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 Studies in Universal Logic

Saloua Chatti

Arabic Logic
from al-Firabi
to Averroes
A Study of the Early Arabic
Categorical, Modal,
and Hypothetical Syllogistics

Birkhauser
1§ξ> Birkhauser
Studies in Universal Logic

Series Editor
Jean-Yves Beziau (Federal University o f Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

Editorial Board
Hajnal Andreka (Hungarian Academy o f Sciences, Budapest, Hungary)
Mark Burgin (University o f California, Los Angeles, CA, USA)
Razvan Diaconescu (Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania)
Andreas Herzig (University Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France)
Arnold Koslow (City University o f New York, New York, USA)
Jui-Lin Lee (National Formosa University, Huwei Township, Taiwan)
Larissa Maksimova (Russian Academy o f Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia)
Grzegorz Malinowski (University o f Lodz, Lodz Poland)
Francesco Paoli (University o f Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy)
Darko Sarenac (Colorado State University, Fort Collins, USA)
Peter Schroder-Heister (University o f Tubingen, Tubingen, Germany)
Vladimir Vasyukov (Russian Academy o f Sciences, Moscow, Russia)

This series is devoted to the universal approach to logic and the development of a
general theory of logics. It covers topics such as global set-ups for fundamental
theorems of logic and frameworks for the study of logics, in particular logical
matrices, Kripke structures, combination of logics, categorical logic, abstract
proof theory, consequence operators, and algebraic logic. It includes also books
with historical and philosophical discussions about the nature and scope of logic.
Three types of books will appear in the series: graduate textbooks, research
monographs, and volumes with contributed papers.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/7391

Saloua Chatti

Arabic L ogic from al-Farabi

to Averroes
A Study of the Early Arabic Categorical,
Modal, and Hypothetical Syllogistics

Birkhauser
Saloua Chatti
Faculty of Human and Social Sciences
University of Tunis
Tunis, Tunisia

ISSN 2297-0282 ISSN 2297-0290 (electronic)

Studies in Universal Logic
ISBN 978-3-030-27465-8 ISBN 978-3-030-27466-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27466-5

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part
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This book is published under the imprint Birkhauser, www.birkhauser-science.com by the registered
company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
For my son Yassine
For all my family
Acknowledgements

This work would not have seen the light if I had not been invited by
Prof. Jean-Yves Beziau to present a tutorial on Arabic Logic in his fourth Congress
and School on Universal Logic (Unilog 2013, Rio de Janeiro). I thank him for his
invitation to that huge event and for his interest in Arabic logic.
This book is the continuation of the works that I have done in the field of Arabic
logic since I became interested in it. I feel that the analysis and the precise study of
Arabic logic is highly indispensable to all scholars interested in the history of logic
in general, since it is still not well known, in the western world as well as in the
Arabic one, despite the seminal contributions of Prof. Nicholas Rescher whose
work helped discover and analyze the writings of many logicians of that tradition.
He was followed by many contemporary researchers who were interested in its
various aspects. I myself focused a lot on categorical and modal logics and pre­
sented some conferences on these topics on many occasions. But in this tutorial,
I wished to give a more complete image of a tradition which lasted several cen­
turies. This is why I presented in the tutorial three different parts of these systems,
which are the categorical logic, the modal logic, and the hypothetical logic. My
analysis of these different theories focuses mainly on the original Arabic writings,
in order to be as faithful as possible to the texts. I translated most of the quotations
that I have given in this examination but I also used some good and well-known
English translations such as those of Professors Tony Street, Nabil Shehaby, and
Wilfrid Hodges, among others.
I am especially grateful to Prof. Wilfrid Hodges for his precious and invaluable
help and advice and for all the various knowledgeable and detailed commentaries
on this book, which made me improve it in several ways. Special thanks also to
Prof. Jean-Yves Beziau, for all his help and valuable advice and suggestions. I am
also very grateful to Prof. Stephen Read and to all the participants to the different
events I attended, namely, Pr. Tony Street, Pr. Paul Thom, Pr. Riccardo Strobino,
Pr. John N. Martin, Pr. Graham Priest, Pr. Hans Smessaert, Pr. Dany Jaspers,

vii
viii Acknowledgements

Dr. Fabien Schang, Dr. Lorenz Demey, Dr. Alessio Moretti, and Dr. Amirouche
Moktefi, for their various, valuable, and helpful remarks, commentaries, and
questions. I thank also my Tunisian colleague Prof. Mokdad Arfa, who provided
me with some useful documentation.
Contents

1 General Introduction .................................................................................. 1

References....................................................................................................... 7
2 The Rise of A rabic Logic: Authors, Translations, T o p ic s.................... 9
References....................................................................................................... 17
3 Categorical L o g ic ......................................................................................... 19
3.1 Conceptions and Assents....................................................................... 19
3.2 The Oppositions Between Categorical Propositions.......................... 25
3.2.1 The Oppositions of Categorical Propositions
in al-Farabl’s Fram e.................................................................. 28
3.2.2 Avicenna’s Absolutes and Their O pposites.......................... 36
3.2.3 The Oppositions in Averroes’ T heory................................... 57
3.3 The Syllogistic....................................................................................... 63
3.3.1 Al-Farabi’s Syllogistic............................................................. 63
3.3.2 Avicenna’s Syllogistic............................................................. 96
3.3.3 Averroes’ Syllogistic................................................................ 122
3.4 Further Developments........................................................................... 133
3.4.1 The Fourth Figure in the ArabicTradition.............................. 133
3.4.2 Ibn al-Salah on the Fourth F igure.......................................... 134
3.5 Conclusion.............................................................................................. 141
References....................................................................................................... 143
4 Modal L o g ic ................................................................................................... 147
4.1 The Modal Propositions...................................................................... 147
4.1.1 The Modal Propositions in al-Farabl’s F ra m e ..................... 147
4.1.2 The Modal Propositions in Avicenna’s F ram e..................... 150
4.1.3 The Modal Propositions in Averroes’F ram e......................... 158

ix
x Contents

4.2 The Modal Oppositions......................................................................... 160

4.2.1 The Modal Oppositions in al-Farabl’s Fram e........................ 160
4.2.2 The Modal Oppositions in Avicenna’s System .................... 162
4.2.3 The Modal Oppositions in Averroes’ F ra m e ........................ 165
4.3 The Modal Syllogistic........................................................................... 166
4.3.1 Avicenna’s ModalSyllogistic................................................... 170
4.3.2 The Modal Syllogistic inAverroes’ System........................... 225
4.4 Conclusion.............................................................................................. 258
References....................................................................................................... 261
5 The Hypothetical Logic................................................................................ 263
5.1 The Hypothetical Syllogisms................................................................ 264
5.1.1 The Stoic Hypothetical Syllogism s........................................ 264
5.1.2 The Hypothetical Syllogisms in Arabic L o g ic ..................... 266
5.1.3 The Compound Syllogisms .................................................... 284
5.2 The Reductio Ad Absurdum (Qiyds al-K half)................................... 336
5.2.1 The Reductio Ad Absurdum in al-Farabl’s Fram e................. 336
5.2.2 The Reductio Ad Absurdum in Avicenna’s F ra m e .............. 339
5.2.3 The Reductio Ad Absurdum in Averroes’ F ra m e ................ 342
5.3 Conclusion.............................................................................................. 344
References....................................................................................................... 346
6 General Conclusion....................................................................................... 349
References....................................................................................................... 356

Chapter References............................................................................................. 357

Index of Nam es.................................................................................................... 365
Subject Index......................................................................................................... 369
Chapter 1
General Introduction

Arabic logic started with the translations of the Aristotelian and Greek texts. These
translations were first made in Syria from Greek to Syriac, then Arabic during the
Umayyad Empire for some treatises, but the most important amount of translations
was made during the Abbasid Empire [Baghdad, 750-1258 AD], starting from the
reign of Abu Jaafar al-Mansur [754-775 AD], then Harun al Rashid [786-809 AD]
and al-Ma’mun [813-833 AD] who founded an academy devoted to translation
called “Beit al-Hikma” (literally: “the House of Wisdom”) [830 AD] (see [127],
140). These interests concerned first some sciences like medicine and astronomy,
but given the close relation between these sciences and logic, they extended to the
philosophical and logical writings, which were especially encouraged by
al-Ma’amun ([127], 140). The translations were followed by commentaries of the
whole Aristotelian corpus together with Porphyry’s Isagoge and the writings of
Plato, Plotin, and the Aristotelian commentators such as Alexander of Aphrodisias,
Galen, Theophrastus, John Philoponus, and others. These commentaries are
described in detail in Nicholas Rescher’s The dev elopment o f Arabic Logic, a book
that has been translated in Arabic by Mohamed Mahran, who added in his intro­
duction of it some more information on the authors and their writings and the
general conditions of the birth of Arabic logic. They were made by a number of

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 1

S. Chatti, Arabic Logic from al-Farabi to Averroes, Studies in Universal Logic,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27466-5_1
2 1 General Introduction

scholars starting from Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ and Ya‘aqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi [805-873,
AD] among others. More details on translations will be given below.
I will first briefly present these logicians who are listed and grouped by period in
Nicholas Rescher’s book, and then I will focus on the early1 authors in this tra­
dition, namely, al-Farabi [873-950, AD], Avicenna (Ibn Sina) [980-1037, AD],
and Averroes (Ibn Rushd) [1126-1198, AD], since one has to study them before
turning to their followers,12 who are numerous in particular in the eastern areas.
These authors’ contributions are not equally important as we will show below, since
Averroes, who is voluntarily very faithful to Aristotle, does not seem to add much
to his logic, while Avicenna builds some logical systems which depart from
Aristotle in multiple and various respects. As to al-Farabi, he is mainly influenced
by the Greek commentators like Alexander of Aphrodisias, and his contribution is
the result of his development of the major achievements of these commentators and
their Syriac translators (see [150], 529).
Thus, the focus on the classical early authors does not mean that I consider the
later developments as being of no interest. On the contrary, these later develop­
ments, as exemplified by Avicenna’s followers and as shown by some scholars such
as Tony Street and Khaled El-Rouayheb, are very important and worth studying but
since they are very much influenced by their predecessors, we need to study the
early authors first. Anyway, I will sometimes refer to some of the achievements of
later logicians when possible.
The problems that I raise are the following: what are the Arabic logicians’
contributions? How do they define the main concepts and the syllogism itself?
What methods do they use in their respective syllogistics? Are they different from
Aristotle’s ones? What are the characteristics of their logical systems? To what
extent do these systems differ from Aristotle’s and his followers’ syllogistics,
whether categorical or modal?
To answer these questions, I will study the systems of the authors mentioned and
will analyze their categorical logic as well as their modal and hypothetical logics.
My attempt to provide such an analysis does not ignore, however, the other studies
that have been made by many authors, since the seminal work of Nicholas Rescher.
What I want to do is to focus exclusively on the technical details of these systems

1Note that historically, the very first Arabic logicians are al-Kindi and presumably Ibn al-Muqaffa‘,
who wrote a treatise entitled “al-Mantiq”. Cristina D’Ancona says that we don’t know if it is
Muhammed Ibn al-Muqaffa’ or rather his father Abdullah who translated “Porphyry’s Isagoge, the
Categories, De Interpretatione and Prior Analytics” ([62], Sect. 2), while N. Rescher [126] reports
that it is the son Muhammed ibn Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa (d.c.800 A.D.) who is probably a
translator or an author of a commentary in logic, and W. Hodges says that it must be Abdullah Ibn
al-Muqaffa (the father) and the famous translator of Kalilah wa Dimna who wrote the commentary
in logic entitled “al-Mantiq” (personal communication). As to al-Kindi, N. Rescher [126, Chap. 2,
15- 27] evokes a treatise of al-Kindi on Aristotle’s Organon entitled “On the objectives (or:
subject-materials) of Aristotle in each of his treatises” (Kitabfi aghrad Aristutalisfi kull wahid min
kutubihi).
2More information about the authors of the post-classical periods, such as the post-Avicennans can
be found in the studies of Tony Street and Khaled El-Rouayheb, for instance, among others.
1 General Introduction 3

by relying on the original Arabic writings and examining them in detail, using for
that purpose the modern tools and symbolisms (especially the symbolisms of
First-Order Logic and of Modal Logic).
However, I will not examine the analogical and inductive arguments which were
parts of these author’s systems too. For one thing, it would extend the topic of the
present study, which focuses on deductive logic exemplified by the categorical and
modal logics together with the hypothetical one. Second, although the inductive and
analogical arguments are indeed parts of the systems studied, they do not have the
same importance than deductive logic in these systems. Third, these arguments are
very different from the deductive ones and they deserve another study on their own,
in order to determine their characteristics and applications, which are very large in
the Arabic tradition, since many analogical arguments, for instance, are very much
used in theological and legal studies. The fourth reason is that the analogical and
inductive arguments could be seen as methods that could be used in everyday life,
in theology or in the empirical sciences, but they are not really parts of logic in its
narrow sense, i.e., in the sense of the study of the valid arguments. For the ana­
logical and inductive arguments are not valid as the deductive arguments are, given
that they do not systematically and necessarily lead to true conclusions. This would
be a reason to exclude them from logic stricto sensu.
Now, one could also want to determine if deductive logic in the Arabic tradition
has had or not an influence on medieval logic, apart from the common Greek
heritage. This influence has been variously appreciated, in particular, by the
Western scholars. On the one hand, Carl Prantl thinks that Arabic logic had a great
influence on the Western medieval logic because the “Western logic called logica
modernorum, the so-called theories of the properties of terms, that is, supposition
theory etc. from the twelfth century entered into the Latin world from translations of
Byzantine and Arabic logical works (see Prantl 1867)” ([107], 180). On the other
hand, Henrik Lagerlund says that L. M. de Rijk “showed in the 1960s [that this
opinion] was completely wrong” ([107], 180). Both authors rely on purely historical
details regarding the translations and the transmission of the Arabic writings. I note,
however, that it is hard to determine exactly the influence of Arabic logic as long as
the Arabic writings have not been properly studied; and it seems that at the time that
L. M. De Rijk wrote his books (that is, in 1962, 1967, and 1970), the studies of
Arabic logic in the Western world were quite rare. It is also hard to deny this
influence as L. M. De Rijk seems to do given the many links and common features
between Arabic philosophy in general and medieval philosophy. Furthermore, the
studies of the translations themselves have been improved by some recent resear­
ches such as that of Charles Burnett, for instance, who reports more Arabic works
translated than other scholars. Thus, he says that the whole of Averroes was known
and also that al-Farabi’s De interpretatione and Categories were known in the Latin
world along with other texts, as witnessed by the following quotation: “Moreover,
references in Albert the Great and brief surviving fragments show that, aside from
Averroes’ commentaries, al-Farabi’s summaries of at least the Categories and the
De interpretatione, and his commentaries of the Prior and the Posterior Analytics
were known in Latin in the Middle Ages. Moreover, a summary of the Posterior
4 1 General Introduction

Analytics had been included in the Arabic Encyclopedia known as the Brethren o f
Purity, and was translated into Latin with an attribution to al-Kindi” (see [48], 601).
He refers to both Grignaschi (1972) for the translation of al-Farabi and to A. Nagy
(1897) for the Brethren o f Purity and al-Kindi (see [48], 601, notes 12 and 13). This
contrasts with what other people such as Dag N. Hasse claim, namely, that “only a
few works of Arabic logic were translated into Latin ...” among which “the Isagoge
part of Avicenna’s Shifa” and mainly “al-Ghazali’s Intentions o f the Philosophers”
(Maqasid al-falasifa), along with “al-Farabi’s Enumeration o f the sciences” (see
[80], Sect. 3) and Averroes’s commentaries. Al-Farabi’s other treatises are not cited
by this author and only a small part of Avicenna’s Shifa is said to have been
translated. This difference can explain why some people deny the influence of
Arabic logic or give it a very little importance; but the work of Charles Burnett and
the historians that he cites is very important in that it makes it possible to justify the
links between some Arabic logicians and some Medieval ones.
In addition, some medieval logicians such as Gerard of Cremona were able to
read Arabic, and even to translate the Arabic texts, as shown by Charles Burnett in
his article where he says the following: “And yet we find Gerard of Cremona
translating the latter work from Arabic in the same century, and the thirteenth
century all Averroes’s Middle Commentaries on the Organon were translated” (see
[48], 598, emphasis added). Many treatises of the Arabic authors such as Avicenna
and al-Farabi are also said to have been translated ([48], 598).3 So the knowledge of
Arabic must also be taken into account when one considers the influence of Arabic
logic on the Latin West.
Anyway, I wish to show the specificities of Arabic logic by studying the texts
themselves, without focusing that much on the eventual influences from one side or
the other. For that purpose, I will analyze the Arabic theories, concepts, inferences,
and arguments. This is why I will focus, as I have stressed earlier, on the original
writings of the Arabic authors together with some comments made by eastern and
western scholars. I will try to follow as faithfully as possible the original texts but
also to use the symbolism of modern logic to render the different propositions and
arguments as clearly as possible. I don’t focus that much on historiography, in the
sense of searching for the different influences and sources of the Arabic authors,
whether Greek or other, even if these sources are indicated when necessary; rather
my study is first and foremost theoretical in the sense that I will analyze the theories
themselves in order to clarify them and to compare them with Aristotle’s theories
and eventually his commentators’ ones, when they are evoked. My study does not
focus immediately on the eventual influences that Arabic logic may have had on
medieval logicians, but it can make it possible for some other researchers interested
in the historical links and the transmissions from one tradition to another, to

