to a multitude of things via rational proof and prevention via consideration of existence in the extra-mental world al-Fanārī intended to demonstrate that the definition given by al-Abharī is sufficiently inclusive of all possible members, including the universals that do not have a multitude of existent particulars (such as the Necessary Existent, God’s partners, the nonexistent thing, and the sun). Furthermore, al-Fanārī defends al-Abharī’s definition’s ability to ensure the exclusion of these aforementioned examples from the definition of particulars and their inclusion under the definition of universals.

  • 35 Sājaqlīzādah gives possible responses to these two possible charges by identifying which disciplina (...)

Al-Fanārī has succeeded in repelling the refutation of the definition of universals by emphasizing that use of the term ‘mere’ and ‘conception’ avoids the charge of being non-inclusive of those universals which are prevented in application to a multitude by rational proof or existential state in the extramental world. He has also repelled the charge of being non-exclusive of those same terms which would have been entered under the scope of particulars. These two charges are two of the three means which Sājaqlīzādah outlines as refutations of a definition. Al-Fanārī indicates that al-Abharī avoids these charges by including ‘conception’ to exclude extramental preventions, and ‘mere’ to exclude preventions via rational proofs.35 The root of the objection is likely to be found in other definitions of universal, such as the root definition mentioned above which do not sufficiently exclude these forms of prevention. Perhaps the objection to the root definition became sufficiently widespread to have been assumed applicable to any definition of universal which mentions the prevention of application to a multitude. Al-Fanārī demonstrates that al-Abharī has sufficiently repelled such assumptions and the questioner’s refutation does not apply.

Defending the definition of ‘universal’ by clarifying the classification: The definition does not entail the absurd because the classification is metaphorical

15In the previous example, al-Fanārī addresses the charge that the definition of ‘universal’ was not sufficiently inclusive and that the definition of ‘particular’ was not sufficiently exclusive. This covers two of the three types of refutations of definitions (naqḍ al-taʿrīf) mentioned by Sājaqlīzādah. The third form of refuting a definition is to claim that the definition entails the impossible (istilzām al-muḥāl). Sājaqlīzādah mentions circular reasoning (al-dawr) and the infinite regress (al-tasalsul) as examples of impossibilities. In the example discussed below, while the claim is not circular reasoning per se, the charge is nonetheless circularity in expression which creates an absurd redundancy in the definition, thereby rendering it nonsensical. Al-Fanārī responds by clarifying the object of classification and the subsequent classification schema are metaphorical, and therefor, as in the previous discussion, the objection is invalid as it would only apply to a differently worded definition and furthermore, one that is rooted in a literal object of classification. This is a compound defense, one which relies on both the defense of the validity of the definition as well as that of the classification schema that the entire book is based on.

Before completing his discussion of the definition of the universal, al-Fanārī clarifies the value and validity of the term ‘essential meaning’ [mafhūm] and why al-Abharī uses it in his definition. Al-Fanārī says:

As for mentioning “the essential meaning”, then this is based on the fact that the object of classification (mawrid al-qisma) is the expression (al-lafẓ), so it does not entail that there is a meaning for a meaning.

The last phrase is a bit ambiguous; who said there was such a strange entailment of a meaning for a meaning? One of the clearest and most accessible commentaries on al-Fanārī, Khulāṣat al-Mizān by Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Fawzi lays out a possible objection to al-Abharī's use of the term “essential meaning” such that the problem to which al-Fanārī is responding becomes clearer:

This indicates an objection and response.

  • 36 Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Fawzī (1867), Khulāṣat al-Mīzān, p. 43.

As for the objection, it is as follows: The author’s (al-Abharī) mentioning “its essential meaning” in the definition of universal and particular is invalid because the pronoun in “its essential meaning” [mafhūmuhu] returns to that which is tantamount to a meaning, so that entails that there is an essential meaning for an essential meaning. ...36

That is, the definition of universals has an absurd redundancy that renders it meaningless and invalid. The upshot of the objection is rooted in the fact that universals are actually secondary intelligibles (according to the earlier logicians) or conceptions (according to the later logicians) and therefor meanings (maʿānī) and not expressions (alfāẓ). The questioner is reading al-Abharī as saying:

And, the non-composite intelligible (or conception) is either universal, and it is that whose mere conception of its essential meaning is not prevented from sharing in application to a multitude of things.

Where does the questioner come up with this interpretation of al-Abharī’s definitions of universal and particular which do not use the term ‘intelligible’ nor ‘conception’? Al-Fanārī gives two definitions of logic earlier in the text. One based on the view of the earlier logicians (al-mutaqaddimūn) and one based on the view of the later logicians (al-muta’akhkhirūn). The first effort to define logic identifies the subject matter (mawḍūʿ) of logic to be conceptions and affirmations, the latter being a composite of the former and therefor both are purely mental phenomena, that is meanings or composites of meanings. This the view of the later logicians. As for the earlier logicians, they identified the subject matter of logic to be secondary intelligibles—namely the genus, species, differentia, general accident, and specific accident—which are extracted from primary intelligibles, concepts such as ‘animal’, ‘human’, ‘rational’, ‘risible’, and ‘breathing’ respectively. Secondary intelligibles are second order concepts, that is, concepts derived from concepts.

Al-Fanārī states earlier in the text:

Logic is a science in which one investigates the essential properties [al-aʿrāḍ al-dhātiyya] of conceptions and affirmations with respect to helping them [conceptions and affirmations] in arriving at the unknown [i.e. unknown conceptions and affirmations].

Or, [logic is a science in which one investigates] the essential properties (al-aʿrāḍ al-dhātiyya) of secondary intelligibles (al-maʿqūlāt al-thāniyya)—which are not ascribed to any matter in the extramental world—with respect to their applying to primary intelligibles to which a matter in the extramental world is ascribed.

That is, logic is a science which investigates the essential properties of either conceptions and affirmations, or of second order concepts—such as genus—which are extracted from first order concepts—such as human—which are extracted from actual things in the extramental world, such as individual humans. Intelligbles (maʿqūlāt) are meanings and so too quiddities or essential meanings are also meanings. To say that a meaning has a meaning is redundantly absurd. It is as though al-Abharī had defined universals as ‘a meaning, wherein the mere conception of the meaning of that meaning does not prevent it from applying to a multitude of things.’

However, the text of al-Abharī does not mention secondary intelligibles nor conceptions and affirmations anywhere in the definition of universals which reads:

And, the mufrad is either a universal, and it is that whose mere conception...”

Al-Mufrad means simple, non-composite, such as ‘human’, as opposed to al-murakkab or al-mu’allaf meaning composite, such as ‘thrower of stones’. But what sort of non-composite thing is al-mufrad? Al-Fanārī reminds us that we are not classifying meanings (maʿanī) or intelligbles (maʿqūlāt) but rather expressions (alfāẓ). He does so by interjecting the term ‘al-lafẓ’ (vocable or expression) between the conjunctive particle ‘and’ and the term ‘non-composite rendering the text as:

And the non-composite expression [al-lafẓ al-mufrad] is either universal, and it [the non-composite universal expression] is that whose mere conception of its essential meaning is not prevented from sharing in application to a multitude of things.

Al-Fawzi makes explicit the distinction between a classification of conceptions (or secondary intelligibles) and a classification of expressions in Khulāṣat al-Mizān, providing the response to the objection:

  • 37 Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Fawzī (1867), Khulāṣat al-Mīzān, p. 43.

As for the response, it is as follows: we do not submit to the claim that the pronoun returns to that which is tantamount to a meaning; rather it returns to that which is tantamount to an utterance [lafẓ] because the author considered the classification to be metaphorical. So, he made the utterance the object of classification, as he said first [at the beginning of the section] ‘the utterance is either simple or composite’ so that entails that the pronoun returns to ‘utterance’. So, there is no essential meaning for the essential meaning, rather there is an essential meaning for the expression...37

While commentators will concede that, in reality, it is either conceptions and affirmations or intelligibles (maʿqūlāt) that are being classified and studied in logic, al-Fanārī reminds the questioner that al-Abharī explicitly indicated that he is classifying expressions (alfāẓ), making the classification schema a metaphorical classification, rather than literal classification.

