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Al-Masaq
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Logik und Theologie: Das Organon im arabischen und lateinischen
Mittelalter
Jan-Peter Hartung
a
a
School of Oriental and African Studies, London
Online publication date: 18 March 2010
To cite this Article Hartung, Jan-Peter(2010) 'Logik und Theologie: Das Organon im arabischen und lateinischen
Mittelalter', Al-Masaq, 22: 1, 109 111
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/09503110903550010
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09503110903550010
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into greater depth than Peeters work, giving a concise biography of the 471 saints
listed (virtually all male), often recounting intriguing and droll episodes, and a list
of sources for the saints life. He never hesitated to point out when a detail or even
an entry on the life of a saint was pure invention.
The volume is graced with a very sympathetic biography of Pe`re Fiey by the
editor and also an account of the long process of assembling the text in an orderly
fashion. It also contains a very concise Introduction by the author on how the
entries are constructed and the criteria for the inclusion of the holy figures listed:
for instance, saints who are recognised by the universal Church or figures from the
New Testament (e.g., the Apostles) are omitted, even if they are components of
various Syriac calendars of saints.
Lawrence Conrad is to be complimented for the great care he has taken in
checking and rechecking the mass of data that makes up this useful and fascinating
volume, at times written almost in the style of Pe`re Fieys close friend Agatha
Christie.
DICKRAN KOUYMJIAN
California State University, Fresno
dickrank@csufresno.edu
2010 Dickran Kouymjian
Logik und Theologie: Das Organon im arabischen und lateinischen
Mittelalter
DOMINIK PERLER and ULRICH RUDOLPH (Eds), 2005
[Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, LXXXIV]
Leiden and Boston: Brill
vi 514 pp.
E156.00/US$231.00 (hardback)
ISBN 9004111182
Speaking of logic and theology suggests at a first glance yet another discussion of
the subject reason and belief . It is therefore truly refreshing to see that, by putting
the emphasis on the Aristotelian Organon in the Arabic and Latin Middle Ages, the
editors of the volume under review explicitly aim at something different. This body
of texts on logic, semantics, rhetoric and epistemology has left clear marks on the
shaping of systematic religious thinking in Muslim and Christian contexts, while at
the same time theological issues in both realms have also had repercussions on the
ongoing reception of these texts. The analysis of this mutual relationship has not yet
been thoroughly studied, as is proven by the fact that the contributions in this
volume show a lot of gaps in the research, a thorough understanding of which
would certainly enhance our knowledge of the history of medieval thought. That, in
turn, is why it is to the editors enormous credit that they brought together a
selected circle of world-leading experts in this field for a conference on the subject,
held in October 2002 in Switzerland.
Its trilingual proceedings (German, English, French) combine nine papers
concerned with the Arab Muslim context, and eight further ones on the complex
relationship between logic and theology in its Latin Christian counterpart. It should
Book Reviews 109
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be highlighted as yet another merit of the entire undertaking that the editors have
carefully arranged the various papers along historical lines and have thus managed
to avoid the heterogeneity of many other edited volumes. This historical
development has been outlined in the editors introduction to the volume, which
is of considerable help for less initiated readers to put each paper carefully into a
wider framework.
Thus, the contribution of Cornelia Scho ck starts off with a discussion of the
quantification of propositions in the course of the early reception of the Organon by
Muslim scholars prominent among them Ibn al-Muqaffa6 as it had come down
to them especially by Syrian Christians and, albeit a bit later, the Alexandrine
Neo-Platonists. Already here the theological reference is obvious: the problems that
gave rise to the need for logical tools were of a revealed nature. Gregor Schoeler,
too, sets out from that early period but bridges the gap to a discussion of the
poetical syllogism in the theory of religion of al-Farabi, who considered himself a
proper Aristotelian (represented by his epithet Second Teacher (after Aristotle)
al-mu6allim al-thani ). The third phase in the development of the relationship
between logic and theology, which runs on smoothly from al-Farabi, is marked by
the works of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), who, in turn, is at the core of the contribution by
Dimitri Gutas. He follows the conclusion of his own ground-breaking monograph
of 1988, namely that, with Ibn Sina, Islamic Aristotelianism leads to the advent of
Avicennism, where logic became more than a mere tool: It reflects the binding
principle according to which the intelligibles are linked to each other (p. 61).