3Charles Burnett evokes the treatise of al-Farabi entitled “On the Syllogism” [presumably
al-Qiyas], and also some parts of al-Shifa, by Ibn Sina, plus The aims o f the Philosophers of
al-Ghazali.
1 General Introduction 5

compare between these traditions because it clarifies the doctrines and the methods
used by the Arabic authors.
I will thus use the modern symbolism of propositional, predicate, and modal
logics.4 This practice is justified by the fact that the modern symbolism helps
understand and state precisely the different propositions and syllogisms of whatever
kind. Some concepts used by Avicenna, for instance, need to be interpreted in order
to validate the syllogisms used. Although this has some inconvenience, because
Arabic logic, as Aristotelian and traditional logic, is less formal than modern logic
and relies on the ordinary language in its way of expressing the propositions and the
syllogisms or arguments, it can be useful to clarify the ideas involved. Despite the
fact that a clear-cut correspondence between traditional logic and modern logic is
probably not realistic, this kind of examination can nevertheless have many
advantages. On the one hand, it helps clarify the concepts used by the traditional
logicians; on the other hand, it is a very reliable instrument to test the validity of the
arguments held by these logicians.
I wish to give some precisions on my method. Unlike the studies on Arabic logic
which try to relate it to the general philosophy endorsed by the various authors,
including their epistemology, their metaphysics, and their theology, I will focus
much more on the technical aspects and features o f the logics themselves.
Furthermore, among the technical features, I will focus on some aspects that have
not been very much studied by the other scholars interested in the subject. As an
example of these aspects, I can mention the theory of oppositions, whether cate­
gorical or modal, which is very rich, particularly in Avicenna’s frame, and which
has some distinct characteristics that differentiate it from the purely Aristotelian
theory. Another example is the hypothetical syllogistic as well as the modal logic,
which present some interest and deserve some more studies, given its complexity
and its originality in particular in Avicenna’s frame. Modal syllogistic has indeed
been studied by a number of scholars, who brought out its distinct features and its
links with Aristotle’s modal syllogistic.5 But it still deserves some more exami­
nation given the complexity of the propositions involved and the multiple inter­
pretations that these propositions give rise to.
On the other hand, it seems that many concepts, methods, and even inferences
that one can find in the writings of the medieval logicians are close to those that we

4In the Western area, many people use the modern symbolisms to interpret the traditional texts as
we will see in the whole book. In the Arabic area, see [75] for an application of modern methods to
Arabic logic.
5See, for instance, Tony Street in his “An outline of Avicenna’s syllogistic” Archivfur Geschichte der
Philosophie, 84 (2), ([136], 129-160), Paul Thom in his paper “Logic and metaphysics in Avicenna’s
modal syllogistic” ([143], 283-295). Wilfrid Hodges too studied modal logic, in many of his papers
and books, for instance, Wilfrid Hodges “Ibn Sina on modes”, Ibara ii.4, 2010 ([81]), “Ibn Sina’s
alethic Modal Logic” ([93]), see also [83] and Mathematical Background to the Logic o f Avicenna,
2014 ([92]). See also Henrik Lagerlund and Allan Back, who published papers on the modal syllo­
gistic of Avicenna, e.g., Allan Back “Avicenna’s conception of the modalities”, Vivarium XXX, 2,
217-255, 1992 ([39]), and Henrik Lagerlund “Avicenna and Tusi on modal logic”, in History and
Philosophy o f Logic, 30: 3, 227-239, 2009 ([105]) (see also [41] for islamic logic in general).
6 1 General Introduction

find in Arabic logic. This closeness might be due to the fact that both of them are
influenced by the Greek commentators of Aristotle. But is this influence the whole
story? Isn’t there any direct link between the Arabic tradition and the medieval one?
Maybe no straightforward answer can be given to that question, but the study of the
theories themselves, their common features as well as their differences could help
determine the missed links between both traditions. This is why my aim in this
research is to study the theories themselves in order to determine their specificities
and their results. In this respect, I wish to clarify the doctrines defended in the
systems chosen and to examine them in the light of modern logic. This kind of
research may be helpful in the sense that it can make the comparison with other
traditions easier, although it is not purely historical, in the sense that I don’t try to
determine exactly who read whom,6 and whether or not the translations from Arabic
to Latin have been made or not, or were available or not at these times. It focuses on
the original texts and the theories studied by using a symbolism that helps deter­
mine precisely the nature of the propositions, concepts, and inferences endorsed by
the authors and the differences between these theories and the Aristotelian ones, and
eventually some of his commentators, in particular, those who are explicitly cited.
Finally, I have to mention a specific difficulty characteristic to the study of
ancient texts in general and Arabic texts in particular, namely, the degree of
faithfulness and adequacy of what is published under the names of these authors.
These problems are well known. For one thing, some publications seem to be
falsely attributed to authors like al-Farabi, for instance, and one has to be careful by
comparing several editions of the same text and retain what is common to them.
Then the texts may contain some corrupt passages and contain words or sentences
badly written, which the publisher must interpret in order to make them coherent.
This also requires not only a comparison between the available editions in order to
warrant as much faithfulness to the author as possible but also some knowledge of
the logical doctrines endorsed by these authors; for only a good knowledge of the
logical rules, definitions and concepts can help correct some incongruities that are
sometimes present in the edited texts.
Also in some cases, the texts are lost, which makes the study of that particular
author incomplete anyway, although one can sometimes rely on the quotations
found in the texts of other authors who knew him. But the information remains
fragmentary and insufficient if the original text of that specific author is not
available.

6The transmissions between Arabic logic and other traditions, in particular, Greek and Western
Medieval, have been studied by Zimmermann (1972) ([150]), who focuses mainly on al-Farabi and
his Greek and Syriac predecessors. See also A. Hasnawi and W. Hodges (2016) ([79]) and
J. Brumberg-Chaumont ([46]) who studies the transmissions of Ancient logic to both Arabic logic
and Western Medieval logic.
References 7

References

15. Al-Farabi, Abu Nasr. 1988. Kitab al Qiyas. In al-Mantiqiyat li-al-Farabi, vol. 1, texts
published by Mohamed Teki Danesh Pazuh, Edition Qom, 115-151.
16. Al-Farabi, Abu Nasr. 1988. al-Qiyas al-Saghlr. In al-Mantiqiyat li-al-Farabi, vol. 1, texts
published by Mohamed Teki Danesh Pazuh, Edition Qom, 152-194.
17. Al-Farabi, Abu Nasr. 1988. Kitab al-Burhan. In al-Mantiqiyat li-al-Farabl, vol. 1, texts
published by Mohamed Teki Danesh Pazuh, Edition Qom, 267-349.
18. Al-Farabi, Abu Nasr. 1988. Ma yanbaghl an yuqaddama qabla ta'allum al-falsafa. In
al-Mantiqiyyat li-al-Farabl, texts published by Mohamed Teki Danesh Pazuh, Edition Qom,
1-10.
19. Al Farabi, Abu Nasr. 1990. Kitab al Huruf, Dar al Machriq, Beirut.
20. Antonelli, Aldo. 2008. Non-monotonic logic. In Stanford encyclopedia o f philosophy, ed.
E. N. Zalta. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-nonmonotonic/.
21. Aristote. 1971. Premiers Analytiques, Translated by J. Tricot, Librairie philosophie J. Vrin,
Paris.
22. Aristotle. 1991. Categories. In The complete works o f aristotle, vol. 1, ed. Jonathan Barnes.
The Revised Oxford Edition.
23. Aristotle. 1991. De Interpretatione. In The complete works o f aristotle, vol. 1, ed. Jonathan
Barnes. The Revised Oxford Edition.
24. Aristotle. 1991. Prior analytics. In The complete works o f aristotle, vol. 1, ed. Jonathan
Barnes. The Revised Oxford Edition.
25. Arnault, Antoine and Pierre Nicole. 1970. La logique ou l ’art de penser. Editions
Flammarion.
26. Averroes. 1982. Talkhls Mantiq Aristu (Paraphrase de la logique d ’A ristote), vol. 1: Kitab
Al-Maqulat (pp. 3-77), Kitab a l-‘Ibara (pp. 81-141), Kitab al-Qiyas (pp. 143-366), edited
by Gerard Jehamy, Manshurat al-Jami a al-lubnaniya, al-Maktaba al-sharqiyya, Beirut.
27. Averroes. 1982. Kitab al-Jadal. In Talkhis Mantiq Aristu, vol. 2, ed. Gerard Jehamy,
Manshurat al-Jami a al-lubnaniya, al-Maktaba al-sharqiyya Beirut, 499-661.
39. Back, Allan. 1992. Avicenna’s conception of the modalities. Vivarium XXX (2): 217-255.
41. Black, Dedorah. 1998. Logic in Islamic Philosophyll, Routledge. Available on line in http://
www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H017.htm#H017SECT2.
46. Brumberg Chaumont and Julie. 2016. The legacy of ancient logic in the middle ages. In The
Cambridge Companion to Medieval Logic, ed. Catarina Dutilh Novaes and Stephen Read,
19-44. Cambridge University Press.
48. Burnett, Charles. 2004. The translations of Arabic works on logic into Latin in the middle
ages and the renaissance. In Handbook o f the history o f logic, vol. 1, ed. Dov Gabbay and
John Woods, 597-606. Elsevier BV.
62. Couturat, Louis. 1901. La logique de Leibniz, Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung
Hildesheim, New Edition (1969).
75. Fakhoury, Adel. 1981. Mantiq al ‘A rab min wijhati nadar al mantiq al hadlth (in Arabic)
(Arabic logic from the point o f view o f modern logic), 2nd Edn., Beirut.
79. Hasnawi, Ahmed and Wilfrid Hodges. 2016. Arabic logic up to Avicenna. In The cambridge
companion to medieval logic, ed. Catarina Dutilh Novaes and Stephen Read, 45-66.
Cambridge: Cambridge university Press.
80. Hasse, Dag Nickolaus. 2014. Influence of Arabic and Islamic thought on the Latin West. In
Stanford encyclopedia o f philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/
arabic-islamic-influence/#Log.
81. Hodges, Wilfrid. 2010. Ibn Sina on modes, ‘Ibarah ii.4’. http://wilfridhodges.co.uk/
arabic07.pdf.
92. Hodges, Wilfrid. forthcoming. Mathematical background to the logic o f Avicenna. http://
wilfridhodges.co.uk/arabic44.pdf.
8 1 General Introduction

93. Hodges, Wilfrid. 2010. Ibn Sind’s Alethic Modal Logic, to appear. http://wilfridhodges.co.
uk/arabic47.pdf.
83. Hodges, Wilfrid. 2012. ‘Ibn Sina’s Modal Logic’, plus ‘Permanent and Necessary in Ibn Sina’,
presented in the workshop Modal Logic in the Middle Ages, University of St-Andrews. http://
wilfridhodges.co.uk/arabic20a.pdf.
105. Lagerlund, Henrik. 2009. Avicenna and Tusi on modal logic. History and Philosophy o f
Logic 30 (3): 227-239.
107. Lagerlund, Henrik. 2012. Arabic logic and its influence. al-Mukhatabat, no. 1, pp. 175-183.
127. Rescher, Nicholas. 1964. The development o f arabic logic. University of Pittsburgh Press
[Arabic translation by Mohamed Mahran, Dar el M a’arif, Cairo (1985)].
126. Rescher, Nicholas. 1966. Galen and the Syllogism. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh
Press.
136. Street, Tony. 2002. An outline of Avicenna’s Syllogistic. Archiv fu r Geschichte der
Philosophie 84 (2): 129-160.
143. Thom, Paul. 2008. al-Farabi on indefinite and privative names. Arabic Sciences and
Philosophy 18 (2): 193-209.
150. Zimmermann, F. W. 1972. Some observations on Al-Farabi and logical tradition. In Islamic
philosophy and the classical tradition, essays presented by his friends and pupils to Richard
Walzer on his seventieth birthday, ed. S. M. Stern, Albert Hourani and Vivian Brown,
Cassirer, Oxford, 517-546.
Chapter 2
The Rise of Arabic Logic: Authors,
Translations, Topics

As reported by Cristina d ’Ancona in her article “Greek Sources in Arabic and

Islamic Philosophy” (2013) ([64]), the translations of the Greek corpus started
“before the rise of Islam” ([64], Sect. 1) in Syria, by translations from Greek to
Syriac, in the fourth and the fifth centuries (AD) and were made by some “theo­
logical schools of Edessa and Nisibi” ([64], Sect. 1). But it is during the Umayyad
Empire first and particularly during the Abbasid Empire that the translations from
Greek into Syriac and afterward from Syriac into Arabic really developed and grew.
Under the Umayyad Empire (661-750, AD), some translations have been made in
particular by the Christian Syriacs, for instance, Porphyry’s Isagoge ([64], Sect. 1).
But the greatest amount of translations has been made under the Abbasid Empire,
starting from the reign of al-Mansur (r. 754-775, AD) and including the reign of
Harun al Rashid (r. 786-809, AD) and the reign of al-Ma’mun (r. 813-833, AD).1
The own secretary of al-Mansur, namely, Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ (d. 756), is said
to have translated “Porphyry’s Isagoge, the Categories, De Interpretatione and
Prior Analytics” ([64], Sect. 2), although some historians attribute these translations
rather to his son Muhammed ibn Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa‘. Apart from these very
first translations, Cristina d ’Ancona claims that there are three major periods and
trends with regard to the translations.
The first one concerns the translations made by the so-called “circle of al-Kindi”
([64], Sect. 3), under the reign of al-Ma’mun whose “leader” ([64], Sect. 3) was
Abu Ya‘qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi (805-873, AD), the very first Arabic philosopher. It
is in that period that the so-called Beyt al-Hikma (literally the House of Wisdom)
has been founded (that was on 830 AD, according to N. Rescher ([127], 140)). This
group of authors translated Aristotle’s Metaphysics plus the Prior Analytics
(translated by Ibn al-Bitriq) ([64], note 32) Sophistici Elenchi, and other philo­
sophical treatises ([64], Sect. 3). Some of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ commentaries
(for instance, “the first book of Alexander’s commentary on the De gen. corr....”
([64], Sect. 3)), together with some writings of Plotinus, Proclus and John1

1Ibn Khaldun evokes only two of these, namely, Abu Ja‘far Al-Mansur ([100], 74) and al-Ma’mun
([100], 75), the latter being the most interested in sciences in general and the most encouraging to
the whole translation process ([100], 75).

