al-Farabi’s Philosophy of Logic and

Language
First published Tue Apr 16, 2019; substantive revision Tue May 9, 2023

Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī (Iraq, c. 870–c. 950) devoted his career to introducing the work of
Aristotle to educated Arabic-speaking citizens of the Islamic Empire. Several of his
major writings are lost in whole or part. But many of his books explaining Aristotle’s
Organon (the collection of Aristotle’s writings on logic and related subjects) have
survived, and the number of them available in Western translations is increasing
steadily. For general information on al-Fārābī see the entry on Al-Farabi.

Al-Fārābī studies the various roles of language in human life and society. He
emphasises the use of language to convey information, to ask questions and resolve
disagreements, and to describe distinctions and classifications. He believes that
language in some sense copies meanings, and that mismatches between language and
meanings need to be avoided. He presents Aristotle’s logic as a collection of methods
for exercising persuasion, regulating debate, discovering truth and achieving certainty.
He also explores its applications in poetry. Along the way he makes many acute
observations on issues ranging from the sources of metaphysical questions to the
temporal structure of events and the relationship between poetry and music.

 1. Al-Fārābī’s Writings and Their Background

 2. The Origin of Languages
 3. The Origins of Syllogistic Arts
 4. Requests and Questions
o 4.1 Questions in Debate
o 4.2 Questions Seeking Information
 5. The Definition of Logic
 6. Tools for Inference
o 6.1 Categorical Logic
o 6.2 Hypothetical Logic
o 6.3 Modal Logic
o 6.4 Demonstrative Logic
 7. Logical Consequence
 8. Truth and Falsehood
 9. Foundations of Arabic
 10. Poetry and Music
 Bibliography
o Works of Al-Fārābī
o Works of Other Authors
 Academic Tools
 Other Internet Resources
 Related Entries
1. Al-Fārābī’s Writings and Their Background
Al-Fārābī’s surviving works contain well over a thousand pages that are devoted to
explaining the contents of Aristotle’s logical writings and aimed at educated readers
of Arabic. Much of this material reveals al-Fārābī’s strong interest in the nature of
language.

Al-Fārābī’s intellectual background was not so much Aristotle himself. Rather it was
the Aristotelian part of the syllabus of the Neoplatonic school of philosophy that
flourished in Alexandria (in Egypt) in the fifth and sixth centuries (see D’Ancona
2022). Al-Fārābī tells us that eventually “instruction was moved from Alexandria to
Antioch” (in Syria), until the last members of the school scattered “taking their books
with them”. He says that he himself studied with one of these last members, Yūḥannā
bin Ḥaylān, and together they read Aristotle up to the end of Posterior Analytics. He
adds that the Alexandrian school came to describe the part of Aristotle’s Organon
from modal logic onwards as “the part that is not read”, since under the Christians the
modal material had been kept hidden. (Al-Fārābī’s account is in a lost work quoted by
the historian Ibn Abī Usaybi‘a [‘Uyūn 604f]; see the translation in Fakhry 2002: 159.)

Al-Fārābī has oversimplified the history (see Lameer 1997 and Watt 2008). But he
correctly implies that his understanding of Aristotle is based on the Alexandrian
syllabus and its later offshoots in the Middle East. For example, the account of logic
in his influential [Catalogue] has been shown to be an edited translation of a work
from the Alexandrian teaching materials.[1] So for understanding al-Fārābī it becomes
important to know when he is giving his own considered view and when he is merely
passing on parts of the Alexandrian syllabus. As yet there is no consensus about this,
or about the order in which he wrote his works.

The Alexandrian Neoplatonists saw philosophy as an avenue by which we can

achieve happiness through knowledge of The One (see Wildberg 2021). To add
intellectual rigor to this mystical endeavor they included the logical writings of
Aristotle in the early stages of their teaching syllabus. They devised a body of
introductory texts to explain how Aristotle’s logic saves us from incorrect thinking
and acting, and why Aristotle devised his logic syllabus—his Organon—in the form
that he gave it.[2] Some features of al-Fārābī’s presentation are most easily explained
in terms of the Alexandrians. For example, the Aristotelian part of their syllabus, after
Porphyry’s Eisagoge, began with Aristotle’s Categories, so al-Fārābī duly seeks
reasons why categories are an essential first step in logic. Their Organon also
included Aristotle’s Rhetoric and his Poetics; so al-Fārābī explains why the arts of
rhetoric and poetry are really parts of logic. If their Organon had contained a book on
music, al-Fārābī would have explained why musical theory is a branch of logic.[3] (On
music see Section 10 below.)

Al-Fārābī’s logical writings take various forms. Some of them are Long
Commentaries on works of Aristotle, which dissect Aristotle’s text in sometimes
excruciating detail; only the Long Commentary on De Interpretatione survives in full,
though we have parts of others. More friendly are the Epitomes, in which al-Fārābī
rewrites works in the Organon from his own point of view. There are also a number
of texts that serve as introductions to the Organon, though they are not necessarily
elementary. We call attention to three works in this last group. The first, [Indication],
teaches that logic is the art of making correct discriminations, and hence is the key to
happiness in life as a whole. It also explains that we must study language before we
study logic. The second, [Expressions], is a sequel to [Indication] and introduces the
vocabulary of logic.

The third work is the extraordinarily original and insightful [Letters], which weaves
together language, logic, and metaphysics. We will take this work as the best basis for
understanding al-Fārābī’s overall view of language and logic. Sections 2 to 5 below
will review what we take to be the core of this view. The remaining Sections 6 to 10
will pick up particular themes.

Besides the Alexandrian material, al-Fārābī was able to call on highly professional
Arabic translations of the books of the Organon. He also had translations of some
logical writers from the Roman Empire, such as Alexander of Aphrodisias and
Themistius. He is not known to have made any use of earlier Arabic texts relating to
logic, such as the Logic of Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ and writings of al-Kindī. (Zimmermann
[1981: lxviii–xcviii] and Lameer [1994: Chapter 1] discuss what earlier logical
writings were available to al-Fārābī. See also Walzer [1962: 129–136] for al-Fārābī’s
sources on Aristotle’s poetics.)

Al-Fārābī’s work on logic and language had a direct effect on several Arabic authors
in the two hundred years after his death.[4] These include Ibn Bājja (in Latin
Avempace), Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna), Al-Ghazālī (Algazel), and Ibn Rushd (Averroes).
He also influenced a number of medieval Jewish authors including Maimonides. The
Latins knew him as Alfarabius or Alpharabius or Abunaser. His influence can be seen
in Scholastic treatments of determinism, poetic argument, and the classification of
sciences.[5]

2. The Origin of Languages

Al-Fārābī describes how a language develops within a community. In [Letters] (114,
115) 134.16–135.14 he pictures a community whose members have concepts
(ma‘qūlāt, literally “intellected things”, or “intelligibles” in Scholastic terminology)
that allow them to pick out identifiable objects in the external world, either
individually or as kinds of thing. He refers to these concepts drawn from perception of
the external world as “primary concepts”. These people have beliefs, and they are able
to reason about the world, to deliberate about their actions, and to communicate by
pointing. But as yet these people have no language.

The first development towards language is that the people come to realize that they
can communicate their needs to each other better if they agree to label some objects
and concepts with vocal sounds. This sets up a conventional correlation between
simple (i.e., uncompounded) primary concepts and words, and eventually this
correlation comes to be accepted by the whole community. The words are said to
“signify” the concepts to which they are correlated. Al-Fārābī envisages that a
lawmaker will regulate the correlation and add some words to it for the benefit of the
community ([Letters] (120) 138.4–8). Thus a national lexicon is created; the sounds
that are used form a national alphabet.
Once the idea has become established that words signify meanings, the community
will aim to develop the language so that words imitate the “ordering” or “regime”
(intiẓām) of the primary concepts ([Letters] (122) 139.2–4). This regime includes any
relationships that the concepts have as concepts. For example, two concepts may be
similar; so an effort will be made to find a pair of similar words to express these
concepts. Al-Fārābī notes that this effort may misfire and result in homonymy—a
single word being used for two different concepts ([Letters] (124) 140.8–10). The
pressure to copy similarities also leads to metaphors ([Letters] (127) 141.10).

Also some concepts are derived from others; the word for the derived concept should
be grammatically derived from the word for the other concept. The words for
underived concepts should not be grammatically derived. Al-Fārābī notes that in
practice this correlation sometimes fails. For example, he takes it that the participle
“living” (ḥayy) is derived, but it is sometimes used to signify the underived concept
“animal” ([Letters] (26) 74.16, (36) 81.18f). Likewise the underived concept “is” is
sometimes signified by the derived passive participle mawjūd ([Letters] (84) 113.9).

Also concepts can be combined into compound concepts, and this possibility will be
copied in the language too. ([Letters] (126) 140.20–141.3.) Taking this view, al-
Fārābī makes a number of remarks that contain the first explicit formulations of the
thesis of compositionality.[6]

Al-Fārābī clearly believes that mismatches between words and concepts are a bad
thing, but it’s less clear why he believes this, or what he thinks should be done about
it. The original matching was set up by an artless consensus of the community,
presumably because it served some social purpose. Al-Fārābī never analyses in detail
what this purpose might be, or, for example, how it would be damaged by using
derived words for underived concepts. Does he really fear that a mismatch could lead
to a breakdown in communication, even if the whole community adopts the
mismatch? Germann (2015/6: 138f) has suggested that his fear is more specific: he
worries that if mismatches develop, teachers—including philosophy teachers—may
be unable to pass information reliably to their students.

Another possibility is that he is afraid that a mismatch will cause errors in logical
reasoning, because the relationships between concepts that make an argument valid
will not be visible in the corresponding words. In [Expressions] 102.8–15, after telling
us that demonstrations and syllogisms take place in internal speech, not external, he
comments that

most students don’t have the ability to imagine how concepts are ordered in the mind,
so instead one takes expressions that signify the concepts, so as to enable the student’s
mind to make a transition from them to the concepts.

Any mismatch between concepts and words could disrupt this process.

In any event, al-Fārābī is in no hurry to reform the language. He is content to continue

using the word mawjūd for “is”.

There is one part of the regime of primary concepts that al-Fārābī never suggests that
language should replicate. Some concepts are more inclusive than others; for
example, “animal” is more inclusive than “human”. Following one reading of
Aristotle, al-Fārābī believes that there are ten maximally inclusive simple primary
concepts (ignoring “thing”, “concept”, “one”, and “being” which include all
concepts). He refers to these ten concepts as “categories” (maqūlāt, not to be confused
with ma‘qūlāt above). But we will prefer to call them by their alternative name
“supreme genera”, because al-Fārābī confusingly also applies the name “category” to
all simple primary concepts. Languages do distinguish the minimally inclusive
concepts, those that apply to just one thing, by using proper names for them. But it’s
unrealistic to expect languages to copy the rest of this regime of inclusions, and we
know of no place where al-Fārābī suggests that it should.

