[Rescher Nicholas] Al-Farabi on Logical Tradition(BookFi.org)

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Al-Farabi on Logical Tradition

Nicholas Rescher

Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 24, No. 1. (Jan. - Mar., 1963), pp. 127-132.

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L O G I C A L

T R A D I T I O N

I .

Introduction

Althou gh Abfi N as r al-Fiiriibi (c. 873-950) ha s alway s been recognized

as

one of th e mo st imp or tan t philosophers of Is lam , his full sta tu re

is

coming

to be appreciated only recently, as his numerous works are gradually being

p ublish ed an d ~ t u d i e d . ~l-Fiir i ibi devoted more effort to logic than to any

oth er single bran ch of philosophy or science: an d he deserves to be classi-

fied as the first specialist in logical studies among the Arabic-speaking peo-

p l e ~ . ~uch of h i s log ical work surv ives and i s beginning to a t t r a c t the

atten tion of scholars ,5 althou gh a g reat deal rema ins to be done. Fo r regret-

tably, al-Fiirsbi 's logic has attracted a disproportionately small amount of

attention, as contrasted with his writ ings on other seemingly more alluring

subjects such as poli t ics an d religion.

I

wish in this paper to present a perhaps unique discussion by al-FiirBbi

on the subject of the history of logical studies. This discussion possesses

especial intere st because i t sheds imp or tan t light on how al-Fiiriibi v iewed

th e continu ity of t he logical tradit ion from the Athens of Aristotle to th e

Ba gh dad of his own da y.

The text wi th which I am concerned is actually one of the first of al-

Fiiri ibi 's w rit ings to see the l ight of p rint in the original A r a b k 6 I n his

classic monograph on al-FiirBbT, published in 186g17hiloritz Steinschneider

pr inted ( in an Appendix) the Arabic text of tw o subs tant ia l extrac ts from

the logical writings of al-Fiiriibi s quoted fro m the great medical history

of Ib n Abi Usaibica.s T h e first of these extracts is tak en from th e section on

Th is paper is pa rt of a series of studies relating to A rabic con tributions to logic

supported by a research grant from the National Science Foundation which the

aut hor acknowledges gratefully.

Fo r a survey of published work by and abou t al -F ir ib i see N. Rescher, 4

Flircibi: A n Annotated Bibliog raph l~ Univ ersity of Pit tsburg h P ress, 1962).

See Ahm et Ates, Fa rab i bibliografyasi,

T urk T ar i h Kurum u B e l l e t e n

(An-

k a r a ) ,

XV

(195 1), 175-192.

N . Resch er, Th e De velopm ent of Arabic Logic: Th e Fir st Cen tur y (c. 800-c.

900 A.D.). T o be published.

The important contr ibut ions of D.

M .

Du nlo p call for especial mentio n: -41-

Firt ibi 's Introdu ctory Sections on Logic, Th e Islamic Quarterly . I 1 (1 95 5) , 264-282;

Al-Fir ib i ' s

Eisagoge, ibid.,

I11 (1956), 117-138; Al-Fgr ibi's Pa ra ph ra se of th e

Categories of Aristotle, ibid., IV (195 8), 165-197, an d V ( 19 59 ), 21-54.

In fact , i t i s the f i rs t but for two t reat ises by al -Fir ib i publ ished by F. A.

Schmoelders in his

Docurnenta Philosophiae Arabzbm

(Bonn, 1836).

Al-Farabi (Alph arabiu s) Des arablschen Philosophen Leben und Schriften,

Me'rnoires de 1'Acade'mie Im pe'riale des Sciences de S t . Pete rsb our g, V II e skrie, vol. 8,

no. 4 (St. Petersbourg, 1869).

ScUyCn al-anbci'

i

tabaqat al-tibbci' ( The sources of information abo ut th e

classes of physicians ). Steinschneide r gives th e tes ts on 208-209 an d 211-213. T he y

becam e available in a mark edl y superior version when th e work of Ib n Abi Usaibica

was edited by August Miil ler,

I

Cairo, 1882 (text only), 11 Konigsberg, 1884

(notes) .



128

NICHOLAS

RESCHER

logic of al-FBriibi's Ihsli al-culfim ( Inv en tory of the Sciences ) long fam il-

iar in i ts medieval Latin form as De Scienti is f i rst published in Venice in

1546, and of late available in a magister ial edi t ion by M. Alonso. l0 But

it

is with th e second of t he tw o extrac ts t h a t we shall now be concerned.

