There also existed quite a number of logical treatises of...

There also existed quite a number of logical treatises of educational and propadeutical character composed in Arabic, many of which belong, or are ascribed to, al-Farabi. [439] According to the peripatetics, the purpose of logic is to gain true knowledge. Such knowledge is twofold, consisting of "notions" (tasawwur) and "certifications of truth" (tasdiq), which are both accessible only on the basis of some a priori know ledge.

As for "notions" (that is, understanding what the thing is), this knowledge in the final analysis is based on the units of meaning that definitions, later used in arguments, are composed of. In "certifications of truth" this primary knowledge is represented by "principles of intellect" ( awa'il al-`aql), that very intellect with the help of which, as al-Farabi interprets Aristotle, we perceive the "certainty*(yaqin)* of necessary and true general presuppositions" (al-Farabi, 1890, p.

40.with no prior investigation or argument. This is how Ibn Sina expresses the point in his concise Book of Remarks and Admonitions: The purpose of logic is to provide a canonical tool (ala qanuniyya) that prevents aberration of thought. By "thought" (fikr) I mean here what takes place when a person, having pulled himself up, passes from what is present in his mind, what he has a notion of or what he is certain of... to what is not [present] there.

This transition has a certain order and figure that might be correct and might happen to be incorrect. The incorrect often looks correct or makes you believe that it is correct. So logic is a science that studies ways of transition from what is present in the human mind to what it acquires, the correct modes of ordering this transition and its figures, as well as the kinds of incorrect ones. (Ibn Sina, 1960. Pt I, pp.

167-78) Atomic "individual meanings" ( ma'ani mufrada), from which complex logical structures are produced by "ordering" (tartib) and "composing" (ta'lif), constitute the basis for all logical operations (Ibn Sina, 1960. Pt 1. pp. 179-80). These meanings entirely correspond to the things in question.

The correspondence is based on what is established by the language-giver who assigns certain "meanings" ( ma'ani) to certain "sounds" ( alfaz): this correspondence is therefore called "established" ( bi al-wad`).

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