Some of the historical processes mentioned above will have the effect of making
people think about the primary concepts and their regime. Al-Fārābī points out that as
a result, people will now have concepts that classify concepts in the soul rather than
identifiable objects in the external world. So these are a new kind of concept, and al-
Fārābī calls them “secondary concepts” (often translated as “second intelligibles”).
Thinking about secondary concepts will give us “tertiary concepts”, and so on to
infinity. As examples of secondary concepts, al-Fārābī mentions “genus”, “species”,
“more/less inclusive”, “known”, “concept”. (All this is in [Letters] (7,8) 64.9–65.8.)[7]

Although al-Fārābī doesn’t recommend any particular reforms of language, he does

make some detailed recommendations for a philosopher who is seeking to translate
philosophy from another language and needs to introduce technical terms for the
purpose. ([Letters] (155) 157.19–158.21.) It would be interesting to compare al-
Fārābī’s recommendations with his own practice, if we could be sure which of the
technical terms used for translating Greek writers we can credit to him.

He does introduce some new names for notions that he himself pioneered. Three
noteworthy examples are:

1. He introduces yufīdu “provides” as a term of art for saying that the answer to a
question posed in a philosophical debate “provides” information (cf. Section 4
below). The root is rare in his writings except for this usage, and its use in a
related sense in linguistic writers probably antedates his use of it (see Giolfo &
Hodges 2018).
2. He borrows from the linguists the term istithnā’ (“exception”) as a name for
the inference rules of his hypothetical logic (cf. Section 6 below). The choice
rests on a formal similarity between these rules and a property of the syntactic
construction known as “exception”.[8]
3. His choice of the name “secondary concept” is based on an analogy with
Porphyry’s theory of “second impositions”, i.e., words for talking about
words.[9]

3. The Origins of Syllogistic Arts

Al-Fārābī’s tale of the origins of language runs on into a tale of how language makes
it possible to handle concepts in new ways. For al-Fārābī one key difference between
language and concepts is that language is public and allows communication between
people. Hence many of the new uses of concepts have to do with social interaction. In
each case he is interested in the development of new skills for handling concepts.
Skills involve instruments and rules for handling these instruments; so the appearance
of a new skill involves an acceptance of the rules (qawānīn, singular qānūn) for
handling its instruments. A bundle of associated skills and their rules is called an “art”
(ṣinā‘a).

The first new art that he calls attention to is rhetoric (khiṭāba), the art of the orator,
which uses concepts in order to persuade people to do or believe certain things. The
main users of this skill are political and religious leaders, who employ it in order to
assert their authority. Alongside rhetoric al-Fārābī mentions the art of poetry (shi‘r),
which uses concepts in order to bring people to certain states of mind. He sees this art
as most useful for religious leaders. He also mentions an art which he calls the art of
sophistry. This art embodies the skill of producing bad arguments from false
premises. It’s hard to see what could have led him to the conclusion that there is such
an art, beyond the fact that the Alexandrian syllabus contained, wedged between a
book on dialectical methods and one on rhetorical methods, Aristotle’s treatise
Sophistical Refutations. Aristotle’s treatise is usually understood to be teaching the art
of detecting and refuting bad arguments, not that of creating them!

One effect of the introduction of language is that people are able to learn the opinions
of other people. They will inevitably discover that some people disagree with them,
not least in speculations about the nature of the universe. So the art of dialectics or
debate (jadal) is introduced in order to resolve differences of opinion between two
people. ([Letters] (140,141) 150.2–151.7.) But a dialectical resolution of a
disagreement is no guarantee of the truth of the agreed conclusion; one of the debaters
might just be better at arguing ([Debate] 40.9–13).

A realization that dialectics doesn’t lead to certain truth will inspire some individuals
to seek other methods that do. At this point the community discovers the art of
“demonstration” (burhān), which establishes truths with certainty. Al-Fārābī believes
that among the Greeks this art was achieved by Plato:

Plato was the first to be aware of the demonstrative methods and to distinguish them
from the dialectical, sophistical, rhetorical, and poetical methods. But from his point
of view they were distinguished in use and according to matter, and in terms of what
guidance he received from his considerations at leisure and his superior natural
intelligence. He didn’t prescribe universal rules for them. Afterwards Aristotle did
prescribe such rules in his book Posterior Analytics. ([Rhetoric] 55.13–17)

It was a commonplace in the Neoplatonic schools that the high point of logic was
Posterior Analytics with its treatment of knowledge with certainty. The Neoplatonists
also considered that Aristotle had arranged his Organon so that the path up to this
summit through Categories, De Interpretatione, and Prior Analytics assembled the
tools of logic, and the downward slope from Posterior Analytics onwards allowed the
student to apply these tools within demonstrative methods, dialectical methods,
sophistical methods, rhetorical methods, and poetic methods in turn. Al-Fārābī
inherited this view of Aristotle; see [Aristotle] pp. 82–93.

He also inherited the zeal of the Neoplatonic schools to catalogue the ingredients of
logic. Thus in [Letters] he catalogued the logical arts according to the social needs
that brought them into existence, while in [Aristotle] he catalogued them according to
the books of the Organon that Aristotle devoted to them. These two principles of
classification led to essentially the same divisions between logical arts. But sometimes
he used principles that draw distinctions in different places. For example in
[Syllogism] he classified kinds of logic by the syllogisms (i.e. two-premise inferences)
that they used; we come to this classification in Section 6 below. Elsewhere he
classified kinds of logic by the kinds of premise that they accepted in their syllogisms.

All the kinds of logic, even the less syllogistic kinds, must have rules about what to
adopt as starting premises. In the case of rhetoric, practicality implies that the orator
should choose premises that the audience will accept; likewise in dialectics it makes
sense to start with premises that have some plausibility. Al-Fārābī believes that in
practice the community will insist on restrictions that add a note of objectivity: for
example, that experts agree to the premise, or that nobody positively disagrees with it.
He formulates some conditions along these lines, including that the premises must be
at least “standard” (masshūr) or “received” (maqbūl). (For discussion of such
conditions and where they apply, see Aouad 1992 and Black 1990: Chapter 5A. Chatti
2017 reviews how al-Fārābī catalogues the starting points of inferences in
hypothetical logic. Kleven 2023 studies the treatment of the starting points of
reasoning in some of al-Fārābī’s introductory essays, and adds some interesting
information about the manuscripts.)

Rhetorical reasoning might be the hardest to make sense of, particularly when
[Letters] suggests that the rhetorician’s job is done when he or she has persuaded the
audience. Surely that aim could be achieved by means that don’t involve logic at all?
But recently it has come to be accepted that the Latin essay [Didascalia] published in
[Rhetoric] is probably a translation of the prologue to al-Fārābī’s lost Long
Commentary on Rhetoric. In fact the work goes way beyond vague remarks about
methods of persuasion; see Woerther 2020. For example al-Fārābī observes that
medical reasoning about what remedies to apply to this present invalid, and
agricultural reasoning about how to increase the yield of this particular field, cannot
be demonstrative since they apply only to this particular individual (invalid or field);
so we have to take them as rhetorical reasoning (Woerther (2020 p. 346)). On this
reckoning, much of the reasoning of our most respected experts must count as
rhetoric.

In sections 23 and 24 towards the end of Prior Analytics ii, Aristotle discusses
argument by induction and argument by analogy, with a view to showing that both of
them are reducible to syllogism. Since [Syllogism] is an epitome of Prior Analytics,
al-Fārābī closes the book with some sections in which he gives his own reductions of
induction and analogy to syllogism. Some manuscripts of [Syllogism], and some
manuscripts of the later work [Short Syllogism],[10] include a pair of essays which we
will refer to as the Tailpiece; the first essay is on the logical device of “transfer”, and
the second is on the application of this device to reduce arguments in Islamic
jurisprudence (fiqh) to syllogisms. In the first of these two essays al-Farabi refers to a
number of named argument forms (for example “transfer from the observed to the
unobserved”), and it is clear that he is referring to earlier debates about these
argument forms; but there is no agreement on whether the debates were in Roman
Empire medical circles or in Islamic theology.
One particular strand in this complex is a distinction that al-Fārābī makes between
two forms of analogy, which he describes as taḥlīl and tarkīb respectively. Some
authors have read these words as “analysis” and “synthesis” respectively, and tried to
read these as descriptions of two different kinds of formal proof. But this is certainly
wrong, since the distinction that al-Fārābī himself draws between the two kinds of
argument is not about the form of the resulting proof, but about the criteria for success
in the search for a middle term. Al-Fārābī himself is a little conflicted at this point; in
loyalty to Aristotle he wants to emphasise the reduction to syllogism, but the point he
makes about search, which is central for his application to fiqh in the second essay, is
not about the form of the final syllogistic proof at all. (See Chatti and Hodges 2020
for further details on the Tailpiece, and Hodges 2020 for the increasing interest in
search algorithms in this period.)[11]

Further remarks comparing al-Fārābī’s dialectics with Islamic fiqh can be found in
Gyekye (1989) and Young (2017: 539–543).

4. Requests and Questions

Al-Fārābī has explained that language grew out of a need to communicate requests.
Requests and questions of various kinds are a central feature of his thinking. At
[Debate] 43.2f he distinguishes two main kinds of request: those that are requests for
a commitment, and those that are requests for knowledge or information. This
division corresponds to the roles of questions in debate and in science respectively.
We begin with debate.

4.1 Questions in Debate

Al-Fārābī cites Aristotle as saying that the primary aim in debate is to refute proposed
views; reaching agreement is a secondary aim ([Debate] 14.7–9). Accordingly the
rules of debate provide that one of the debaters, known as the “questioner” (sā’il), has
the role of refuting the views offered by the other debater (the “responder”, mujīb).
It’s also the questioner’s task to elicit from the responder commitments to statements.
(Committing is called “conceding” or “submitting”, taslīm.) The questioner must then
try to refute these statements and the responder must try to defend them. The
questioner elicits a commitment by presenting to the responder a pair of incompatible
possibilities, and the responder must choose which possibility to defend. This pair of
incompatible possibilities is referred to as “what was sought after” (maṭlūb, in Latin
quaesitum), or the “question” (mas’ala).

The simplest case is where the questioner requires the responder to commit to a view
on whether some primary concept is instantiated in the world. For example, “Is there
or is there not a vacuum?” More complicated, because it combines two concepts, is a
question like “Is the sky spherical or not?” More bizarre, “Stone and human, which of
the two is animal?” ([Debate] 43.16–20) When the responder has made a
commitment, the questioner must devise a syllogism whose conclusion contradicts the
commitment, and then attempt to get the responder to commit to the premises of this
syllogism and to its validity. The responder is allowed to challenge on any of these
points, whereupon the two participants swap roles.
Al-Fārābī comments that the rules of debate have been found useful for other
purposes besides resolving differences of opinion. For example, in demonstrative
science debate trains the participants to be nimble and systematic thinkers; it clears
out of the way sophistical nonsense, and gives prima facie conclusions that can then
be checked by demonstrative methods. In fact it’s not humanly possible to reach
philosophical truth without engaging in debate. ([Debate] 29.21–38.3.) The
relationship between questioner and responder can serve as a template for the
relationship of teacher to pupil, so far as this is not simply passing information from
teacher to pupil. It can also be a basis for collaborative research. ([Demonstration]
77.1–83.9.)