Our text with which we shall be deal ing is an excerpt f rom a1 FErBbi 's

treat ise On th e Ap peara nce of Philosophy,

l

and i s , so f a r a s we know,

the only part of this work to survive. About half of this text was translated

into German and discussed by RIax Meyerhof in h is superb s tudy of the

movement of Greek philosophy and science from Alexandria to Baghdad.12

Although the present d iscussion thus, to some extent , inevi tably over laps

that of I feyerhof , our in terest i s qui te d i f ferent f rom Meyerhof 's problem

of how Greek learning reached the Arabs. Instead, our object ive is to ex-

am ine al-FBrBbi's discussion with a view to th e info rma tion i t provides

regarding th e history of logical studies in Is lam i tself. Th e ensuing tw o

sections of th is pap er will present a tran slat ion of al-FBrBbils discussion,

fol lowed by a surve y of th e principal m ater ials which i t affords to th e

historian of logic.

11

Fra gm en t fronz al-FErEbi's Trea t ise

On

the

Appearance of Philosophy

l3

Abu N as r al-FBrBbi relates in [his t reat ise]

On the Appearance of

Phi losophy (ff zuhii r a l - fa lsa fah) t h at whose substance i s th is . H e say s

th a t ins t ruct ion in philosophy became w idespread in the d ay s of the G reek

kings, and a f ter the d eath of Ar is to tle [was pursued] a t Alexandr ia u nt i l

t he end of the days of the woman [Cleopa t r a? ] . And [he sa id ] th a t a f t e r

Aristot le died instruct ion [ in philosophy] rem ained there [ in Ale xand ria]

in the sam e st at e unti l th e end of th e reign of th ir teen kings, durin g whose

reign there were twelve teachers [successively] in charge of philosophical

instruc t ion, one of th em being known a s Andronicus [of Rh ode s] .

Now th e las t of these ru lers was the woman [ i.e. , Cleopat ra] . B u t she

wa s conquered b y Augustus , th e ru ler of the R om ans , who foug ht against

Avicennae compendium de anima

.

. Ab Andrea Alpago ex arabico in latinum

versa . Venetiis, 1546. P p . 1436-1446 give a Latin translation of al-Firiib i's treatise ,

erroneously attributed to Avicenna.

1 Manuel A. Alonso

(ed.)

Domingo Gundisalvo (tr. ) De Scientiis (Madrid ,

1954).

l

So-called by Ibn Abi Usaibica: i zuhzir al-falsafah. But this may well be iden-

tical with the treatise known to the Arabic bibliographers as KitZb fi ism al-falsafah

wa-sabab zuhziri-hi ( On the nam e of 'philosophy' and on th e cause of its appear-

anc e ). (See the bibliography of Ates.)

2 Max Meyerhof, Von Alexandrien nach Baghdad: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte

des philosophischen und medizinischen Un terrich ts bei den Arabern, Sitzungs-

berichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,

Philosophisch-Historische

Klasse (Berlin , 1930), 389-429. For our text see 393-394 and 405-406. And see also

Meyerhof's paper on La Fin de l'gcole dlAlexandrie dla pr& s quelques Auteurs

Arabes, Bulletin de I'lnstitu t d'gg ypte , X (1932-1933), 109-123 (especially 114-

118).

3 From the Arabic text of I bn Abi Usaibica, CUyCn al-anba' fi tabaqtit al-tibbl'

( Die Reihen der Artzte ), ed. August Miiller, I, (Cairo, 1882), from page 134, line

30 to page 135, line 24.



them [ th e Greeks in Eg yp t , presumably] and overpowered the ir kingdom.

When he had established himself , he investigated th e (Alexa ndrian ) Lib rary

an d its facilities. H e found in i t copies of t he books of A ristotle which ha d

been copied in his (Aristotle 's) da ys an d in th e days of The oph rastus. H e

also found tha t the teachers and phi losophers had wri t ten books about the

subjects with which Ar istot le concerned himself in th em (i.e. , in his writin gs).

Thus he ordered the copying of these books which had been writ ten down

in the days of Aris tot le and his pupi ls , and [he ordered] tha t there be in-

s tr uc ti on in th ese ~ o r k s , nd tha t the res t be abandoned. And he dec ided

upon A ndronicus to be in charge of th is enterprise. H e ordered him (Andron-

icus) to have copies mad e for him t o tak e wi th him t o home a nd copies to

remain in the place of instruction a t Alexandria . And he ordered him t o

designate some scholar to tak e his place a t Alexandria an d himself to come

~ i t hhim to Rome . Thus the re came to be ins t ruc t ion [ in ph ilosophy] in

two places.

