Logic Does it have a place in Islamic Phylosphy and religion
... For Muslims, Qur’anic exegesis and law both bring forward logic as the line of reasoning characteristic of Islamic methodology. ... On the other hand, a purely logical framework can also bring about conflicts within the context of a religion positioned on the higher echelons of monotheism such as Islam. While faith, logically, can be perceived as tantamount with irrationality because of lack of physical proof of a Higher Being, religion’s unscientific roots are often circumvented by the forces of blind religious devotion. In this essay, I will examine the place of logic within philosophical and religious Islam, focusing on the incorporation of Aristotelian demonstration within the works of major Islamic philosophers and on the divergent views of reason’s place within the construct of monotheistic religion. By addressing logic’s validity within the walls philosophy and religion, I will attempt to propose an answer to the question of whether it can subsist in an existential world of spirituality. ... The tradition of Aristotelian logic within Islamic philosophy was born out of commentaries on Aristotle. The Islamic thinkers that incorporated Aristotle’s celebrated Organon within their own rationalistic tone of literature found that Aristotelian logic fostered not only a further investigation into largely accepted forms of Muslim reasoning, but also the bare basics of the metaphysics, epistemology and language of philosophy and religion. The undeniable correlation between the interpretation of written speech and formal rationalistic philosophy thrust Islamic philosophers into powerful discussions as to the true essence of Aristotle’s texts as well as the role of logic when applied to matters of philosophical and religious discourse. In the area of formal logical analysis, Muslim intellectuals elaborated upon Aristotle’s theory of syllogisms as found in Prior Analytics, most often referred to as formal logic. In order to better comprehend the full effect of Aristotles logic, we must examine the Greek philosopher’s design of formal logic. Lukaswicz states that "Modern formal logic strives to attain the greatest possible exactness. ... That the argument is unconvincing masks the fact that simply by raising the problem, Aristotle earns the right to be considered not only the father of logic, but also the (grand)father of metalogic. ... Viewed as a means of reaching a higher level of knowledge, logic as interpreted in the Islamic world would also incorporate a general theory of argumentation emerging from Aristotelian epistemological studies. Islamic logic thus focused upon the theory of demonstration found in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics, since demonstration was considered the greatest achievement of logical reasoning. ... As previously pointed out, logic serves a significant means to an end in the never ending epistemological search to acquire a superior level of knowledge. ... In the words of al-Farabi, the demonstrative part of logic is “the strongest and pre-eminent in dignity and authority. Logic seeks its primary aim in this part alone, and the rest of its parts are only for its sake”. Islamic philosophers such as al-Farabi deployed Aristotelian terminology with complete ease and devoted much of their writings to mastering the intricacies and intentions of logical reasoning. ... However, the most significant volume of Al-Farabi’s work is consecrated to the examination of logic and the philosophy of language. ... Al-Farabi’s works on logic and the philosophy of language comprise of commentaries on Aristotle’s Organon, as well as independent treatises. Among his more personal writings one can come across his Book of Letters and Utterances Employed in Logic, which address the interaction between philosophical terminology and commonplace linguistics and grammar. Throughout his literature on linguistics, al-Farabi sustains an idea of logic as a form of universal grammar delineated by the universal rules of language. In his Catalogue of the Sciences, he explains, “this art of [logic] is analogous to the art of grammar, in that the relation to the art of logic to the intellect and the intelligibles is like the relation of the art of grammar to language and expressions.