4.2 Questions Seeking Information

Al-Fārābī’s treatment of information-seeking questions is strongly influenced by two

contexts in which Aristotle’s Organon uses question words. The first of these is in
Categories, where Aristotle (at least as al-Fārābī reads him) classifies primary
concepts under the ten supreme genera. Aristotle explains his classification partly
through question words: “how much” (Arabic kam), “how” (kayfa), “where” (ayna),
“when” (matā). Al-Fārābī takes note of most of these question words, and adds two
more: “what” (mā) and “which” (ayyu) ([Letters] (166) 165.17, (183) 181.16.) In
[Expressions] 47.5–12 he notes that the answers to some of these questions can be
classified by the question word or a word derived from it: “quantity” (kamiyya),
“quality” (kayfiyya), “quiddity” or “whatness” (māhiyya). (See the discussion of these
questions in Diebler 2005.)

The second context is the second book of Posterior Analytics. In the opening lines of
this book Aristotle lists the four “things that we seek”, namely that it is so (annahu
yūjadu), why it is (li-mādhā), what it is (mā) and which it is (ayyu). In [Letters] (210)
200.16 al-Fārābī adds the question “is it the case that” (hal), which turns Aristotle’s
“that it is” into a question.

Large parts of both [Expressions] and [Letters] are devoted to explaining how we can
elicit philosophical information by asking these and similar questions.[12] Thus for
each primary concept we can ask “What is it”? Al-Fārābī defines the genus (jins) of
the concept to be the answer to this question. By asking “which thing” (in that genus),
we get a more specific description that provides the species (naw‘) below the genus.
Al-Fārābī explains how further questions can elicit the differentiae and the definitions
of concepts. The “essence” (dhāt) of a concept consists of the concepts included in the
definition of the concept; these concepts in the essence are also described as
“constitutive” (muqawwim) for the concept.

Al-Fārābī tries hard to convince us that the philosophers’ questions are a natural
extension of everyday questions. (Diebler 2005 draws a plausible comparison with
ordinary language philosophy.) But the effort hardly succeeds. In what everyday
context would we ask, about a date-palm, “What is it?” and accept the answer “It’s a
body”? ([Letters] (167) 166.16) The outcome is that al-Fārābī unintentionally raises
problems that are still resonant in the philosophy of questions. Compare “It’s a body”
with the answer “[He] is a person who is over three inches tall” discussed by Cross
and Roelofsen 2018.
5. The Definition of Logic
In his [Demonstration] (64.5–7) al-Fārābī tells us:

Two arts or sciences differ through having different subjects (mawḍū‘). If their
subjects are identical then the arts or sciences are identical; if their subjects are
different then the arts or sciences are different. Their subjects can differ either by
having different features (aḥwāl, singular ḥāl) or in themselves.

Thus an art or science—al-Fārābī is very little exercised about the difference between
the two—studies some entities called its subjects, and it ascribes to these entities some
features. Like other Aristotelians, al-Fārābī flips between saying (for example) that
the subjects of arithmetic are numbers and that the subject of arithmetic is number; the
two locutions mean the same.

In [Letters] sections 11–18 al-Fārābī undertakes to identify several arts or sciences in

these terms, namely “the art of logic and the sciences of nature, politics, mathematics
and metaphysics”. The first step is to identify their subjects. In all these cases, he
says, the “primary subjects” are the primary concepts ([Letters] 66.20f). For example,
in mathematics we study primary concepts from the point of view of quantity,
abstracting from their other features ([Letters] (15) 67.19–68.5). (See Druart 2007 and
Menn 2008 on the important question of how metaphysics fits into this picture.)

Al-Fārābī tells us what features of the primary concepts are studied in logic:

Insofar as [the primary concepts] are signified by expressions, and insofar as they are
universals, and insofar as they are predicates or subjects, and insofar as they are
defined in terms of each other, and insofar as they are asked about and taken in a
question about them, they are logical. They are taken so as to investigate the
compounds of them, one with another, where the aforementioned things attach to
them, and the features of the compounds after they have been compounded. ([Letters]
(12) 67.1–5).[13]

He gives no examples, but here is one. In his book [Syllogism] 27.6f he claims that the
following argument is a valid syllogism:

No stone is an animal. Some body is an animal.

This yields: Some body is not a stone.

We can paraphrase his claim:

(*)
If a first sentence is taken as universal negative with subject “stone” and
predicate “animal”, and a second sentence is existential affirmative etc., and a
third sentence etc., then the third sentence follows from the first two.

This paraphrase (*) illustrates why “predicate” and “subject” are listed among the
logical features, and also why logic has to consider compounds of primary concepts
(since the three sentences express propositions, which are compounds of concepts).
Al-Fārābī’s reference to being “asked about and taken in a question about them”
could refer either to dialectical questions, or to the questions that extract information
about concepts, or possibly to both.

The features listed as characterizing the art of logic are concepts that classify other
concepts, and so they are secondary concepts. This distinguishes logic from
mathematics and natural science. For example, natural science finds causes, but these
causes are “not outside the categories” ([Letters] (16) 68.17).

By describing simple primary concepts as the “first” or “primary” subjects of logic,

al-Fārābī suggests that there might be further subjects of logic. This makes sense; why
shouldn’t the rules of logic apply to secondary concepts just as much as to primary
concepts? In fact the way al-Fārābī has set things up would allow him to explain how
this should go. Laws about secondary concepts will need tertiary concepts. But there
is no need to restate the laws of logic using tertiary concepts, because “the features
that attach to the primary concepts are exactly the same as those that attach to the
secondary concepts”, and so on all the way up ([Letters] (9) 65.16f).

There is an obvious criticism of al-Fārābī’s definition of logic, namely that the

features that he lists are too vague. For example, how could we use his list to
determine whether the art of poetry is or is not a part of logic? The real problem is
that for al-Fārābī himself with his Neoplatonic heritage, logic consists of whatever
Aristotle said in the Organon, and al-Fārābī never comes near finding any abstract
way of characterizing this body of material.[14]

Al-Fārābī gives an even vaguer characterization of the subjects of logic in his

[Catalogue] (59.9–11):

As for the subjects of logic, about which it gives rules, they are concepts insofar as
expressions signify them, and expressions insofar as they signify concepts.

This definition could have been copied from a text in the Neoplatonic tradition.

We return briefly to the question why al-Fārābī includes the subject of categories in a
logic syllabus. Commentaries in the Alexandrian tradition normally started with a
statement of the purpose of the material to be discussed. Al-Fārābī’s epitome
[Categories] has no such statement, but the surviving fragments of the longer
[Commentary on Categories] do address the question. They tell us (p. 196) that
Aristotle’s Categories was intended to catalogue the simple universal primary
concepts, but Aristotle found it sufficient to catalogue the ten supreme genera instead.
Some people (p. 202) didn’t think Categories was specifically intended for logic; but
“under the conditions we have mentioned, the contents of Categories turn out to be a
specific part of logic”. But in fact no such conditions have been mentioned, at least in
the surviving fragments. What needs to be shown is that the features (the aḥwāl) of
categories studied in the first book of the syllabus are ones that will serve some
purpose in later books. But this issue is not addressed at all. Al-Fārābī does address it
in [Rhetoric] 87.16–89.4, where he says that the terms of premises can be in any of
the ten supreme genera, in any combination. This only confirms the suspicion that the
supreme genera are irrelevant to logical reasoning.
6. Tools for Inference
In this section we run quickly through al-Fārābī’s formal systems of logic. We assume
some knowledge of Aristotle’s syllogistics, as in Smith (2022). Al-Fārābī discusses
four logical systems: 6.1 Categorical syllogisms, 6.2 hypothetical syllogisms, 6.3
modal syllogisms, 6.4 demonstrative syllogisms.

6.1 Categorical Logic

In [Syllogism] and [Short Syllogism] Al-Fārābī recognizes three figures of categorical

syllogisms, following Aristotle.[15] In these three figures he recognizes respectively
four, four, and six valid moods, as listed by Smith (2022) but not always in the same
order. (For example in [Syllogism] he puts Darii before Celarent). Following Aristotle
again, he regards the first figure syllogisms as “perfect”, i.e., self-evident and not in
need of justification. For the moods in second and third figures he gives justifications
by reduction to first figure, following Aristotle in the main. (His chief departure from
Aristotle in these justifications is that he never uses proof by reductio ad absurdum,
though he does recognize such proofs as valid.) Aristotle’s justification of Darapti[16]
relies on the conversion implication: from “Every B is an A” infer “Some A is a B”
(cf. [Syllogism] 30.3). This implication fails to hold if we allow “Every B is an A” to
be true when there are no Bs. Accordingly al-Fārābī declares that “Every B is an A” is
false unless there is at least one B ([Categories] 124.14). Though he sometimes seems
to forget he said this, he is the earliest logician on record as having spelled out this
implication of “Every B is an A”.

Probably his main difference from Aristotle in categorical syllogisms is his treatment
of the pairs of formal premises (i.e., with letters for terms) where Aristotle says “no
syllogism occurs” in the sense that no syllogistic conclusion follows validly. Al-
Fārābī calls these premise-pairs “nonproductive” (ghayr muntij). Aristotle had used
the fact that valid inference rules preserve truth as a means to proving nonproductivity
of a formal premise-pair; for any proposed conclusion, he found nouns that could be
put for the letters, in such a way that the premises came out true and the conclusion
false. During the Roman Empire period a tendency developed for logicians to skip
these proofs and fall back instead on “laws of syllogism” that were supposed to give
necessary and sufficient conditions for a premise-pair to be productive (cf. Lee 1984:
119f). This was generally a lapse from the rigor of Aristotle’s work, because the
arguments given to justify the laws of syllogism were of a poor standard. Though al-
Fārābī does once briefly mention Aristotle’s counterexample method ([Syllogism]
20.2–5), in practice he relies entirely on the laws of syllogism. By contrast the earlier
logic texts of Paul the Persian and Ibn al-Muqaffa‘, both heirs of the Alexandrian
view, copied Aristotle’s nonproductivity proofs in categorical logic with total formal
rigor.

For further discussion of al-Fārābī’s categorical syllogisms, see Chatti and Hodges
2020 and Chatti 2019.

6.2 Hypothetical Logic

A hypothetical sentence consists of two shorter sentences joined together, as in the
connected (muttaṣil) form “If p then q” or the separated (munfaṣil) form “Either p or
q”. For the logic of these sentences, al-Fārābī confines his attention almost entirely to
simple inferences like modus ponens:

If this visible thing is a human, then it is an animal; but it is a human. Therefore it is

an animal.

or an inference with exclusive disjunction:

This number is either even or odd; but it is even. Therefore it is not odd.

His treatment is so similar to the contents of Boethius’ De Syllogismis Hypotheticis

that they must have drawn on a common source now lost.