After the traditional benedictions and introduction to the text, al-Abharī states:

The coined signifying expression [al-lafẓ al-dāl bi al-waḍʿ] signifies the complete meaning of what was coined for it by concordance [muṭābaqa]…

Just before commencing with the discussion of universals and their definitions, al-Fanārī also explicitly states:

Know that the simple and the composite, their forthcoming classifications are firstly and essentially those of essential meanings (mafhūm) and secondarily and accidentally [classifications] of the expression, thereby naming the signifier with the name of the signified, except that the author allowed for metaphorical classification as it is closer to the comprehension of the beginner.

  • 38 Mamūd Nashābah (2016), Ḥāshiyah Nathr al-Darārī ʿala al-Fanārī, Cairo, Dār al-Baṣāʾir, p. 70

The justification for replacing the actual subject matter of the science with a metaphorical subject matter (e.g. expressions) is that the text is for beginners in the study of logic and such fledgling logicians have likely only studied expressions in their previous studies of morphology and syntax, and have not yet embarked on the study of rational second order objects. This seems a reasonable justification, as the introductory study of logic follows soon after the study of syntax and morphology in the Ottoman madrasa curriculum, before reaching topics which require contemplation and awareness of universals, such as legal methodology (uṣūl al-fiqh) or theology (kalām).38

The matter becomes clearer in al-Jurjānī’s gloss on Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s commentary of the Shamsiyya of al-Kātibi. Al-Kātibī’s text is explicitly based on a classification of essential meanings (mafhūm). As for the expressions that signify the essential meanings, they are incidentally (bi al-ʿaraḍ) called universals and particulars. Al-Kātibī says:

  • 39 Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī (2006), Taḥrīr al-qawāʻid al-manṭiqīyah, Qom, Intisharāt Baydār, p. 124.

Every essential meaning (mafhūm) is either particular if mere conception of it prevents the occurrence of shared application of it, or it is universal if it not prevented as such; while the expressions that signify them (universals and particulars) are incidentally (also) called universal and particular.39

  • 40 Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī (2006), Taḥrīr al-qawāʻid al-manṭiqīyah, p. 124-126.

Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī adds some useful explanations, including the definition of meanings (maʿanī) as ‘the mental conceptions [al-ṣuwwar al-dhihniʿya] with regard to expressions being coined for them’ and essential meanings (mafhūmāt) being ‘that which is obtained in the mind’ and explicitly stating that ‘essential meanings are meanings (al-mafḥūm huwa al-maʿnā)’.40 With that, he states:

  • 41 Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī (2006), Taḥrīr al-qawāʻid al-manṭiqīyah, p. 126.

In some manuscripts, one finds ‘mere conception of its [al-mafhūm] meaning [maʿnāhu]’ and this is inattentiveness [sahw], for if that were not the case then a meaning would have a meaning [lakāna li al-maʿnā maʿnā] because essential meanings are meanings [al-mafḥūm huwa al-maʿnā].41

Al-Jurjānī closes the discussion with:

  • 42 Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī, (2006), Taḥrīr al-qawāʻid al-manṭiqīyah, p. 126, note 1.

The origin of this inattentiveness is that some might attribute ‘universal’ and ‘particular’ to ‘the expression’, even if incidentally, saying ‘The expression, either it is the case that mere conception of its meaning [maʿnāhu] prevents the occurrence of shared application with regard to it—and it is the particular—or it does not prevent that, and that is the universal’.42

In al-Jurjāni’s statement we see explicitly that the pronoun ‘its’ refers directly and clearly back to ‘the expression’ validating al-Fanārī’s argument and providing clearer context for the objections and responses that appear to have occurred over the generations. Al-Fanārī and his commentators label such a statement and the classification it expresses as metaphorical (majāzī), the reason for this metaphorical usage being ease of transition from the introductory linguistic sciences of morphology and syntax to the study of logic. This explanation helps us better understand al-Kātibī’s and al-Jurjānī’s describing the use of the term ‘expression’ as being incidental or non-essential (bi al-ʿaraḍ); the expression is not the object of study in logic, rather that object is meanings conceived in the mind.

  • 43 Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī (2006), Taḥrīr al-qawāʻid al-manṭiqīyah, p. 129.

Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī concludes the discussion explaining that calling ‘the expression’ a universal or particular is an instance of calling the signifier by the thing signified (tasmiyyat al-dāl bi al-madlūl).43

  • 44 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1900), al-Waladiyya, p. 121.
  • 45 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1900), al-Waladiyya, p. 122.

Although al-Abharī had shored up his definitions, stated explicitly that he was classifying expressions and not meanings at the very beginning of the text, and frequently reminded his reader of the object of classification and study with statements such as “Then, the expression is either simple or composite...”, nonetheless, al-Fanārī deemed it necessary to ensure that this perennial objection that seeks to refute the definition by claiming that it entails an absurdity (e.g. redundancy) would not arise. He does this by rejecting the entailment of redundancy by clarifying the object of the pronoun, namely the metaphorical subject matter of the science of logic which is the expression. Furthermore, he clarifies that the classification is not an actual (ḥaqīqī) classification of the actual subject matter, but rather it is a metaphorical (majāzī) classification of the metaphorical subject of the science, expressions being the signifier of the object of signification (i.e. meanings). Clarifying that a classification is not actually corresponding to extramental reality (ḥaqīqī) is among the responses to a refutation of the validity of a classification schema given by Sājaqlīzādah, however, in this case, there is no explicit refutation of the classification, rather, al-Fanārī uses it to defend and clarify a definition.44 That is, he responds by effectively saying ‘the classification is metaphorical, not actual’. In the above examples, we see the strength and frequency of utilizing the disputational move of clarifying the intended meaning (taḥrīr al-murād) accompanied by supporting evidence (sanad) that entails the opposite of objection.45

Defending the definition of ‘particular’

16Having explained and defended al-Abharī’s definition of universals, al-Fanārī moves on to elucidate and uphold al-Abharī’s definition of particulars. After explaining al-Abharī’s terse definition of ‘particulars’ which is based on the definition of ‘universals’, al-Fanārī will characteristically introduce potential objections. In this case, an questioner’s refutation of the definition (naqḍ al-taʿrīf ) is stated in syllogistic form claiming that al-Abharī’s definition entails an impossibility (iltizām al-muḥāl), namely a union of opposites (jamʿ al-naqīḍayn). Al-Fanārī will respond from two angles, the first via elucidating the meaning of the terms such that no union of opposites occurs, and second via offering an alternate meaning to one of the terms such that the questioner’s definition of particulars, if intended as such, would itself be charged with entailing a union of opposites.

  • 46 That is, the definition of universals is ‘that whose mere conception of its essential meaning does (...)

17Al-Abharī offers a brief definition of ‘particulars’ which only requires the removal of the negative particle as found in the definition of universal.46 Al-Abharī’s definition of particulars is:

...that (non-composite expression) wherein mere conception of its meaning prevents that.

Clarifying what al-Abharī means by “...prevents that”, al-Fanārī explains:

  • 47 For clarity I have omitted parentheses used to indicate when al-Fanārī's interlinear commentary cea (...)

i.e., prevents the occurrence of sharing in application to multiple things, such as Zayd.47

Al-Abharī’s example of a particular, Zayd, requires detailed explanation which al-Fanārī provides. Given the complexity of the original Arabic, the interlinear comments interspersed between the original text, and the technical nomenclature left unexplained by al-Fanārī, a summary is provided here of al-Fanārī’s comments on ‘Zayd’ as the example of a particular.