Things went a long thus unt i l Chr is t iani ty came. Then the ins t ruc t ion

was s topped a t Rome, bu t remained a t Alexandria unt i l the Chr is t ian king

[Constantine?] looked into the matter , and assembled the bishops to de-

l ibera te abo ut what should be le f t a lone in this ins t ruc t ion and w hat should

be stopped . Th ey were of th e opinion th a t there should be instruction in

th e books of logic up to th e end of t he assertoric [i.e. , non-m odal] figures

and tha t there be no ins t ruc t ion in what comes af te r tha t . The reason

for this is th a t they were of the opinion t h a t in this [ la t te r pa r t of logic]

there was harm for Chr is t iani ty , but th a t in what the y ad mit ted for ins truc-

t ion the re was som ething helpful toward s th e victory of the ir religion.

Consequently the public (exoteric) part of the instruction remained within

this prescribed l imit , and wh atever was examined of th e rest was studied

privately, unti l Is lam came a long t ime afterwards.

Th en [ i .e . , a f te r the r ise of Is lam ] the ins t ruc t ion was moved f rom

Alexandria to Ant ioch a nd remained there for a long t ime unt i l a t las t

but one teacher remained. With him there s tudied

two men, and they

moved away taking the books with them. Now one of them was of the

people of H arriin , and th e other of th e people of M arw . As to the one of t h e

people of Marw, there studied with him two men, one of whom was

IbrEhim al-Marwazi and the other Yfihannii ibn Hail i in. With al-Marwazi

studied the bishop IsrEcil and Qumairi , both whom w ent to B aghd ad. Now

Ibriihim [sic. in err or for IsrFicil] occupied himself with religion, bu t Qu wa iri

too k u p ins truc tion . As for Yiihannii ibn H ailiin, he also occupied himself

with his [ i .e . , Christ ian] religion. IbrEhim al-Marwazi went down to Bagh-

da d a nd sett led there. TTTith a l - M a r ~ a z i tudied 1 fa ttE ibn YfinEn [i .e . ,

Abfi B ishr M at t5 ibn Y i inus] .

T h a t which was t aught [ in log ic ] a t th a t t ime was up to the end of the

assertoric f igures [of t he syllogism]. B u t Abii Na sr al-Fiiri ibi say s ab ou t

himself th a t he studied with YiihannE ibn Haili in up t o th e end of A nal.

Pos t . (ki tt ib a l -burhi in) . Th e pa r t [of the two Analyt ics] which comes af te r

th e assertoric figures (of th e syllogism [i.e. , which comes afte r Anal. Pr.

I 71) was called the pa rt which is no t read [ i .e ., in th e lecture-curricu-

lum ] unt i l [ th e t ime when] one read th a t ; for i t became s tandard [ in logica l

s tudy] a f te rwards . When the mat te r came to Musl im teachers one read

from the assertoric f igures as far as a man was ab le to r ead . And thu s



13 NICHOL S RES IIER

Abii N a p [a l-FBrLbi] says th a t he himself read [ i.e. , under a teacher] u p

to th e end of Anal. Post.

Abii Yahyfi al-Marwazi

(c. 840 c 910)

Ibrlthim al-M anv azi Yuhannii ibn HailLn

(c. 850 c. 920)

(c. 860-c. 920 )

Abii Bi sh r hlattSt ibu YCinus Al-FL rBbi

(c. 870-C . 940) (c. 873-950)

111. Al-FErtibi7s Re po rts Regar ding the His tor y of Logic

Al-FLrLbi divides the historica l develop m ent of logical stu die s in to five

principal eras:

I Ea rly G reek times (Aristotle an d his imm ediate successors).

11.

Alexandrian times prior to

a

supposed "purification" effected b y

Augustus.

111 Ro m an suprem acy until th e coming of Christianity.

IV. Christian suprem acy until the coming of Islam .

V. Islam ic times.

Al-FErEbi's information regarding periods 1 111 is a t t imes mythical in

character. One ca nno t bu t wonder, for example, abo ut his sources for credit-

ing Augustus for transplanting philosophical and logical studies from Alex-

and ria t o Rom e und er th e supervision of A ndronicus of Rhodes

On the other hand, there is every reason to regard as accurate-within

its own narro w limits-al-FErLbi's repo rts ab ou t th e histor y of logical

studi es durin g periods I V an d V. A bu nd ant evidence in suppor t of th is view

is given in M ax M eyerhof 's magisterial monograph "Von Alexandrien N ach

Baghd ad" cited above. W e know to o from th e magnificent researches of G.