Al-Fārābī points out that hypothetical sentences can be chained so as to form

“compound syllogisms”, as for example in

Either p or q. If p then not r. If not r then s. If s then t. Not t. Therefore q.

This formalizes an argument at his [Short Syllogism] 90.6–9. He also gives examples
of categorical syllogisms chained together—though these can be found already in
Aristotle.

6.3 Modal Logic

There is almost no mention of modal syllogisms in any of al-Fārābī’s surviving

works. He must have discussed modal syllogisms in his [Commentary on Prior
Analytics]; but the relevant part of this work is lost and we have to rely on citations by
Avicenna, Averroes, and Maimonides. These citations between them tell us of only
one modal syllogistic mood that al-Fārābī either accepted or rejected. [17]

From [Commentary on De Interpretatione] 193.3–19 and quotations in Maimonides,

we know that al-Fārābī claimed, against Galen, that logic with possibility statements
is useful in practical arts where actual outcomes have to be predicted, such as
medicine, agriculture, and navigation (Schacht & Meyerhof 1937: 67). This looks at
first sight like a confusion between possibility and probability. But more likely al-
Fārābī believed that the laws of modal logic could be tweaked so as to work with
“Probably” in place of a modal operator. In fact al-Fārābī does say at [Demonstration]
44.20–22 that in many of the arts, “Necessarily every A is a B” and “Most As are Bs”
are treated as equivalent. (But wouldn’t this correlate “Probably” with “Necessarily”
rather than “Possibly”? Al-Fārābī is not here to answer the question.)

There is further evidence of al-Fārābī experimenting with other sentence forms in

modal logic. Both Avicenna (Street 2001) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd, Maqālāt
102.13f) cite al-Fārābī as considering syllogistic premises containing “insofar as”, for
example, “Every A can be a B insofar as it is a B”.

From Averroes (Ibn Rushd, Maqālāt 129.11–17) we also know that al-Fārābī
observed that to get the syllogism
Every C is a possible B. Every B is a possible A.

Therefore every C is a possible A.

(a form that Aristotle accepted as perfect) we need that “Every B” in the second
premise means “Every possible B”; otherwise the Cs might be possible Bs but not
actual Bs, so that they would escape the quantifier of the second premise, and hence
violate the dictum de omni. From this al-Fārābī inferred that at least in this modal
syllogism, Aristotle intended ‘Every B’ to be read as ‘Every possible B’.

Exactly what al-Fārābī meant by the dictum de omni is hard to make out from
Averroes’ account. But al-Fārābī’s use of it seems to contain an attempt to give a set-
theoretic justification of Barbara[18] in modal contexts. Another quotation from
Averroes (Ibn Rushd, Maqālāt 154.18f) shows al-Fārābī using the dictum de omni
(again presumably a set-theoretic argument) to justify a syllogism where the major
premise has a negative subject:

A sculpture is not an animal. What is not an animal is not a human.

Therefore a sculpture is not a human.

This is Celarent[19] but with the middle term made negative.

6.4 Demonstrative Logic

We saw in Section 3 above that al-Fārābī believed Aristotle had prescribed universal
rules for demonstrative reasoning in his Posterior Analytics. But apart from some
discussion of techniques for finding definitions, the only rules that al-Fārābī offers us
in [Demonstration] are categorical syllogisms in mood Barbara with extra pieces
clamped on. (These are in the section [Demonstration] 33.1–39.4; they are quoted in
Strobino 2019.)

This is disappointing, but at least it’s clear where the extra pieces come from.
Demonstrative reasoning gives knowledge with certainty, and in [Certainty] al-Fārābī
writes down some necessary and sufficient conditions for certainty. (These
“conditions of certainty” are listed by López-Farjeat 2020 and discussed by Black
2006.) The condition that is relevant here is the last one:

If the previous conditions hold, it is not accidental that they do.

([Certainty] 100.18.) In other words they hold by reason of essence. Also in a

discussion of demonstration in [Attainment] 51.15–52.17 al-Fārābī tells us that
demonstration must proceed from some primary concepts, and the concepts in
question are those that are answers to the questions “what”, “by what”, “how”, “from
what”, and “for what”. These are not exactly the questions listed in Section 4.2 above,
but they are clearly in that territory. Again they indicate that a demonstration should
follow from the constitutive properties of the subjects under discussion, i.e., from
their essences.
Suppose we have constitutive properties of A and B which between them ensure that
every A is a B, and likewise constitutive properties which ensure that every B is a C.
Then by Barbara we know that every A is a C; but for demonstrative certainty we
want “Every A is a C” to be ensured by the constitutive properties of A and C. Some
of al-Fārābī’s syllogisms confirm that this is so, considering different kinds of
constitutive property.[20] In some other cases the constitutive properties fail to yield the
required sentences, and al-Fārābī comments that the syllogism gives fact but not
cause.

Galston (1981) offers reasons for thinking that al-Fārābī may have considered
demonstrative proofs a distant ideal, to be reached only after a substantial amount of
work at the dialectical level.[21]

7. Logical Consequence
Al-Fārābī’s most sophisticated definition of syllogism is at [Expressions] 100.3–5: a
syllogism is

things that are arranged in the mind in an order (tartīb) such that when the things have
been put in this order, the mind as a result finds itself unavoidably looking down at
something else of which it was ignorant before, so that it knows it now, and thus the
mind is equipped to submit to the thing it looked down at, just as if it [already] knew
that thing.

The reference to “order” must owe something to Aristotle’s remark at Topics 156a22–
26 that in a debate, the questioner can sometimes hoodwink the responder by asking
the questions in the wrong order. But by bringing the notion of order into the
definition of syllogism itself, al-Fārābī opens up a new chapter in logic (see Hodges
2018 on this and Avicenna’s development of the theme).

For further illumination on al-Fārābī’s understanding of logical consequence, we need

to explore what he says about logical rules. At [Catalogue] 53.5–9 he tells us:

The art of logic provides in general the rules whose nature is to constitute the intellect
and to guide a person along the correct and true path in everything where there can be
conceptual error, and the rules that protect and guard him against mistakes and slips
and errors in concepts, and the rules through which one tests things in concepts where
one can’t be trusted not to make an error.

But these are Neoplatonic commonplaces.[22] Elsewhere al-Fārābī says deeper things
about the rules of logic, as follows.

Recall from Section 3 above that on al-Fārābī’s understanding, the correct methods of
logic were known by the time of Plato, who had them “according to matter”, and it
was Aristotle who reformulated them as “universal rules”. He very probably has the
same thing in mind when he says that Aristotle in Prior Analytics considered
declarative sentences “from the point of view of their composition (ta’līf) and not of
their matter” ([Commentary on De Interpretatione] 53.3f). The point he is making
here becomes clear if we go back to the example syllogism spelled out at (*) in
Section 5 above. This is actually al-Fārābī’s second shot at this syllogistic mood. In
his first shot ([Syllogism] 26.11f) he followed Aristotle’s preferred style and used
letters A, B, C in place of the “matters” stone, animal, and body respectively. So a
corresponding paraphrase will read

(**)
For all primary concepts A, B, and C, if a first sentence is taken as universal
negative with subject A and predicate B, etc. etc.

Here (**) is a universal rule in the sense that it is for all A, B, and C; the premises and
conclusion contain no matter and are bare compositions.

Mallet (1994: 329–335) calls attention to a passage in [Analysis] 95.5–8, where al-
Fārābī says he will explain “how we define syllogism” and how it is used.

Firstly, it is through knowledge of the topics, which are the universal premises whose
particulars (juz’iyyāt) are used as major premises in a syllogism and in each separate
art.

If “particulars” means what it usually means in such a context, namely existentially

quantified statements, then this is just wrong: existentially quantified statements are
hardly ever major premises in syllogisms. But as Mallet points out, the passage makes
sense if the “universal premises” are statements like (**) and their “particulars” are
corresponding statements of the form (*). Al-Fārābī is then saying that natural
language syllogisms are validated through being instances of universal rules stating
that all arguments of a certain form are valid. If this is a correct reading, it makes al-
Fārābī a formal logician in a strong sense. And indeed some writers have written
about al-Fārābī’s “formalism” (Zimmermann 1981: xl).

However, there are reasons for caution. As Mallet’s paper shows, al-Fārābī in his
further discussion of topics, both in [Analysis] and in [Debate], heads off in
completely different directions (which are too complex to pursue here, but see
Hasnawi 2009 and Karimullah 2014). Moreover al-Fārābī has a habit of justifying
inferences by reference to real-world information about their terms (i.e., their matter)
that is not contained in the premises. He does this with the syllogistic mood Baroco
([Syllogism] 27.8–12, [Short Syllogism] 79.5–12), and there is a one-premise example
at [Commentary on De Interpretatione] 136.10.[23] Elsewhere he plays fast and loose
with the “forms” of arguments, for example reducing a many-premise version of
induction to a two-premise categorical syllogism without giving any indication of
how a string of premises are reduced to a single one ([Syllogism] 35.14–18).

Al-Fārābī often refers to “universal rules”. But they need not be laws that can be
shown to hold without exceptions. Take for example his essay [Canons], which closes
(272.16) with a statement that the work has presented “universal rules” of poetry. The
work consists mostly of classifications of different types of poetry, together with
definitions of terms used in analyzing poetry, and a broad comparison with decorative
arts. These “rules” are at best things that a person who aspires to work on the theory
of poetry ought to know.
In any case the only kind of justification that al-Fārābī offers for logical rules is that
they have been found useful for certain purposes in the community that uses them (cf.
Section 3 above). All in all, al-Fārābī treats the formal rules of logic as heuristics
rather than as laws of a scientific theory. A case can be made for viewing al-Fārābī as
one of the creators of what is now known as “informal logic”, as in the texts of
Hitchcock (2017) and Walton (1989). The pivotal role that he gives to dialogue places
him in the same world as Walton’s book.

8. Truth and Falsehood

Al-Fārābī defines a concept to be “true” (ṣādiq) if it is the same (bi-‘aynihi) in the
external world as it is in the soul ([Letters] (88) 116.3f) For this definition to make
sense, the concept need not be propositional. For example ([Letters] 118.5f), the
concept “vacuum” is not true, because it exists only in the mind and not in the
external world (Abed (1991: 111–115) discusses the relationship between existence
and truth in al-Fārābī).

Al-Fārābī quite often uses the derived causative noun taṣdīq, which has a range of
meanings between “verification” (i.e., gaining certainty that a thing is true) and
“assent” (i.e., treating a thing as true). Al-Fārābī expounds this distinction at
[Demonstration] 20.4–21.12. He also points to the range of meanings of taṣdīq at
[Attainment] 90.6f: it can occur “either through certain demonstration or through
persuasion”. Presumably the certain demonstration brings about verification and the
persuasion brings about assent.

