Assessment of Waismann's Criticism of Analytic Judgments Based on the Principles of Muslim Philosophy and Logic

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 PhD Student, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran

2 Assistant Professor of Islamic Philosophy and Contemporary Wisdom, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran

10.22108/mph.2024.138764.1500

Abstract

Friedrich Waismann regards the definition of analytical judgments, which are very similar to the predication of the essential of the essence, as contradictory. His word is based on denying the unified combination of subject and predicate and on the constructiveness and nonexistence of the whole. This paper mainly focuses on the problem of predication; because Weisman's criticism is based on the difficulty that the components are not predicated of the whole and also on considering the whole exclusively as the constructive one. Comparatively studying the difficulties based on the opinions of Muslim philosophers and logicians, we show that such a problem has long been prominent in their works, especially in Ibn Sīnā, and received a satisfactory answer as well. Apart from the denominative predication resolution of a few of Peripatetics, they, due to distinguishing the real and the constructive whole, believe that, when components are combined, another object too is generated in such a way that the predication in some cases is possible and in some cases is not. Wiseman's problem is only related to the second. Also, predication discussions of Muslim thinkers are related to the discussions of the unified and adjacent (inḍimāmī) combinations. Studying the historical roots of the problem, we will show that the content of Ibn Sīnā's words is the very unified and adjacent combinations, which is expressed by the conditioning no (bisharṭ lā) and unconditioned (lā bisharṭ) considerations. Weisman's problem is applicable to the first not to the second.

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Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 21 October 2024
  • Receive Date: 14 August 2023
  • Revise Date: 20 August 2024
  • Accept Date: 27 August 2024