Bergstrasser how closely Arabic scholarship of the IXth century was linked

with Hellenistic medico-philosophical schools of Alexandria, and how much

th e traditions of A lexandria lived on in th e Syriac milieu in which a l-

FBrEbils teachers were nurtured.14

Pa rtic ula r inter est attache s to al-FLrBbi's acc oun t of t he personalia of

logical studies in Islam, and especially his own teachers.

We

are ab le

to

l See especially Gotthelf Bergstrasser, "Hunain ibn Ishgq iiber die syrischen und

arabischen Galen-Obersetzungen," Abhandlungen fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes,

XVII (1925), no. 2. Hunain is still able to give detailed information about the dif-

ferences and sim ilarities of programs and practices in philosophico-medical instru c-

tion in the Alexandrian institutes and the Nestorian academies of his time.



supplem ent h is own s ta tem ents f rom o ther sources, wi th th e fo l lowing resul t

regard ing th e "genealogy" of m aste r-an d-p up il kinship.'=

All of al-Fiiriibi 's tea chers a re identifiab le persons ab ou t whose life an d

work we possess considerable informat ion. W e a re thu s fu l ly a nd re l iably in-

form ed regardin g th e origins of t h e logico-philosophical "School of Bag h-

dad " w hich was t o be Avicenna 's pe t avers ion a century la ter .16 T he m ost

curiou s feat ur e of al-FSirSibi 's a cco un t of how logic c am e to I sl am is it s

ut te r si ence on the ( in fact pre-emin ent) r61e of H un ai n ibn IshGq an d his

associates in th e processes of t ran slat ion a nd transmission. I t h i n k t h a t th i s

is only part ial ly explained in terms of the egocentr ic focus upon his own

inte l lectual antecedents , which i s so impor tant to es tabl i sh the "author i ty"

of a teacher in medieval I s lam. M ore impo r tant ,

I

believe, is that al-Fiiriibi

does not v iew logic a s a ma t ter of books an d documents bu t as a living oral

tradition

of logical special izat ion an d expert ise. Fro m this s tan dp oin t of

logic viewed a s a living discipline of specialized ex pertise chan nelled throu gh

a con tinuous o ra l t r ad i t ion t r ansmi t t ed f rom a mas te r to the schola rs who

"read" th e canonical texts und er his guidance,17 i t is quite possible t h a t

al-FEri ibi answers th e quest ion of "How Gre ek logic reached the Arabs?"

no t only correct ly, bu t comprehensively a s well .

Unqu est ionably th e most in teresting fac et of a l -Fi ir iib i' s account i s the

l ight i t sheds upon the s tud y of Ar is to t le 's logic among th e C hr is t ian

scholars, pr imari ly Nestorians, who carr ied Greek logic from Alexandria

to

Ba g h d a d i n t h e I X t h c e n tu r y .

It

has long been recognized th at th e Ch r is t ian

students of Aristotel ian logic in the Syriac and (earl iest) Arabic set t ing

broke off their stu dy of "the e igh t books" of Aristote lian logic ( Po rph yry 's

Isagoge, C a egoriae, De Interpre ta tione, An aly tica Priora, Ana lytic a Poster-

iora, Topica, Soph. Elen., Rhetorics

in the middle of th e

Prior Analytics,

s topping a f te r sect ion

7

of Book

I.18

I n consequence of th is anim us aga inst

l V o r m any furth er details see the writer's article cited in fn. 4 above, as well as

its successor: "The Development of A rabic Logic, 11: The First Flowering (c. 900-

c.

1000 A.D.)." The tabulation here given lists only the men referred to in al-

F lr lb iJ s accoun t; a g reat deal more is known about his own teachers, and those of

his principal teacher, Abu Bish r Mat t& bn Yunus. Much of this information is sum-

marized in

ax

Meyerhof's monograph, "Von Alexandrien Nach Baghdad."

Solomon Pines "La 'Philosophine Orientale' d'Avicenne et sa Polkmique contre

les Baghdadiens," Archi ves d Histoire D octrinale et Litte raire u Moyen Age, X I X

(1952), 5-37.

Al-F&rBbi is reported to have "read" Aristotle's Physics forty times and his

Rhetoric two hundred times-a repo rt to which Hegel reacted with the observation

tha t al-F&r&bi must have had

a

strong stomach." F. Rosenthal, "The Technique

and Approach of M uslim Scholarship,"

Analecta Orientalia,

XXIV (1947), 74 pp .;

see p. 4. This report does not mean tha t al-F% r&biead these works so frequently

for his private edification, as Hegel understood it to say, but that he gave regular

courses of explanato ry lectures on them.