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 9

S. Chatti, Arabic Logic from al-Farabi to Averroes, Studies in Universal Logic,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27466-5_2
10 2 The Rise of Arabic Logic: Authors, Translations, Topics

Philoponus (for instance, the “Physics”) among other things ([64], Sect. 3) were
also translated at that period.
The second trend concerns the translations made by Hunayn ibn Ishaq (809-877,
AD), his son Ishaq ibn Hunayn (845-910, AD), and their collaborators. They
translated almost all the treatises, both from Greek into Syriac and from Syriac into
Arabic. We will talk here mainly about the logical treatises. Among these treatises,
we can cite De Interpretatione, translated into Syriac by Hunayn, and from Syriac
to Arabic by his son Ishaq, the Prior Analytics, from Greek into Syriac “partly by
Hunayn and partly by Ishaq, and into Arabic by a certain Tayadurus” ([64],
Sect. 4), who has been identified “with Tadhari ibn Basil Akhi Istafan” ([64], note
57) by some historians. His translation is the one that is used by Abderrahman
Badawi in his recent edition of Aristotle’s Organon (1980) [40]. In this period too,
the Posterior Analytics and the Topics have been translated into Syriac by Ishaq and
for part of the former by his father. The translation into Arabic of the Topics has
been made by “Abu ‘Uthman al-Dimashqi (books I-VII) and by Ibrahim ibn
‘Abdallah (book VIII)” ([64], Sect. 4). Some of Alexander’s treatises such as On
the principle o f the All and On Intellect have been translated by Ishaq into Arabic
([64], Sect. 4), together with Porphyry’s Isagoge, and a commentary on the
Categories which have been translated by Abu ‘Uthman al-Dimashqi for the former
and by Hunayn for the latter ([64], Sect. 4). Many of Galen’s works have also been
translated by Hunayn and one of his pupils.
The third trend concerns the translations made by “Abu Bishr Matta ibn Yunus,
Yahia ibn ‘Ad! and the Baghdad Aristotelians” ([64], Sect. 5). The first author
translated, for instance, “the Syriac version of the Posterior Analytics made by
Ishaq ibn Hunayn and the Syriac translation of the Poetics” ([64], Sect. 5) plus
other Aristotelian treatises. Yahia ibn ‘Ad! translated “the Syriac version of the
Topics made by Ishaq ibn Hunayn” ([64], Sect. 5).
As mentioned by A. Hasnawi and W. Hodges ([79], Sect. 2.1), these works of
the Aristotelian Greek commentators, such as “Themistius (d.c. 388) and ... the
commentaries of the members of the late Neoplatonic school (fifth-sixth centuries)”
which have been translated have had an influence on the Arabic commentaries, in
particular, those of our three authors. For among these commentaries, the two
authors evoke “glosses on the Categories which reflect Simplicius’ commentary on
this treatise” ([79], 47); they say that “traces [of Alexander’s commentary on Prior
Analytics] are visible in the works of al-Farabi, Avicenna and Averroes” ([79], 47­
48) and add that “the same can be said about Themistius’ paraphrase of Prior
Analytics” ([79], 48). So by studying the texts, one should find the close links
between these Greek commentaries and the Arabic ones, but this influence does not
seem to be the whole story, in particular, in Avicenna’s writings, which contain
many original and rich developments, which are different from the theories pre­
sented by his predecessors.
Nicholas Rescher says in The Development o f Arabic Logic [127] that these
translations gave rise to various kinds of commentaries of the Aristotelian treatises
as well as Porphyry’s Isagoge. These commentaries use the writings of the Greek
commentators such as Alexander of Aphrodisias and Galen, among others, who
2 The Rise of Arabic Logic: Authors, Translations, Topics 11

presumably transmitted the Stoics’ heritage to the Arabic authors. However, it

seems that no commentary of the Stoics’ treatises is really made by the Arabic
logicians in the way the commentaries of the Aristotelian treatises are made.2 They
only include the study of the hypothetical syllogisms, characteristic of the Stoic
tradition, inside their respective correspondents of the Prior Analytics or even the
Categories, as in al-Farabl’s case. Their own studies of these kinds of syllogisms
are different. Avicenna gives them much importance and constructs a whole system
involving these syllogisms and other complex ones mixing between categorical and
hypothetical propositions, while Averroes, for instance, treats them as really sec­
ondary, as shown by the simple fact that he devotes only a few pages of his Kitab
al-Qiyas to the analysis of these arguments. Al-Farabi provides in his al-Maqulat
and a short part of his al-Qiyas an analysis of the hypothetical syllogisms, but he
treats them in a relatively elaborate way.
The commentaries were of different kinds, oscillating from short commentaries
looking more like summaries to very long commentaries, which include quotations
of the Aristotelian text, mentions of the ancient criticisms, and personal answers to
these criticisms, in order, most of the time, to defend the Aristotelian positions
against its critics. They also are attempts to make the Aristotelian claims coherent
and to explain them as clearly as possible by means of examples and detailed
analyses of the different ideas defended by Aristotle. However, these commentaries
lead, in the final analysis, to distinct opinions, which are sometimes significantly
different from that of Aristotle, despite their alleged faithfulness to the texts. This is
clear in al-Farabl’s commentaries which introduce many relatively elaborate dis­
tinctions, under the influence of Alexander of Aphrodisias and presumably the
Syriac translators of the Aristotelian corpus (see [150], 520ff for details). Avicenna
is the most original logician in this respect in so far as he does not only comment on
Aristotle but presents what he considers as a new system, more elaborate and
complex than Aristotle’s one, although influenced by it, given that the general
background from which he starts is Aristotelian.
However, before analyzing in detail these commentaries and treatises, I will first
briefly present the main logicians mentioned by Nicholas Rescher in the above text,
and then I will focus on the three authors already mentioned, namely, al-Farabi
(873-950, AD), Avicenna (980-1037, AD), and Averroes (1126-1198, AD). This
choice is motivated, not only by the historical predominance of these three authors,
which is undisputable, but also and above all, by the fact that the technical features
of their systems are not really well known until now, both in the Arabic world and
in the western area, although there are some very good analyses of these logics as
such, that have been made by some western and eastern authors. My aim is to
provide an analysis based on the original Arabic texts in order to clarify the theories
and the concepts and to offer to the readers a faithful and non-deviated

2See, for instance, Tony Street “Arabic Logic” where he notes that .although it is clear that Stoic logic
filtered through to scholars working in Islamic law and theology, there is no tradition of translating Stoic
works and commenting on them comparable to that devoted to Peripatetics w o rk s,.” ([137], 526-527).
12 2 The Rise of Arabic Logic: Authors, Translations, Topics

interpretation of these logical works. For that purpose, I will use the modern logical
symbolism because it is a very efficient tool to check the validity of the rules and
arguments.
The authors are classified chronologically by Rescher ([127], 149, 150, 154, 177,
186, 189). The classification includes almost all the Arabic philosophers and sci­
entists, even those who were much more interested by mathematics or other sci­
ences than by logic as such. For instance, al-Khawarizmi, who is included in
Rescher’s classification, was above all a mathematician and an astronomer, much
more than a logician. He was the creator of Algebra, as witnessed by the title of his
seminal contribution in Algebra, which is Kitab al mukhta^ar fi hisab al-jabr wa-l-
muqabala (The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing)
written under the reign of al-Ma’mun (813-833). So among the authors listed by
Rescher, I will mention only those who wrote in the field of logic.
In the first list of the period (800-900, AD) provided by Rescher, we can retain
the names of Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ (750-815, AD) who wrote a short commentary of
Aristotle’s writings, al-Kindi, who was a philosopher and a commentator, Hunayn
Ibn Ishaq (809-877, AD), Ishaq Ibn Hunayn (845-910, AD) who both are very
important translators ([127], 149-150), while the second period (900-1000, AD)
comprises, among others, Abu bishr Matta (870-940, AD), who was mainly a
translator, al-Farabi (873-950, AD), who is a philosopher and a commentator, and
Ikhwen Assafa (The Brethren of Purity, 970-1030, AD) ([127], 154-155).
In the third period (1000-1100, AD), we can find figures such as Ibn Sina
(Avicenna) (980-1037, AD) and al-Ghazali (1059-1111, AD) ([127], 177). The
former is almost unanimously considered as the greatest logician in the
Arabic-speaking world, whereas the latter who was influenced in many respects by
Avicenna was widely known in the Medieval West. In the fourth period (1100­
1200, AD), the authors cited are mainly Andalusian as, for instance, Ibn Baja
(1090-1140, AD) who was an astronomer, philosopher, and physicist, and was
known under the name of Avempace in the Latin West, Ibn Rushd (Averroes)
(1126-1198, AD), and Ibn Maimun (known under the name of Mai'monide in the
West) (1135-1204, AD) ([127], 186). The fifth list (1200-1300, AD) comprises,
mainly, though not only Afdal al-Din al-Khunaji (1194-1249, AD), Athir al-Din
al-Abhari (1200-1265, AD), who wrote a very influential and popular textbook on
logic, Nasir-eddin at-Tusi (1201-1274, AD), who commented on Avicenna’s al-
Isharat wa al-Tanbihat, and Najmeddine al-Qazwm! al-Katibi (1220-1276 or 1292,
AD) ([127]), who was a follower of Avicenna. We can also cite Fakhreddin al-Razi,
who was a very important post-Avicennan logician in the eastern area.
Al-Khunaji was a logician and was known to have generalized, applied to logic
and made popular the distinction between the conceptions and assents which is still
considered until now as describing the two main topics of logic. This distinction can
be found in many Avicennan treatises, and it is at the heart of the subsequent studies
in Arabic logic. Nasir-eddin at-Tusi is a follower of Avicenna and has commented
on his texts, making his own theory intimately related to that of Avicenna.
Najmeddin al-Katibi al-Qazwini was a logician and he wrote a book called
2 The Rise of Arabic Logic: Authors, Translations, Topics 13

Al-Risala al-shamsiya (The Solar Epistle), where he develops the temporal analysis
initiated by Avicenna.
Most logicians of the second period (900-1000), belonged to the so-called
“School of Baghdad” which was concerned by the commentaries and the teaching
of the Aristotelian Corpus. The members of the school of Baghdad were mainly
Christian. But al-Farab! who was also member of that school was Muslim. The
Muslim scholars became interested in logic later and taught it in Arabic. They made
commentaries of the whole Aristotelian Corpus including Posterior Analytics,
Topics, and so on. They were also interested in modal logic and the hypothetical
syllogisms whose study was in general included in the Prior Analytics. They also
studied analogical and inductive arguments; some of them (Ikhwan assafa) used
this kind of arguments in theological discussions ([127], 164).
The main texts translated are the treatises of the Organon. The so-called “Arabic
Organon” contains
1. Porphyry’s Isagoge,
2. Categories,
3. De Interpretatione,
4. Prior Analytics,
5. Posterior Analytics,
6. Topics,
7. Sophistical Refutations,
8. Rhetorics, and
9. Poetics ([127], 133).
However, the North African historian Ibn Khaldun [1332-1406 AD] complains, in
his al-Muqaddima (Prolegomena), about the fact that some of these treatises were
almost abandoned in later periods for nobody would study them and logic became a
pure formal discipline having nothing to do with science in general or metaphysics. He
also says that in these times, the commentaries of Aristotle’s treatises have been
abandoned in favor of textbooks and summaries which do not contain any new theory.
He himself did not produce any new logical system, but he was interested in the
evolution of the research in that field, for he wrote a chapter devoted to logic in his al-
Muqaddima ([100], Sect. VI, Chap. 22) where he evaluated the latest developments of
logic and of its teaching in the Arabic area. Ibn Khaldun mentions eight treatises to
which a ninth one (Porphyry’s Isagoge) has been added by “the Greek philosophers
(hukama al-yunaniyym)” ([100], 94). Four of these treatises (Categories, De
Interpretatione, Prior Analytics and Posterior Analytics) ([100], 93) are devoted to the
study of the “form of the syllogism” ([100], 92), while the other four (namely, Topics,
Sophistical Refutations, Rhetorics, and Poetics) were devoted to the study of “their
matter” ([100], 92), Porphyry’s Isagoge being devoted to the study of the “five
predicables” ([100], 94). These books have been studied with great attention until the
period of Averroes, but later on, Ibn Khaldun says that some authors changed the field
by introducing some significant modifications such as the suppression of the
Categories, considered as “nonessential” ([100], 94). In addition, they included inside
14 2 The Rise of Arabic Logic: Authors, Translations, Topics

De Interpretatione the analysis of conversions, which was part of the Topics in Ancient
logic ([100], 94) and removed from logic the five following treatises: Posterior
Analytics (al-Burhan), Topics (al-Jadal), Rhetorics (al-Khataba), Poetics (al-Shi‘r),
and Sophistical Refutations (al-Mughalata) ([100], 94-95). According to him, these
treatises are fundamental in logic; this is why he deplores the fact that they were no
more studied, after Averroes. This had, according to him, the following consequence:
logic was no more viewed as a tool for science, but as an independent art. Ibn Khaldun
evokes two authors in this context: Fakhr al-Drn ibn al-Khatib3 and Afdal al-Din
al-Khunaji, who both wrote very influential books, which were taught in the eastern
areas “until this [i.e. his own] time” ([100], 95). Ibn Khaldun’s complaints may be
understood in the light of his own view about logic, its significance, and its utility. For
according to him, logic is first and foremost a tool for other sciences, and this is why
one has to start studying it before any other science. It is as a tool for other sciences that
logic is the most useful, not as an independent discipline.
Ibn Khaldun’s report acknowledges, however, a significant move in the way
logicians viewed their own field. For in the new conception endorsed by al-Khunaji
and Fakhreddin al-Razi, logic appears as an independent and formal discipline,
having its own subject matter and worth studying for itself, independently of its
alleged relations with other sciences and its usefulness for them. This new con­
ception of logic as an independent and formal discipline makes it closer to the
modern conception, as K. El-Rouayheb rightly notes when he says: “Ibn Khaldun
himself lamented this development, but the resulting narrower view of the scope of
mantiq made it much closer to the contemporary understanding of ‘logic’ than the
earlier Peripatetic conception of it as a discipline that covers all the books of the
Organon” ([73], 67). This new conception departs significantly from the traditional
one, which mixes between logic proper and its theoretical or practical applications
and could ultimately be due to the influence of Avicenna on these authors and their
followers.
Anyway, in the first period which is mainly our concern here, the topics studied
were rather various and rich. The three authors were interested in the categorical
syllogistic together with modal logic and the hypothetical syllogisms which were in
general included into the Prior Analytics, and sometimes even in the Categories.
Before entering into the details of their doctrines, let us first consider the aims of
the three logicians considered, since as we will see below, their contributions are
significantly different, so that it could be useful and enlightening to first see what
they wanted to do with their logical systems in order to explain the differences that
we can find in these systems.
Let us start with al-Farabi. According to al-Farabi, logic is first and foremost a
tool, which is useful to reach the truth. But his aim in studying logic has much to do
with teaching, since he seems to believe that Aristotle’s logical corpus and the
commentaries that have been made on it by the Greek authors, whether the

3This author is Fakhreddin al-Razi.

2 The Rise of Arabic Logic: Authors, Translations, Topics 15

peripatetics or the neoplatonists arrived at maturity and can be taught without

significant changes. Thus, in his book al-Huruf, he says:
after dialectical methods have been justified to the greatest extent possible and have
almost become scientific. Things proceed in this manner until philosophy attains the
condition it was in at the time of Plato. They continue to be engaged in these matters until
things become settled where they were during Aristotle’s time. Theoretical science is
completed, the mathematical methods are all distinguished, theoretical philosophy and
universal practical philosophy are perfected, and they cease to contain any object of
examination. It becomes an art that is only learned and taught, and it is taught both to a
select audience and commonly to all. Select instruction proceeds by demonstrative methods
only, whereas common instruction, which is public, proceeds by dialectical.” ([19], 151.14—
152.3, emphasis added).

This focus on teaching and also dialectical methods can be seen through his own
treatment of logic and his use of it, as we will see below, since he does not really
aim at constructing a new system, different from Aristotle’s one. He seems to
consider logic more as a tool to reach the truth in other sciences or fields than as a
science by itself, which could be studied for its own interest. For instance, in the
book Ihsa al- 'Ulum, he says what follows:
“The rules of logic which are the tools by which the intellected things where the reason
could make errors or might omit to perceive are examined (yumtahanu biha)” ([3], 68).

So logic is seen as an instrument that can help the intellect to correct errors and
reach the truth, when the things examined are not obvious and not sufficiently clear.
Its main purpose is thus to verify the truth of our knowledge and to help reaching
the truth in various fields and domains. This verification could be made by one
person for herself or for other people, for instance, in teaching or in discussions, for
it is by following the rules of logic that one can check and verify the correction of
the deductions that lead from true premises to a conclusion.
Al-Farabi was educated within the Aristotelian tradition as Majid Fakhry says in
what follows:
“In the field of logic, al-Farabi’s standing was unmatched. He was the first logician to break
with the Syriac (Jacobite-Nestorian) tradition, which flourished at Antioch, Edessa and
Qinnesrin, and refused for religious reasons to proceed beyond the first four parts of the
Aristotelian logical corpus, i.e. the Categories, Peri hermeneias, the first part of Analytica
Priora and the Isagoge or Introduction to the Categories, written by Porphyry of Tyre. His
logical output covered the whole Organon, together with the Rhetorica and Poetica, as well
as the Isagoge of Porphyry, in the form of paraphrases or large commentaries” ([74], 154,
emphasis added).

He did thus know all the Aristotelian treatises and he commented in particular on
Peri Hermeneias and on Prior Analytics. Majid Fakhry adds that:
Abu Nasr al-Farabi himself reports that he received instruction from Yuhanna Ibn Haylan
up to the end of Analytica Posteriora (Kitab al-Burhan). What came after the “existential
moods” used to be called the unread part, until it was read then. The rule, thereafter, once
the responsibility devolved upon Muslim teachers, was to read what one was able to read of
the existential moods. Abu Nasr states that he read up to the end of Analytica Posteriora
[Kitab al-Burhan]” (From Ibn Usaybi a, “Uyun al-anba”, trans. in [74], 159).
16 2 The Rise of Arabic Logic: Authors, Translations, Topics

He was thus a trained commentator whose aim was not that much to construct a
new system of his own. Rather, he relied on the already available writings of
Aristotle and his followers and focused on the clarification of Aristotle’s doctrines,
although by doing so, he did arrive at some original ideas that can be seen as
improvements of the doctrine, since he criticized some points in Aristotle’s doc­
trine, especially in modal logic, and added many precisions in categorical logic. In
hypothetical logic, his contribution is also independent of Aristotle’s text, since this
whole field is not that much Aristotelian, but related to the Stoic logic.
As to Avicenna, he was very prolific in logic, and did not hesitate to express his
disagreement with some of Aristotle’s doctrines and to modify them in a novel way.
He did not hesitate to build new systems that cannot be found in the writings of
Aristotle or in his commentators, whether Greek or Arabic. His own view with
regard to logic is different from al-Farabi’s view, for according to him, logic is a
science on its own, even if it is also a tool for other sciences. As we can see from the
passages below, he freely claimed his departure from Aristotle in some fields and
the changes that he felt necessary to introduce:
“There is nothing of account to be found in the books of the ancients which we did not
include in this book of ours; if it is not found in the place where it is Customary to record it,
then it will be found in another place which I thought more appropriate for it. To this I
added some of the things which I perceived through my own reflection and whose
Validity I Determined through my own theoretical analysis, especially in Physics and
Metaphysics—and even in Logic, if you will; for although it is Customary to prolong [the
discussion on] the first principles of logic with material that does not belong to Logic but
only to the philosophical discipline—I mean the First Philosophy—I avoided mentioning
any of that [in Logic] and wasting thereby time, and deferred to it in its [proper] place...