At [Expressions] 86.17–87.4 al-Fārābī tells us that teaching has three steps:

“conceptualization” (taṣawwur), where we understand what the concept is and what
our teacher is telling us about it; taṣdīq; and “committing to memory” (hifẓ).[24]
[Demonstration] 80.22, in another passage on teaching, adds that “We can seek taṣdīq
either of simple things or of compound”. For al-Fārābī a proposition is always
compound, so he is telling us that non-propositional concepts can be assented to.

The view that both propositions and non-propositional concepts can be true runs fairly
deep in al-Fārābī’s thinking, although he recognizes that not everybody agrees with it
([Commentary on De Interpretatione] 52.13f). For example, this view allows him to
think of definition of non-propositional concepts and demonstration of propositions as
overlapping procedures; there can be definitions that are identical with demonstrations
except in the order of their parts ([Demonstration] 47.11).[25] Avicenna a hundred
years later found it essential to distinguish between non-propositional and
propositional concepts. Provocatively he used al-Fārābī’s own terminology of
taṣawwur and taṣdīq to fix the distinction; for Avicenna any concept can be
conceptualized, but only propositions can go on to be verified.[26]

A sentence can be switched between true and false by adding a negative particle, for
example, “It is not the case that” (laysa). But it matters where the negative particle is
put; al-Fārābī discusses a number of cases, ad hoc with no clear overall pattern. One
case that he discusses in detail is where the negation is attached to a noun, as when we
form the noun “not-just” from the noun “just”. (Adjectives are counted as nouns.)
Following Theophrastus (Fortenbaugh et al. 1992: 148–153) he identifies this kind of
negation as “metathetic” (‘udūlī); he takes the resulting metathetic sentence to be an
affirmation, not a denial. Nothing can be both just and not-just, but there are things
that are neither, for example infants. So an infant is not just, but it is also not not-just.
For a similar reason the infant is not unjust. Also it is false that the infant is just, and
false that it is not-just. Likewise it is false (rather than meaningless) that every heat is
curvilinear ([Categories] 125.8). (Thom 2008 steers a clear path through these
notions.)

Before al-Fārābī, metathesis seems to have played little or no role in rules of

inference. So an example in al-Fārābī with a metathetic subject term is worth noting:

If every human is an animal, then every non-animal is a non-human.

This appears in his ([Analysis] 114.11f), where he introduces it as a topic. (Fallahi

2019 discusses this example.)

Al-Fārābī holds that “Come here” is neither true nor false, but “You must come here”,
which can be used in place of it (yaqūmu maqāma(hu)), is true or false ([Short De
Interpretatione] 47.3–48.1). The reason is that the first sentence, unlike the second,
has the wrong shape to be true or false. He could be read as saying that every
command has the same meaning as some indicative sentence, but truth and falsehood
depend on the form of words used, not just on the meaning. But closer inspection
shows that he uses the phrase yaqūmu maqāma for some quite weak equivalences
where the two sentences in question definitely mean different things. For example, he
uses the phrase when a questioner in a debate asks a question with a metathetic
affirmation in place of a denial ([Commentary on De Interpretatione] 136.6). His
words for different kinds of equivalence (for example, bi-manzila, “in the same role
as”, which will be familiar to readers of Classical Arabic linguistics) deserve closer
study. Having written [Expressions] and [Letters], he certainly deserves to have his
prepositional phrases taken seriously.

At [Commentary on De Interpretatione] 89.12–100.25 Al-Fārābī presents a distinctive

view of statements about the future (cf. Adamson 2006, Knuuttila 2020). In
connection with a future battle, the disjunction “The battle either will or will not take
place” is a necessary proposition and hence true. But since the future is indeterminate,
neither of the sentences “The battle will take place” and “The battle will not take
place” is true; moreover the lapse of truth value is something intrinsic in the world, it
is not just our ignorance. Granted, if Allah knows that Zayd will leave home
tomorrow, then it is true now that Zayd will leave home tomorrow, and this
implication is a necessary truth. But the necessary truth of this implication doesn’t
entail the necessary truth of its conclusion, and hence Zayd still has the freedom to
choose. Al-Fārābī doesn’t make clear whether he is doubting the modal inference

Necessarily if p then q. Necessarily p. Therefore necessarily q

or whether he is allowing that there may be restrictions on what Allah necessarily

knows. (Hasnawi [1985: 28f] relates this passage to Muslim debates about Allah’s
foreknowledge.)
9. Foundations of Arabic
In several works al-Fārābī analyses features of Arabic as a language. Some of these
works contain comparisons between Arabic and other languages: Greek, Syriac,
Persian, and Sogdian in [Letters], Greek and Persian in [Commentary on De
Interpretatione], and Greek in [Expressions]. Al-Fārābī’s comments on Greek include
several mistranslations and dubious grammatical remarks, making it clear that he
didn’t read Greek (for al-Fārābī’s knowledge of languages see Zimmermann 1981:
xlviif). Also al-Fārābī has a strong tendency to classify languages as (1) Arabic and
(2) “other languages”. So these comparisons are far from being a serious contribution
to comparative linguistics, and one asks why he includes them.

On reading the comparisons, a pattern emerges. Al-Fārābī starts from a theory of the
regime of concepts (cf. Section 2 above), and his chief concern is how well Arabic
reflects this regime. The role of “other languages” is always to illustrate how other
languages reflect the regime of concepts where Arabic fails to do so. As Menn puts it,
“in practice, his reconstructed Greek serves as an ideal logical language, i.e. a
language in which grammatical form always tracks logical form” (2008: 68).

Al-Fārābī’s starting point is the concepts required for sentences that appear in
categorical syllogisms, such as

Zayd is human. Every horse is animal. Some horse is not stone.

Here “Zayd” , “horse”, “animal”, “stone” signify simple primary concepts; the proper
name “Zayd” signifies a particular (juz’), and the other three words signify universals
(kullī). “Every” and “some” are quantifiers (sūr), and “is” is a copula (rābiṭ)
signifying the connection between two primary concepts so as to form an affirmation
or a denial ([Commentary on De Interpretatione] 102.17) Al-Fārābī groups all these
words into two classes: noun (ism) for those signifying primary concepts, and particle
(ḥarf) for the remainder. (Adjectives count as nouns.) He makes clear that the
particles are a disparate group and need further classification ([Expressions] 42.8–12).

Al-Fārābī introduces a distinction between concepts that apply to a thing permanently

and those (called accident, ‘araḍ) that apply only temporarily. As a result, concepts
have a temporal regime, and language should reflect this. Al-Fārābī is at his most a
priori here, claiming that the temporal regime of concepts should be represented by a
system of three tenses: past, present, and future. We don’t know whether he simply
failed to notice other ways in which time is represented in Arabic grammar (for
example, continuous tenses and pluperfect constructions), or for some reason he
dismissed these features as marginal.

Broadly following Aristotle, al-Fārābī adds to noun and particle a third class, namely
verb (kalima). A verb simultaneously expresses three pieces of meaning: a simple
primary concept, a copular linking, and a tense (and hence a time). Thus in “Zayd
walked”, the verb “walked” expresses (i) the primary concept “walking”, (ii) a linking
of this concept to the concept of Zayd, and (iii) a past tense.
In spite of his blind spot about tenses, al-Fārābī’s comments on verbs in Arabic
contain some of his best linguistic insights. For example, he notes that since tenses are
needed only for talking about accidents, one should not expect to find a verb whose
primary concept is a permanent notion such as “human” (insān). He tests this by
constructing a verb from “human”, namely ta’annasa. By the rules of Arabic, one
would understand it to signify something with a temporal feature, namely “becoming
a human” ([Commentary on De Interpretatione] 34.4–9). Al-Fārābī also uses a quite
subtle linguistic argument to show that Arabic has a word that can express pure tense
without copula or primary concept. This is the word kāna, as in “Zayd was walking”,
zaydun kāna yamshī. We can see that there is no copula in kāna, he tells us, because
“Zayd is walking”, zaydun yamshī, already contains a copula in the verb yamshī
([Commentary on De Interpretatione] 42.6–18). We even find the beginnings of an
analysis of the structure of events in al-Fārābī’s discussion of how the present tense
can signify either a point of time or an interval ([Commentary on De Interpretatione]
40.3–41.18).

10. Poetry and Music

For al-Fārābī, music theory sits on the very edge of being a syllogistic art along with
rhetoric and poetry:

… it becomes clear that [the theoretical art of music] has much in common with that
of the scholars in the linguistic arts from the people of each tongue, and has much in
common with the art of rhetoric and the art of poetry, both of which are parts of the
art of logic in many things. ([Music] 173)

The link to poetry is clear, he tells us, given that poetry is perfected by being set to
music. Besides this there are formal similarities: poetry is formed by concatenating
letters from a finite alphabet, and music is formed by concatenating sounds from a
finite palette. Al-Fārābī grants that in the case of music the palette is dictated by
nature, whereas the letters of a national alphabet are adopted by convention in that
nation ([Music] 120f). But he notes that in some cultures the music accompanying a
poem is counted as a part of the poem, and that this can be justified by the fact that
sometimes the poetic metre is sustained by the music rather than the words ([Poetry]
91.15–17).[27]

Al-Fārābī never considers music on its own as a syllogistic art. There is an obvious
reason for this, namely that music is not built of words, and syllogisms (by Aristotle’s
definition which al-Fārābī cites at [Syllogism] 19.8) are a form of verbal discourse
(qawl). But this requires only that the premises are verbal; the conclusion, on both
Aristotle’s definition and al-Fārābī’s own quoted in Section 7 above, is simply a
“thing”. Already in Aristotle the conclusion of a practical syllogism is an action, not a
proposition. (Thus Aristotle, De Motu Animalium 7, 701a11: “The two propositions
result in a conclusion which is an action”.)

In what sense is it true that poetry contains words that compel assent to something
that one didn’t previously know? Al-Fārābī discusses this question in three essays:
[Canons], [Poetry], and [Proportion]. In all of them, part of his answer is that poetry
excites our imagination and thereby persuades us to adopt certain attitudes.
This takes “syllogism” in a very weak sense. But in all three works al-Fārābī also
indicates that poetry contains text that is “potentially” a syllogism. His only examples,
in [Proportion] 505.22f, yield invalid categorical syllogisms in second figure, as
follows (see Aouad & Schoeler 2002):

1. The person is beautiful. The sun is beautiful. Therefore the person is a sun.[28]
2. Fire acts quickly. The sword acts quickly, viz. to kill. Therefore the sword is a
fire.

His point can be teased out in several different ways; the reader may have better
suggestions than ours. But here at least is a reading that matches al-Fārābī’s text.
Consider the following line of Abū Tammām, in a poem written in 838 to celebrate a
military victory:

Knowledge lies in the bright spears gleaming between two armies. (translated in
Stetkevych 2002: 156)

Reading this in context, we realize that the poet is telling us that the weapons gave
certainty through a decisive victory. Knowledge is what gives certainty. So we can
expand the text by what it brings to mind:

The spears give certainty. Knowledge gives certainty. Therefore the spears are
knowledge.

