Autorentext

Ahmed Alwishah is Professor of Philosophy at Pitzer College. He is the co-editor of Illuminationist Texts and Textual Studies (2017), Aristotle and the Arabic Tradition (2015), and Refinement and Commentary of Suhrawardi's Intimations (2002), among numerous articles.

David Sanson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Illinois State University. He is the author of many journal articles and book chapters on the philosophy of time, logic, metaphysics, and the history of Islamic thought.

Klappentext

This book offers a comprehensive study of the history of the Liar Paradox in the Islamic philosophical tradition up to the 15th century, including the first complete English translation of Jal l al-D n al-Daw n 's treatise, Final Word. The book explores connections in the tradition between the Liar and topics in philosophical logic, philosophy of language, and theological ethics. These include theories of truth, the principle of bivalence, puzzles about negation and empty terms, the Frege-Geach problem, theories of quotation, the distinction between declarative and non-declarative speech acts, and the opposition between truth as good and falsehood as evil. Solutions are grouped into four categories: that the Liar is, or needs to be, two declaratives rather than one; that the Liar is false because self-contradictory; that self-referential declaratives like the Liar cannot be true or false; al-Daw n 's claim, that the Liar fails to establish an imitation relation between itself and an imitation-independent fact, and so fails to be a truth-apt representation. The authors suggest a connection between this last idea and Kripke's claim that the Liar fails to be a statement because its truth conditions are ungrounded.

Inhalt

• Part I: A History of the Liar in the Islamic World

• Chapter 1: Introduction

• Chapter 2: The Liar and the Definition of the Declarative

• Chapter 3: The Liar as Theological Weapon

• Chapter 4: Two Declaratives?

• Chapter 5: The Liar as Self-Contradictory

• Chapter 6: The Liar as Failed Correspondence

• Chapter 7: The Liar as Failed Imitation

• Part II: The Final Word in Solving the Paradox of the Irrational Root

• Preamble

• The Introduction: Articulation of the Paradox

• The Middle: On articulating the solutions that were mentioned by [scholars] prior to and contemporary to us, and explaining what they are, and their strengths and weaknesses

• On al-Taftazani (1322-1390)

• On al-Katibi (d. 1276 CE)

• On Samarqandi (1250-1310)

• al-Tusi (1201-1274) and al-Hilli (1250-1325)

• al-Dashtaki on al-Tusi and al-Hilli

• al-Jurjani's (1339-1414) Solution According to al-Dashtaki

• al-Jurjani's Reply According to Some other Reports

• Ibn Kammuna's (1215-1284) Solution

• al-Dashtaki on Ibn Kammuna

• Dawani's Critiques of Ibn Kammuna's Solution

• al-Dashtaki's Solution

• Dawani's Critique of al-Dashtaki's Solution

• Conclusion

• The Solution of the Paradox

• Objections From al-Dashtaki

• Back Matter

• References

• Primary Sources in Arabic

• All Other Sources