The Investigation of 'Uyūn al-Ḥikmah Treatise Attributed to Ibn Sinā

Abstract

Among the works attributed to Ibn Sinā there is a treatise exclusively on logic which is composed in accordance with the two-fold logical works; this work is called 'Uyūn al-Ḥikmah which is different from Ibn Sinā's celebrated 'Uyūn al-Ḥikmah commented upon by Fakhr al-Razī. In the analysis of this work, there are diversity of instances based on which we could most probably deny its attribution to Ibn Sinā, e.g. metaphorization, signification by partial accord, signification by association, calling the subject and the predicate as the quality and the qualified, defining a proposition as "a statement capable of affirmation and denial", frequent usage of the words "conventional" and "conditional", dividing the modal propositions with considering the mode of specific possibility as the potential quality between the subject and the predicate, dividing the compound, modal propositions into uninegative and binegative, and also inspection of the fourth figure of syllogistics and its combinations. Notwithstanding the division of the propositions which is presented in a similar vein as the works composed before the seventh century, and also the natural proposition which is not included, the other evidence we have highlighted confirms the time of the composition as around the seventh century. One of the Authors of Maqālāt al-Falsafīyyah li-Mashāhīr al-Muslimīn wa al-Naṣārā claims that this work belongs to Ibn 'Assal, but with research carried out among the encyclopedias, no such work attributed to this author is found.