Mirqāt The Ascent of Logic

Foundation · a field of logic

Medieval Logic

The scholastic and Islamic logicians: supposition theory, modal syllogistic, and the bridge from the ancients to the moderns.

The problem
How do words refer inside arguments, and how should necessity and time enter the syllogism?
The turning point
Theories of supposition (reference) and a developed modal–temporal syllogistic, with Avicenna and Ockham at the summit.
An open question
How much medieval and Arabic logical insight remains untranslated and unread by the modern field?

The Canon

  • Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) al-Shifāʾ: The Logic c. 1027
  • William of Ockham Summa Logicae c. 1323
  • Abelard Dialectica c. 1120

To study it

  • Rescher The Development of Arabic Logic
  • Boehner Medieval Logic