  • 48 Essence can either be contrasted with attribute (dhāt muqābilan bi waṣf) or with individual charact (...)
  • 49 Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī gives ‘this person’ as the example of a particular, further explaining "indeed, (...)

18Al-Fanārī explains to the reader that the meaning of ‘Zayd’ is the essential meaning (dhāt)48 of Zayd himself along with the specific characteristics of that entity. So, the essential meaning of the proper name ‘Zayd’ as it applies to one specific individual is a) “rational animal“ (i.e. the essence or quiddity) combined with b) the specific characteristics that make Zayd who he is (i.e. that he was born at a particular time and place, has specific DNA, has specific eye, skin, and hair colors, etc.) This combination of essential meaning and specific characteristics when formed as a conception in the mind prevents the shared application of this meaning to other entities. This combination of essential meaning and specific characteristics when conceived in the mind performs a similar function as the conception of the ‘this-ness’ (hādhiyya) of the demonstrative particle ‘this’. The ‘this-ness’ referred to here is when an abstract universal such as ‘book’ becomes a specific particular through the use of a demonstrative pronoun. For example, ‘book’ is the abstract universal term the mere conception of whose essential meaning does not prevent its application to a multitude of referents (i.e. books in the extramental world). However, when I say “this book” it becomes a specific particular.49 The analogy here is that were one to say “human” or “rational animal” this would only elicit a universal meaning. However, if one says
“Zayd” indicating a specific person named Zayd with this name, then the proper name ‘Zayd’ performs the same act as ‘this’, namely taking the abstract universal ‘rational animal’ and combining it with the specific characteristics that make up the specific individual named Zayd. Demonstrative pronouns and proper names perform the act of combining the quiddity with the specific characteristics of a given particular, and thereby through that combination of universal quiddity and specific characteristics signify the particular. Conception of the quiddity without conception of the specific characteristics of a given particular is to conceive of its universal.

After providing the definition and explanation of the term ‘particular’, al-Fanārī characteristically moves to the disputation portion of his explanation, to further buttress its validity. In this case, he puts the hypothetical questioner’s argument into syllogistic form, requiring him now to demonstrate a flaw in the material of the formally sound syllogism in order to prove the invalidity of its conclusion which contradicts al-Abharī and al-Fanārī’s definition of ‘particular’.

Al-Fanārī states:

If you were to say that...

  • [Minor premise] the particular is that whose mere conception of its meaning does not prevent the sharing in application such as Zayd and ‘Amr and other than them.

  • [Major premise] all that are like that are universal.

    • 50 That is, it differs from the way things actually are in reality (nafs al-‘amr). Khulasah al-Mizan, (...)

    [Conclusion] therefore, the particular is universal...then this is an absurdity.50

At first gloss this would appear to be a non-issue since all the questioner has done is returned the term ‘not’ to the definition, effectively changing the definition of particular by adding the one word that would make it the definition of a universal. But al-Fanārī’s response is not merely to say “you have changed the definition by adding the word ‘not’, so remove ‘not’ and our definition still stands”. The critique of the questioner is, however, more involved as the glosses on al-Fanārī indicate. The questioner is not merely changing the words in order to build a strawman, rather it is as though the questioner is saying “You say that ‘a particular is a word whose mere conception of its meaning does prevent the application...’ but I say ‘a particular is a word whose mere conception of its meaning does not prevent the application...” As for why the questioner says this, there are two possible interpretations that al-Fanārī offers.

i) The first interpretation of the term ‘particular’:

According to the first possible interpretation, the questioner is claiming that the ‘particular’ is similar to the term ‘human’ in that it has a multitude of referents, such as Zayd, ʿAmr, Bashir, etc. and therefor both ‘human’ and ‘particular’ are universals since they apply to a multitude. That is, every particular that is identified in the extramental word is the particular of a specific universal such as human, dog, cloud, or tree, and also they are particulars under the universal category of ‘particulars’. In this sense, it is true that the expression ‘the particular’ is a universal of all particulars, for which reason al-Fanārī responds:

And if it was the expression ‘the particular’ then we do not accept the absurdity in the conclusion.

According to this interpretation, the syllogism would read:

  • [Minor premise] the term ‘particular’ is a term whose mere conception of its meaning does not prevent the sharing in application to a multitude (such as Zayd and ‘Amr and other than them).

  • [Major premise] all that are like that are universal.

  • [Conclusion] therefore, the term ‘particular’ is a universal

That is, it is true that the expression ‘particular’ is a universal but this is not an absurdity as the questioner claimed, for the expression ‘particular’ is the universal of all actual particulars in the extramental world, but it does not mean that an extramental particular is simultaneously a universal, and therefor there is no absurdity. That is, if what was intended by ‘particular’ was the quiddity or meaning of ‘particular’—as opposed to its individual referents such as Zayd or Amr—then the conclusion of the questioner’s syllogism would not be problematic, because ‘particular’ is a universal term that applies to all terms the mere conception of whose meanings prevents them from being applicable to more than one referent.

ii) The second interpretation of ‘particular’:

However, if by ‘particular’ the questioner intended the referents of the expression ‘particular’ themselves (mā ṣadaqa ʿalayhi), such as Zayd, ʿAmr, Bashir, etc. then the claim is not accepted because the mere conception of the essential meaning of the term ‘Zayd’—namely its quiddity plus particular characteristics—can only indicate one particular person named Zayd and therefore ‘Zayd’ does in fact prevent the application of its meaning to a multitude and with that, it is a particular, not a universal.

19Al-Fanārī states:

  • 51 Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Fawzī (1867), Khulāṣat al-Mīzān, p. 45; Muammad al-Fanārī (2012), Al-Fawā’id (...)

The intended meaning of ‘the particular’, if it were the referent [mā ṣadaqa ʿalayhi] of the expression ‘the particular’ as far as Zayd is concerned, then we do not accept the minor premise.51

  • 52 Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Fawzī (1867), Khulāṣat al-Mīzān, p. 45; Muammad al-Fanārī (2012), Al-Fawā’id (...)

20The key to this is that if the questioner meant that ‘particular’ is a universal because its referents—namely ‘Zayd’, ‘ʿAmr’, Bashr etc.—are not terms whose mere conception of their essential meanings (quiddity plus particular characteristics) prevent their application to a multitude, then the questioner is wrong because they do in fact do so. ‘Zayd’ is a term which signifies ‘rational animal’ plus all the specific characteristics of one individual named ‘Zayd’ and therefor it cannot be said that mere conception of ‘rational animal’ plus Zayd’s specific characteristics do not prevent the application of both ‘rational animal’ and each of Zayd’s specific characteristics to another person. Indeed, their mere conception does in fact prevent their application to anyone other than that one particular person named Zayd. It is as though the questioner is saying ‘That which prevents application of meaning to a multitude is that which does not prevent application of a meaning to a multitude’ or “X is not X”.52

21According to this reading, the syllogism would be:

  • [Minor premise] The particular—meaning the referent of the term ‘particular’ [ i.e. ‘Zayd’ or ‘ʿAmr’]—is that whose mere conception of its meaning does not prevent the sharing in application....

  • [Major premise] all that are like that are universal.

  • [Conclusion] therefore, the particular (qua referent) is universal

22With this reading of the meaning of ‘particular-as-referent’, the definition extracted from the syllogism would be: ‘That whose quiddity combined with its specific personal characteristics when merely conceived are prevented from applying to a multitude [the particular-as-referent] is that whose mere conception of its meaning does not prevent sharing in application to a multitude. Al-Fanārī charges that the questioner’s definition entails the impossible (istilzām al-muḥāl), a union of opposites (i.e. ‘a particular is not a particular’).