The remaining six papers in this section revolve, to some extent, around the
system laid down by Ibn Sina. The reactions of theologians in different guises
(ranging from philosophy and mysticism to traditionalism) to Avicennas affirma-
tive stand towards logic is, as the editors make perfectly clear in their introduction,
still an almost empty space within the existing scholarly literature on the matter.
These contributions begin with an analysis of the reassessment of logic by
al-Ghazali (Ulrich Rudolph), followed by an investigation into the points of critique
of Avicennas understanding of logic by Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, Najm al-Din Katibi
and Nas
_
ir al-Din T
_
u si (Tony Street). With the jurist Sayf al-Din al-Amidi, we find
yet another example of someone concerned with the reconciliation of logic (as the
basis of the intelligible sciences) and revelation (Gerhard Endress): logic, thus the
central argument, constitutes the hermeneutical basis of any possible acquisition of
knowledge. Denis Grils rather brief paper focuses on Ibn 6Arabis discussion of the
scope of logic in his Futuh
_
at al-makki ya, whereas Anke von Ku gelgen provides us
with an expansive and thorough analysis of Ibn Taymiyas sophisticated arguments
against Aristotelian-cum-Avicennan logic. The final contribution in this section is a
brief and, thus, only cursory investigation into Sa6d al-Din al-Taftazanis views on
the matter (Wilferd Madelung). Considering the enormous impact his works had
on the Islamic intellectual culture, one would wish for more elaborate studies in the
near future.
The second section of the volume focuses on the reception of the Organon in the
medieval Latin world. Like the first section, these contributions follow the
chronological development of the mutual relationship between logic and theology.
Thus, Mischa von Pergers expansive and, from the viewpoint of the uninitiated,
perhaps rather too specialised piece on the adaptation of the Aristotelian categories
by Erigenas seems to represent the phase of logica vetus, concerned primarily with
the semantic function of categorical terms. Also the paper of Luisa Valente on how
110 Book Reviews
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to handle the essential names in theories on the Trinity of the late twelfth and
early thirteenth centuries fits in here. The following discussion on Aristotles
key-text De interpretatione in the Latin late twelfth century marks the transition to
the next two phases (Peter Schulthess). During this period, as the paper proves,
logic first became the fundament for a theory of argumentation (i.e. logica nova),
later in combination with the formal logic of the logica vetus it became, as logica
moderna, a fundamental theory of science.
The remaining five contributions deal with the viewpoints of different authors in
the times that followed the elaboration of the logica moderna on the relationship
between logic and theology. Most of them, such as Roger Bacon (Dominik Perler),
Francois de Meyronnes (Alfonso Maieru` ), William of Ockham (Volker Leppin), or,
albeit to an already more moderate extent, Averroes and Jean Buridan (Tameli
Kukkonen), advocated the necessity of logic as an essential tool for any kind of
science, thus including theology as well. By the end of the fifteenth century,
however, we witness a trend towards stronger criticism of logic, just as occurred in
the Arab Islamic context about a century earlier. The major protagonist of this
strand was Jean Gerson (Sigrid Mu ller). His suspicion of logic owed much to the
increase of Scholasticism, which led to the logical affirmation of theologically
impossible questions and, thus, to a self-empowerment of man unacceptable to a
theologian. As in the Islamic context, this criticism was predominantly concerned
not with a definite refutation of logic, but rather with a limitation of its scope in
dealing with theological matters.
JAN-PETER HARTUNG
School of Oriental and African Studies, London
jh74@soas.ac.uk
2010 Jan-Peter Hartung
Book Reviews 111
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