This is not deductive reasoning. It’s a verbalizing of thoughts that the poem brings to
our minds. Spelling it out, we are drawn to appreciate the fact that the battle resolved
the situation. The text is an invalid syllogism in just the same way as al-Fārābī’s two
examples above, but the fact that it is in second figure is really neither here nor there.

Note that in this case the poem provides the conclusion, not the premises. So it fits
Black’s (1990: 226) description that “What appears in the finished product is not a
poetic syllogism … but only its conclusion”. Are the hearers supposed to reconstruct
the poet’s premises by telepathy? Black leaves the problem open, but in fact it’s a
problem we have met before. In [Syllogism] 19.10f al-Fārābī tells us that

A syllogism is just composed to reach a quaesitum which was previously defined; the
quaesitum was assumed first and one seeks to verify it by a syllogism.

This applies in various contexts, for example, when the questioner in a debate has the
task of finding a syllogism to refute the responder’s claim; “the enquiry is always
about a quaesitum whose syllogism has not yet been found” ([Debate] 45.6). In the
poetical case the hearers have the task of finding a middle term that generates a poetic
syllogism; in our example the middle term is “giving certainty”. And again, the
premises yield the conclusion by imaginative suggestion, not by deduction.

There remain some problems with al-Fārābī’s account of poetic syllogisms. First, he
never says that only the conclusion appears in the poem. Black (1990: 235–8)
suggests that the practical syllogism might be a key to understanding other cases.
Second, why does al-Fārābī say in [Canons] 268.15 that “poetic discourse is in all
cases absolutely false”? This is a gross exaggeration, and it raises the question
whether a poet can really expect the audience to assent to a pack of lies. It seems we
can handle this problem. Al-Fārābī’s statement in [Canons] is a typical Neoplatonist
soundbite, witness the Alexandrian Elias (In Categorias Prooemium 117.2–5):

Either all the premises [of the syllogism] are true, making it demonstrative, or they are
all false and they make it poetic and mythic, or some are true and some are false ….

Al-Fārābī’s own more mature view, in [Proportion] 506.3f, is that

Poetry doesn’t aim either to tell lies or not to tell them; its aim and purpose is to
arouse the imagination and the passion of the soul.

And even if some blatant lies do occur, we would surely admit (though al-Fārābī
himself never quite says it in the texts that we have) that a false statement may still
contain poetic truth.

Bibliography
Works of Al-Fārābī

 [Analysis] Kitāb al-taḥlīl (Analysis), in [Logic] 2: 95–129.

 [Aristotle] “The philosophy of Aristotle, the parts of his philosophy, the ranks
of order of its parts, the position from which he started and the one he
reached.” Translated by Mohsin Mahdi from an Arabic manuscript in Istanbul.
Mahdi’s translation is Part III of his book Mahdi 2001 (below).
 [Attainment] Kitāb taḥṣīl al-saʻāda, Jaʻfar Āl Yāsīn (ed.), Beirut: Dār al-
Andalus, 1981; translated as “The Attainment of Happiness” in Mahdi 2001:
13–50.
 [Canons] “Fārābī’s Canons of Poetry”, A. J. Arberry (ed./trans.), 1938, Rivista
degli Studi Orientali, 17(2): 266–278. (Arabic and translation.)
 [Catalogue] Iḥṣā al-‘ulūm (Catalogue of the sciences), ‘Uthmān Amīn (ed.),
Paris: Dar Bibliyun, 2005. Latin translations (1) by Gundisalvi in Jakob
Schneider, De Scientiis: secundum versionem Dominici Gundisalvi, Herder,
Freiburg 2006 (includes German translation); (2) by Gerard of Cremona in
Alain Galonnier, Le De Scientiis Alfarabii de Gérard de Crémone:
Contribution aux problèmes de l’acculturation au XIIe siècle (édition et
traduction du texte), Turnhout: Brepols, 2017 (includes English translation).
 [Categories] Kitāb al-qāṭāghūrīyās ayy al-maqūlāt, in [Logic] 1: 89–131;
translated in D. M. Dunlop, 1958/1959, in “Al-Fārābī’s paraphrase of the
Categories of Aristotle”, Islamic Quarterly, 4: 168–197 and 5(1): 21–54.
 [Certainty] Sharā’iṭ al-yaqīn (Conditions of certainty), in Kitāb al-burhān wa-
kitāb al-sharā’iṭ al-yaqīn (Book of demonstration and book of conditions of
certainty), Majid Fakhry (ed.), Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 1986, pp. 97–104.
 [Commentary on Categories] “Al-Fārābī’s Long Commentary on Aristotle’s
Categoriae in Hebrew and Arabic: A critical edition and English translation of
the newly found extant fragments”, Mauro Zonta (ed./trans.), Studies in Arabic
and Islamic Culture II, Binyamin Abrahamov (ed.), Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan
University Press, 2006, pp. 185–253.
 [Commentary on De Interpretatione] Sharḥ ‘ibāra, W. Kutsch and S. Marrow
(eds.), Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 1986; translated in Zimmermann 1981: 1–219.
We cite the page and line numbers in the Kutsch and Marrow edition;
Zimmermann’s translation gives these too.
 [Commentary on Prior Analytics] Kitāb sharḥ al-qiyās, surviving part in
Almanṭiqīyāt lil-Fārābī (The logical works of al-Fārābī), M. T. Daneshpazhuh
(ed.), Qum: Maktabat Ayat Allah, 1988, vol. 2, pp. 263–553.
 [Debate] Kitāb al-jadal (Debate), in [Logic] 3: 13–107. A fuller text is
translated in David M. DiPasquale, Alfarabi’s Book of Dialectic (Kitab al-
Jadal): On the Starting Point of Islamic Philosophy, Cambridge: CUP, 2019.
(DiPasquale’s references to the Arabic text are to an edition not generally
available.)
 [Demonstration] Kitāb al-burhān (Demonstration), in Kitāb al-burhān wa-
kitāb al-sharā’iṭ al-yaqīn (Book of demonstration and book of conditions of
certainty), Majid Fakhry (ed.), Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 1986, pp. 19–96.
 [Eisagoge] Kitāb al-īsāḡūjī, in [Logic] 1: 75–87; translated in D. M. Dunlop,
1956, “AlFārābī’s Eisagoge”, Islamic Quarterly, 3(2): 117–138.
 [Expressions] Kitāb al-alfāẓ al-musta‘mala fī al-manṭiq (Expressions used in
logic), Muhsin Mahdi (ed.), Beirut: Dar el-Machreq, 1968.
 [Harmony] Al-Fārābī(?), L’armonia delle opinioni dei due sapienti: il divino
Platone e Aristotele (Al-jam‘ bayna ra’yay al-ḥakīmayn aflaṭūn al-ilāhī wa-
arisṭūṭālīs), Cecilia Martini Bonadeo (ed.), Pisa: Plus, 2009; English
translation in Charles E. Butterworth, Alfārābī, The Political Writings,
‘Selected Aphorisms’ and other texts, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
2001, pp. 117–167.
 [Indication] Risālat al-tanbīh ‘alā sabīl al-sa‘āda (Indication of the way to
happiness), S. Khālīfāt (ed.), Amman: Jami‘at al-urdunīya, 1987; translated in
Jon McGinnis and David C. Reisman, Classical Arabic Philosophy: An
Anthology of Sources, Indianapolis: Hackett, 2007, pp. 104–120.
 [Interpretation] Kitāb pārī armīniyās ayy al-‘ibāra, in [Logic] 1: 133–163;
translated in Zimmermann 1981: 220–247.
 [Introductory] Al-tawṭi’a aw al-risāla ṣuddira bihā al-manṭiq (Preparation, or
essay introducing logic), in [Logic] 1: 55–62; translated in D. M. Dunlop,
1957, “Al-Fārābī’s Introductory Risālah on logic”, Islamic Quarterly, 3: 224–
235.
 [Letters] Kitāb al-ḥurūf (Book of letters), Muhsin Mahdi (ed.), Beirut: Dar al-
Machreq, 1990. Paragraphs (108) to (157) are translated in Khalidi 2005, pp.
1–26. A new edition with full translation by Charles E. Butterworth is near
publication. We cite this work in the style (m) n.p, where m is the paragraph
number, n the page number and p the line number, all as in Mahdi’s edition;
Khalidi gives the paragraph numbers.
 [Logic] Al-manṭiq ‘inda al-Fārābī (The Logic of al-Fārābī), Rafiq al-‘Ajam
(ed.), Beirut: Dar al-Machreq, vol. 1 1985, vols. 2 and 3 1986.
 [Music] Kitāb al-Mūsīqā al-kabīr (Great Book of Music), Ghattas ‘Abd-al-
Malik Khashaba (ed.), Cairo: Dār al-Kātib al-‘arabī li-al-ṭibā‘a wa-al-nashr,
1967; French translation in Rudolphe D’Erlanger, 1930, La Musique Arabe,
vols 1, 2 (of six), Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner.
 [Poetry] “Kitāb al-shi‘r”, M. Mahdi (ed.), Shi‘r, 1959: 90–95; English
translation in Geert Jan van Gelder and Marlé Hammond, 2008, Takhyīl: The
Imaginary in Classical Arabic Poetics, Warminster: Gibb Memorial Trust:
15–18; French translation in Benmakhlouf et al. 2007: 112–118.
 [Proportion] Qawl al-Fārābī fī al-tanāsub wa-al-ta’līf (About proportion and
composition), in M. T. Daneshpazhuh (ed.), Al-manṭiqīyāt lil-Fārābī (The
logical works of alFārābī), Qum: Maktabat Ayat Allah, Qum, 1988, vol. 1, pp.
504.1–506.6; French translation in Benmakhlouf et al. 2007: 107–111.
 [Rhetoric] Kitāb al-Ḫaṭāba, in J. Langhade and M. Grignaschi (eds.), Al-
Fārābī, deux ouvrages inédits sur la rhétorique, Beirut: Dar el-Machreq,
1971, pp. 30–121.
 [Sections] Al-fuṣūl al-khamsa (The five sections), in [Logic] 1: 63–73;
translated in D. M. Dunlop, 1955, “Al-Fārābī’s Introductory Sections on
Logic”, Islamic Quarterly, 2: 264–282.
 [Short Syllogism] Kitāb al-qiyās al-ṣaḡīr (Also known as Logic of the
Theologians) in Al-manṭiq ‘inda al-Fārābī (The Logic of al-Fārābī), R.
al-‘Ajam (ed.), Beirut: Dar al-Mashreq, 1986, vol 2, pp. 65–93; translated in
Nicholas Rescher, “Al-Fārābī’s short commentary on Aristotle’s Prior
Analytics”, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1963.
 [Sophistry] Kitāb al-amkinati al-muḡliṭa (Situations of sophistry), in [Logic] 2:
131–164.
 [Syllogism] Kitāb al-qiyās (Syllogism), in [Logic] 2: 11–64; translated in
Saloua Chatti and Wilfrid Hodges, 2020, Al-Fārābī, Syllogism, (Ancient
Commentators on Aristotle), London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Works of Other Authors

