Avicenna

His Life and Works

Soheil M. Afnan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317378587
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

This book, first published in 1958, examines the life and works of Avicenna, one of the most provocative figures in the history of thought in the East. It shows him in the right historical perspective, as the product of the impact of Greek thought on Islamic teachings against the background of the Persian Renaissance in the tenth century. His attitude can be of guidance to those in the East who are meeting the challenge of Western civilization; and to those in the West who have yet to find a basis on which to harmonize scientific with spiritual values.

CHAPTER III

PROBLEMS OF LOGIC

WHAT is the object of logic, and what is its relation to philosophy? This had become the subject of some dispute among the Greeks of the post-classical period. Aristotle himself was not clear on the point, and had been inclined to consider logic as a creative art (téchne); he could not very well classify it as one of the theoretical or practical sciences. The Stoics after him contended that logic was actually a part of philosophy; while the Peripatetics maintained that it was merely an instrument of thought. Alexander of Aphrodisias, between the second and third century, was the first to call it an organon (instrument) of the sciences; and it is after him that the logical works of Aristotle became known as the Organon. The Platonists, taking a middle course, said that it was both a part of philosophy and an instrument of the sciences.

Both views are reflected in the conception of the Islamic philosophers, but not regarded as being of any great importance. The subject had been entirely new to them, and its methods and applications seemed almost revolutionary. The deductive method of reasoning from general premisses which had now reached them, was seized upon with great enthusiasm and led them into fields as yet unexplored. They were therefore principally occupied with the use of logic in their reasoning, and did not worry overmuch about how to classify it. It had focused their attention on Aristotle as ‘the owner of logic,’ though some Christian and Muslim theologians took strong exception to it. The Islamic philosophers became acquainted almost simultaneously with the Arabic renderings of the Aristotelian Organon and various commentaries by Peripatetic, Neo-Platonic and Stoic authors who had raised the question of the use and purpose of logic. They could not therefore avoid taking some part in the controversy, more especially since they had taken upon themselves the task of justifying the whole subject and defending it against its detractors. Kindī, of whose works not all have survived, seems silent on this matter; he speaks of the eight books which included the Poetica and the Rhetorica as the logicals (al-Manṭiqīyyāt).¹ Fārābi calls logic an art in his classification; and takes no part in the dispute, at least in any of his published writings. In the Epistles we find some reflection of the point at issue. There, probably under Stoic influence, logic is classified as one of the four species of ‘true philosophy’; and is also spoken of as ‘the scales of philosophy,’ and as ‘the tool of the philosopher,’ which conforms to the Peripatetic conception.

Avicenna is fully aware of the problem but avoids taking sides. He insists in the Shifā that the entire dispute is irrelevant, and that ‘there is no contradiction between considering it a part of philosophy and an instrument of it.’ He adopts the term instrument (āla) which he knew came from Alexander, and refers to logic as ‘the instrumental science.’ But having considered it a science in one place, he calls it an art (ṣinā‘a) in another; while in Persian following the Epistles, he names it ‘the science of the scales’ (tarāzū). He thus follows Boethius, called the last of the Romans and the first of the Scholastics, who maintains that logic is both a science and an instrument of science.

Aristotle had never used the term logic in its modern sense; nor is it quite clear who it was that first gave it that sense. It has been contended that the credit must go to the Stoics, and we know that the term already occurs in Chrysippus.² Cicero employs it, but only to mean dialectics. By the time of Alexander of Aphrodisias and Galen, it is in current use in the form of the Greek logiké. The Arabic term manṭiq we find in the fragments of the translation of the Metaphysica being used more than once as the equivalent of the Greek dialektiké¹ and also, in some passages, of logiké.² The rendering is that of Usṭāth who, as has already been observed, was one of the early pre-Ḥunain translators. It may be thought, therefore, that he was the man who chose the word that he supposed had never had that connotation in the Arabic language, only to find that even before him Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ had given it that same new sense in one of his literary works; and also in that short paraphrase of Aristotelian logic of which mention has already been made. Arab purists never approved of this neologism, and the subject of logic was never to the taste of the theologians whether Christian or Muslim. Cases are recorded where in their heated discussions with logicians, they poured ridicule on the choice of the word, even though linguistically it is perfectly justified.

Kindī’s definition of logic has not come down to us in a clear form. Fārābī says ‘the art of logic gives in general the principles whose purpose it is to help the intelligence forward, and to lead man to the path of correct [thought], and to the truth … the relation of the art of logic to the intelligence and the intelligibles is as the relation of the art of syntax to language and words.’³ For Aristotle also logic was primarily a matter of right thinking and secondarily of correct speaking. The authors of the Epistles maintained that ‘the sciences of logic are of two kinds, linguistic and philosophical; the linguistic is such as the art of syntax … and the logic of judgements is of different branches, among which is the art of reasoning, and of dialectics, and of sophistics.’⁴ The logic of language, they thought, should be mastered before the logic of philosophy, for ‘it is incumbent upon him who desires to theorize in philosophical logic, to be first trained in the science of syntax.’⁵

Avicenna’s definitions are numerous and somewhat varied. In one place he says, ‘logic is that science in which may be seen the state of knowing the unknown by the known; that which it is that is in truth, and that which it is that is near the truth, and that which it is that is false; and the different varieties of each.’¹ In another place he states that logic ‘is for the intelligence a guarding instrument against error, in what we conceive and give assent to; and it is that which leads to true belief by giving the reasons and methods of arriving at it.’² In still another he remarks, ‘thus logic is a science from which is learnt the modes of passing from matters determined in the human thought, to matters to be determined; and the state of these matters, and the number and varieties wherein the order and the form of the transposition lead to correctness, and the varieties wherein it is otherwise.’³

The logic of Avicenna has not yet been properly studied. Nor would the effort prove fruitful unless the logic of the Commentators of Aristotle had first been carefully examined. No such study of the original Greek has yet been made; for the purposes of the present inquiry it would be even more important to study the Arabic version, for only then could the contributions of Avicenna be placed in their historical setting, and their originality, if a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• I Persia in the Tenth Century
• II Life and Works of Avicenna
• III Problems of Logic
• IV Problems of Metaphysics
• V Problems of Psychology
• VI Problems of Religion
• VII Medicine and the Natural Sciences
• VIII Avicenna and the East
• IX Avicenna and The West
• Conclusion
• Selected Bibliography
• Chronology Of Avicenna’s Successors and Commentators
• Index