Casual Conditional According to the Muslim Logicians

Document Type : علمی پژوهشی

Author

• Asadullāh Fallāḥī

10.22067/philosophy.v43i2.11777

Abstract

It is well-known that “casual conditional” in Islamic logics has been used with two meanings: “specific conditional” and “general conditional”. However, viewing the works of the Muslim logicians, we find out that these two meanings of “casual conditional” have
been interpreted in two various ways: each of the general and specific conditionals is sometimes interpreted as the condition of “non-necessity” and sometimes as without “condition of necessity”. We have named these two interpretations as “negatively conditioned casual” and “unconditioned casual”. On the other hand, we have indicated that there are examples in our great figures’ works of logics, which are not consistent with any of the above-mentioned meanings for “casual” and the only interpretation that can be presented of them is “material implication” and “truth-functional implication” referred to in modern logics. We have named this meaning as “most general casual”. In this article, we have found another meaning for casual conditional, which is used in natural language, but we do not find any reference to it in the earlier and contemporary works, and those are the casuals whose premise is false or impossible. Borrowing the idea of “verbal implication” from Khāwja Naṣīr, we have named them “verbal casual”.
Keywords: most general conditional, general casual, specific casual, negatively conditioned casual, unconditioned casual, contrary to reality casual.

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