8

See Moritz Steinschneider, Die Arabischen Uber setzu ngen aus de m Griech-

ischen, in the XI1 Beiheft

zu

Centralblatt fur Bibliothelcswesen (Leipzig, 1893 ,

p. 41. Th ere was explicit disapproval of th e later p arts of the Organon among these

Christian students of Aristotle's logic. Th us S t. John of Damascus was outspoken in

his disapproval of Anal. Post . Cf. Richard Walzer, "New Light on the Arabic Trans-



132 NICHOLAS RESCHER

la t er par ts of th e Organon, th e transmission of these late r works suffered

a significant delay. Thu s, al though the Sy riac translation of th e basic logical

texts commenced around 600 A.D. , Anal . Pos t . was n ot t ran s la ted into

Syr iac unt i l a round 850 (by Hu na in ibn Ishi iq) and a lthough Arabic t rans-

lation of the Organon began around 820, Anal. Post . was not translated

into Arabic unt i l a round 900 (b y Abi i Bishr M at t5 ibn Yi inus , the pr inc ipa l

teacher of al-F8riibi an d founding father of t he School of B ag hd ad ). These

fac ts hav e long been know n, but they are grea t ly c lar if ied by th e info rma-

tion provided in al-Fiir8bi's discussion. It appea rs t h a t the eas te rn Chr i s t -

ian s (especially th e Nestorian s) to ok a disapproving view of th e epistemo-

logy of th e Posterior Analytics. Aristotle is here concerned to p ut forwa rd

a conception of the nature of scientific knowledge, construing this in terms

of dedu ctive inference from necessary premisses.l9 B u t th is view leaves no

room fo r revelation o r an y oth er specifically religious source of knowledge

within t he sph ere of '(scientific knowledge, th e sole mod e of genuine know l-

edge, according to A ristotle. It thus came to pass t h a t theologica l object ions

to t he Aristotelian conception, as adv anced in An al. Post . , of an epistemol-

ogy based on the deductive establishment of necessary conclusions on

the

basis of ne cessary premisses, h ad i m po rta nt consequences for th e develop-

m en t of logical studies. It led th e Ch ristia n professors of p hilosophy in Alex-

andria , and their followers in the Syriac-speaking orbit , to a de-emphasis

upon Anal . Pos t . an d i ts successor works , as wel l as to vi r tu a l a band onm ent

of the ent i re pa r t of Anal . P r . (a f te r sect ion Book I ) th a t i s devoted to

developing the machinery of modal syllogisms, and especially the theory of

apodictic inference (which is part icularly closely bound-up with t he tre at-

m en t of necessary inference p u t forw ard in A nal. Pos t . ) .20

Al-FBriibi 's report consequently sheds l ight upon an interesting and

little-know n in stan ce of th e mou lding imp ac t of theological considerations

upo n th e history of logical studies, an d th us up on t he his tory of logic itself.21

University of Pit tsburgh.

lations of Aristotle, Oriens, VI (1953), 91-142 (esp. 99) . With respect to Anal. PT.,

however, it should be noted that the Syriac translation by George, Bishop of the

Arabs (d . 724, very old) is unique in being a complete rendering of this work into

Syriac. A. Baumstark, Geschichte der Syrischen Literatur (Bonn, 1922), 257.

For Aristotle , the r61e of observation and induction is not to valida te the ulti-

ma te premisses of scientific knowledge, but to give experiental exemplication and

substantiation to them. Being definitions, these ultimate premisses require no ['ex-

ternal validation. See the magisterial Introduction of W.

D

Ross's Aristotle's Prior

and Posterior Analytics (Oxfo rd, 1949). And for the technica l details of Aristotle's

epistemology of necessary inference in the theory of modal syllogisms see the writer's

study of Aristotle's Theory of Modal Syllogisms and its Interpreta tion in

M,

Bunge (e d .) , The C ritical Approach (Glencoe, Illinois, 1962).

20 The details of this relationship are demonstrated in the w riter's paper cited in

the preceding footnote.

z1 Only after completing this study did Isidor Friedmann's Erlangen Inaugural-

Dissertation come into my hands: Aristotles' Analytica bei den Syrern (Berlin, 1898),

39 pp

Providing no da ta not available from othe r (thou gh sometimes late r) sources,

Friedmann does give (on pp. 9-11) a Germ an translation of the initial three-fourths

of our text.

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