Al-Ḫūnaǧī on essentialist and externalist propositions and inferences from the impossible
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21335200 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Behnam Zolghadr (0000-0002-5571-6845, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Pages | 1-30 |
| Publication date | 2024-02-09 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Inquiry (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-174X • E-ISSN: 1502-3923 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/0020174x.2024.2309872 |
| OpenAlex | W4391718589 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 6 |
Afḍal al-Dīn al-Ḫūnaǧī (d. 1248) is one of the most influential Arabic logicians who departed from and argued against Avicenna in various places in his logical works. This paper is about al-Ḫūnaǧī’s account of inferences from the impossible. In this paper, we will overview his formulation of inferences about three main occurrences of impossibility in logic and language: propositions with impossible subjects, syllogism about impossible situations, and implications from a contradictory pair. All these are based on a distinction between two ways of reading the subject term of a proposition which al-Ḫūnaǧī borrowed from Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, namely the essentialist and the externalist. Later Arabic logicians raised a crucial objection to al-Ḫūnaǧī’s account of the essentialist reading. They argued that all universal propositions are false in this reading. If that is true, many of al-Ḫūnaǧī’s proofs will be trivially valid and redundant. I will argue that the falsity of these propositions does not preclude their truth
Epistemology · Essentialism · Externalism · Islamic Studies and History · Islamic Thought and Society Studies · Medieval and Classical Philosophy · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |