This paper examines al-Fārābī's logical thought within its Arabico-Islamic historical background and attempts to conceptualize what this background contributes to his logic. After a brief exposition of al-Fārābī's main problems and goals, I shall attempt to reformulate the formal structure of Arabic linguistics (AL) in terms of the ontological and formal characteristics that Arabic logic is built upon. Having discussed the competence of al-Fārābī in the history of AL, I will further propose three interrelated theses about al-Fārābī's logic, in terms (...) of which I will attempt to redefine it: the logico-linguistic conception, the project of logicization, and nuclear logic. The final question that will arise is how Aristotle's logic could be built upon AL, which has a nature contrary to logic. The present paper also contributes to examining our traditional research habits in Arabic studies. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to examine the role of methodology in action research. It begins by showing how action research is nothing other than a modern 20th century manifestation of the pre-modern tradition of practical philosophy. It then gives an explanation of Aristotelian Tradition and draws on Gadamer's powerful vindication in order to show how action research functions to sustain a distorted understanding of what practice is. The paper concludes by outlining a non-methodological view of action research whose (...) chief task is to promote the kind of historical self-consciousness that the development of practice presupposes and requires. (shrink)

In this paper, I raise the following problem: What terms are considered as syncategoremata in the Arabic logical texts? How are they defined? How do they determine the forms of the propositions and the inferences? To answer these questions, I focus on the analyses provided by al-Fārābī and Avicenna. Both authors apply the grammatical distinction between the particle, the noun and the verb to logic. They also state the semantic and the syntactic criterions, but their analyses of the particles are (...) different. For al-Fārābī devotes two treatises to the analysis of particles: al-musta‘malah fī l-maniq, where he provides a listing of particles that he classifies in the manner of the Greek grammarians and Kitāb al-urūf, where he analyzes some particles used in metaphysics; while Avicenna, despite the considerable amount of his logical corpus, does not devote a special book to the analysis of particles. He does not provide any listing either but characterizes each logical particle on its own, while analyzing the propositions, their elements and the inferences. In this paper, I argue that this treatment of particles in the two frames shows a significant difference between the two authors with regard to the relation between logic and grammar, and with regard to the characterizations of the logical particles themselves. For Avicenna is much less interested than al-Fārābī by the grammatical analysis and focuses much more on the logical particles, which he scrutinizes meticulously. This enriches his definitions of the logical constants and leads him in the final analysis to different and more various inferences than those hold by al-Fārābī. (shrink)