Talk: Asad Ahmed (Berkeley)

Title:

Simple Generation and the Semantics of Impossible Objects: Some Discussions from the _Sullam _of al-Bihārī (d. 1707 CE)

Abstract:

A major concern of late logicians in the Arabic tradition was to develop a propositional semantics that would facilitate statements such as "The Participant with the Creator is impossible", "An absurdity entails an absurdity", and "The impossible has no account". The recognizable problem with such statements is that the subject term is empty, while a meaningful affirmative claim is being made. A similar problem is reported also about existential claims, since they presuppose the existence of the subject prior to the inherence of existence in it. This paper explores some of the methods and adjustments to ontology in late Arabic logic that tried to overcome these issues.