The Unity of Science in the Arabic Tradition

Presenting contributions from the world's leading scholars and historians, this book reflects the multi-dimensional nature of the interplay between logic, science, philosophy and language in the Arabic tradition.

the demise of the logical positivism programme. The answers given to these qu- tions have deepened the already existing gap between philosophy and the history and practice of science. While the positivists argued for a spontaneous, steady and continuous growth of scientific knowledge the post-positivists make a strong case for a fundamental discontinuity in the development of science which can only be explained by extrascientific factors. The political, social and cultural environment, the argument goes on, determine both the questions and the terms in which they should be answered. Accordingly, the sociological and historical interpretation - volves in fact two kinds of discontinuity which are closely related: the discontinuity of science as such and the discontinuity of the more inclusive political and social context of its development. More precisely it explains the discontinuity of the former by the discontinuity of the latter subordinating in effect the history of science to the wider political and social history. The underlying idea is that each historical and - cial context generates scientific and philosophical questions of its own. From this point of view the question surrounding the nature of knowledge and its development are entirely new topics typical of the twentieth-century social context reflecting both the level and the scale of the development of science.

The first to reflect the multi-dimensional nature of the interplay beween logic, science, philosophy and language in the Arabic tradition Contains contributions from the world's leading scholars and historians of science and philosophy Covers a wide range of topics including philosophy of mathematics, epistemology, the emergence of algebra, scientific controversies on the foundation of astronomy, rhetoric, tropos, modal logic and epistemic logic

Klappentext

This book is the first to reflect the multi-dimensional nature of the interplay between logic, science, philosophy and language in the Arabic tradition. It presents contributions from the world's leading scholars and historians under the headings 'Epistemology and Philosophy of Science' and 'Logic, Philosophy and Grammar'.The contents exemplify the liveliness of modern perspectives on the Arabic tradition. It describes new paths for research and understanding not normally raised in the approaches to this subject. It challenges the rigid distinction between Western and Eastern thought and opens the field for a new view on the development of modern science.

Inhalt
Introduction: The Major Breakthrough in Scientific Pratice.- Introduction: The Major Breakthrough in Scientific Pratice.- Epistemology and Philosophy of Science.- Ibn S?:n?'s Philosophy of Mathematics.- Avicenna on Self-Awareness and Knowing that One Knows.- A Conceptual Analysis of Early Arabic Algebra.- Avicenna's Naturalized Epistemology and Scientific Method*.- The Philosophy of Mathematics.- The Birth of Scientific Controversies The Dynamics of the Arabic Tradition and Its Impact on the Development of Science: Ibn al-Haytham's Challenge of Ptolemy's Almagest.- Logic Philosophy and Grammar.- Jiha/Tropos-M?dda/H?l? Distinction in Arabic Logic and its Significance for Avicenna's Modals.- Islamic Logic?.- Logical Fragments in Ibn Khald?n's Muqaddimah.- Avicenna on the Quantification of the Predicate (with an Appendix on [Ibn Zur?a]).- Name (ism), Derived Name (ism mushtaqq) and Description (wa?f) in Arabic Grammar, Muslim Dialectical Theology and Arabic Logic.- Logic and Metaphysics in Avicenna's Modal Syllogistic.