Predication and Ontological Commitment in Late Islamic Logic: Philosophical Analysis of Mallāwī’s Asrār al-Ḥaqīqiyyah

Overview & Synopsis

This book examines the theory of propositions developed by the eighteenth-century Egyptian logician Aḥmad al-Mallawī, situating the formal structure of logic within an ontological framework. Focusing on Mallawī’s treatise Asrār al-Ḥaqīqiyyah, the study re-evaluates the theoretical framework grounded in the mental, essential, and external ontological statuses of propositions. Centered on Mallawī’s treatise Asrār al-Ḥaqīqiyyah, the study re-evaluates a theoretical framework grounded in the mental, essential, and external ontological statuses of propositions. In this treatise, Mallawī claims to be the first scholar to present the classification of propositions according to the existence of their subjects in an independent and systematic manner. Taking this claim as its point of departure, the book situates Mallawī’s approach within the broader debates of the classical logical tradition and analyzes his theory of propositions through its conceptual and structural dimensions. One of the central contributions of the book is its reconfiguration of the relations among ontologically extended propositions within the framework of the Aristotelian square of opposition, offering a new interpretation of this classical structure. The volume concludes with a critical edition of Mallawī’s Asrār al-Ḥaqīqiyyah, providing readers with direct access to the original primary source.