ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Logic in the Islamic Legacy: a General Overview Concluding Remarks We have seen that the Greek syllogism underwent a variety of modifications in the Medieval Islamic environment. The involvement of analogical reasoning with syllogistics was an attempt to aid the process of legal reasoning, but it was the a priori metaphysical assumptions which de marcate thinkers most forcefully.

AI-Fiiriibi's successfully raised the strength of analogy to that of a first order syllogism thereby insisting that the 'il/a must exist along with a judgment in all inferences. Inevitably, al-Farabi's departure from the a priori interpretation of the Qur'an attracted much adversity from literalists. It is to al-Farabi that thinkers such as al-Ghazali and Ibn Taymiyya owe their whole point of departure.

In his article, "GhazaI'i's Attitude to the Secular Sciences and Logic", Michael Marmura has stated: The matter of the syllogism involves the epistemological status of its premises; the form, the rules for valid inference. To take the formal aspect first, the philosopher's logic is the more comprehensive as it includes, for example, the Aristotelian figures which, prior to Ghazali, were not included in nazar.

It also included a more precise formulation of analogical reasoning which, for example, Alfarabi reduced to the first Aristotelian figure and which, probably following him, Ghazali urged his fellow theologians to adopt. AI-Ghazal'i could not deny, at least at the level of social and legal disputation, the auspicious utility of the syllogism, replete with its probable analogies.

It is only at the metaphysical level (causality) where al-GhazaI'i becomes uncomfortable with the encroachment of the Greek tools (logic) upon the Muslim texts. If scriptures conflict with the "findings" of the syllogism, then (unlike with Hume and his aversion to religion) the Scriptures are to be assigned metaphorical readings. The dissonance produced by religion and logic is diffused, and the syllogism can remain a welcome addendum to the legal ambiguities pondered by the jurists.

With Ibn Taymiyya we saw that all legitimate definitions proceed from the Qur'an when legal and/or existential conceptions are being formed. His attack on causality and modal logic, employed mainly by philosophers (but also by theologians) places him in a-causal agnostic position where the explication of metaphysics is concerned.