338 Georges Tamer
Ṭabaṭabāʾī develops his own reaction. Rejecting Ibn Taymiyya’s
plea for the unity of the quiddity and the existence of an existent,^43
Ṭabaṭabāʾī maintains the cognitive separation of both categories and
argues that the external existence of a certain existent is not identical
with its identity or specific characteristics, as far as these can be cogni-
tively captured.^44 Ṭabaṭabāʾī shares, however, Ibn Taymiyya’s view that
existence in the real world is prior to the perception of the quiddity
and that logical universals do not exist in reality outside the cogni-
tive sphere.^45 As such, only that which is “partial and particular” (juzʾī
muʿayyan) exists in the real world of existence.^46 Indeed, Ibn Taymiyya
believes that universals (al-qaḍāyā al-kulliya) are constructed through
a cognitive process of abstraction from particular existents.^47
Ṭabaṭabāʾī further discusses Ibn Taymiyya’s statement that every-
thing that can be known by means of syllogism can be known with-
out it,^48 rejecting, thus, syllogism as a source of new knowledge and
demoting it to a mere way of “remembrance and repetition of knowl-
edge” (al-tadhakkur wa-takrār al-maʿrifa).^49 Ibn Taymiyya replaced
syllogism with analogy (tamthīl), which Muslim jurists employed as a
way to develop similar judgments regarding two similar objects, reject-
ing the logicians’ view that analogy produces only assumptions.^50
Comparing the critique of Aristotelian logic by Muslim thinkers
- such as, for example, al-Fārābī, Ibn Sīnā, al-Ghazālī, Ibn Rushd
and Ibn Taymiyya – with its critique by European philosophers
like Roger Bacon, Francis Bacon, Descartes and John Locke, both
Ṭabaṭabāʾī and Qadir, in their turn, emphasize the excellence of these
Muslim critics who preceded – and in some ways exceeded – their
counterparts in uncovering the shortcomings of Aristotle’s logical
system.^51 Ibn Taymiyya’s achievements in this field occupy much of
43 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, 107/65: fa-wujūd al-shayʾ fī al-khārij ʿayn māhiyyatihi
fī al-khārij. See von Kügelgen, Ibn Taymīyas Kritik an der aristotelischen Logik,
pp. 181–182.
44 Ṭabaṭabāʾī, al-Mufakkirūn, pp. 99–100.
45 Ibid., pp. 101–103; Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, p. 113/71.
46 Ṭabaṭabāʾī, al-Mufakkirūn, p. 105; Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, p. 126/84.
47 Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, pp. 101/59, 123–124/82–83.
48 Ṭabaṭabāʾī, al-Mufakkirūn, p. 111; Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, pp. 384–385/339–
340.
49 Ṭabaṭabāʾī, al-Mufakkirūn, p. 109.
50 Ibid., pp. 113–115; Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, pp. 156/115–117, 161–162/120–121,
399–401/354–356.
51 Ṭabaṭabāʾī, al-Mufakkirūn, pp. 126–148.
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