Likewise, he charges that the syllogism is materially invalid as the intended meaning of ‘particular’ in the minor premise is ‘the specific individual whose essential meaning is his quiddity plus his specific characteristics which when merely conceived prevents application to a multitude’ In other words, he rejects the first premise of the syllogism (naqḍ muqaddima al-dalīl) as being incorrect since it uses the term ‘particular’ in the meaning provided originally by al-Abharī but then defines it by its opposite. It would be akin to saying:

  • The circle is a shape with four right angles and equal sides

  • All that are like that are squares

  • The circle is a square

While formally sound, materially it would be declared sophistry (mughālṭa). Through refuting the syllogistic proof (naqḍ al-dalīl) by demonstrating the invalidity of its first premise (yastadillu ʿala buṭlān al-dalīl bi ‘annahu mustalzim al-muḥāl), al-Fanārī defends the definition of ‘particular’ from the charge of entailing an impossibility by instead demonstrating that the questioner’s definition itself entails an impossibility, namely that ‘that whose mere conception of its essential meaning is prevented from applying to a multitude’ is ‘that whose mere conception of its essential meaning is not prevented from applying to a multitude’. Al-Fanārī has repelled (dafʿ) a refutation of a definition (naqḍ al-tārīf) with a refutation of an assent (naqḍ al-taṣdīq). This is an example of al-Fanārī drawing from possible responses to refutations of assents and instead using it to invalidate the premises of a refutation of a definition.

Defending the Definition of dhātī and Abharī’s Classification of Universals

23Having moved progressively from the classification of significations, to expressed significations, to coined expressed significations, to coined expressed significations that signify by concordance, to simple coined expressed significations that signify by concordance, to universal simple coined expressed significations that signify by concordance, al-Abharī further subdivides universal simple coined expressed significations that signify by concordance into essential (dhātī) and accidental (ʿaraḍī).

Al-Fanārī states:

  • 53 If what is intended is “rational animal” and “neighing animal” without stipulating any specific cha (...)
  • 54 Allotment (al-ḥiṣaṣ) refers to the combination of the genus and species with the specific personal (...)

(and) the simple (universal) expression (is either an essential [dhātī]: and it is the [universal] that enters into the quiddity of its particulars such as ‘animal’ with reference to ‘human’ or ‘horse’). That is, if it is intended by these two terms their species-quiddity53 [māhiyya nawʿiya] then they are relational-particulars [juz’iyya iḍāfiyya], but if what is intended by these two terms is each individual instance [afrādihimā]—by which I mean the allotment [of genus, differentia, and specific particular characteristics]54—in which case they would be true-particulars [juz’iyya ḥaqīqiyya].

Al-Fanārī clarifies that the examples al-Abharī offered for particulars under the essential universal of ‘animal’, namely ‘human’ or ‘horse’ can be either relational-particulars (juz’iyy iḍāfī) or true-particulars (juz’iyy ḥaqīqī). That is, ‘horse’ and ‘human’ might be particulars of a higher genus from one perspective while also being genera of lower particulars from another perspective; the term ‘horse’—whose quiddative meaning is ‘a neighing animal’—is a particular of the genus ‘animal’, while each individual horse in the extramental world is a particular of the genus ‘horse’. The key to this distinction is that a relational particular is still a second-order intelligible, a quiddative meaning in the mind. Such conceptions can be genera from one angle and particulars from another, but as particulars they do not have extramental existence as they are still conceptions in the mind.

The examples of essential universals given by al-Abharī, namely ‘horse’ and ‘human’, might also have been intended as true-particulars, which are particulars that cannot be said to be genera of other particulars. That is, al-Abharī might have intended an individual horse or human in the extramental world, in which case they would be true particulars since mere conception of their essential meaning—which consists of quiddity and particular characteristics specific to each individual—would not be applicable to any other beings and as such, they are true and not relational particulars.

Al-Fanārī gives a fuller example of relational particulars earlier in the text in defense of a definition of a different term which is nonetheless useful for understanding the concept of relational particulars:

  • 55 Muammad al-Fanārī (2012), Al-Fawā’id al-Fanāriyya, p. 21.

...it is possible that one thing is a genus, species, differentia, specific accident, and general accident, such as ‘the colored thing’, for it is a genus with regard to ‘black’, a species with regard to ‘possessor of modality’, a differentia with regard to ‘solids’, a specific accident with regard to ‘bodies’, and general accident with regard to ‘animal’.55

Sājaqlīzādah refers to al-Fanārī’s example of the ‘colored thing’ when discussing the subjective classification (al-taqsīm al-iʿtibārī):

  • 56 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1900), al-Waladiyya, p. 121.

...and it is the classification of the universal into separate and distinct conceptions in the intellect, even if they are mutually applicable [mutaṣādiqa] in reality, such as the classification of the universal into the Five Universals although they are mutually applicable with regard to the ‘colored thing’, as al-Fanārī clarified. 56

  • 57 Here, I am translating ta’wīl as interpreting according to its majāzī meaning, justification for wh (...)

That classifications can be either actual (ḥaqīqī) or non-actual, including subjective (iʿtibārī) and metaphorical, is of disputational utility throughout the chapter on the five universals. So too is metaphorical interpretation of terms or phrases used in definitions, as the following discussion makes clear.57

After clarifying possible interpretations of the particulars of the essential universal ‘human’, al-Fanārī then raises a potential objection based on a contradiction between the outward purport of al-Abharī’s definition of ‘essential’ and his classification of essentials offered a few lines later. He offers two possible interpretations of al-Abharī’s definition and its apparent contradictory relation to the classification of the categories of essentials.

Al-Fanārī explains:

  • 58 As a side note, al-Fanārī considers these two possible meanings for “essential” to be homonyms howe (...)

Know that Essential (al-dhātī) is applied homonymously58 to two meanings:

a) that which enters into something [is internal to it] and

b) that which is not external to it.

  • 59 If an essential is that which enters into the essence of its particulars, it would be impossibly re (...)

The species (nawʿ) according to the first meaning would not be essential because it is the complete quiddity of the particulars.59 According to the second meaning it would be an essential. The outward purport of the author’s definitions indicates the first meaning; however, we might interpret it according to the second meaning metaphorically [bi al-ta’wil] such that what is intended by “internal” is “non-external”.

  • 60 'Usage’ (istikhdām) in the science of rhetoric is when the first usage of a term is one meaning and (...)
  • 61 Al-muḍmar refers to a noun where the person is “disguised by means of a mark (ʿalāma )”—e.g. a pron (...)

If it were interpreted according to the outward purport [i.e. the first meaning] then the meaning of essential when he sets out with the classification is the second meaning. With that, his returning to it [i.e. his returning to discussing the term ‘essential’ in this second meaning when he begins his classification a few lines later] is an example of returning to the subject by stating it explicitly (muẓharan) for to do so with a pronoun (muḍmaran) would not suffice, even if it would be possible to so using the convention of istikhdām.60 However, the predominant norm in using the implicit personal pronoun (al-muḍmar)61 is intending the first meaning. As for the proposition that “the returning reference to a thing is in the definite sense (maʿrifatan)”, then it is the fundamental principle (aṣl), though many depart from it by way of contextual evidence. If, however, it were interpreted according to the aforementioned metaphorical interpretation (ta’wīl) then the ‘essential’ in the beginning of the classification scheme [below] would follow the fundamental principle that “the returning reference to a thing is in the definite sense”.

Is Species (nawʿ) an Essential Universal?

24A problem arises from al-Abharī’s definition of ‘essential’ as ‘the [universal] that enters into the quiddity of its particulars’ because as such, ‘species’ (nawʿ) cannot be considered an essential. That is because ‘species’ is the quiddity of a thing itself—its essential meaning consisting of genus and differentia—and how could the quiddity enter into the quiddity of the particulars? For example, the essential or quiddative meaning of the species ‘human’ is ‘rational animal’ and the quiddity of each particular instance of human is also ‘rational animal’. To say that ‘rational animal’ (as quiddity of the species) enters into or applies to ‘rational animal’ (as quiddity of the individual particular) would be absurdly redundant and not provide any useful meaning. For those who define ‘essential’ as ‘the universal that enters into the quiddity of its particulars’, they consider species to be an intermediary category between essential and accidental in order to avoid the absurd redundancy of a quiddity entering into a quiddity. However, al-Abharī’s classification only divides universals into essential and accidental, and he then explicitly divides essential into genus, species, and differentia, so it would seem clear that al-Abharī considers species to be an essential universal (dhātī). The chart below provides a visualization of the two different classifications of ‘species’ under the top node of ‘essential’.

al-Abharī’s Classification

al-Abharī’s Classification

Others’ Classification

Others’ Classification

Al-Fanārī seeks to solve the apparent discrepancy between al-Abharī’s definition of essential—which when interpreted according to its outward purport would entail that species is not an essential—and his classification of universals into only essentials and accidentals, entering species along with genus and differentia under essential.