I also wrote [another book . . . ] in which I presented philosophy as it is naturally [per­

ceived] and as required by an unbiased view which neither takes into account in [this book]
the views of colleagues in the discipline nor takes precautions here against creating schisms
among them as is done elsewhere; this is my book on Eastern philosophy. But as for the
present book, it is more elaborate and more accommodating to my Peripatetic colleagues.
Whoever wants the truth [stated] without indirection, he should seek the former book;
whoever wants the truth [stated] in a way which is somewhat conciliatory to colleagues,
elaborates a lot, and alludes to things which, had they been perceived, there would have
been no need for the other book, then he should read the present book” (Madkhal 10.1-17,
trans. [78], 43-45).

As we will see below, Avicenna’s systems are the most original and innovative
ones in the Arabic early tradition. His aim in logic was not so much to be faithful to
Aristotle or to comment on his writings; rather, it was to study logic on its own by
considering it as a science, not only as a tool. This is why he created his own
categorical, modal, and hypothetical systems, which, in many respects, depart
clearly from Aristotle’s syllogistic, even if the general background of Avicenna’s
investigations remains Aristotelian. Thus starting from Aristotle’s syllogistic, and
taking it as its main basis, he felt free to introduce some changes in his analysis of
2 The Rise of Arabic Logic: Authors, Translations, Topics 17

the categorical as well as the modal propositions and moods. These changes
affected the analysis of propositions and their logical relations and consequently the
moods stated, whether in categorical or in modal logic. His hypothetical logic has
no counterpart in any of Aristotle’s writings and even in his commentators’s ones.
As Dimitri Gutas says,
“Avicenna’s rationalist empiricism is the main reason why he strove in his philosophy on
the one hand to perfect and fine-tune logical method and on the other to study the human
soul and cognitive processes at an almost unprecedented level of sophistication and pre­
cision. In section after section and chapter after chapter in numerous works he analyses not
only questions of formal logic but also the very conditions operative in the process of
Guessing Correctly and hitting upon the middle term: how one can work for it and where to
look for it, and what the apparatus and operations of the soul are that bring it about” ([78],
376).

Averroes can be seen as the author who departs the most from Avicenna, for his
aim is primarily and mainly to remain as faithful as possible to Aristotle, and to
defend his theories against all the criticisms, misunderstandings, false commen­
taries, etc. that could have been made by his followers. As one of the contemporary
authors says, Averroes’ aim is to return back to the authentic Aristotelian writings,
and “to restore the authentic doctrine of Aristotle” ([69], 51), that is, to get rid of all
what has been added to this theory, which is seen by Averroes as some kind of
distortion of the original doctrine.
These different aims can explain the different features of the three theories that
we will analyze in this book. If logic is mainly seen as a tool, or if it is seen as
essentially a defense of Aristotle’s doctrine and nothing else, this cannot lead to the
same results as the view that logic is a science by itself that is not necessarily
dependent on Aristotle’s findings or on his specific doctrine, even if it remains close
to it. So if Avicenna was innovative unlike his predecessor and his successor, it is
surely because of his vision of logic and his (relative) independence toward
Aristotle. And if Averroes did not introduce a significant change in logic, it is
precisely because he did not want to do that, given his will to “restore” Aristotle’s
logic. Similarly, al-Farabi’s view led him to consider logic as an already
well-known theory that one could teach and that does not need to be significantly
improved.
Let us now analyze these theories, starting from categorical logic.

References

3. Al-Farabi, Abu Nasr. 1968. Ihsa al-'Ulum, ed. Uthman Amin, Maktabat al-anjelu
al-misriyya, Cairo.
19. Al-Farabi, Abu Nasr. 1990. Kitab al Huruf. Beirut: Dar al Machriq.
40. Badawi, Abderrahman. 1980. Mantiq Aristu, vols. 1 and 2, Dar al Kalam, Beirut.
63. Czezowski, Tadeusz. 1955. On certain peculiarities of singular propositions. Mind 64: 287­
308.
18 2 The Rise of Arabic Logic: Authors, Translations, Topics

64. D ’Ancona, Cristina. 2013. Greek sources in Arabic and Islamic philosophy. In Stanford
encyclopedia o f philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arabic-
islamic-greek/.
69. Elamrani-Jamal, Abdelali. 1995. Ibn Rusd et les Premiers Analytiques d’Aristote: Aperiju
sur un probleme de syllogistique modale. Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 5: 51-74.
73. El-Rouayheb, Khaled. 2016. Arabic logic after Avicenna. In The Cambridge Companion to
Medieval Logic, eds. Dutilh Novaes, Catarina, and Read, Stephen, 67-93. Cambridge
University Press.
74. Fakhry, Majid. 2002. Al-Fdrabi, founder o f Islamic neoplatonism, his life, works and
influence. Oxford: Oneworld.
78. Gutas, Dimitri. 2014. Avicenna and the aristotelian tradition: introduction to reading
Avicenna’s philosophical works, 2nd ed. Leiden: Brill.
79. Hasnawi, Ahmed, and Hodges, Wilfrid. 2016. Arabic logic up to Avicenna. In The
Cambridge companion to medieval logic, ed. Catarina Dutilh Novaes and Stephen Read, 45­
66. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
100. Ibn Khaldun, Abdurrahman. 2005. Al-Muqaddima, eds. Abdessalam Chaddadi, Beyt al
Funun wa al-‘Ulum wa al-’Adab, Casablanca, Morocco.
127. Rescher, Nicholas, The development ofArabic Logic, University of Pittsburgh Press, Arabic
translation by Mohamed Mahran, Dar el M a‘arif, Cairo, (1964), Arabic translation (1985).
125. Rescher, Nicholas. 1992. Studies in the history o f Arabic logic. University of Pittsburg Press,
(1963); Arabic translation by Mohamed Mahran, Cairo (1992).
137. Street, Tony. 2004. Arabic logic. In Handbook o f the history o f logic, vol. 1, eds. Gabbay,
Dov, and Woods, John. Elsevier, BV.
150. Zimmermann, F. W. 1972. Some observations on Al-Farabi and logical tradition. In Islamic
Philosophy and the Classical Tradition, Essays presented by his friends and pupils to
Richard Walzer on his seventieth birthday, eds. S. M. Stern, Albert Hourani and Vivian
Brown, 517-546. Cassirer: Oxford.
Chapter 3
Categorical Logic

3.1 Conceptions and Assents

The Arabic logicians traditionally divide logic into two parts as witnessed by Tony
Street in his article “Arabic and Islamic Philosophy of Language and Logic”
([139]). These two parts are the following:
1. The study of “conceptions” (Tasawwer) (translation Street 2008; this word is
translated as “Conceptualisations”, in W. Hodges and T. A. Druart “Al-Farabi’s
Philosophy of Logic and Language” ([90]).
2. The study of “Assents” (Tasdlq) (translation Street [139]).
This division of logic into conceptions and assents can first be found in
al-Farabi. It is also present in Avicenna’s text as we will show below. In al-Farabi,
this distinction is made in relation with teaching, for instance, in the book entitled
al-Alfaz al-musta'mala fi al-mantiq, where al-Farabi says what follows:
“For everything that can be learned by a discourse, the learner must necessarily go through
three situations (ahwal thalatha): the first one is to conceive (tasawwur) this thing and to
understand the meaning of what he heard from the teacher, that is, the meaning that the
teacher intended by the discourse. The second thing is to assent (an yaqa 'a lahu al-tasdlq)
to what he conceived or understood from the discourse of the teacher. And the third one is
to memorize what has been conceived and has been assented to.” ([4], 87, emphasis added)

About this opinion on both conceptualization (tasawwur) and assent (tasdlq),

Wilfrid Hodges comments in this way: “ ... in another passage on teaching, he adds
that ‘We can seek tasdlq either of simple things or of compound’. For al-Farabi a
proposition is always compound, so he is telling us that non-propositional concepts
can be assented to.” ([90], Sect. 8), and he adds:
“The view that both propositions and non-propositional concepts can be true runs fairly
deep in al-Farabi’s thinking, although he recognises that not everybody agrees with it
([Commentary on De Interpretatione] 52.13f). For example this view allows him to think of
definition of non-propositional concepts and demonstration of propositions as overlapping

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 19

S. Chatti, Arabic Logic from al-Farabl to Averroes, Studies in Universal Logic,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27466-5_3
20 3 Categorical Logic

procedures; there can be definitions that are identical with demonstrations except in the
order of their parts ([Demonstration] 47.11). Avicenna a hundred years later found it
essential to distinguish between non-propositional and propositional concepts.
Provocatively he used al-Farabi’s own terminology of tasawwur and tasdiq to fix the
distinction; for Avicenna any concept can be conceptualised, but only propositions can go
on to be verified” ([90], Sect. 8)

This distinction means that logic studies first what expresses the concepts, that
is, the names and the verbs and their characteristics, second what expresses the
propositions and the arguments. But as the passages above show, in al-Farabi’s
view, both procedures are not sharply distinguished, since he says that the pupil
“assents to what he conceived,” so that it seems that concepts can also be something
that one can assent to, while in Avicenna’s view, one can only assent to proposi­
tions, not to concepts. So the distinction as it is defined by al-Farabi contains some
confusion related to the fact that concepts should not be objects of assent, but only
of conception, which W. Hodges noted in the passages cited above, which
Avicenna does not commit.
Since logic is concerned with reasoning, and reasoning is related primarily with
propositions which contain names and verbs expressing various kinds of concepts
and are themselves involved in syllogisms, which lead from premises to a con­
clusion, it seems natural to start the study of the arguments by analyzing the
components of the propositions which constitute them. But this characterization of
logic is not the only one in the Arabic area. It has been endorsed by some logicians
who contest Avicenna’s characterization according to which logic is the study of
the so-called “Second Intentions”.
In Avicenna’s writings, this distinction is explained as follows:
“A thing is knowable in two ways: one of them is for the thing to be merely Conceived so
that when the name is uttered, its meaning becomes present in the mind without there being
truth or falsity, as when someone says “man” or “do this!” ...The second is for the
Conception to be accompanied with Assent, so that if someone says to you, for example,
every whiteness is an accident” you do not only have a conception of the meaning of this
statement, but also assent to it being so.” (al-Shifa, al Madkhal, 17, cited by [139], Sect. 2.1)

The first is the study of single words (classified in several classes) by means of
definitions. The second is the study of propositions, their truth values, and the way
they can be proved. This includes the study of the different arguments, notably the
syllogistic arguments, whether categorical, modal, or hypothetical. According to K.
El-Rouayheb ([72], 70), the view that Conceptions and Assents are the subject
matter of logic was endorsed by al-Khunaji against the rival view that the subject
matter of logic is Second Intentions” which was endorsed by Avicenna, particu­
larly in his “Eisagoge and Metaphysics of al-Shifa” ([72], 70). Tony Street, who
evokes K. El-Rouayheb ([72]) and A. I. Sabra ([131]) says what follows:
“Avicenna’s doctrine on the subject matter of logic was not adopted by the majority of
logicians who followed him (pace Sabra (1980) 757). Quite the contrary, Khunaji argued in
the second quarter of the thirteenth century that the subject matter of logic was Conceptions
and Assents, a claim that was energetically resisted by the remaining Avicennan purists like
Tusi. A recent study has clarified what is at issue in this debate (El-Rouayheb (2012))”
([139], Sect. 2.1.3)
3.1 Conceptions and Assents 21

Avicenna himself evokes this view about logic both in his Metaphysics and in
his Eisagoge (al-Madkhal) of al-Shifa, according to K. El-Rouayheb ([72], 75, note
15). He does not talk about it in his logical treatises such as al-Qiyas (the corre­
spondent of Prior analytics) or al-Isharat wa-al-tanbihat. But before examining
what he says in these logical treatises, let us see what is meant by “Second
Intentions”. According to K. El-Rouayheb, this concept means, in Avicenna’s view
“what accrues to first intentions due to the latter’s existence in the mind” ([72], 74).
Second intentions are some sort of second-level concepts, that is, concepts applying
to other ones, such as the concept “universal” which applies to the concept “animal”
which itself corresponds “to entities in the real world” ([139], Sect. 2.1.2). Thus,
the second intentions studied by logic, in this view, are the concepts that are
properties of other concepts, not those that are properties of real objects. In his
Metaphysics, Avicenna evokes explicitly this view and explains it as follows: “The
subject matter of logic, as you know, is given by the secondary intelligible
meanings, based on the first intelligible meanings, with regard to how it is possible
to pass by means of them from the known to the unknown, not in so far as they are
intelligible and possess intellectual existence ([an existence] which does not depend
on matter at all, or depends on an incorporated matter)” (Avicenna, Metaphysics,
p. 7, cited in [139], Sect. 2.1.2). Note that, in this passage, he suggests that the
study of secondary intentions is what makes the mind “pass from the known to the
unknown,” that is, arrive to an unknown conclusion from known premises, which is
exactly what all logical arguments do. He thus introduces almost implicitly the
notions of deduction and of reasoning in describing the subject matter of logic.
However, in al-Isharat, for instance, Avicenna gives a slightly different and very
general definition:
“What is meant by logic, for men, is that it is a regulative (qanumya) tool whose use
prevents his mind from making errors ( ’an yadallafifikrihi)” ([36], 117).

where logic is seen as an Organon much more than as the study of “Second
Intentions”. His follower Tusi comments on this definition by saying that logic is,
according to Avicenna “a science by itself ( ‘ilmun bi nafsihi) and a tool with regard
to other sciences...” ([36], 117, note (1)).
In other treatises, Avicenna presents almost the same definition, for he says in al-
Najat, for instance, what follows: “ ... for [logic] is the tool that prevents the mind
from errors in what men conceive and assent to and it is what leads to the true
convictions by providing their reasons and by following its methods” ([32], 3) and
he goes on talking precisely about the so-called Conceptions and Assents, in the
chapter that just follows that quotation. For instance, he says that “Every knowledge
and science is either conceptions or assents. The conception is the first science and
is acquired by the term (hadd)... like our conception of the essence of men” ([32],
3). This quotation shows that the idea of Conceptions and Assents can be found in
Avicenna’s text itself and is not foreign to Avicenna, but it is applied here to all
sciences, not only to logic, although the treatise itself is devoted to the study of
logic. In Mantiq al-mashriqiyyin, Avicenna entitles the first chapter “On the science
of logic” and explains that title by saying that logic is “the first art in conceptions
22 3 Categorical Logic

and assents (al-fann al-’awel fi-al-tasawer wa-al-tasdiq)” ([31], 9). This means
once again that the division above is not foreign to Avicenna’s thought.
However, although the notions of conception and assent are indeed present in
Avicenna’s texts, these notions are not specifically applied to logic in Avicenna’s
view. This is, according to T. Street, what distinguishes Avicenna’s view about
logic from Khunaji’s one, for “All knowledge, according to Avicenna, is either
Conception or Assent... What the later logicians in the line of Fakhreddin al-Razi
did was make Conceptions and Assents the subject matter of logic. We know that
Khunaji was the first to do this thanks to a report in the Qistas al-Afkar of
Shamseddin as-Samarkandi (d.c. 1310).” ([139], Sect. 2.1.3). So, what applied to
all sciences in Avicenna’s view applies in the later one only to logic. According to
Tony Street, the shift from the first view to the later one is due to some weaknesses
of Avicenna’s view which he expresses as follows: “The claim that Avicenna’s
identification of secondary intelligibles as logic’s subject matter is inaccurate and
too narrow to achieve what he hopes it can” ([139], Sect. 2.1.3 my emphasis). This
narrowness is also noticed by K. El-Rouayheb who reports an objection made by
some people and “endorsed by Katibi,” according to which “second intentions are
not exhaustive of the subject matter of logic” ([72], 74). The reason evoked is that
some concepts studied by logic are first intentions rather than second intentions, for
he says, reporting Katibi’s opinion: “The logician ‘investigates’ (yabhathu ‘an)
concepts such as ‘differentia’ and ‘genus’ and, crucially, these are intrinsic acci­
dents of first intentions. It follows that the subject matter of logic includes first
intentions as well as second intentions.” ([72], 74).
This rival view became the most popular one and is still present in the Arabic
traditional logic books, for instance, the famous Katibi’s book Al-Risala al-
Shamsiyya and “even much later Arabic handbooks on lo g ic ,. for example Sullam
a l-‘ulum by the Mughal scholar Muhibbullah Bihari (d. 1707)” ([72], 78). Almost
all of the textbooks start by the study of concepts, then the propositions, and finally
the syllogistic arguments. The view that logic is the study of Conceptions and
Assents seems then to be largely accepted by Arabic logicians as claimed both by
El-Rouayheb and by M. Mahran in ([127], introduction, 40). However, K.
El-Rouayheb says that, in Khunaji’s view, “the subject matter of logic is presented
as being ‘the objects of conceptions and assents’ (al- ma ‘lumat al-tasawwuriya wa-
al-tasdlkiya)” ([72], 71) rather than merely conceptions and assents. The shift
between “objects of conceptions and assents” and “conceptions and assents” sim­
pliciter occurred, according to him, in the writings of “Khunaji’s students, Ibn
Wasil and Siraj al-Din al-Urmawi (d. 1283).” ([72], 71, note 5). It was followed
later on by several scholars.
By the study of conceptions, what is meant is the clarification of the meanings of
simple words and complex ones. The aims are mainly (among others):
1. to distinguish between general and particular words.
2. to indicate how the word signifies (by “equivalence” (mutabaka) or “inclusion”
(tadhammun) or “implication” (iltizam).
3.1 Conceptions and Assents 23

3. to distinguish between singular and complex words.

