Abstract
Recent studies on Avicenna’s modal syllogistic have pointed out the significance of his distinction between the understanding of predications ‘with regard to essence/essentially’ (dhātī) and ‘with regard to escription/descriptionally’ (wasfī) (Street 2000a, 2000b, 2005a, 2005b). In this chapter I investigate the grammatical, theological and metaphysical context of Avicenna’s understanding of that what is ‘derived’ (mushtaqq) either with regard to essence/essentially or with regard to description/descriptionally. I argue that this distinction is based on two different kinds of understanding ‘derivation’ (ishtiqāq). The Arabic grammarian Sibawayh distin-guished two classes of the ‘derived’: [a.] “[the name of] the agent” ([ism] al-fā’il) and [b.] “the description/attribute which is similar to [the name of] the agent” (al-sifa al-mushabbaha bi-l-fū’il). These terms can be understood as derived either logically or grammatically. I argue that Avicenna’s dhātī-reading is based on the logical derivation of the ‘name of an agent’ or the ‘description/attribute’ from a noun which signifies an abstracted essence, and that Avicenna’s wasfi-reading is based on their grammatical derivation from a verb/acting (fi’l) which indicates the occuring (hudūth) and the happening (husūl) of an acting (fi’l) or of an affection by a quality (sifa). Thus, Avicenna’s dhātī/wasfī distinction is a typical product of the mutual rapprochement between Neoplatonic and Peripatetic metaphysics and logic on one hand and Arabic grammar on the other hand. I further argue that the dhātī/wasfī distinction is not only basic for Avicenna’s syllogistic, but also for al-Ghazālī’s semantical-logical explanation of the names of God.
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Schöck, C. (2008). Name (ism), Derived Name (ism mushtaqq) and Description (waṣf) in Arabic Grammar, Muslim Dialectical Theology and Arabic Logic. In: Rahman, S., Street, T., Tahiri, H. (eds) The Unity of Science in the Arabic Tradition. Logic, Epistemology, and The Unity of Science, vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8405-8_12
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