The solution is rooted in the fact that there are two opinions as to the definition of ‘essential’. The first is that essential can be defined as a) “that which is internal to something” and the second opinion is that it is defined as b) “that which is not external to something”. Al-Abharī’s definition of essential is “that which enters into [or is internal to] its particulars” and is therefor based on opinion (a) when read according to its outward purport. However, his classification of universals is according to opinion (b) as he lists genus, species, and differentia under essential.

  • 62 Syed Ali Tawfik al-Attas (2009), A Guide to Philosophy: The Hidāyat al-Ḥikmah of Athīr al-Dīn al-Mu (...)

Such an apparent discrepancy would either be due to a mistake on al-Abharī’s part, or he intended one of 2 possible things. Either, his definition is given according to opinion (a) and his classification is given according to opinion (b), or his definition and classification is actually according to opinion (b) but he uses ‘enters into’ figuratively to mean ‘is not external to’. Although al-Fanārī does not mention al-Abharī’s Hidayat al-Ḥikma, the definition of essential given there is explicitly according to opinion (b) lending support to the claim that al-Abharī’s definition was intended to figuratively mean that an essential is a universal that is not external to its particulars.62

However, al-Fanārī addresses each possible interpretation (opinion (a) or (b)) and the potential objections to each rather than turn to Hidayat al-Ḥikma for quick and easy resolution.

251) The first possibility is to claim that al-Abharī’s definition is given according to opinion (a) and his classification is given according to opinion (b). The indication or proof that this may be the case is that he does not say “The universal is either an essential...or an accidental...and it (the essential) is either...”. Rather, al-Abharī says “The universal is either an essential...or an accidental...and the essential is either...”. By repeating the word ‘essential’, he is signaling a move from the first meaning to the second meaning, as using a pronoun to refer back to the word ‘essential’ which was used according to opinion (a) but intending the pronoun’s meaning to be according to opinion (b) would not be sensible, even if it is possible according to the conventions of Arabic grammar for a pronoun to return to the second meaning of a word that was explicitly stated in its first meaning earlier. This, however, is not the predominant usage, and therefore the best choice to indicate the movement from the first meaning given in the definition to the second meaning used in the classification was to restate the term ‘essential’ and then to give the classification according to opinion (b).

An objection might be raised, however, that when al-Abharī says “A universal is either an essential...” he uses ‘essential’ in the indefinite case but when he returns to it in the classification he uses the definite, saying “The essential is either...”. Due to the grammatical principle that when one states an indefinite term and then refers back to it by repeating the word but in the definite case, the second usage of the term is understood to refer back to the first usage in its original sense, and not some other meaning of the term. Here, the hypothetical questioner opposes al-Fanārī’s claim by establishing the opposite of that claim through reference to a grammatical principle. However, al-Fanārī responds that it is common to depart from this conventional rule with evidence in context which indicates the departure from that rule.

  • 63 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1900), al-Waladiyya, p. 121.
  • 64 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1900), al-Waladiyya, p. 125-126.

To determine the tools of disputation from this passage, we must focus on the questioner’s objection to al-Fanārī’s proof from linguistic conventions and his response to the questioner’s objection. In this case, the dispute is not regarding the validity of a definition or classification, but rather, it pertains to reconciling the usage of a term according to two differing meanings. In this sense, al-Fanārī is the proponent (muʿallil) of the assentive proposition that al-Abharī defines the term ‘essential’ according to one usage and classifies ‘essential’ under ‘universals’ according to the other definition of ‘essential’. Al-Fanārī uses the rules of grammar and rhetoric to offer proof for this particular interpretation and this is therefor an assent accompanied by a proof (al-taṣdīq maqrūnan bi dalīl). That is, al-Fanārī claims that by repeating the term ‘essential’—rather than using a pronoun—al-Abharī signals that he is using the term ‘essential’ in one meaning in the definition and according to another meaning in the classification scheme. Al-Fanārī then cites a potential objection to this proof in the form of an opposition by means of counter-indication (muʿāraḍat al-taṣdīq)63 based on conventions of linguistic usage. The objection is that while al-Fanārī’s claim might be true had al-Abharī repeated the term in the indefinite case, having done so in the definite case in fact proves the opposite of al-Fanārī’s claim, namely that al-Abharī is signaling that he is using the term again in the same sense he intended with the first usage. The questioner has established the opposite of what the proponent has claimed (ithbāt al-sā’il naqīḍ mā adʿāhu). With that, a contradiction between the definition and the classification scheme remains, and this would be an error on the part of al-Abharī which al-Fanārī sought to reconcile. Al-Fanārī then offers a response to this objection that invalidates the proof provided by the questioner (naqḍ al-muʿāraḍa) by stating there are common exceptions to the grammatical rule; since al-Abharī uses the term ‘essential’ in his definition in one sense (opinion (a)) and then repeats the term ‘essential’ and gives its classification according to another sense (opinion (b)), this is the contextual clue that he is departing from the convention that says that stating a word in the indefinite and then repeating it in the definite indicates that the repeated term is intended in the same sense as the first mention of the term. With that, al-Fanārī uses the convention of refutation of an opposition (naqḍ al-muʿāraḍa) 64by invalidating the absoluteness of the opposition, stating that exceptions to the grammatical principle exist and are deducible through contextual clues.

All of this assumes that both disputants agree that al-Abharī is using the term ‘essential’ in its two different senses (opinions (a) and (b)) rather than applying figurative interpretation to the phrase “that which enters into something” as used in the definition which would entail it is also intended according to opinion (b), as discussed below.

262) The second possibility for this apparent discrepancy is that al-Abharī gives the definition according to opinion (b) but via figurative usage of the term “enters into” by which he meant “is not external to”. This allows for the definition to be according opinion (b) and also for the classification to be according to opinion (b). That is, when he says “...an accidental is either an essential: and it is the [universal] that enters into the quiddity of its particulars...” he intends by “enters into” its necessarily entailed meaning of “is not external to” (i.e. opinion (b)). Hence, the intended meaning of the definition of ‘essential’ is: “...an essential is the universal that is not external to its particulars”. With this, species can be counted as an essential, for ‘rational animal’ is the essential meaning of ‘human’ and it is not external to any particular instance of human. If this interpretation of al-Abharī’s words is the case, then the convention of repeating the term when he could have used a pronoun does not indicate any movement of meaning from opinion (a) to opinion (b) since opinion (a) is absent from the text. Furthermore, the convention from the science of rhetoric holds true that stating a term in the indefinite and then repeating it in the definite means the repeated term refers back to its original sense, since both the meaning of “essential” in the definition and the classification is “that which is not external to...”. That is, the previous objections when interpreting the definition according to opinion (a) no longer apply, nor are the responses needed; by metaphorically interpreting the meaning of “enters into” to mean “that which is not external to”, al-Fanārī does not need to anticipate the previous objections from grammarians and rhetoricians, as the metaphorical interpretation brings the other grammatical usages in line with their more common standards. As mentioned previously, al-Abharī’s explicit usage of the phrase “that which is not external to” in his Hidayat al-Ḥikma lends credence to this interpretation.