4. to examine the characteristics of names, verbs, and particles (M. Mahran, [127],
introduction, 47).
These aims are accomplished in distinct ways by the various scholars, for the
classifications of words and their functions are not exactly the same from author to
author, as mentioned by M. Mahran in his introduction to Rescher’s book (see
[127], 41-49). The Arabic analyses of the concepts extend the Aristotelian back­
ground to include some Stoic features and characteristics, according to M. Mahran,
who mentions that “the idea of ‘signification’ and ‘significant’ comes from the
Stoics’ logic” ([127], p. 43).
The analyses may also involve some grammatical distinctions specific to the Arabic
language. For instance, the complex singular words are typically compound names,
used very frequently by the Arabic people, such as “Abdal Malik” ([127], 44). As to the
distinction between names, verbs, and particles, it can be found in Sibawayhi’s1
grammatical treatise entitled al-Kitab (I: 12), but it is applied to logic by al-Farabi, for
instance (see [7], 22). Al-Farabi provides a complete listing of logical words in his
treatise entitled Al-Alfaz al-musta ‘am alafi al-Mantiq. Although the particles are used
both by the grammarians and the logicians,12 al-Farabi stresses the fact that his own use is
logical, for he privileges the logical meanings of these words, i.e., the ways they are used
by logicians in their treatises. He even refers to the Greek tradition in his classification of
particles, for, he says, the Arabic grammarians do not really classify them, because they
do not give to each category a specific name ([4], 42).
The classification presented by al-Farabi includes some particles related directly
to logic such as “Al” (“The”), “Kull” (“Every” and “all”), and “Ba ‘d” (“some”) ([4],
44), that is, the quantifiers and some articles, plus the particles of negation such as
“Laysa” and “la” (“not” and “no”) or those expressing the logical connectives such
as “Imma” (“or”), “In kana”, “idha” (“when” and “in case”), “Lakin” and “’Illa
’anna” (“but” and “however”), “Fa ’idhan” (“therefore”), and so on ([4], 8-9).3 This
classification could be seen as an anticipation of the Medieval studies and listings of
the so-called syncategoremata, which were very popular in the Middle Ages. These
listings were different from one logician to another but all of the distinction between
syncategoremata and categoremata can be found in all treatises.4
Some other particles are related to the Aristotelian categories, since they help
characterize the category of the predicate, whether the quantity, the quality, or the

1Sibawayhi is considered as the founder of Arabic grammar. His distinction has been challenged
by some other grammarians, but it resisted all the criticisms and seems to be still admitted
nowadays by the contemporary grammarians.
2For a general study of the relation between logic and grammar in al-Farabi’s frame, see [147] and
see also ([5], 80). For the relation between grammar and logic in the Arabic tradition, see [148] and
[149].
3See the whole classification and its analysis in [52].
4For a general study of this topic, see [102]. For the classification presented by Peter of Spain, see
[133].
24 3 Categorical Logic

substance. Others determine the aim of doing or of saying something. They are thus
related to the final cause, for the final causes even in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics
are expressed in some syllogisms by the middle term. So we may include this kind
of words inside traditional logic, although this inclusion might seem odd for
modern and contemporary logicians.
Note, however, that the modal words, that is, “mumkin” (possible), “muhal” or
“mumtani” (impossible), and “wajib” or “darnrf’ (necessary) are not cited by
al-Farabi, which means that the words expressing the modalities are not considered
as particles. This omission may be explained by the fact that these words are merely
adverbs and may also be verbs. For this reason, they cannot be classified as par­
ticles, which are neither verbs nor names (adverbs could be seen as a kind of
names).
Now, what about the assents? This part of logic is the study of propositions and
arguments. It is the most important part of the logical texts, even in Arabic logic,
since the treatises corresponding to De Interpretatione (called al- ‘Ibara in Arabic)
are devoted to the classification of the several kinds of propositions and their
relations, while those corresponding to Prior Analytics (called al-Qiyas, in Arabic)
are devoted to the study of the different syllogisms, that is, the deductive arguments,
whether categorical or modal or hypothetical. The inductive and analogical argu­
ments are also studied by the different Arabic logicians in their respective al-Qiyas.
The propositions are either true or false, which means that Arabic logic is
bivalent. They may be elementary (basita) or complex (murakkaba). The complex
propositions are either predicative (hamliya) or hypothetical (shartiya). There are
many kinds of predicative propositions, which are either singular or indefinite or
quantified. The quantified propositions are either universal or particular, the
indefinites are not quantified, but they are generally treated as particulars in
al-Farabi’s and Avicenna’s frames, while in Averroes’ one, they are ambiguous
(sometimes particular, sometimes universal). The syllogistics presented in
al-Farabi’s and Averroes’ frames focus on the predicative propositions and admit
three figures and the same valid moods as Aristotle in each figure. While both of
them devote only a few pages to the hypothetical syllogisms, Avicenna departs
from his predecessor and his successor by defending a whole theory of hypothetical
syllogisms, using the two main kinds of hypothetical propositions and containing
exactly the same moods and figures than the categorical syllogistic.
The hypothetical propositions may be either conditional (or connected = muttasila)
(e.g., “If the sun rises, it is daytime”) or disjunctive (or separated = munfasila) (e.g., “a
number is either odd or even”). The study of these complex propositions includes
elements of the Stoic logic, since the five Stoics’ Indemonstrables and their variants are
cited in al-Farabi’s frame, while Averroes cites most of them. As to Avicenna, he
develops a whole hypothetical syllogistic which takes a considerable part of his al-
Qiyas and is summarized in other treatises such as al-Najat and al-Isharat wa-t-
Tanbihat. We will present it in our Chap. 5.
The reasonings are classified into three kinds which are the following:
3.1 Conceptions and Assents 25

1. Syllogistic reasonings (Qiyas),

2. Inductive reasonings (Istiqra), and
3. Analogical reasonings (Tamthil).
The syllogistic reasonings include the categorical syllogisms as well as the
modal ones and the hypothetical syllogisms in their two versions. We will present
all those that are treated in al-Farabl’s, Avicenna’s, and Averroes’ frames in Chap. 5
. However, we will not study the analogical and inductive arguments, for they
deserve another examination.

3.2 The Oppositions Between Categorical Propositions

As we said above, the predicative propositions may be either singular or indefinite

or quantified. The singular propositions contain a particular subject and a general
predicate. They may be affirmative or negative. Both the indefinite and the quan­
tified propositions contain general terms as subjects and predicates, the difference
between them being that the indefinite propositions do not contain any quantifier
while the quantified ones contain one of these words.
Their relations are determined by means of their truth values, which in turn are
fixed by considering the matter modalities of the propositions.
These matter modalities are the following:
1. The matter necessity, which means that the predicate is satisfied by all of the
subject individuals, as in the following: “Men are animals.”
2. The matter possibility, that is, the fact that the predicate is satisfied by some of
the subject individuals, but not all, e.g., “Men are writers.”
3. The matter impossibility, i.e., the predicate is not satisfied by any of the subject
individuals, as in: “Men are stones”.
So all material sentences containing concrete subjects and predicates pertain to
one matter or another depending on whether the predicate is satisfied or not by the
subject individuals, and in case it is satisfied, on whether it is satisfied by all of them
or only by some of them. These matters are determined by a set of truth values
corresponding to each kind of quantified propositions, whether affirmative or
negative. The table below shows the truth values of the four quantified propositions
in the three matters:
Necessary matter Possible matter Impossible matter
Every A is B: True Every A is B: False Every A is B: False
Some A is B: True Some A is B: True Some A is B: False
No A is B: False No As is B: False No A is B: True
N ot every A is B: False Not every A is B: True Not every A is B: True

These matter modalities are used in all the frames considered here, starting from
that of al-Farabi. They help determine the relations between the quantified
26 3 Categorical Logic

propositions in a precise way, for all the propositions considered have a determined
value in all the cases considered. Avicenna, in particular, provides the table pre­
sented above and shows in al- ‘Ibara that these truth values justify in a semantic
way the whole set of logical oppositions between the quantified propositions.
We have to note, however, that al-Farab! is not the first author to evoke and
analyze these matter modalities, for they can be found in the writings of the Greek
commentators, such as Alexander of Aphrodisias, Ammonius, and Stephanus and
also in the writings of some earlier Arabic logicians, as many authors have shown.
For instance, F. W. Zimmermann says that “The list of “necessary”, “possible”, and
“impossible” is based, according to Ammonius (215.11 ff), on the argument that “a
predicate must hold of a subject either always or never or just occasionally” ([150],
note 8, 538). He adds that we find similar terminologies in authors like Ibn
al-Muqaffa‘ and Ikhwan as-safa, who use, respectively, the expressions “three
umur” (ibn al-Muqaffa‘) and “three ‘anasir” (Ikhwan as-safa) ([150], note 9, 539).
Turning back to al-Farab!’s text, let us first consider the singular propositions.
The singular propositions may be affirmative, e.g., (1) “Zayd is just,” affirmative
with a negative predicate, e.g., (2) “Zayd is not-just” or negative, e.g., (3) “Zayd
is-not just.” The negative predicates are called “indeterminate” (“ghair muhassal ”)
by al-Farab! ([14], 85) and ma ‘dul by Averroes ([26], 106). They do not modify the
quality of the proposition, which remains affirmative. Al-Farabi says that even the
metathetic predicates are affirmative in the final analysis, for “not-just” means
“unjust”, “not-seeing” means “blind”, etc. ([14], 86). The same opinion is defended
by Avicenna, which shows that for this particular point, the three authors agree with
each other and follow Aristotle’s opinion, according to which the proposition
containing the indefinite (metathetic) predicate is still affirmative.5
This analysis of the metathetic predicates indicates the Greek sources that
al-Farab! was using. This point is noted by some scholars and reported in the
following quotation:
“Following Theophrastus (Fortenbaugh et al. 1992, 148-153) he identifies this kind of
negation as ‘metathetic’ ( ‘uduli); he takes the resulting metathetic sentence to be an affir­
mation, not a denial.” ([90], Sect. 8)

In al-Farab!’s frame as well as in Avicenna’s and Averroes’ ones, the affirmative

proposition is considered as having an import, while the real denial of the affir­
mative proposition, i.e., its contradictory negation, which makes the negative
proposition true whenever the affirmative is false, and false whenever the affir­
mative is true, does not have an import, because it could be true when the subject
does not exist. This point is explicit in this part of al-Farab!’s text, given the truth
values he gives to the different propositions. He explicitly attributes an import to
affirmative propositions and denies it from the negative ones, just like Aristotle.
Thus, if Zayd does not exist, the proposition:

5However, the analyses of metathetic terms provided by al-Farab! and Avicenna are rather dif­
ferent. See, for instance, Paul Thom in his article “al-Farab! on indefinite and privative names”
[142], and Saloua Chatti in ([52], 181).
3.2 The Oppositions Between Categorical Propositions 27

(3) ‘Zayd is-not just’

would be true just because the subject Zayd does not exist. This proposition can be
interpreted in the following way:
(4) It is not the case that Zayd is just
this is why it is true when Zayd does not exist, given that its correspondent affir­
mative is false in that case.
On the contrary, the proposition:
(2) Zayd is not-just
is false if Zayd does not exist, for given that the negation puts on the predicate and
not on the copula, the whole proposition is not negative and, being affirmative, it
presupposes the existence of its subject. Since its subject does not exist, it is false
because it attributes something to a non-existent thing, which (as non-existent)
cannot possess any property.
Consequently, the negation which expresses contradiction is external in the three
frames. The contradictory negation expresses the denial of the initial proposition.
An external negation puts either on the copula when the proposition is singular or
on the quantifier when the proposition is quantified. As a matter of fact, as we will
see in the following sections, the quantified negative propositions are expressed by
means of the particles “laysa” or “la”, which are put at the beginning of the
proposition.
The quantified propositions are expressed as follows:
- Every A is B (universal affirmative: A)
- No A is B (universal negative: E)
- Some A’s are B ’s (particular affirmative: I)
- Not every A is B (particular negative: O)6
Their truth values matter by matter which the table above exhibits show that the
two necessary affirmatives contain predicates which always apply to their subjects,
so that they cannot be false, while the two necessary negatives deny the attribution
of a necessary predicate to their subjects, which leads to false propositions, e.g.,
“No man is an animal”, or “Not all men are animals”. This falsity is due to the fact
that “animal” is an essential predicate of the subject “human”, a part of its very
definition, which determines, among other things, its very nature: no being can be a
human if it is not an animal.
As to the impossible matter, things are different for it is the impossible propo­
sitions that are always true (e.g., “No man is a stone” is true) and the affirmative
ones that are always false (e.g., “Some men are stones” or “All men are stones” are
always false).

6The vowels A, E, I, and O are not used by the Arabic logicians, who do not name the quantified
propositions. We have introduced them only for convenience.
28 3 Categorical Logic

The possible propositions function in a different way, for in their case, the
distinction between the true propositions and the false ones is to be made by taking
into account the quantity of the propositions, not their quality. For it is obvious that
saying “All men are writers” is false, given that not all men are writers, the
predicate “writer” being not essential to the subject “man”, while the proposition
“Some men are writers” is true, for there are men who are able to write. The
negative possible propositions function in the same way for the universal one is
false (“No man is a writer” is false), while the particular one is true (“Not all men
are writers” is true).
As to the indefinites, both al-Farabi and Avicenna say that they are or at least
ought to be considered as particulars because they may be true together. Averroes
says that they are ambiguous: they may be either universal or particular ([26], 92­
93). This makes his theory slightly different from those of his two predecessors.

