ABSTRACT
Introduction to the logic We study in this chapter the conception of logic presented at the beginning of the Logic of the Kitāb.1 There is also presented the conception of the philosophy of science from the Burhān, the Posterior Analytics of the Logic. This study defines the framework for a science, the notion of a single science, and the ordering of the sciences with a description of the nature of the principles of science. It is the latter notion that will allow us to conceive the principles of logic as a set of principles comparable to a modern logical system. This is the special conception of the Burhān, differing from the notion of the principle of an existent. In the study of the Logic, we continue to study the existent thing in that we study the attributes, which are termed here the logical accidents, and their relationship via predication to the underlying existent thing. Therefore, this is a study of the attributes of the existent, the second part of the existent thing, according to the division of the existent in the Metaphysics. However, the notion of the ipseitical existent, when considered on its own, has been fully described in the sciences of physics and psychology. Thus, the principle of logic will go beyond the conception of the ipseitical existent. In the previous chapters, an underlying ontology with a parallel epistemological conception was conceived. Thus both the Physics and the Psychology conceived principles of the existent, which we saw were attained by means of the first cognition. The ontological hierarchy has previously been depicted as existence, the existent, the thing, and the it-is-it. Generalizing the notion of the existent and the non-existent, we have the notion of the thing. The notion of the thing is the conception and terminology that allows us to consider the existent thing together with the non-existent thing, which was depicted as encompassing the mental existent.2 Thus, logic will utilize the notion of the thing, which includes the existent things and the non-existent mental apprehensions. This will include the attributes of the thing. The foundations of logic presented as a theory of predication and the logical accidents describe this generalization of the existent, the ontological thing. This is developed by way of a description of the existence of the attributes. This
demands a theory of reference and a conception of relating, an ascribing of an existence as an attribute to a referent. This ascription, as a relationship, is the conception of predication. However, that which is being referred to is not the externally cognized existent; nor are the conceived existences of a cognized existent. Abū’l-Barakāt will refer the predicates to a thing, or to a considered subject, not to an existent that must be cognized. Thus, the ontological notion studied in the Logic, according to Abū’l-Barakāt, has two forms: the existential things and the conceptions of the mind. These comprise both the existential and mental things. These conceptions of mind, referred to by Abū’l-Barakāt elsewhere as mental existents, are also part of the study of logic. Both of these notions are subsumed under the terminology of the thing. The mental apprehensions are part of the subjects of logic to be discussed. The reason given for this inclusion of the mental existents into logic is because the shu‘ūr, the psychological feeling, does not have a distinguishing capacity.3 To feel is conceived in the Logic as a lower grade of apprehension, which does not distinguish between the different conceptions of being mental or existential, between the two notions of existence and the forms of the existent. Thus, due to the non-distinguishing nature of feeling, logic will not exclude the imagined possible existence or the mental existent. Logic from the outset is based upon the fundamental notion of feeling. Thus, the subject of the proposition is the subject that I conceive or possibly consider. The epistemological notion implemented is the elementary notion of man’s perceptive feeling,4 whereby I perceive existences and things without distinguishing their variety. This conception is not the reference of a cognized existent. Logic in its foundations deals with the perceptive feeling of existences and their relationship by way of ascription to conceived subjects. It does not implement metaphysical assumptions of the underlying nature of the denoted subject; specifically it does not suppose cognition of the existent by way of the first cognition, in the special manner of physics and psychology. The utilization of the notion of the thing is clearly seen from the usage of Abū’l-Barakāt in the conception of predication. This usage, however, does not exclude his occasional mention of the existent, for it is to be realized that the notion of the thing includes the existent thing. This terminology may thus be utilized in this manner without confusion.