Conclusion

27Al-Fanārī's commentary follows a familiar pattern of stating the explanation of the text followed by possible objections and responses to such objections. At times it explicitly uses the nomenclature and form of disputation, but often it is so condensed and packed with undefined technical jargon, that the form and content of the objections and responses needs to be unpacked and explicitly stated. This was the work of scholars such as Qūl Aḥmad, al-Kanqarī, and especially Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Fawzī whose commentaries clarified the dense text to many a seminarian and scholar. I have attempted to capture some of this clarificatory effort above, as well as explicitly connecting the form and material of al-Fanārī’s method to the terms and methods of disputation. While knowledge of disputation does not make the text that much easier to read, it is a necessary yet insufficient variable for anyone who wants to read and understand al-Fanārī's commentary on al-Abharī’s Isagoge along with other works similarly written in a style of commentary rooted in dialectic.

Identifying al-Fanārī’s disputational moves does not always yield a perfect fit with the examples given by Sājaqlīzādah in his Waladiyya. The examples studied in the present article have primarily been al-Fanārī’s responses (ajwiba) to refutations of definitions (naqḍ al-taʿrīf) given by al-Abharī but in doing so he drew from the arsenal of responses to refutations of classifications (naqḍ al-taqsīm) and refutations of assents (naqd al-taṣdīq). Those responses included clarifying the intended meanings (taḥrīr al-murād) by referencing grammatical, rhetorical, and disciplinary conventions, as well as repelling accusations of logical absurdity. Some of his disputational moves included clarifying the object of classification or the convention of classification (actual (ḥaqīqī) vs. subjective (iʿtibārī)), while others exemplified counter-offensive moves such as invalidating the premises of a refutation or objection. He also refuted syllogisms by demonstrating material and formal flaws rooted in definitions of terms used therein. While Sājaqlīzādah’s provided options for responses may seem pegged to specific critiques or categories of critiques, al-Fanārī demonstrates that responses such as clarifying meanings, invalidating claims, refuting accusations of rational absurdities, and clarifying which conventions are being applied (logical, linguistic, rhetorical, grammatical, deductive, inductive, formal, material, etc.) are disputational moves that can be utilized across categories of disputed statements, whether definitions, classifications, or assents.

Haut de page

Bibliographie

Al-Attas, Syed Ali Tawfik (2009), A Guide to Philosophy: The Hidāyat al-Ḥikmah of Athīr al-Dīn al-Mufaḍḍal ibn ʿUmar al-Abharī al-Samarqandī, Malaysia, Pelanduk Publications.

Al-Fanārī, Muḥammad (2012), Al-Fawā’id al-Fanāriyya, Istanbul, al-Maktaba al-Hāshamiyya.

Al-Mallawī, Ahmad (1936), Sharḥ al-ʿAllāmah al-Shaykh al-Mallawī ʿala al-Sullam lil-Akhḍarī fī ʿilm al-manṭiq, Cairo, Maṭbaʿat Muḥammad ʿAli Ṣabīḥ wa Awlādihi.

Al-Mīrānī, Muḥammad Amīn Er, (2011) Jāmiʿ al-Mutūn al-Dirāsiyya, Istanbul, Dār al-Andalus.

Al-Nashābah, Maḥmūd (2016), Ḥāshiyah Nathr al-Darārī ʿala al-Fanārī, Cairo, Dār al-Baṣāʾir.

El-Rouayheb, Khaled (2016), “Does a Proposition Have Three Parts or Four? A Debate in Later Arabic Logic”, Oriens 44 (3-4), p. 301-331.

El-Rouayheb, Khaled, (2015), Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century: Scholarly Currents in the Ottoman Empire and the Maghreb, New York, Cambridge University Press.

Al-Sājaqlīzādah, Muḥammad (1988), Tartīb al-ʿulūm, Beirut, Dār al-Bashā’ir al-Islāmiyya.

Al-Sājaqlīzādah, Muḥammad and Āmidī, ʻAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Ḥusayn, (1900), ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ʿala al-Waladiyya, Istanbul, Arif Efendi Matbaasi.

Seybold, C.F. (1919), “Al-Abharī's (gest. 663 = 1265) Isagugi und al-Fanārī's (gest. 834 = 1431) Kommentar dazu: Bemerkungenn zu Gothanus 1178 und Enzyklopadie des Islam I, 74a”, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, Der Islam, 9.

Al-Shinqīṭī, Muḥammad al-Amīn, Ādāb al-Baḥth wa al-Munāẓara, Makkah, Dār ʻalam al-fawāʼid.

Al-Shirwānī, M. (1871), Ḥāshiyah lil-Mawlá Qarah Khalīl ʻalá Risālat Muḥammad Amīn fī jihat al-waḥdah, Istanbul, Al-Maṭbaʼah al-ʻĀmirah.

Spevack, Aaron (2020), “Continuing Conversations”, in Ayman Shihadeh and Jan Thiele (Eds.), Philosophical Theology in Islam, Boston, Brill, p. 231-253.

Troupeau, G. “Muḍmar”, in P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs (Ed.), Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition.

Al-ʿUmarī, Aḥmad b. Khaḍir (2019), Ḥāshiyah Qūl Aḥmad ʿalā Fawāid al-Fanārīha maʿa Ḥāshīyatā al-ʿImādī wa Qurah Khalīl, Istanbul, Dār Taḥqīq al-Kitāb.

Young, Walter Edward (2017), The Dialectical Forge : Juridical Disputation and the Evolution of Islamic Law, Cham, Springer.

Haut de page

Annexe

Below is a non-exhaustive classification of some of the different kinds of objections and their potential responses as given by Sājaqlīzādah.

Haut de page

Notes

1 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1988), Tartīb al-ʿulūm, Beirut, Dār al-Bashā’ir al-Islāmiyya, p. 140-141.

2 Also referred to as Meḥmed Saçaklızâde.

3 C.F. Seybold, (1919), p. 112.

4 For a detailed discussion of Sājaqlīzādah’s contribution to the discipline of disputation and its relation to logic, see: Khaled El-Rouayheb (2015), Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century: Scholarly Currents in the Ottoman Empire and the Maghreb, New York, Cambridge University Press, p. 60-96.

5 Muammad al-Fanārī (2012), Al-Fawā’id al-Fanāriyya, Istanbul, al-Maktaba al-Hāshamiyya, p. 12-13.

6 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah and ʻAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Ḥusayn Āmidī (1900), ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ʿala al-Waladiyya, p. 116.

7 For the reader unfamiliar with the Arabic terminology of disputation, it is useful to know that both the disputant raising the objection and the disputant who put forth the original claim—whether that claim be a definition, classification, or syllogistic argument—are called by different names depending on the nature of the claim. For the sake of clarity, the one putting forth the claim will be called ‘the proponent’ while the one putting forth an objection to that claim will be called ‘the questioner’. As mentioned below, however, these are not literal nor perfect translations.

Definitions: The disputant who put forth a definition is called māniʿ (herein called the proponent, though literally, ‘the objector’) and the one refuting the definition is called mustadill (the one putting forth an argument or proof, though throughout this work will be called the ‘questioner’). This is because, as Sājaqlīzādah explains, the one refuting the definition is claiming that it is invalid and is bringing forth evidence (istidlāl) for that claim in the form of a proof (dalīl). The one who provided the definition is called the objector because answering the charge of an invalid definition requires objecting to one of the premises of the challenger’s proofs. ‘Objection’ (manʿ) is a technical term used throughout the text to mean ‘seeking a proof’ (ṭalab al-dalīl) and in this case would mean seeking a proof for one of the premises of the mustadill’s argument against the validity of the definition. (See: Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah, (1900), al-Waladiyya, p.118.) It may be that other scholars used the term mustadill for the proponent/respondent rather than the questioner/challenger so the reader should be aware of this contradictory usage. See Walter Edward Young’s “Dialectical Forge”, where the mustadill is defined as the respondent (herein referred to as the proponent) who is responding to the questioner. I have consulted Young’s translations and have relied on them throughout this work, whether by using the exact translation he provides or through informing or incorporating it into my own. See: Young, Walter Edward. The Dialectical Forge : Juridical Disputation and the Evolution of Islamic Law. Springer, 2017, p. 612.