3.2.1 The Oppositions of Categorical Propositions

in al-Farabi’s Frame

Al-Farab! defines the oppositions in several treatises. In Kitab al ‘Ibara, the short
treatise corresponding to De Interpretatione (which is different from the long
commentary of the same De Interpretatione, entitled Shark a l-‘Ibara ([12]) or
Shark al-FarabT li-Kitab AristUtalTs fi-l- ‘Ibara ([2])), in al-MaqUlat (the corre­
spondent of the Categories) and in Kitab al-Qiyas, the short treatise corresponding
to the Prior Analytics, he analyzes the oppositions between the quantified propo­
sitions as well as the indefinites and the singulars.
He first says that: “Two opposed propositions are either singular or contrary or
subcontrary or contradictory or indefinite” ([10], 15) which means that he admits
merely three kinds of oppositions, namely, contradiction, contrariety, and sub­
contrariety. But he separates, in this classification, the singular and the indefinite
propositions from the quantified ones. Despite this separation, however, the
oppositions between the indefinites and the singulars are still classical and enter into
the three kinds above.
The quantified propositions are those that contain a quantifier called “sur” by
al-Farabi. This word “sur” is not in Aristotle’s texts. In Arabic, its meaning is not
prima facie related to logic, for it has a proper meaning, which is “wall”, in
particular, a wall that surrounds a city, from which a metaphoric meaning can
emerge, namely, the idea of encircling something or delimitating it, which the sUr
achieves. This idea is plausible, since it is the sUr (the quantifier) adjoined to the
subject of a quantified proposition that indicates that the whole of the subject (in a
universal proposition) or only part of it (in a particular proposition) satisfies the
predicate. According to Zimmerman who studies this word and some other logical
vocabulary in his article “Some Observations on al-Farabi and Logical Tradition”
[150], in the Arabic tradition of logic, the very first author who uses the word sUr is
3.2 The Oppositions Between Categorical Propositions 29

ibn al-Muqaffa‘. As the table provided by Zimmermann shows, al-Kind! did not use
it ([150], 530-531). So it is Al-Farab! who seems to be the second author to use it,
followed by Ikhwan as-safa. However, Zimmermann says first that al-Farab! did not
take it from ibn al-Muqaffa‘ (who is never cited by al-Farab! in any of his treatises),
since his analysis made him deduce that “ibn al-Muqaffa‘ is not al-Farab!’s source”
([150], 529), second that “There is no obvious connection between this term and its
Greek counterpart prosdiorismos which means some additional specification and, in
this fixation, a quantifying expression adjoined to an elementary sentence” ([150],
535). This is why he priviledges the hypothesis that the origin of the term may be
Syriac, for he says “We will wonder whether sur is a case of a Syriac metaphor
transferred into Arabic” ([150], 535). This word seems thus to carry a metaphorical
meaning common to its Syriac and Greek counterparts, although as one reviewer
suggests it is not an “exact translation” of the Greek word prosdiorismos, (“used by
Philoponus”).
In Ibn al-Muqaffa‘’s treatise entitled “al-Mantiq” ([97]),7 we find the following
classification of quantifiers: “He said: and the quantifiers (siwar), that is, the words
(al-kalam) that distinguish between the general, i.e. ‘every’ (al-kull), and the par­
ticular, i.e. ‘some’ (al-ba‘d), are four in number: these are ‘every’ (kull),..., and
‘some’ (ba‘d), and also ‘no one’ (la wahid)... a n d . ‘not every’ (la kull)” ([97], §
75, 36, my translation). Professor Hodges adds that this sentence “could very easily
be an annotated translation of the following passage from Alexander of
Aphrodisias” Commentary:
“And again, the subject is that to which the quantitative determination (posdn
diorismos) of the proposition is annexed (‘every’ or ‘no’ or ‘some’ or ‘not every’)”
([1], 44.25ff, translated Barnes et al.).
Another reference that Prof. Hodges provided me with comes from the book of
Ibn al-Sikkit ([99]) who “reports that siwar .w a s used to mean ‘bracelet’” and that
the word was also used by a poet whose verse are quoted by him and where the
word siwar seems to mean something like “limit”.
These references tend to show, as Prof. Hodges notes, that the word siwar
(whose root is the same as sur) was already used in Arabic with a metaphorical
meaning close to the one that we find in the logical treatises, which could explain
why the translators chose it to translate a Syriac word carrying the same
metaphorical meaning.
Now, what about the oppositions between the different kinds of propositions?
These oppositions are defined as follows:
- Two propositions are contradictory if they never share the same truth value, in
any matter.
- Two propositions are contrary if they are both false in the possible matter and do
not share the same truth value in the necessary and impossible matters.

7I owe this reference (and many other ones) to Prof. Wilfrid Hodges. I thank him very much for his
help and his fruitful and numerous suggestions and remarks which made me improve significantly
my work.
30 3 Categorical Logic

- Two propositions are subcontrary if they are both true in the possible matter and
do not share the same truth value in the necessary and impossible matters ([10],
16-17).
Let us consider the definition of contradiction. What al-Farab! is saying is that in
whatever matter we consider (necessary, possible or impossible), when two
propositions have the same subject and the same predicate, but one of them is
affirmative while the other one is negative, they are contradictory if they never share
the same truth value, i.e., if when the first one is true, the second one is false and
vice versa. So when “Every A is B” is true, its contradictory “Not every A is B” will
be false, and if the former is false, its contradictory will be true. This difference
between the truth values of both sentences can be found in sentences illustrating the
three matters. For instance, the following couples of material sentences are
contradictory:
(1) Every human is an animal / (2) Not every human is an animal (necessary matter:
(1) True, (2) False)
(1') Every human is a writer / (2') Not every human is a writer (possible matter: (1')
False, (2') True)
(1”) Every human is a stone / (2") Not every human is a stone (impossible matter:
(1") False, (2") True).
So in these examples, the two propositions never have the same truth value in all
three matters. The same can be said about E and I propositions which never share
the same truth value, when they have the same subject and the same predicate, in
necessary (E: False, I: True), possible (E: False, I: True), and impossible (E: True,
I: False) matters.
In the same way, we can explain the definitions of contrariety (and also sub­
contrariety). Two contrary propositions (A and E, for instance) are both false in the
possible (e.g., “Every human is a writer” (False) and “No human is a writer”
(False)), but they don’t have the same truth value in the necessary (e.g., “ ‘Every
human is an animal” (True) and “No human is an animal” (False)), and they don’t
have the same truth value in the impossible (e.g., “Every human is a stone” (False)
and “No human is a stone” (True)).
The two singular propositions are contradictory when one of them is affirmative
and the other negative. In this case, they never share the same truth value. As we
said above, the negation must be external, which means that, when the proposition
is singular or indefinite, it must put on the copula and not on the predicate. If the
negation puts on the predicate, the proposition is not negative; it is affirmative as
al-Farab! says explicitly in the following quotation: “As to the proposition whose
predicate is indefinite (ghair muhassal), it is affirmative, not negative” ([8], 147). In
this treatise, he provides the following table where he distinguishes between several
kinds of opposed singular propositions:
3.2 The Oppositions Between Categorical Propositions 31

“ Zayd is learned (yujadu ‘aliman) Zayd is not learned (laysa yujadu ‘aliman)
Zayd is not ignorant (laysa yujadu jahilan) Zayd is ignorant (yujadu jahilan)
Zayd is not not-learned (laysa yujadu la- ‘aliman) Zayd is not-learned (yujadu la- ‘aliman )” ([8],
149)

In this table, the propositions of the left side are contradictory to their coun­
terparts (of the same line) in the right side. As to the other propositions, they are
opposed in several ways, which al-Farab! considers in the rest of the text by
examining their respective truth values. In examining the truth values of the
propositions of the left side, he says first that the proposition
(2) “Zayd is not ignorant”
is more often true than the proposition
(1) “Zayd is learned”
because the latter is true of Zayd if he is adult and savant, while the former is true of
Zayd if he is adult and savant and also when he is a child. As to
(3) “Zayd is not not-ignorant”
it has the same truth conditions and the same relations to (1) as (2) ([8], 149).
As to the propositions of the right side, he says that
(4) “Zayd is not learned”
is true if Zayd is a child and is an adult who is not savant, while
(5) “Zayd is ignorant”
is true only when Zayd is an ignorant adult. As to
(6) “Zayd is not-learned”
it is true only of an ignorant adult, so it is less true that (4) and has the same
relations with (4) than (5).
The cases of falsity of all these propositions are also stated in the following way:
(1) is false of Zayd if he is adult and not learned, and also if he is a child.
(2) is false of Zayd only if he is an ignorant adult.
(3) is false of Zayd only if he is an ignorant adult.
(4) is false of Zayd if he is an adult who is learned.
(5) is false of Zayd if he is an adult who is learned and also if he is a child.
(6) is false of Zayd if he is an adult who is learned and if he is achild ([8], 149­
150).
As a consequence, we have the following truth values and relations:
(1) “Zayd is learned” and (5) “Zayd is ignorant” are possibly false together (if Zayd
is a child). But when one of them is true, the other one is false ([8], 150).
They are thus contrary.
(2) “Zayd is not ignorant” and (4) “Zayd is not learned” are both true if Zayd is a
child.
32 3 Categorical Logic

But when one of them is false, the other one is true ([8], 150-151). Consequently,
we can say that they are subcontrary. In addition, when (4) is false, its contradictory
(1) will be true, consequently (5) will be false, being the contrary of (1), and (2) will be
true, because it is the contradictory of (5) ([8], 151). Given that when (4) is false, (5) is
false, and that there is no case where (5) is true while (4) is false, we can conclude that
(4) is the subaltern of (5). The same can be said about (1) and (2). However, although
al-Farab! gives the truth conditions of this relation of subalternation, he does not use
any word to qualify it. Only Avicenna introduces it explicitly and calls it “tadakhul”, as
we will see below (Figs. 3.1 and 3.2).
Finally, according to al-Farab!, (3) and (6) are related to (1) and (4) as (2) and
(5) are related to (1) and (4), given that (5) and (6) are equivalent and (2) and (3) are
also equivalent ([8], 151). This leads to the following squares:
Given these squares, we can say that the propositions (4) and (6) are not
equivalent, although the latter implies the former. This means that the negation
must be external to really produce a contradictory proposition. If it is internal, it
produces only a contrary proposition.
Almost the same table is provided by al-Farab! for the indefinite propositions, for
he says the following:
“Men are learned (yujadu ‘aliman) Men are not learned (laysa yujadu ‘aliman)
Men are not ignorant (laysa yujadu jahilan) Men are ignorant (yujadu jahilan)
Men are not not-learned (laysa yujadu la- ‘aliman) Men are not-learned (yujadu la- ‘aliman)” ([8], 151)

However, with regard to the truth values of the propositions, this table is dif­
ferent from the preceding, for the two propositions of the first line, in the left and
the right sides are not contradictory; rather they are subcontrary, given that the
indefinites are considered as particulars by al-Farab! ([8], 152). If we apply the same
numerals to these propositions, we can also say that (1) “Men are learned” can be
true together with (5) “Men are ignorant.”

Fig. 3.1 The square 1 with (1) Zayd is learned (5) Zayd is ignorant
singular propositions
containing opposed predicates

(2) Zayd is not ignorant (4) Zayd is not learned

Fig. 3.2 The square 2 with (1) Zayd is learned (6) Zayd is not-learned
singular propositions
containing opposed predicates

(3) Zayd is not not-learned (4) Zayd is not learned

3.2 The Oppositions Between Categorical Propositions 33

Now what about the quantified propositions? In Kitab al-Qiyas, al-Farab! says
that the universal affirmative (A) and the particular negative (O) are contradictory,
the universal negative (E) and the particular affirmative (I) are also contradictory,
the two universals are contrary, and the two particulars are subcontrary ([10], 16).
However, he does not evoke subalternation in his text, which he does not take into
account nor define explicitly, although he does use it implicitly (without naming it)
as we saw above. Consequently, the relations he holds may be represented by the
following Fig. 3.3:
However,, in Kitab al- ‘Ibara, he provides tables for the quantified propositions
similar to those containing the singulars and the indefinites. The first table contains
the two kinds of particulars (with contrary predicates) and is the following:
“A man is learned Not every man is learned
Not every man is ignorant A man is ignorant
Not every man is not-learned A man is not-learned” ([8], 152)

In this table, the propositions function as the indefinites, for those which are in
the left side are not the contradictories of those of the right side. Rather they are
subcontrary. In the same way, (1) is the subcontrary of both (5) and (6) for they may
be true together. The same can be said about the three negative propositions which
may be true together too. However, from top to bottom, both in the left side and in a
right side, they are comparable to the singulars and the indefinites for the top
propositions imply those of the second and the third lines, in the left side, while in
the right side, those of the bottom imply the top propositions.
Another table containing the two kinds of universals is given and commented by
al-Farab!. It is the following:
“Every m an is learned (1) No m an is learned (4)
No m an is ignorant (2) Every m an is ignorant (5)
No man is not-learned (3) Every m an is not-learned (6)” ([8], 151, numerals added)

In this table, the three propositions of the left side are the contraries of those of
the right side provided that they are in the same lines. The contrariety holds also
between (1) and (5) and between (1) and (6), for these cannot be true together.

Fig. 3.3 The incomplete E: No S is P

square

O: Not every S is P
34 3 Categorical Logic

However, the negatives may be true if “their subjects are non-existent” ([8], p. 152),
so all of them are subcontrary rather than contrary.
The two last tables contain contradictory propositions (with contrary predicates):
the first one is the following:
“ Every man is learned Not every man is learned
Not every man is ignorant Every man is ignorant
Not every man is not-learned Every man is not-learned” ([8],152)

Here the propositions of the left side and the right side are all contradictory
provided that they are in the same line. However, the three negatives are subcon­
trary, because they can be true together when the subject is non-existent, as noted
above ([8], 152), while the affirmatives are rather contraries, for “every man is
ignorant”, “every man is savant”, and “every man is not savant” are all false.
Regarding the implications, the top propositions of the left side imply those of the
bottom in the same side, while the bottom propositions of the right side imply the
top propositions of the same side.
The last table is the following:
“ A man is learned No man is learned
No man is ignorant A man is ignorant
No man is not-learned A man is not-learned” ([8],153)

This table contains contradictory propositions which do not function exactly like
those of the preceding table. For the negatives may be true together, they are thus
subcontrary; but the affirmatives are particular, so they are also subcontrary. As to
the implications, they are different from those of the other tables for; here, the
implication goes from top to bottom in the right side and from bottom to top in the
left side.
What about the import of the quantified propositions?
Al-Farabi evokes the question of the import in Kitab al-Maqulat while con­
sidering the truth values of the singular, the indefinite and the quantified proposi­
tions, affirmative or negative, in case their subject exists and in case their subject
does not exist. He says first that the quantified propositions such as “every fire is
hot” and “every fire is cold,” or “every man is white” and “some men are black,”
whose predicates are contrary but which are both affirmative “do not share the same
truth value when their subject exists. But when their subject does not exist, they are
all false” ([9], 124.13-14, my emphasis). So these propositions, which are all
affirmative, cannot be true if their subject is non-existent. Therefore, the quantified
affirmative propositions have an import in his frame, as is the case with the affir­
mative singular ones which have been shown in Sect. 3.2 to have an import. So he
3.2 The Oppositions Between Categorical Propositions 35

seems to be the very first author to explicitly attribute an import to affirmative

quantified propositions and deny it from the negative quantified ones.8
As to the negative propositions such as “not every man is white,” it is true if the
subject does not exist, given that “the affirmative and the negative do not share the
same truth value, whether their subjects exist or not” ([9], 124.14-16, my
emphasis) and given that its affirmative contradictory “every man is white” is false
when its subject is not existent, as we just saw. So this negative quantified
proposition is true when its subject does not exist because in that case its contra­
dictory affirmative one is false. As a consequence, the negative quantified propo­
sitions do not have an import for when their subject does not exist, they can be true.
This idea generalizes the position about the import of singular propositions to that
of the quantified ones, and it is important for the analysis of the syllogisms, for
instance, whose validity depends sometimes on the import of the propositions. The
same can be said about the indefinites which behave in the same way with regard to
the import, for the affirmative ones have an import because they can never be true
when their subject is non-existent, while the negative ones do not have an import
because they can be true when their subject is non-existent.
So we can consider that al-Farab! may be seen as the very first logician to have
generalized Aristotle’s position about the import of the affirmative propositions and
the absence of import of the negative ones to the quantified propositions. Aristotle
endorsed this position for the singular propositions, but he did not generalize it
explicitly to the quantified ones. As to Apuleius and Boethius, we cannot really say
that they endorsed explicitly the absence of import of all the negative propositions
besides the singular ones, despite what some linguists claim (see, for instance, Horn
in [95], 24). For as noted by T. Parsons in his article “The traditional Square of
Opposition” (see [121]), the absence of import of the proposition O is best shown
when this proposition is expressed by “Not every S is P” for only in that case, it can
express the possibility for the subjects S to be non-existent. But as appears in the
following quotation, Boethius did not write O in that way in his comments of
Aristotle’s text. Here is what Parsons says:
“In his translation of De interpretatione, Boethius preserves Aristotle’s wording of the
O form as “Not every man is white.” But when Boethius comments on this text he
illustrates Aristotle’s doctrine with the now-famous diagram, and he uses the wording
‘Some man is not just’. So this must have seemed to him to be a natural equivalent in Latin.
It looks odd to us in English, but he wasn’t bothered by it.” ([121], Sect. 2.3).

Al-Farabi even evokes what Gilbert Ryle (see [130], Chap. 1) and others now
call the “category mistake” case, which he illustrates, for instance, by the following
sentences: “every whiteness is odd” (kull bayadun fa-huwa fardun) and “every
whiteness is even” or “every heat is straight (mustaqima)” and “every heat is curved
(munhaniya)” ([9], 125.7-8). These sentences are “all false” ([9], 125.8) when their
subject is existent. But they do not share the same truth value with their respective

8On the problem of existential import in general, see [51] for a full discussion. On that same
problem in Aristotle’s theory, see [23].
36 3 Categorical Logic

negations, whether the subject is existent or not, for “no whiteness is odd” is true,
whether the subject exists or not, while “every whiteness is odd” is false whether
the subject exists or not.

