Talk (Work in Progress): Behnam Zolghadr (LMU)

Title:

Revising Avicenna: Khūnajī on Inferences from the Impossible

Abstract:

Khūnajī (d. 1248) is known to be the second greates tArabic logician after Avicenna. (“Arabic logic” is a term often used to refer to the works of logicians in the medieval Islamic world.) Khūnajī revised several of Avicenna's logical ideas and argued against them. One notable example is Khūnajī’s account of inferences from the impossible which is based on two of his key positions: (1) Unlike Avicenna, for Khūnajī the domain of objects includes impossible objects in addition to the possible objects. (2) Arguing against Avicenna, Khūnajī rejected the principles of Connexivity. After reviewing Khūnajī’s account of the inferences from the impossible, I will discuss and examine some of the challenges that later Arabic logicians raised against Khūnajī’s account.