Ibn Taymiyyah’s Criticism of the Aristotelian Logic

Ibn Taymiyyah’s Criticism of the Aristotelian Logic

In his book al-Radd ‘ala al-Mantiqiyyin (Refutation of the Greek Logicians), Ibn Taymiyyah focuses on three main issues: logical definition, logical proposition, and syllogism. He attempts to disprove these issues and show their contradictions, reaching the conclusion that logic is a non-beneficial science and thereby introducing a measuring representation as an alternative science to logic. There is no doubt that this criticism has great scientific value and philosophical dimensions that influenced the centrality of logic in different fields of knowledge, which has governed human knowledge since Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Understanding religious motives behind the criticism of logic contributes to the comprehension of the psychological and cognitive context of this criticism and reveals Ibn Taymiyyah’s intellectual and ideological structures, such as Divine qualities, innateness (fitra) and reason, and demonstrates their relationship with logic. It also analyses and criticizes Ibn Taymiyyah’s perception of these concepts. Ibn Taymiyyah’s criticism focused on denouncing the metaphysical foundations of logic, such as holistic logic and entity as theyare considered intellectual perceptions that do not exist on the outside. Ibn Taymiyyah adopted the Qiyās that is founded on objects that exist on the outside which are adopted as evidence during the partial-to-partial transition, or through analogy through analogy between event to event. Here Ibn Taymiyyah agrees with the experimental philosophy that originated in the West centuries later, which rejected the formal imaginary logic and developed the extrapolation-derived analogy approach.

Keywords: Ibn Taymiyyah; Logic; Aristotle; Philosophy; Syllogism; Definition