3.2.2 Avicenna’s Absolutes and Their Opposites

Avicenna presents different accounts of the oppositions in his treatises, for in his al-
‘Ibara (De Interpretatione), he presents a complete square with the whole set of
oppositions including the subalternation, while in al-Qiyas, he presents a different
analysis where he introduces time considerations, which makes the theory more
complex and modifies the kinds of the opposed propositions. Despite these changes,
he holds all kinds of oppositions in all his treatises.9
Let us start with al- ‘Ibara ([35]). In that treatise, Avicenna presents the whole set
of logical relations between the quantified propositions, that is, contradiction,
contrariety, subcontrariety, and subalternation, which he calls “tadakhul”. He also
considers the singular propositions and the indefinite ones. He defines the oppo­
sitions by applying the notion of matter modalities as was the case with al-Farabi.
The truth values of the propositions, matter by matter, are thus the same as that of
al-Farabi (see Sect. 3.2.1).
To begin with, Avicenna says that there are three kinds of propositions: the
singular ones, the indefinite (unquantified) ones, and the quantified ones. The
singulars differ from the two other kinds in that they contain a particular subject; the
indefinites (unquantified) contain a universal (or general) subject but they do not
contain quantifiers; while the quantified propositions contain a universal (or gen­
eral) subject and a quantifier. The quantifiers are the words that express the quantity
of the proposition; they may be particular or universal. Particular quantifiers are the
words “some” and “not all” or “not every”, and universal quantifiers are the words
“every” (or “all”) and “no one” (or “none”).
Al-Farabi and Avicenna say explicitly that there are four quantifiers (sUr), not only
two. For they distinguish between “every” or “all” (= kull), some (= ba d), none (= la
ahada = literally “no one”), and not every (= laysa kull), while Averroes distinguishes
clearly between the quantifiers (the words expressing the quantity) and the negation,
and says that there are two quantifiers to which one could add a negation. He says: “I
mean by quantifier the words « all » and « some »” (see [26], 91).
This clarifies things in some respects for the only simple words are the ones used
in the affirmative propositions, while the quantified negative ones both contain
complex words, i.e., a combination of a quantifier and a negation. However, as one
reviewer suggests, and as we will see when analyzing Averroes’ theory, this

9On the notion of opposition in general in Avicenna’s and Averroes’ frames, see [50], where the
different conceptions of opposition are analyzed and compared with that of Aristotle. See also [33]
for Avicenna’s specific analysis of opposition in general.
3.2 The Oppositions Between Categorical Propositions 37

clarification has an inconvenience, namely, the fact that the universal negative
quantifier (“No” or “None”) can no more be expressed in a clear way. We will
examine this idea in Sect. 3.2.3.
As a matter of fact, in the Arabic language, it is easier to separate between the
negation and the quantifier, for both “laysa kull” (not all) and “la ’ahada” (“no
one”) contain a negation in front o f the quantifier; thus one does not need to put the
negation in the middle of the sentence to get the negative proposition, unlike what
happens in French, for instance, where O is expressed by putting “ne...pas” in the
middle of the sentence, and E by using words like “nul” or “aucun”, which express
the negation only when “ne” is added somewhere in the sentence.
Note also that in Arabic, the two negative quantified sentences are comparable in
this respect, for the negation in both cases puts on the quantifier, so that the
so-called problem of the lexicalization of O is not raised in the way it is in other
languages. This problem arises in some languages because of the fact that A, E, and
I are expressed by simple words (“every”, “none”, and “some” in English, “tout”,
“aucun”, and “quelque” in French), while O is not expressed by a single word, but
by a complex one (“not all”, or “so m e .n o t” in English, “quelque...., n e .p a s ” in
French). This absence of lexicalization creates a linguistic (and ultimately logical)
problem because of the fact that the fourth vertex of the square is different from the
three other ones, leading to some kind of asymmetry between the four corners (and
propositions) and the three words provided by the ordinary language. People ask:
why only three words, while there are four propositions? This problem is not raised
in the same way in Arabic, just because the Arabic language contains only two
single words for the quantifiers and adds the negation to these two words to con­
struct both O and E. The whole frame is symmetric because we have only two
single words, that is, kull and b a ‘d and two complex words, that is, la ahada
(literally “no one”) and laysa kull (literally “not all”) or b a ‘d...laysa (literally
“so m e .n o t”), given that even E is expressed by a complex word so that both
negative propositions contain the two quantifiers plus a negation putting on each
one (see [58], for a full analysis of this problem and its solution).
Regarding the singular propositions, Avicenna claims in al- ‘Ibara that:
1. Zayd is just
and
2. Zayd is-not just
are contradictory, while
3. Zayd is not-just (see [35], 113)
is the contrary of (1), because, in case Zayd is non-existent, both (1) and (3) are
false, while (2) is true. This is so because the negation in (2) is external (i.e., in the
case of the singular propositions, it puts on the copula), while in (3) it puts on the
predicate, which means that Zayd is taken to be existent; this is why the proposition
cannot be true. This also means that the affirmative propositions, whether with a
simple predicate or with an indefinite predicate, have an import, because they
38 3 Categorical Logic

cannot be true in case the subject is non-existent, while the negative propositions do
not have an import because they may be true in case the subject is non-existent.
The singular proposition (1) and its denial (2) in this example are contradictory,
that is, they can never share the same truth value, in whatever matter, while the two
affirmative propositions (with a simple predicate or with an indefinite predicate) are
contrary, because they can be false together when the subject is non-existent.
As to the indefinites, Avicenna says that they should be considered as particulars
although they do not contain any quantifier. In al-Ibara he claims: “the indefinite
has the force of the particular” ([35], 51). However, he recognizes that this kind of
propositions might be considered, in ordinary usage, as universal propositions, or
even as singulars in some contexts. Despite this linguistic fact, he insists to interpret
the indefinite sentences as particulars and defends a theory which agrees with both
Aristotle and al-Farabi. He even says that an indefinite sentence does not have any
contradictory; it only has a subcontrary. It thus functions as a particular proposition.
This is what he claims in the following quotation: “the indefinite has no contra­
dictory” ([35], 67) and also “the indefinites [...] are like the particulars, they should
be said to be subcontraries” ([35], 66, my translation), given that they are some­
times true together as is the case with the two following sentences: “Men are
beautiful” and “Men are not beautiful” ([35], 67).
Note that subcontrariety is defined, as in al-Farabi’s text, as being the relation
between the propositions that can be true in the possible matter but do not share the
same truth value in the necessary and impossible matters.
What about the quantified propositions?
The quantified propositions, i.e., the universal affirmative A, the universal
negative E, the particular affirmative I, and the particular negative O are defined in
the usual way in al- ‘Ibara. Their relations are the following:
- A/O and E/I are contradictory,
- A/E are contrary,
- I/O are subcontrary, and
- A/I and E/O are related by the relation of subalternation (tadakhul), that is, I is
the subaltern of A, and O is the subaltern of E.
The first three relations have already been defined, for Avicenna reproduces
al-Farabi’s definitions. However, subalternation is defined by Avicenna as follows:
“As to those that differ in quantity but not in quality, let us call them subalterns, we find that
those which are affirmative are true in the necessary, and that the negative subalterns are
true in the impossible, and both do not share the same truth-value in the possible, but the
particulars are true in that case, and examine that by yourself’ ([35], 48, my emphasis).

In this quotation, Avicenna evokes the fourth kind of opposition, not mentioned
by al-Farabi, which he calls “tadakhul” and corresponds to subalternation in the
Latin treatises. This name is not new, for according to Zimmermann (see [150]), it
can be found in Ibn al-Muqaffa‘, for instance, who uses the expression “al-Ikhtilaf
al-Mutadakhil” ([150], 531) to express subalternation. Other logicians use another
name for it, for instance, Ikhwan as-Safa (The Brethren of Purity) who call it
3.2 The Oppositions Between Categorical Propositions 39

Fig. 3.4 The usual square E: No S is P

I: Some S's are P O: N ot every S is P

“mutataliyatan” ([150], 531). According to Zimmermann, subalternation was

considered as an opposition by some Greek commentators too and by Paul the
Persian ([150], 530, Table). The name “tadakhul ” used by both Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ and
Avicenna (but not, interestingly, by Ikhwan as-Safa10), comes from the verb
“dakhala”, that is, “to enter” and from the other verb “tadakhala”, which means “to
enter into each other.” Both suggest the idea of inclusion of the part into the whole,
since this relation holds between universal propositions and particular ones. The
idea then is to say that the particular, whether affirmative or negative, is included
inside the universal, or in other words the universals contain the particulars.
Therefore, when the universal is true, the particular is true too. The definition of
subalternation is, then, the following: “Two propositions are subaltern when the
first is false and the second is true in the possible, or both are true in the necessary
and false in the impossible, or both are true in the impossible and false in the
necessary.”
With this definition, Avicenna can be said to hold the following square of
oppositions, although, like al-Farabi, he does not draw any figure at all (Fig. 3.4).
On the other hand, with regard to the import of the different propositions,
Avicenna endorses the same opinion as al-Farabi to the effect that the affirmative
ones have an import, i.e., cannot be true if their subject does not exist, while the
negative ones do not have an import, since they can be true even when their
subjects do not exist. He says that in several treatises, for instance, in al-Maqulat
([33], 258-259, where he analyzes the sentences whose subjects are empty) and al-
'Ibara. For instance, he says that the sentences talking about non-existent objects
such as the griffin are all false when they are affirmative and they are true when they
are negative. His opinion can even be expressed by means of a principle that
Wilfrid Hodges states as follows: “Affirmative Principle. In every true affirmative
predicative sentence the subject term is satisfied (i.e. non-empty) (Ibara, 79. 13).
Negative Principle. A negative predicative sentence is true when its subject term
is not satisfied (!bara, 81. 3f).” ([84], 120).

10The root used by Ikhwan as-safa is “tala” (see [150]), which evokes the ideas of length and of
superiority. So maybe subalternation is what relates one “superior” proposition (the universal one)
to its inferior dependent one (the particular).
40 3 Categorical Logic

This means that he endorses exactly the same opinion as al-Farab! with regard to
the import of the different propositions. This opinion will also be endorsed after­
ward by many medieval logicians such as Buridan and others. In fact, it is the
traditional opinion with regard to the import, as shown by Horn [95].
However, in al-Qiyas and also in al-Najat [32] and al- 'Isharat [36], Avicenna
provides another, more detailed, analysis of the categorical propositions, which he
calls “absolute” (mutlaqa), i.e., the propositions which contain a subject and a
predicate (plus sometimes a quantifier and also a negation when they are negative)
but no explicit modal word (“necessarily” or “possibly”). These propositions are
categorical, i.e., either affirmative or negative and they can be either true or false,
being declarative, since they report some fact (khabari) ([36], 223). In this respect,
they are different from the sentences which express questions (istifham), or requests
(iltimas), or wishes (tamanni), or hopes (tarajji), or astonishment (ta‘ajjub) ([36],
223). So, one must be able to determine their truth value clearly. But in order to
determine this truth value clearly and in a way that can be used in logical argu­
ments, one has to add some conditions to these propositions. For in some cases, one
cannot know whether the propositions are true or false if some condition is not
added to them. For instance, if one says “Every human is breathing,” its natural
contradictory is “Not every human is breathing.” But breathing is a discontinuous
process, since it is inspiring and expiring, so that a person who is breathing is
inspiring at some times and expiring at some other times. The question is then: can
we determine exactly the time of breathing (of inspiring and expiring) for both
propositions? For in order to know exactly in which cases the two sentences are
contradictory, one has to determine these times precisely, given that when we say
“every human is breathing at t0,” and “not every human is breathing at t1,” these
two propositions are not contradictory, since the time of breathing is not the same
for both propositions. On the other hand, could we say that these propositions are
contradictory only when the exact time of inspiring (and similarly that of expiring)
is always the same for both? According to Avicenna, this cannot be the right way to
express the contradictories as he notes in the following passage, when explaining
the reason why he added the different conditions to the propositions:
“It would be appropriate for us to speak warily: some of the things said in the third book
(al- ‘Ibara) were inadequate. Namely, when we say ‘Every B is an A’ and we want to take
into account the time in the sentence ‘Not every B is an A’, since this is one of [the things
that have to satisfy] a condition in order to have a contradictory negation, this makes
difficulties for us. When we say: ‘Every human breathes’ i.e. in the time in which it happens
that he breathes, and we say: ‘Not every human breathes’ i.e. in the time in which it
happens that he breathes, so that the time is the same one, then the first sentence is
genuinely contradictory to the second. But this is not how we do [in practice] take [the
time] into account when we are using contradictions. Nobody ever demonstrates absurdity
this way” (see [34], book i.5, 38.5-11, translation W. Hodges, my emphasis).

This means that if one says that the universal affirmative sentence is the genuine
contradictory of the negative particular one only when we express both in this way:
“every human is breathing at t0” and “not every human is breathing at t0,” one does
not determine the contradictories in the usual way; for in this example, nobody can
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World Without Glamor
 By Milton Lesser

Colonists on Talbor had little time for

anything but work, which was bad for morale. So
Earth sent a special ship—with a unique cargo.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
October 1953
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Marsden had filled a basin with well water and began to lather his
hands and face with soap when Marie entered their cabin. He looked
up and clucked his tongue in disapproval. "Lord," he said. "Look at
yourself."
Marie scowled at him as she removed her bandanna and shook loose
her short-cropped hair. "How do you expect me to look?" Her plain
but pretty face was sweat-streaked. She wore a simple tunic which
fell halfway down her thighs and almost matched her sturdy, sun-
darkened legs in color, although sweat darkened the back of the
garment and left rings of white under the armpits where it had
evaporated.
"I know how I'd like you to look."
"Harry Marsden, just what do you mean by that?"
He had felt it for some time now, this smouldering resentment which
had wedged its way between them after only two years of marriage.
He couldn't talk to her without arguing, not after they had finished
working for the day under the broiling sun and returned, bone-weary
and stiff-muscled, to their cabin. The routine sickened him: he would
come in first, splash cold water on his face, maybe scrub up some.
Marie would follow after feeding their chickens (chickens here on
Talbor, three dozen long light years from Earth!), strip off her tunic
and try to scrub the grime from her body while he looked at her. And
if it were warm she'd prepare their simple dinner half-naked, with no
thought for modesty, until he knew every plane, every curve of her
body and realized it was a body strong for work and not soft for
play, a body good for bearing children, a body which could work all
day in the fields like a machine but which would never lose the grit
from its pores.
"I didn't mean anything by it. Forget what I said, Marie." Marsden
went to the clothing rack and took down his one good suit. He
looked again at Marie, then closed his eyes and let a growing
eagerness engulf him.
The ship from Earth was coming. Not the ship with more farm
machinery, not the battered freighter which reached Talbor twice
every year, but a tourist ship—the first one in Marsden's memory.
There would be real Earth people on it, men and women. He
thought deliciously of the women, wasp-waisted, high-breasted,
lithe-legged and delicate. Marie would seem so plain against them,
so tragically unfeminine—unless the pictures lied. Born on Talbor,
Marsden had never seen a real woman of Earth.

Maybe Marsden would feel more inclined to watch the patterned

years drag by on Talbor if he just once saw the women of Earth. He
never told this to Marie, for she wouldn't understand.
"We'd better hurry," she said, "or we won't get to town till after the
ship comes in."
Marsden nodded. "Like to see it land. Everyone will be there, I'll
bet."
"I suppose so. It's a great deal of trouble, if you ask me."
"Trouble? Don't you want to see the people of Earth?" There it was
again—Marsden felt an argument brewing. Marie spoke like an old
woman, but she was only twenty-five. You couldn't blame her,
though, and every time Marsden's thoughts took that tack he felt
sorry for his wife. She had known nothing but Talbor all her life.
"They're people," said Marie. "Just folks." But she carefully removed
the frilly dress which had hung near Marsden's suit on the rack and
examined it critically.
"You're going to wear that?"
"What's wrong with it?"
"Nothing. You haven't put it on since we got married, that's all."
"We can't scare the Earth people off with a lot of tunics and
coveralls."
"Better get dressed," said Marsden, chuckling with grim amusement
as Marie struggled with the unfamiliar garment. Marsden's own
starched collar threatened to choke him, but the women of Earth
would expect it.
"What's so funny, Harry?"
"There must be an easier way to climb into that thing. You look so
funny."
Marie's back was toward him. She took the dress off and threw it
across the bed. "All right, I won't wear it. I won't wear anything. I'm
not going."
"Now, Marie."
"Don't you 'now' me. I'll stay right here."
"I was joking," said Marsden, squirming uncomfortably inside his
collar.
Marie flung the dress from bed to floor. "You can throw it out, for all
I care. Or give it away."
"Thank you, I'll stay here."
"For crying out loud!" Marsden said in exasperation. "This is the
biggest thing to hit Talbor in years. The Earth people are coming to
visit us and you want to stay home."
"They probably will make fun of us."
"If we act like bumpkins they will. If we act—well, sophisticated,
they won't."
"I'm not sophisticated." Marie sat down on the bed where her dress
had been, drew her legs up, wrapped her arms around her knees.
"Do I look sophisticated?"
"Put the dress on."
"I've never been off Talbor, never. We have one town, two hundred
people on seventy or eighty farms. Is it my fault I wasn't born on
Earth? Do you think I would have married you if I had much
choice?"
"Oh," said Marsden. "I see."
Marie stared at him and shrugged her bare shoulders. "I'm sorry. I
didn't mean that, Harry. But you don't see. Talbor is all right for you
because you're a man and you like to work like that. Don't you think
I'd rather be small and attractive, instead of—"
"I think you're very attractive."
"That's a lie. I know how you and Charlie Adcock get together and
look at those magazines with pictures of Earth women. Your tongues
practically hang out."
"You've been spying on us."
"Really, Harry. Is looking at a magazine so secret I'm not permitted
to watch? Why don't you treat me like an equal, anyway? But no,
you think of the women of Earth. Well, let me tell you this, Harry
Marsden: I'm stronger than them, I can work harder and I'll
probably live longer and have more kids. What do you say to that?"
"I'm going into Talbor City. If you don't want to see them, I do."
"Watch that collar doesn't strangle you along the way."
"I'll get used to it," said Marsden, running a thick finger between
stiff cloth and raw skin.
"Your face is getting red."
"That's all right."
"Red as a beet."
"Shut up."
"I'll bet you find it hard to breathe."
"Shut up!"
"Try and make me." Marie got off the bed, and when Marsden made
a threatening gesture he thought she would run away. Instead, she
leaped at him, got her strong fingers under the collar and yanked.
The stiff collar burst open, the entire shirt-front ripped. Marie began
to laugh.
Marsden went for her with murder in his eyes, but at that moment
there came a roaring overhead like a dozen summer storms rolled
into one, booming and crashing in the sky over their cabin. Talbor's
sullen orange sun had almost set, but bright light flashed in through
the window, blinding them.
"I ought to beat you," said Marsden. But he opened the door and
went outside into the strong, hot wind which had stirred over their
rocky farmland and flapped the torn ends of his shirt against his
chest.
The spaceship from Earth had arrived on Talbor.