Classification: The disputant who put forth a classification is called the qāsim (classifier or divider, herein called the proponent) and the opponent is called the sā’il (questioner).

Assent/Proposition/Syllogistic Argument: The disputant who put forth the propositional assent or syllogistic argument is called the muʿallil (literally the justifier, herein called the proponent) while the disputant who challenges the classification’s validity is called the sā’il (questioner).

8 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1900), al-Waladiyya, p. 116.

9 I have reserved the term ‘dialectic’ for ‘jadl’ in order to distinguish it from disputation (munāẓara). At times jadl can be used synonymously with munāẓara and at others it is used to refer to a type of discourse where the disputants argue from granted or popularly accepted premises. In this latter sense it is distinguished from the other four arts (demonstration, rhetoric, sophistry, and poetics). More can be said on the differing usages of the term jadl, but that is outside the scope of this paper.

10 See Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1988), Tartīb al-ʿulūm, p. 142-143 wherein Sājaqlīzādah expounds on the difference between jadl and munāẓara. Also see: Muammad Amīn Er al-Mīrānī, Jāmiʿ al-Mutūn al-Dirāsiyya, p. 309, fn. 1.

11 Scholarly inquiries are declarative statements that predicate the predicate to the subject of a sentence. When stated as such they are scholarly inquiries or research (abḥāth). When framed as a research question, they are masā’il. Therefor both might be translated as ‘scholarly inquiries’ depending on context.

12 I have suggested “persuasively justified” as a translation for the term muwajjah as it retains something of the meaning of directing, persuading, guiding, and other shades of meaning for tawjīh, while also drawing from its usage in Persian, Kurdish, and Urdu where it is translated as justification.

13 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1988), Tartīb al-ʿulūm, p. 141. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb says in his commentary on the al-Waladiyya that the correct repudiation (dafʿ ṣaḥī) is the persuasively justified (muwajjah) repudiation, while the incorrect repudiation is the non-persuasive or non-justified repudiation. Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1900), al-Waladiyya, p. 9.

14 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1988), Tartīb al-ʿulūm, p. 141.

15 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1988), Tartīb al-ʿulūm, p. 141.

16 This passage from the introduction to the book, before reaching al-Abharī's introductory chapter, has received a gloss specific to the subject of the jihat al-waḥda, along with glosses on that gloss. M. Shirwānī (1871).

17 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1900), al-Waladiyya, p. 118.

18 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1988), Tartīb al-ʿulūm, p. 141. Also see: Khaled El-Rouayheb, (2015), Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century, p. 36.

19 While I am comfortable with the term “Arabic Logic” to distinguish this tradition from the modern European tradition of logic which has been translated into Arabic and taught in contemporary learning institutions, there is a reasonable argument that this science was developed by the likes of al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, those that came later in order to serve Islamic theology and jurisprudence, much in the same way that logic was seen as serving philosophy by the ancients. However, calling it “Islamic Logic” bypasses the issue of how Jewish and Christian logicians writing in Arabic and engaging with the sciences of the time may have approached the subject; questions which are outside the scope of this article include, did Jewish, Christian, and other non-Muslim Arabic speaking logicians use logic as developed by the Muslim logicians in the service of a kalām-type theology in their own traditions or a modified peripatetic philosophy, or did they use it and develop it differently? Another possible term to describe this tradition might be “Islamicate Logic”.

20 That is, there are two ways to refute that a classification sufficiently includes all members. If the classification is a logical (deductive) classification that is talking about logical possibility and not actual existence of these members, then one refutes the classification by proving that another member is rationally possible to include therein. If the classification is an inductive classification, that is, it is based on a survey of actually existing members in reality, then it refuted by proving the existence of another member not currently included in the classification. Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1900), al-Waladiyya, p. 120.

21 Jihat al-Waḥda, literally the direction of unity, or perhaps ‘aspect of unity’, is here translated as ‘unifying principle’. The unifying principle is divided into essential and accidental, the former referring to the subject matter of the science which unites all inquiries into a) the subject matter, b) a sub-category of the subject matter, or c) an essential quality of the subject matter in a single science. The latter, namely the accidental unifying principle, is the aim of the science which is external to its subject matter. See M. Shirwānī (1871), Jihat al-Waḥda Ḥāshiyah lil-Mawlá Qarah Khalīl ʻalá Risālat Muḥammad Amīn fī jihat al-waḥdah, Istanbul, Al-Maṭbaʼah al-ʻĀmirah.

22 Conceptions and assents are mental phenomena (maʿqūlāt) which is the top-level node.

23 Taṣdīq might also be translated as ‘judgment’ as it corresponds to the usage of that term in works such as Jaques Maritain’s An Introduction to Logic, however, logicians such as al-Rāzī and others held that a taṣdīq is more than just a judgment (ḥukm) and rather a composite of conceptions including the judgment (that x is y). See Khaled El-Rouayheb (2016), “Does a Proposition Have Three Parts or Four? A Debate in Later Arabic Logic”, Oriens 44 (3-4), p. 301-331; Aaron Spevack (2020), “Continuing Conversations”, in Ayman Shihadeh and Jan Thiele (Eds.), Philosophical Theology in Islam, Boston, Brill, p.246

24 Genus, species, differentia, general accident, specific accident.

25 Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Fawzī (1867), Khulāṣat al-Mīzān, Istanbul(?), Mabaʿa al-ājj Muḥarram Afandī, p. 3.

26 The author of Taqrīr Mir’āt notes that the difference between wajh al-ḥaṣr and wajh al-ḍabṭ is that the former’s exclusivity is based on induction (al-istiqrā’) and does not allow for any other proposed additions, whereas the latter’s exclusivity would appear allow for hypothetical inclusion of other categories even if not existent in reality. More research is necessary to determine whether al-Fanārī and al-Mallawī had this distinction in mind, or if they merely intended the two terms as ’comprehensive inclusivity or exhaustivity’. I am inclined to the latter possibility as Sājaqlīzādah considers objecting to the comprehensiveness of the classification (iʿtirāḍ ʿala ḥaṣr al-taqsīm) as being either rationally deductive or inductive. Muṣṭafā ibn ʻAbd Allāh Wīdīnī (1893), Taqrīr Mirʼāt, Istanbul, al-Sharikah al-Ṣaḥāfīyah al-ʻUthmānīyah, p. 511.

27 See previous footnote.

28 Aḥmad al-Mallawī (1936), Sharḥ al-ʿAllāmah al-Shaykh al-Mallawī ʿala al-Sullam lil-Akharī fī ʿilm al-manṭiq, Cairo, Maṭbaʿat Muḥammad ʿAli abīḥ wa Awlādihi, p. 75-76.

29 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1900), al-Waladiyya, p. 117. Non-inclusivity (ʿadam jamʿihi), non-exclusivity (ʿadam manʿihi), entailing the impossible (istilzām al-muḥāl).

30 Given Sājaqlīzādah’s clear familiarity with this particular text of al-Fanārī’s (as mentioned previously), and his familiarity with the diversity of terms employed throughout history by scholars of disputation—in its limited sense as tied to the rules of logic and in its more general sense as employed by scholars of jurisprudence as outlined in his discussion of the difference between jadl and munāẓara (also mentioned previously)—I am confident that he would read al-Fanārī here as intentionally avoiding these three objections (and perhaps others not covered here). Whether Sājaqlīzādah would be anachronistically projecting his understanding back on al-Fanārī is beyond the scope of this paper, but I am inclined to suggest that he would not be doing so.

