The Philosophical Poetics of Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes by Kemal Salim;

Author:Kemal, Salim;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1099279
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

(S1) If p, then q; but p; therefore q.

(S2) If p, then q; but not q; therefore not p.

(S3) Not both p and q; but p; therefore not q.

(S4) p or q; but p; therefore not q.

(S5) p or q; but not p; therefore q.

Something like this conception may have influenced Ghazali, but that influence is not easily discerned in his descriptions, for he does not seem to follow up with a deeper Stoic account of these forms. Instead, in two primary discussions he uses Aristotelian term expression even for quasi-Stoic logical forms.65 In ‘The Correct Balance’ he sets out five basic logical principles and their logical forms, proposing that these do not call for justification from more basic forms. The first principle, that ‘the judgment applying to the more general is a judgment applying to the more particular and is undoubtedly included in the other’,66 he identifies as the ‘The greater balance of Equivalence’. It is comparable to the first figure of the Aristotelian Categorical Syllogism, and Ghazali expresses it as:

(Gl) If p, then q; if r then p; therefore if r then q.

He explains that this conclusion necessarily follows because ‘the judgment made regarding the attribute is of necessity a judgment regarding the subject’.67

The second, Middle Balance, which resembles the second figure of the Aristotelian Categorical Syllogism, expresses the logical principle that ‘any two things, one of which is qualified by a quality which is denied of the other, are different [distinct from each other] – i.e. one of them is denied of the other and is not qualified by it’.68 Its logical form:

(G2) M is S; No S is G; therefore M is not G.

The third, Lesser Balance, like the third figure of the Aristotelian Categorical Syllogism, interprets the logical principle – that ‘when any two qualities [attributes] concur [agree] respecting one and the same thing, then some [part, one] of the two qualities must of necessity be qualified by the other’ – in terms of the following example: Moses is a man; Moses is one upon whom scripture was sent down; therefore some man has had scripture sent down upon him.69 This might be expressed as:

(G3) Some M is P; some p is S; therefore some M is S.

The fourth balance of concomitance expresses the principle that ‘everything that is a necessary concomitant of a thing follows it in every circumstance: hence the denial of the conditioning of the necessity entails the denial of the conditioned, and the existence of the conditioned necessarily entails the existence of the conditioning. But the denial of the conditioned and the existence of the conditioning leads to no conclusion; rather they belong to the balances of Satan’.70 Leaving aside, first, the sudden appearance of unqualified evil in the shape of a simple mistaken inference, and, second, that Ghazali seems to be relying on a Stoic-like truth functional definition of the syllogistic but is expressing it as a term logic rather than as a propositional logic, the principle seems to resemble the first figure of the Stoic syllogistic:

(G4) If p, then q; but p; therefore q.

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