Talbor City's one street, dry and dusty from the long day and hot
sun, was ablaze with light. Marsden had never seen so many electric
lights lit at once, not even on Saturday nights. Even as he entered
the city from the north, taking off his torn shirt and discarding it
because no shirt seemed better than a damaged one, he heard the
singing.
Charlie Adcock's deep, off-key voice rose stridently above the others,
singing a song which was popular among the men of Talbor, but
which the women hated.

I want my arms around

A slim, small girl of Earth.
If she don't come to me
I think I'll have to die
For the slim, small girl of Earth.
"Well, Harry! Thought you'd never get here."
"I had some things to do," Marsden lied.
"They already landed. They're here on Talbor. Here. They went to
the hotel right away, of course. First time the hotel's been used since
the last freighter crew decided to stay overnight. The mayor's
declared a holiday. Nobody's working tomorrow."
"Me and Marie got to work," said Marsden, realizing he might be
able to make peace with his wife after a day in the field.
"You ain't serious."
Marsden said, "How many of them came?"
"About twenty, half of them women, Harry. You should see the
women, Harry. They wear real frilly things, like you never even saw
on Talbor. They're beautiful, friend. You know it. I mean beautiful all
over. Hair fixed like it would take weeks to unravel. Belly's so thin
you could get your fingers around them. Straight, slim legs, not a
muscle on them. Such white skin you'd swear it was made out of
milk. And the way they walked, Harry—so delicate they could have
run across a field of fresh eggs without breaking a shell."
"I think I'll spend the night in town," said Marsden, forgetting all
about Marie.
"Oh, didn't Marie come to town with you?"
Marsden shook his head without talking.
"Janie didn't come neither. Say now, that's all right, Harry. That sure
is all right. Leave the wife at home on a night like this. You know
what? I think I'll take a room right there in the hotel and maybe
even get to eat breakfast with the women of Earth. What do you
say, Harry?"
"Suits me." Marsden's mind formed a brief image of Marie trying
awkwardly to fit into the dress—to please me, he suddenly realized—
and then the image faded. With Charlie Adcock he pushed through
the crowd on the hotel steps.
Marsden felt breakfast, heavy mouthful by mouthful, forming an
uncomfortable lump inside his chest. It was a long table big enough
for thirty people, with the men and women of Earth chatting
comfortably on all sides of it, their gay clothing making the dining
room appear intolerably drab. Marsden had been on the verge of
forgetting breakfast entirely, for when he reached the dining room
he found all the seats at the table were taken except one between
two delicate, wasp-waisted women of Earth. But Charlie Adcock,
who was already seated, had waved him on toward the table with a
broad grin, and it was either sit down or forever be a coward in
Charlie's eyes.
"Hello," one of the women said while Marsden fidgeted and scooped
forkfuls of bacon and eggs into his dry mouth.
Marsden blinked. She was talking to him.
"Good morning, Miss."
"So you're a native of Talbor. Tell me, how do you stand it?"
"Born here, I guess." Marsden found it difficult to talk and eat at the
same time. His face grew uncomfortably warm, his tongue seemed
to swell until he wanted to spit it out.
"I'm Alice Cooper, Mr.—"
Mister. No one had ever called him Mister. "Better call me Harry,
Miss. Just Harry."
"I want you to tell me all about your primitive planet, Harry.
Everything. I've got a camera and I'm going to take pictures and
write notes about them so when I get back to Earth I can tell
everyone about this quaint planet."
Marsden wished he had a shirt, for it wasn't right for Alice Cooper to
have to see his sun-scorched, hair-matted chest while she ate. But
Marsden felt somewhat better when he let his eyes rove to the men
of Earth. They sat tall and straight in clothing fancier than it was
right for a man to wear, but they were thin, pale and—well, a little
washed-out looking.
"Why don't you show me around?" Alice Cooper suddenly asked him.
"You can't see a place unless a native shows it to you, and we have
to leave tonight."
"Tonight?"
"Of course, Harry. We have lots of planets to visit and we can't
spend more than a day on an out-of-the-way mote like Talbor."
"Well, now, there are plenty of interesting things on Talbor."
"Oh, I know. I know. Rustic cabins, rocky fields, stolid farmers who
work the soil all day and fall into bed exhausted at night. It's all very
thrilling."
"We have some mighty nice scenery," Marsden told her. "Madison
falls are two-hundred feet high, and we've got some mountains that
—"
"Certainly, Harry. But I can see that sort of thing just anyplace. I
want you to show me your farm, your fields. How you people of
Talbor can get by on this rocky, God-forsaken place I'll never know.
Why your parents came here I could never figure out."
He stood up awkwardly. "I guess—well...."
Alice Cooper rose to her feet in a liquid motion beautiful to behold.
The top of her head came up to his shoulders and she reached out
with one small, dainty hand and touched his upper arm.
"My, but you have big muscles."
Marsden smiled.
"You need them in this grim, dreary place, of course. You probably
wish you didn't. You probably would rather be thin and wear glasses
maybe and spend most of your time in an air-cooled office and do
things like that."
"I don't know. A man would grow bored working in an office."
"See?" Alice Cooper cried. "See? I just knew I'd love Talbor. You're so
primitive. Why, you're practically—Cro-Magnon. Come on outside,
Harry. I want to take your picture."
She took his big hand and led him to the door. Marsden looked back
uncomfortably and saw Charlie Adcock off in a corner with two of
the women of Earth, talking avidly. Strangely, he thought Charlie was
scowling about something.
Talbor's strong orange sunlight made him squint while Alice Cooper
said: "Tremendous place for a camera enthusiast. I hear it never
rains around here. Surprising this place isn't a desert, don't you
think?"
"It rains when it has to."
"Here. Stand over here. Yes, facing the sun. Can you do something
to show you're almost—almost ancestral?"
"I don't understand, Miss."
"Goodness, I mean your muscles. Flex them. Use them to do
something like lifting a heavy object. Break something if you want
to. I'm sure those muscles are good for something besides weeding
your fields or pulling a plow."
Marsden began to feel foolish but obliged her with a handstand. He
lost his balance, though, before she could take the picture and
tumbled flat on his back in the dusty street, landing so hard he saw
stars.
A couple of men who had been watching from the hotel steps
snickered. "I didn't know Marsden was an acrobat."
"His old lady claims she's going to sell him to the interstellar circus
when it comes around."
"What do you say we give him a hand?"
Marsden sat up, rubbed his head. One of the men came over and
offered his arm. Cat-quick, Marsden leaped to his feet and thrust the
man away from him so hard that he stumbled back, crashed against
the bottom steps and fell. Something clicked, and Alice Cooper
squealed excitedly:
"I got it! That was perfect, Harry. Thank you ever so much. I caught
it just after you started to shove him and now when my friends see
this they'll know Talbor is a primitive place. Are there many murders
here?"
"I've never heard of one," said Harry, dusting his trousers off. "We're
too busy for crime, I guess."
"How terribly dull. Statistics show that more advanced societies are
prone to higher crime rates, particularly crimes of passion, since
everyone is high strung and capable of flying off the handle as the
expression goes. Did you ever think of committing a crime of
passion, Harry?"
She stood there, small and frail in the sunlight, delicately, lushly
curved. She wet her lips and they were very red in the sunlight and
against her pale white face.
"No," said Marsden thickly. "I'd better take you back inside to your
friends, maybe."
"Why, don't be ridiculous. See, they're all outside anyway."
Marsden's gaze took in Talbor City's one street. The crowds had
thinned considerably; people moved off toward the outskirts and the
farmlands in twos and threes, the Earth people scattered among
them and going to see Talbor with them. Marsden felt lost and alone
and a little frightened, for he knew he would go off into the country-
side with Alice Cooper in another moment, and he hardly trusted
himself.
"They're not my friends, Harry. We're traveling together, but we
hardly know each other. You don't just make friends with anyone, it
isn't civilized. People are always out to get you, to trick you, to make
fun of you and take advantage of you. Oh, you've got to be careful, I
always say. Shall we see Talbor now?"
"I should go home and start plowing."
"I'm leaving tonight, Harry." Her hand slipped under his arm and
nestled there. His bare arm tingled.
"What would you like to see?" he asked uncomfortably.

"Everyone has a different crop to grow," Marsden explained later.

"On my farm it's barley."
"Just barley? It must be rather dull, growing barley all year long."
"We have some cattle and chickens, too. But I spend most of my
time tending the irrigation ditches. Summertime it's a sunrise to
sunset job."
"You poor man. You—" Suddenly Alice Cooper's eyes grew big. She
gasped and clutched at Marsden's arm. "Harry, over there! Ooo,
Harry!"
Marsden turned, saw a small dog bounding across the field playfully,
turning and twisting and barking at its own shadow.
"It's nothing to be afraid of."
"An animal, nothing to be afraid of? Harry, it's coming this way."
The dog had seen them. Yelping, its tail wagging, it came right up to
them, nuzzling against Marsden's leg while he crouched and petted
it.
"Better take me back to town, Harry."
"There boy, there boy." Marsden scratched the dog's ear, cuffed it
gingerly with his big hand, turned it around, thumped its rear and
watched it leap away across the rocky meadow. "Don't worry, Miss.
A little dog like that never hurt anyone."
"I feel faint, Harry. I expected wilderness and that's what I came to
see—but animals running around loose? That's too much."
"Dogs and men get along fine on Talbor."
"On Earth dogs are in the zoo where they belong." Alice Cooper
patted her brow daintily with a handkerchief. "I do wish we could get
out of this sun."
A person not liking dogs. It wasn't right, Marsden thought. And
hating the sun and the soil out of which crops grew and.... Well, he
couldn't blame Alice Cooper. Everything was so strange and new to
her and she was just plain upset.
"I could take you to my cabin," he told her. "It's nearby."
Alice Cooper nodded, took one step forward, turned her ankle and
tripped. She fell heavily, catching one of her high heels against the
hem of her frilly dress. There was a ripping sound and a long tear
appeared in the bottom of the dress.
"It's ruined," said Alice Cooper in despair.
"My wife can fix it."
"Your what?"
"My wife."
"Don't tell me you get married here on Talbor? I knew this was a
primitive society, really primitive—but not to that extent. You get
married and—and stay with one partner for life, for your whole life?
Really?"
"That's right," said Marsden. "Don't you?"
"Well—you wouldn't understand, Harry. You just wouldn't
understand. Here, help me up."
He got her to her feet, but her twisted ankle wouldn't support her.
"You'd better carry me."
Marsden nodded, got one hand under her arms from behind, the
other in back of her thighs. Cradling her thus, he began to walk. She
weighed almost nothing, she was incredibly feather-light, but
pleasant to the touch and smelling, this close, of some delightful
perfume.
"You're strong," she said.
Gulping audibly, Marsden averted his face from hers, only inches
away.

When he pushed the cabin door open with one foot, Marie started to
smile at him from inside. The smile faded. "Harry. Oh. Is she—hurt
or something?"
"Aren't you the bright one," Alice Cooper said. "I'm too lazy to walk."
"Be quiet, Marie," Marsden said. "What's the matter with you?"
"Did I say something wrong? I'm sorry."
"It's to be expected," Alice Cooper declared.
"You were gone all night, Harry."
"He can take care of himself, I'm sure," Alice Cooper said.
Harry frowned. "I told you to keep quiet, Marie."
"No, let her talk, Harry. Of course he was gone all night. What's the
matter, don't you think he can take care of himself?"
"My Harry is quite a capable man, thank you."
"Marie!"
"Your Harry. That's right, you are fettered to one another all your
lives. It's fantastic. Will you be a good girl and bring me something
to eat?"
Marie nodded and soon returned with two plates of stew. It was
Marsden's favorite food and Marie had probably prepared it as a
peace offering, but two plates meant one for him and one for Alice
Cooper and Marie would go hungry.
"I'm not in the mood to eat," said Harry, while his stomach
grumbled.
"You? Not in the mood to eat Talborian stew? I'd like to see the day.
Go ahead, I'm not hungry."
"You're both crazy," Alice Cooper said. "Pretending you're not hungry
so the other can eat. No wonder this is such a backward place. If
someone said that to me I'd gobble the food up quick before he
could change his mind. On Earth, naturally, no one would ever say
it."
"I'll get some cold cloths for your leg," Marsden said to break the
awkward silence which followed.
"Cloths, nothing." Alice Cooper stood up. "Did you think I really hurt
myself? I only wanted you to carry me and take me here, but if this
hefty wife of yours is here, I guess you might as well take me back
to town."
"If I wasn't a lady ..." began Marie.
"You? That's very good, my dear. A lady wrestler, you mean. Well,
Harry, what are you waiting for? Take me back to Talbor City,
please."
Marsden looked at his wife's plain, unpainted but still pretty face, at
the way days under the bright sun had added glowing highlights to
her red-brown hair and Alice Cooper seemed like a wilted flower by
comparison. Marsden thought of the long walk with her back to
Talbor City and wished it were over already.
The spaceship blasted off with a terrible clamor. The people of Earth,
the men and women, were gone. They had been here on Talbor only
a few hours but to Marsden it seemed much longer. He was infinitely
glad they could only stay one day.
He met Charlie Adcock near the steps of the hotel. Charlie carried
his shirt under one arm and was scowling. "You know," he said,
"songs and pictures are funny things. They sure can fool a guy
sometimes."
"Yeah," said Marsden.
"I don't know, Harry. I'm still glad they came. We were busting to
see something different, either to have them come here or maybe to
take off and forget all about Talbor."
"What do you mean, forget about Talbor? Talbor's a pretty nice
place. You work all day, sure, but it's good, clean work and you
know your friends are working too, and then Saturday night you can
go into town hooting and hollering and no one cares."
"Yeah, Harry. Sure. That's what I mean. You know what? Those
women of Earth are kind of skinny."
"It was an accident they came when they did," said Marsden. "A
lucky accident. I like Talbor now. I wouldn't change places with
anyone."
"It's still nice looking at pictures and singing songs, I guess, if we
can forget about the real women of Earth."
"A lucky accident," said Marsden again. "Just when we got all starry-
eyed about things that didn't matter, they came and showed us what
we really had."
"Well, see you."
Later, after Marsden returned to his cabin, Marie said:
"I'll wear that dress Saturday nights if you want."
"Fine," said Marsden. "But only Saturday nights. It's silly the rest of
the time."
He took Marie in his arms.

Alice Cooper removed the tight corset with a sigh of relief. "The first
thing I'm going to do when we get back home is go out to the beach
somewhere and get sunburned. Swim and ride horseback, too," she
told one of her companions. "I feel all—all scrunched up."
"Little wonder, Alice. Women weren't made to wear these tight
things and get all constricted."
"What a job," said Alice. "Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it. We still
have three more planets to visit on this trip."
"It's worth it. Sociology Central figures it out just right. When the
folks on one of the out planets get a little disgruntled with what
they've got, we're sent. They've built up a mighty splendid picture of
Earth and Earth people."
"I know it. So we come along and do everything we can to make
Earth look like the worst sink hole in the universe. By the time we
leave, the two ideas—their own glorified impression of Earth and our
warped play-acting—kind of merge. They realize they have a pretty
good thing on their own home planet."
"That's the way it should be, but I still like Earth."
"Me too," Alice smiled. "One of these days, though, my husband is
going to make me give up my career and raise a whole crew of
children. You know something? I think I'd like that fine."
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