31 The questioner is claiming that an imprecise definition of ‘universals’ would allow for ‘particulars’ to be included under the definition of ‘universals’, while universals and particulars are categorized as mutually exclusive concepts. Al-Fanārī ‘s focus is on inclusivity and exclusivity of the definition, but we can also address this from the perspective of refuting the classification that produced the definition; it is a claim that two sub-categories (universals and particulars) of the same top node (simple conceptions) are in fact one single category. Sājaqlīzādah does not offer this as an option for the refutation of a categorization schema, so claiming that subcategories under the same top node are in fact one single undifferentiated category (qasīm al-shay’ min nafs al-qism) would seem to be a refutation of classifications not mentioned in Sājaqlīzādah’s text.

32 Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Fawzī (1867), Khulāṣat al-Mīzān, p. 42. For a similar discussion of this example, also see: Muḥammad al-Amīn al-Shinqīṭī, Ādāb al-Baḥth wa al-Munāẓara, Makkah Dār ʻalam al-fawāʼid, 1426 [2005 or 2006] p. 23.

33 Muammad al-Fanārī (2012), Al-Fawā’id al-Fanāriyya, p. 26. Also see: Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Fawzī (1867), Khulāṣat al-Mīzān, p. 42-43. Also see: Aḥmad b. Khaḍir al-ʿUmarī (2019), Ḥāshiyah Qūl Aḥmad ʿalā Fawāid al-Fanārīha maʿa Ḥāshīyatā al-ʿImādī wa Qurah Khalīl, Istanbul, Dār Taḥqīq al-Kitāb, p. 183-191.

34 Muammad al-Fanārī (2012), Al-Fawā’id al-Fanāriyya, p. 75-77.

35 Sājaqlīzādah gives possible responses to these two possible charges by identifying which disciplinary standards one is following, that of the grammarians or that of the logicians (see appendix). However, Al-Fanārī, instead demonstrates that the charge does not hold as al-Abharī sufficiently covered all angles. Instead, it appears the charge is based on other authors’ faulty definitions which may have wrongly carried over into the discussion of al-Abharī’s definitions.

36 Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Fawzī (1867), Khulāṣat al-Mīzān, p. 43.

37 Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Fawzī (1867), Khulāṣat al-Mīzān, p. 43.

38 Mamūd Nashābah (2016), Ḥāshiyah Nathr al-Darārī ʿala al-Fanārī, Cairo, Dār al-Baṣāʾir, p. 70

39 Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī (2006), Taḥrīr al-qawāʻid al-manṭiqīyah, Qom, Intisharāt Baydār, p. 124.

40 Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī (2006), Taḥrīr al-qawāʻid al-manṭiqīyah, p. 124-126.

41 Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī (2006), Taḥrīr al-qawāʻid al-manṭiqīyah, p. 126.

42 Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī, (2006), Taḥrīr al-qawāʻid al-manṭiqīyah, p. 126, note 1.

43 Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī (2006), Taḥrīr al-qawāʻid al-manṭiqīyah, p. 129.

44 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1900), al-Waladiyya, p. 121.

45 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1900), al-Waladiyya, p. 122.

46 That is, the definition of universals is ‘that whose mere conception of its essential meaning does not prevent it from sharing in application to a multitude of things.’ To produce the definition of a particular, one merely removes the negative particle ’not’, which leaves the definition of particulars as ’that whose mere conception of its essential meaning does prevent it from sharing in application to a multitude of things’.

47 For clarity I have omitted parentheses used to indicate when al-Fanārī's interlinear commentary ceases and al-Abharī's original text begins. In this passage the term “such as Zayd” is actually al-Abharī's text.

48 Essence can either be contrasted with attribute (dhāt muqābilan bi waṣf) or with individual characteristics (mushakhasāt). In the latter sense dāḥt is referring to its quiddity (māhiyya) and this is the sense that is intended here. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Fawzī (1867), Khulāṣat al-Mīzān, p. 44.

49 Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī gives ‘this person’ as the example of a particular, further explaining "indeed, the ‘this-ness’ when its essential meaning is obtained in the intellect, the intellect is prevented from applying it to a multiplicity by mere conception of it [the essential meaning of ’this-ness’]”. Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī (2006), Taḥrīr al-qawāʻid al-manṭiqīyah, p. 120.

50 That is, it differs from the way things actually are in reality (nafs al-‘amr). Khulasah al-Mizan, p. 44. The absurdity would seem to be that universal and particular are considered distinct in actual usage but they are actually synonymous according to this definition. As such, this would entail a union of opposites because universal and particular are considered opposites, but their definitions entail they are synonyms.

51 Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Fawzī (1867), Khulāṣat al-Mīzān, p. 45; Muammad al-Fanārī (2012), Al-Fawā’id al-Fanāriyya, p. 27.

52 Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Fawzī (1867), Khulāṣat al-Mīzān, p. 45; Muammad al-Fanārī (2012), Al-Fawā’id al-Fanāriyya, p. 27.

53 If what is intended is “rational animal” and “neighing animal” without stipulating any specific characteristics that would limit the signification to a particular human or horse, then “human” and “horse” are instances of relational-particulars. That is to say, they are particulars with regard to the genus “animal” but they are genera with regard to the particular instances of humans and horses respectively.

Al-Fawzi further explains: “With that meaning, human is a particular in relation to animal, animal is a particular in relation to living body which is a particular in relation to body which is a particular in relation to substance.” Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Fawzī (1867), Khulāṣat al-Mīzān, p. 45.

54 Allotment (al-ḥiṣaṣ) refers to the combination of the genus and species with the specific personal characteristics of each individual.

55 Muammad al-Fanārī (2012), Al-Fawā’id al-Fanāriyya, p. 21.

56 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1900), al-Waladiyya, p. 121.

57 Here, I am translating ta’wīl as interpreting according to its majāzī meaning, justification for which will become clearer in the following paragraphs.

58 As a side note, al-Fanārī considers these two possible meanings for “essential” to be homonyms however it may be more accurate to say that this is a disagreement over how to define a technical term, as a homonym would indicate there is agreement that a word has two separate meanings, whereas in this case one group of scholars considers the word to have one meaning and the other group considers it to have another meaning. This fine point of clarification is based on the recordings of Sh. Salih al-Ghursi's reading of al-Fanārī which are not publicly available presently.

59 If an essential is that which enters into the essence of its particulars, it would be impossibly redundant to consider a species as an essential as how can “rational animal” for example enter into “rational animal”? If the species “human” is defined as “rational animal” and the essence of each individual human being is “rational animal”, nothing meaningful comes from saying “rational animal” enters into or applies to “rational animal.”

60 'Usage’ (istikhdām) in the science of rhetoric is when the first usage of a term is one meaning and the later pronoun referring back to it is according to another meaning.

61 Al-muḍmar refers to a noun where the person is “disguised by means of a mark (ʿalāma )”—e.g. a pronoun—in contrast to when the person is explicitly mentioned. See: G. Troupeau, “Muḍmar”, in P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs (Eds.), Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Consulted online on 16 July 2021 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_5312> .

62 Syed Ali Tawfik al-Attas (2009), A Guide to Philosophy: The Hidāyat al-Ḥikmah of Athīr al-Dīn al-Mufaḍḍal ibn ʿUmar al-Abharī al-Samarqandī, Malaysia, Pelanduk Publications, p. 93 (English translation) and p. 189 (Arabic).

63 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1900), al-Waladiyya, p. 121.

64 Muḥammad Sājaqlīzādah (1900), al-Waladiyya, p. 125-126.

Haut de page

Pour citer cet article

Référence électronique

Aaron Spevack, « Defending Definitions: The Tools of Disputation in Logic of al-Fanārī »Methodos [En ligne], 22 | 2022, mis en ligne le 01 mai 2022, consulté le 06 juin 2023. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/methodos/9045 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/methodos.9045

Haut de page

Auteur

Aaron Spevack

Harvard University / Brandeis University

Haut de page

Droits d’auteur

CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Creative Commons - Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modification 4.0 International - CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Haut de page
Search OpenEdition Search

You will be redirected to OpenEdition Search