In addition to this...

In addition to this, the linguistic focus of much of Aristotelian logic produced territorial disputes with the practitioners of the indigenous science of Arabic grammar, who were concerned that the philosopher’ interest in Greek logic was nothing but an attempt to substitute the grammar of Greek for the grammar of Arabic Al-Farabi’s logical and linguistic writings represented one of the most systematic efforts to harmonize these competing approaches to the study of language.

Throughout his linguistic writings, al-Farabi upholds a conception of logic as a sort of universal grammar that provides those rules that must be followed in order to reason correctly in any language whatsoever. Grammar, on the other hand, is always confined to providing the rules established by convention for the use of the particular language of a particular culture.

As al-Farabi puts it in a well-known passage from his Ihsa’al-‘ulum (“Catalogue of the Sciences”), “this art (of logic) is analogous to the art of grammar, in that the relation of the art of logic to the intellect and the intelligible is like the relation of the art of grammar to language and expressions. That is, to every rule for expressions which the science of grammar provides us, there is a corresponding (rule) for intelligible which the science of logic provides us” (al-Farabi (1968b): 68).

By arguing in this way that logic and grammar are two distinct, rule-based sciences, each with its own proper domain and subject matter, al-Farabi strives to establish logic as an autonomous philosophical study of language that complements, rather than conflicts with, traditional grammatical science.

But though logic and grammar remain distinct and autonomous sciences, al-Farabi also holds that the logician and the philosopher are dependent upon the grammarian for their ability to articulate their doctrines in the idiom of a particular nation. Hence “the art of grammar must be indispensable for making known and alerting us to the principles of the art (of logic)” (al-Farabi (1987): 83; Black (1992): 48-56).

Al-Farabi’s Kitab al-alfaz is one attempt to implement this co-operation of logic with grammar. It illustrates, however, the extent of indendence from conventional grammatical constaints that the logician still retains in al-Farabi’s scheme.