 Abed, Shukri B., 1991, Aristotelian Logic and the Arabic Language in
Alfārābī, Albany: State University of New York Press.
 Adamson, Peter, 2006, “The Arabic Sea Battle: Al-Fārābī on the Problem of
Future Contingents”, Archiv Für Geschichte Der Philosophie, 88(2): 163–188.
doi:10.1515/AGPH.2006.007
 Alon, Ilai and Shukri Abed, 2007, Al-Fārābī’s Philosophical Lexicon, two
volumes, Cambridge: E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Trust.
 Aouad, Maroun, 1992, “Les Fondements de la Rhétorique d’Aristote
Reconsidérés Par Fārābi, Ou Le Concept de Point de Vue Immédiat et
Commun”, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 2(1): 133–180.
doi:10.1017/S0957423900001582
 Aouad, Maroun and Gregor Schoeler, 2002, “The Poetic Syllogism According
to Al-Farabi: An Incorrect Syllogism of the Second Figure”, Arabic Sciences
and Philosophy, 12(2): 185–196. doi:10.1017/S0957423902002096
 Benmakhlouf, Ali, Stéphane Diebler, and Pauline Koetscher (eds.), 2007, Al-
Fārābī, Philosopher à Bagdad au Xe siècle, Paris: Seuil.
 Black, Deborah L., 1989, “The ‘Imaginative Syllogism’ in Arabic Philosophy:
A Medieval Contribution to the Philosophical Study of Metaphor”, Mediaeval
Studies, 51: 242–267. doi:10.1484/J.MS.2.306851
 –––, 1990, Logic and Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Poetics in Medieval Arabic
Philosophy, (Islamic philosophy and theology, 7), Leiden: Brill.
 –––, 2006, “Knowledge (‘Ilm) and Certitude (yaqin) in al-Farabi’s
Epistemology”, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 16(1): 11–45.
doi:10.1017/S0957423906000221
 Boethius [c. 477–524 CE], 1969, De Hypotheticis Syllogismis, Luca Obertello
(ed.), Brescia: Paideia.
 Chase, Michael, 2007, “Did Porphyry Write a Commentary on Aristotle’s
Posterior Analytics? Albertus Magnus, al-Fārābī, and Porphyry on per se
predication”, in Classical Arabic Philosophy: Sources and Reception, Peter
Adamson (ed.), London: Warburg Institute, pp. 21–38.
 Chatti, Saloua, 2017, “The semantics and pragmatics of the conditional in al-
Fārābī’s and Avicenna’s theories”, Studia Humana, 6(1): 5–17.
 –––, 2019, Arabic Logic from Al-Fārābī to Averroes: A Study of the Early
Arabic Categorical, Modal, and Hypothetical Syllogistics, Cham, Switzerland:
Birkhäuser.
 Cross, Charles and Floris Roelofsen, 2018, “Questions”, The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),
URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/questions/>.
 D’Ancona, Cristina, 2022, “Greek Sources in Arabic and Islamic Philosophy”,
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2022 Edition), Edward N.
Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/arabic-
islamic-greek/>.
 D’Arcy, Guillaume de Vaulx, 2010, “La Naqla, Étude du Concept de
Transfert dans L’œuvre d’al-Fārābī”, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 20(1):
125–176. doi:10.1017/S0957423909990129
 Diebler, Stéphane, 2005, “Catégories, conversation et philosophie chez al-
Fārābī”, in Les Catégories et leur Histoire, Ole Bruun and Lorenzo Corti
(eds.), Paris: Vrin, pp. 275–305.
 Druart, Thérèse-Anne, 2007, “Al-Fārābī, the categories, metaphysics, and the
Book of Letters”, Medioevo, Rivista di storia della filosofia medievale, 32:
15–37.
 –––, 2011, “Al-Fārābī: an Arabic account of the Origin of Language and of
Philosophical Vocabulary”, Proceedings of the American Catholic
Philosophical Association, 84: 1–17. doi:10.5840/acpaproc2010841
 –––, 2015/6, “Why music matters for language and interpretation: al-Fārābī”,
Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph, 66: 167–179.
 –––, 2021, “Al-Fārābī”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter
2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2021/entries/al-farabi/>
 –––, 2022, “Al-Fārābī: The happy marriage between logic and music”, Ishraq,
10: 72–88.
 Elamrani-Jamal, Abdelali, 1983, Logique Aristotélicienne et Grammaire
Arabe, (Études musulmanes, 26 ), Paris: Vrin.
 Elias [attr., 6th century CE], 1890, In Categorias Prooemium, in Adolph
Busse (ed.), Eliae in Porphyrii Isagogen et Aristotelis Categorias
Commentaria, (Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca 18.1), Berlin: Reimer, pp.
107–134. [In Categorias Prooemium available online] See also entry on Elias.
 Eskenasy, Pauline E., 1988, “Al-Fārābī’s Classification of the Parts of
Speech”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 11: 55–82.
 Fakhry, Majid, 2002, Al-Fārābī: Founder of Islamic Neoplatonism, His Life,
Works and Influence, London: Oneworld.
 Fallahi, Asadollah, 2019, “Fārābī and Avicenna on contraposition”, History
and Philosophy of Logic, 40(1): 22–41.
 Farmer, Henry George, 1957, “The Music of Islam”, in Egon Wellesz (ed.),
Ancient and Oriental Music, London: Oxford University Press, pp. 421–477.
 Fortenbaugh, William W., Pamela M. Huby, Robert W. Sharples and Dimitri
Gutas (eds.), 1992, Theophrastus of Eresus: Sources for his Life, Writings,
Thought and Influence, Leiden: Brill.
 Galen [c. 129–c. 216 CE], 1896, Institutio Logica, Carolus Kalbfleisch (ed.),
Leipzig: Teubner.
 Galston, Miriam S., 1981, “Al-Fārābī on Aristotle’s Theory of
Demonstration”, in Parviz Morewedge (ed.), Islamic Philosophy and
Mysticism, Delmar, NY: Caravan Books, pp. 23–34.
 –––, 1988, “Al-Fārābī et la logique Aristotélicienne dans la philosophie
islamique”, in M. A. Sinaceur (ed.), Aristote Aujourd’hui, Paris: Érès, Unesco,
pp. 192–217.
 García Cuadrado, José Angel, 2003, “La distinción nombre-verbo en los
comentarios al Perihermeneias de Al-Fārābī y Averroes”, Revista Española de
Filosofía Medieval, 10: 157–169.
 Germann, Nadja, 2015, “Logic as the Path to Happiness: Al-Fārābī and the
Divisions of the Sciences”, Quaestio, 15(January): 15–30.
doi:10.1484/J.QUAESTIO.5.108587
 –––, 2015/6, “Imitation—ambiguity—discourse: some remarks on al-Fārābī’s
philosophy of language”, Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph, 66: 135–
166.
 –––, 2022, “The power of words: al-Fārābī’s philosophy of language”, Ishraq,
10: 193–211.
 Giolfo, Manuela E. B. and Wilfrid Hodges, 2018, “Syntax, Semantics, and
Pragmatics in al-Sīrãfī and Ibn Sīnã”, in Georgine Ayoub and Kees Versteegh
(eds.), Foundations of Arabic Linguistics III, Leiden: Brill.
doi:10.1163/9789004365216_007
 Gottschalk, Hans B., 1990, “The Earliest Aristotelian Commentators”, in
Richard Sorabji (ed.), Aristotle Transformed: The Ancient Commentators and
their Influence, London: Duckworth, pp. 55–81.
 Grinaschi, Mario, 1972, “Les traductions latines des ouvrages de la logique
arabe et l’abrégé d’Al-Fārābī”, Archives d’Histoire doctrinale et littéraire du
Moyen Age, 47: 41–107.
 Günther, Sebastian, 2010, “The principles of instruction are the grounds of our
knowledge; Al-Fārābī’s philosophical and al-Ghazālī’s spiritual approaches to
learning”, in Osama Abi-Mershed (ed.), Trajectories of Education in the Arab
World: Legacies and Challenges, London: Routledge, pp. 15–35.
 Gutas, Dimitri, 1983, “Paul the Persian on the classification of the parts of
Aristotle’s philosophy: a milestone between Alexandria and Baġdâd”, Der
Islam: Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur des Islamischen Orients, 60(2):
231–267. Reprinted in Dimitri Gutas, Greek Philosophers in the Arabic
Tradition, Aldershot: Ashgate 2000. doi:10.1515/islm.1983.60.2.231
 Gyekye, Kwame, 1972, “The Term Istithnā’ in Arabic Logic”, Journal of the
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 –––, 1989, “Al-Fārābī on the Logic of the Arguments of the Muslim
Philosophical Theologians”, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 27(1): 135–
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 Haddad, Fuad S., 1969, “Alfārābī’s Views on Logic and Its Relation to
Grammar”, Islamic Quarterly, 13: 192–207.
 –––, 1989, Alfarabi’s Theory of Communication, Beirut, Lebanon: American
University of Beirut.
 Hasnawi, Ahmad, 1985, “Fārābī et la pratique de l’exégèse philosophique
(remarques sur son Commentaire au De Interpretatione d’Aristote)”, Revue de
Synthèse (Paris), 106 (117): 27–59.
 –––, 1992, “Fārābī al-”, in Encyclopédie Philosophique Universelle, vol. 3,
Les oeuvres philosophiques: dictionnaire dir. par Jean-François Nattei sous la
direction de André Jacob, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
 –––, 2009, “Topique et syllogistique: la tradition arabe (Al-Fārābī et
Averroès)”, in Les lieux de l’argumentation: Histoire du syllogisme topique
d’Aristote à Leibniz (Studia Aristarum, 22), Joël Biard and Fosca Mariani Zini
(eds.), Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, pp. 191–226. doi:10.1484/M.SA-
EB.4.00075
 –––, 2012, “L’objet du De Interpretatione d’Aristote Selon Al-Fārābī”, in Ad
Notitiam Ignoti: L’ “Organon” Dans La “Translatio Studiorum” à l’époque
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 Hasnawi, Ahmad and Wilfrid Hodges, 2016, “Arabic Logic up to Avicenna”,
in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Logic, Catarina Dutilh Novaes and
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 Hitchcock, David, 2017, On Reasoning and Argument: Essays in Informal
Logic and on Critical Thinking (Argumentation Library, 30), Cham: Springer
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 Hodges, Wilfrid, 2012, “Formalizing the Relationship Between Meaning and
Syntax”, in Markus Werning, Wolfram Hinzen, and Edouard Machery (eds.),
The Oxford Handbook of Compositionality, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
pp. 245–261.
 –––, 2018, “Proofs as Cognitive or Computational: Ibn Sı̄nā’s Innovations”,
Philosophy & Technology, 31(1): 131–153. doi:10.1007/s13347-016-0242-2
 –––, 2019, “Remarks on al-Fārābī’s missing modal logic and its effect on Ibn
Sı̄nā”, Eshare: An Iranian Journal of Philosophy, 1(3): 39–73.
 –––, 2020, “Medieval Arabic notions of algorithm: some further raw
evidence”, in Fields of Logic and Computation III, Essays Dedicated to Yuri
Gurevich on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday, ed. Andreas Blass, Patrick
Cegielski, Nachum Dershowitz, Manfred Droste and Bernd Finkbeiner,
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 Hodges, Wilfrid and Manuela E. B. Giolfo, 2022, “Al-Fārābī against the
grammarians??”, in Manuel Sartori and Francesco Binaghi (eds)., The
Foundations of Arab Linguistics V: Kitab Sibawayhi, The Critical Theory,
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Acknowledgments

The first author takes responsibility for the text of this entry but couldn’t possibly
have written it without the unfailing encouragement, advice and wisdom of the second
author.

