318 Anke von Kügelgen
the justice God has commanded. He who knows the universal without
knowing the particular will have possession of the Balance only. The
purpose of the Balance is to weigh those matters existing extramentally,
for if it were not for their particulars the universals would not be con-
sidered (fal-kulliyyāt law lā juzʾiyyātuhā al-muʿayyanāt^276 lam yakun
bihā iʿtibār) – just as without the weighable objects the Balance would
be needless. There is no doubt that if a weighable object is weighed
against another object by means of the Balance – which is the com-
mon, universal quality in the mind (al-waṣf al-mushtarak al-kullī^277 fī
al-ʿaql) – such weighing will be more perfect than that in which any of
the individual particulars present in the mind is weighed in the absence
of another.^278Ibn Taymiyya thus leaves no doubt that he considers the common fac-
tors to be the intramental universals. Besides their intramental exis-
tence, the common factors must, however, also have an extramental
existence in the particulars, otherwise reason would be unable to grasp
them. And Ibn Taymiyya clearly admits this here by speaking of “the
universals’ particulars.”
Thus, Ibn Taymiyya reveals himself again as a “moderate realist.”
Like the Peripatetics, he also shares the conviction that the certainty of
the conclusion is not dependent on the form, but on the premises, i. e.,
the subject matter.^279
Nevertheless, Ibn Taymiyya tries to overcome the logicians by
declaring their most cherished judgment, the first figure of the cat-
egorical syllogism, to be superfluous inasmuch as it would be conceiv-
able by innate intelligence (fiṭra) and thus be immediate knowledge.^280
Despite the fact that rendering the first figure of the categorical syllo-
gism as superfluous would render analogy superfluous as well – since
the common factor can, in his view, be grasped without inference by
276 Al-Suyūṭī has al-muʿayyana (Jahd al-qarīḥa, p. 333).
277 Al-Suyūṭī has al-kullī al-mushtarak (ibid., p. 333).
278 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, p. 372; al-Suyūṭī, Jahd al-qarīḥa, p. 333; Hallaq, Ibn
Taymiyya, p. 162.
279 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, pp. 116, 121; al-Suyūṭī, Jahd al-qarīḥa, pp. 230, 234;
Hallaq, Ibn Taymiyya, pp. 44–45, n. 60, 50, n. 67. See, for instance, Ibn Sīnā,
al-Ishārāt wal-tanbīhāt, vol. 1, pp. 460–472; Avicenna, Remarks and Admoni-
tions, pp. 148–151; al-Ghazālī, Miʿyār al-ʿilm, pp. 180–181.
280 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, pp. 297 (al-fiṭra tuṣawwiru al-qiyās al-ṣaḥīḥ min
ghayr taʿlīm; he is speaking here of the first figure syllogism), 167, 200, 293–
294; al-Suyūṭī, Jahd al-qarīḥa, pp. 314, 266, 289, 313; Hallaq, Ibn Taymiyya,
pp. 141–142, n. 254, 88, n. 136, 114, n. 189, 141, n. 253.
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