Notes to al-Farabi’s Philosophy of Logic and

Language
1. See Gutas 1983. Gutas finds a less edited version inside Ibn Miskawayh’s book
Tartīb; Miskawayh’s version is available in Arabic and in a Hungarian translation by
Maróth. For the influence of the Alexandrian school on al-Fārābī more generally, see
Vallat 2004.

2. This was a misunderstanding. The Organon was assembled after Aristotle’s death
by editors of his writings; see Gottschalk 1990. The version that survived in the West
lacked Rhetoric and Poetics.

3. Nevertheless al-Fārābī does rearrange some of the material where he finds the
traditional ordering unconvincing. He breaks up Topics into three pieces; two of them
become [Analysis] and [Debate], while the third (on definition) is incorporated in
[Demonstration] (cf. Hasnawi 2009).

Al-Fārābī would have been within his rights to link musical theory to logic. A paper
of Kolman on “generalized interval systems” (a very Fārābian topic) opens “This
essay in music theory … appeal[s] to methods of mathematical logic” (2004: 150).
4. Pourjavady and Schmidtke 2015 report that in the Middle East, al-Fārābī’s works
were relatively neglected from the late twelfth to the late fifteenth century, though
some logical specialists in this period, such as Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, were still able to
cite him. We comment that these logical citations could have been quotations of
citations by other authors, notably Avicenna, rather than evidence that al-Fārābī’s
own works were available at this date. Avicenna and Averroes both had access to
parts of al-Fārābī’s [Commentary on Prior Analytics] which seem to have gone
missing soon afterwards.

5. It is sometimes claimed that al-Fārābī said that “Every C” in modal syllogisms

should be read as “Every possible C”, in other words that he ampliated to the possible.
The claim is probably based on a quotation by Averroes, mentioned in Section 6.3
below. In this passage al-Fārābī seems to be inferring Aristotle’s intentions rather than
expressing a view of his own on how modal sentences should be read (cf. Hodges
2019 Section 2.1). Nevertheless the ascription of ampliation to al-Fārābī could have
influenced some Scholastic writers.

6. On compositionality generally see Szabó 2022. Hodges 2012 compares al-Fārābī’s

formulations with those of Abelard, Leibniz, Frege, and the late twentieth century. For
example, al-Fārābī and Frege both correlate parts of meanings with parts of sentences;
the notion of parts of meanings doesn’t appear in more recent formulations.

7. Several of the ways in which al-Fārābī claims that language imitates meanings are
explained by the Arabic linguists such as Sībawayhi and al-Sīrāfī as features of
Arabic, though the linguists don’t mention al-Fārābī; see Germann 2022 and Hodges
and Giolfo 2022. Detailed parallels of this kind between al-Fārābī and the linguists
suggest that al-Fārābī had a good working relationship with his linguist
contemporaries such as al-Sīrāfī, even if his aims were different from theirs.

8. The definition we gave of secondary concept, in terms of classifying concepts in

the soul, is ours and not al-Fārābī’s. He merely gives examples. This is unsatisfactory;
for instance the concept “satisfied” is secondary by our definition, but it is not one of
his examples. Abed (1991: 123f) translates two paragraphs of al-Fārābī that should be
factored into any solution of this problem.

9. Briefly:

Your brothers are A and B and C; and I met all your brothers except C. Therefore I
met A and B.

Compare this with two logical inference rules:

I hit A or B or C; but I didn’t hit C. Therefore I hit A or B.

And:

If I hit A then I hit B; but I hit A. Therefore I hit B.

The rules differ in detail, but in each case the second clause (which al-Fārābī calls the
“exception”) allows us to remove part of the first clause. Gyekye 1972 notes that the
word istithnā’ was already in use to translate a different philosophical notion.

10. See Section 2.8 of Chatti and Hodges 2020 for more information on al-Fārābī’s
logical vocabulary and its sources.

11. Chatti and Hodges 2020 collects in Section 2.7 the evidence that [Short Syllogism]
is a corrected version of [Syllogism] and not the other way round. The Section also
suggests that the Tailpiece was written after the rest of [Syllogism]; then al-Fārābī
came to feel that the Tailpiece would work better if attached to a briefer account of
syllogistic logic, so he shortened [Syllogism] to [Short Syllogism].

12. Modern authors who appear to miss the significance of the difference in search
strategy include Gyekye 1989, Lameer 1994 and Rashed 2020.

13. Chapters III and IV in Rescher 1968 are helpful for understanding how al-Fārābī
used questions as a tool of classification in logic. Strictly Rescher’s chapters are about
Yahyā bin ‘Adī and Avicenna, probably both writing later than al-Fārābī; the
publication of [Letters] in 1968 came too late for Rescher to learn from it how al-
Fārābī contributed to the use of questions in philosophy. Rescher speculates about
possible Stoic origins of this use of questions. A likely source nearer to al-Fārābī is
the sixth century Paul the Persian, who in his Logica (7.5–7 of the Latin text) tells us:

If we are asked “What is a horse?” we answer “It’s an animal”, and so “animal” is

predicated of it as part of its essence.

14. In [Categories] 116.17–117.1 al-Fārābī gives a similar list of ways of “taking

primary concepts” in logic: that they are universals, they give information about
perceived things (for example, what or which the perceived things are), they are
signified by expressions, one is broader than another, they are predicates or subjects.

15. The idea of characterizing logic not just by its subjects but also by their relevant
features (aḥwāl) seems to be new with al-Fārābī. It partially anticipates the modern
project to characterize logic by pinning down what is a “logical notion”, as in
MacFarlane 2017. But there is an important difference: the modern “logical notions”
are the notions used in logical inferences, whereas al-Fārābī’s “logical features” are
the features used in logic to discuss words and concepts. Broadly and in today’s
jargon, the modern project is to characterize the object languages of logic whereas al-
Fārābī aims at characterizing its metalanguage.

A century later, Avicenna accepts al-Fārābī’s use of features (aḥwāl) to demarcate

logic, but his list of logical features is much more precise; see his Madkhal 15.5–8
and his fuller discussion at Ta‘līqāt 502.3–505.14. For Avicenna the features are those
used to describe the formal systems of logic that Avicenna himself studies.

16. A typical fourth figure syllogism is

Every A is a B. Every B is a C. Therefore some C is an A.

(So the letters go in the order ABBCCA.) In the early twelfth century Abū al-Futūḥ
Hamadānī (also known as Ibn al-Ṣalāh), who seems to have been the first logician to
do serious work on the fourth figure, reported that he had heard about a book of al-
Fārābī on the fourth figure, but he added that he had never seen it (Rescher 1966: 53).
There is no such book in the classical Arabic lists of al-Fārābī’s works, and though he
is not easily type-cast, it seems out of character for him.

17. Darapti: Every B is an A. Every B is a C. Therefore some A is a C.

18. The author of [Harmony], page 138 of the Butterworth translation, says that
Aristotle was right to accept the modal inference

Every A is a B. Necessarily every B is a C. Therefore necessarily every A is a C.

The different arguments of Lameer 1994, Rashed 2009 and Hodges 2019 make it
unsafe to assume that this author is al-Fārābī. But Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā Al-qiyās 148.9–
12, read with Street 2001) confirms that al-Fārābī did accept this syllogistic mood.

19. Barbara: Every A is a B. Every B is a C. Therefore every A is a C.

Celarent: Every A is a B. No B is a C. Therefore no A is a C.

20. For example, assume B is a clause of a definition of A, and C is a clause of a

definition of B. It follows that every A is a B and every B is a C, and hence that every
A is a C. But one can verify that the starting assumptions also give that C is a clause
of a definition of A; thus the conclusion is demonstrated, not just proved.
([Demonstration] 33.18.)

21. Chase 2007 quotes Albertus Magnus attributing some views to al-Fārābī, and
notes that these views go in the direction of giving a Neoplatonic and emanationist
color to al-Fārābī’s treatment of essence. Albertus’s remarks could suggest that al-
Fārābī wrote more about essentialist logic than we have, possibly in a Commentary on
the Posterior Analytics. This is an interesting prospect, but for the moment it is only
speculation. Albertus’s references to al-Fārābī could simply be tendentious reports of
remarks in the surviving work [Demonstration].

22. Their use by al-Fārābī’s colleague Mattā bin Yūnus irritated the Arabic linguists;
cf. Street and Germann 2021 on the public debate between Mattā and the linguist al-
Sīrāfī. Versteegh (1997: 76–87), himself a linguist, discusses the same episode and
relates it to the views of al-Fārābī.

23. Other examples could be added, for example al-Fārābī’s remark in [Commentary
on Prior Analytics] 272.6f to the effect that from the falsehood of “No A is a B” we
can’t infer the truth of “Every A is a B” except in necessary matter. For the complex
implications of this remark, which reveal a tension between logical cogency and
loyalty to Aristotle, see Hasnawi 2012.

24. Al-Fārābī takes teaching very seriously and often mentions it in connection with
logic. See Haddad (1989: Chapter 5), Günther 2010, and Rauf et al. 2013 for his
theory of education and Hasnawi (1985: section III) for his own teaching methods.
25. For example, at [Demonstration] 47.21–24 he presents what he sees as the same
material, first as a demonstration and then as a definition. The demonstration is:

The cloud contains a wind that ripples; so there is a sound in it,

so therefore the cloud contains a sound.

He continues:

When we want to take these same parts as a definition, we alter the order and say:

Thunder is a sound in a cloud caused by the rippling of wind in it.

26. The pair of notions taṣawwur and taṣdīq have a complex history. Wolfson 1973
and Lameer 2006 trace them back to Greek origins, but in different ways. Lameer also
follows them forwards as far as Mullā Ṣadrā in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries.

27. For more on al-Fārābī’s philosophy of music see Druart 2015/6 and 2022. His
book [Music] was

not only “the most important treatise on the theory of Oriental music”, but the greatest
work on music which had been written up to his time. (Farmer 1957: 460)

His skill as a performer was the stuff of legends; Netton (1992: 6) reports a story of
him sending an entire audience to sleep, including the janitor, by playing on a reed
pipe. Druart 2022 discusses al-Fārābī’s detailed treatment of music as a structured
science with first principles; this is illuminating for al-Fārābī’s philosophy of science
in general.

28. Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā Al-qiyās 57.11f) gives a slight variant of this syllogism as an
example of a poetic syllogism. See Black 1989: 258.