The writings of al-Ghazālī (d. 1111) mark a critical stage in the history of Arabic philosophy. He is noted for his classic, The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahāfut al-falāsifa), an incisive critique largely of the metaphysics and psychology of Avicenna (d. 1037). At the same time, he is also noted for adopting Avicennian philosophical ideas. This at first sight seems paradoxical, if not downright inconsistent. In fact, he adopted them after reinterpreting them in terms of his Ash'arite occasionalist perspective (to which we will shortly turn), rendering them consistent with his theology. This reinterpretation is not without intrinsic philosophical interest.

Al-Ghazālī was a renowned Islamic lawyer (faqīh), speculative theologian (mutakallim), but above all an Islamic mystic (sūfī). In his autobiography, written a few years before his death, he states that it was the quest after certainty that motivated his intellectual and spiritual journey and that he finally found this certainty in direct mystical experience, dhawq, a technical Sūfī term that literally means “taste.” Although trained in the Ash‘arite school of speculative theology, kalām, to which he contributed two works, he was also critical of this discipline. This has raised the question of whether his mysticism was at odds with his theology, which included the reinterpreted, assimilated, Avicennian philosophical ideas.

The Ismā‘īlī attitude toward philosophy and the philosophers was decidedly ambiguous. They tried consistently to deny that philosophers, in particular the ancient Greeks, possess an authority in any way superior to that of the legislating prophets of their own tradition. Despite an admirable skill with, and even mastery of, mathematics, physics, and logic, the practitioners of philosophy, in their view, had achieved almost nothing that they had not taken from a prophetic source. Ismā‘īlī rejection of philosophy, however, covered less the content of that philosophy than the contributions claimed for individual thinkers. For the Ismā‘īlīs, the philosophers, on their own, were capable of little except personal speculations that yielded them mere opinions - often mutually contradictory ones at that. Anything that was true in philosophy depended in the end on the sure guidance of divinely inspired prophets; without it the work of philosophers, no matter how brilliant and profound, produced a result ultimately lacking validity and real value.

Nevertheless, Ismā‘īlī thought in its formative period would be simply unintelligible without philosophy, most especially Neoplatonism, which so permeates the works of the main figures that what they said is incomprehensible otherwise than by reference to a classical Greek background. These writers had clearly imported and used various elements of philosophy, not merely in vague generalities, but in specific terms and a technical language that derived more or less directly from translations of ancient texts. Although the works they wrote to explain their Ismā‘īlīsm were not as a whole strictly speaking philosophical, many portions of them are in reality small treatises of philosophy.

The history of philosophy in Arabic goes back almost as far as Islam itself. Philosophically interesting theological disputes were underway within two centuries of the founding of Islam in 622 C.E. At the same time some important scientific, medical, and philosophical texts from the Greek tradition were being studied and used in the Syriac tradition, with Aristotelian logic being employed in theological debates. By the third century of the Muslim calendar (the ninth century C.E.), a great translation movement centered in Baghdad was in full bloom. In response, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish philosophers writing in Arabic began to make important contributions to a tradition of philosophizing that continues alive to the present day. Debates and contests on logic, grammar, theology, and philosophy by Muslims, Christians, and Jews took place at the caliphal court. The structure and foundation of the cosmos, the natures of entities in the physical world, the relation of human beings to the transcendent divine, the principles of metaphysics, the nature of logic and the foundations of epistemology, and the pursuit of the good life in ethics - in sum, the traditional issues of philosophy, old wine, albeit in new skins - were debated with intensity, originality, and penetrating insight.

This was the beginning of what one might call the classical or formative period of philosophy in Arabic, which goes from the ninth to the twelfth centuries C.E. During this period, authors working in Arabic received and reinterpreted the philosophical inheritance of the Greeks, especially Aristotle. This process culminated at the end of the classical period with the massive body of commentaries on Aristotle by Averroes. But the formative period involves more than just the continuation of the Greek philosophical tradition.

Natural philosophy, or physics, occupies an ambiguous position in the encyclopedia of ancient learning. It is primarily an ontology of the sensible world, and is thus inseparable from metaphysics. Aristotle’s physical inquiries, for example, can only be understood in the light of the discussions of substance, potentiality, unity, and the Prime Mover that we find in his Metaphysics. But natural philosophy is not only an ontology of the sensible world. It does not aim solely at explaining what we might call the “semantics” of the sensible world. It also tries, in some cases, to set up “syntactic” rules that allow us to describe a given idealized category of phenomena. The contrast between ontology and mathematical physics is an example. But as we shall shortly see, the “syntax” need not be mathematical.

In classical Islam, there was a multiplicity of physical theories. We may mention, among others, the atomism of the “rational theologians” (mutakallimīn), Avicennian neo-Aristotelianism, Averroist “orthodox” Aristotelianism, and the infinitesimalism of some geometers. Does that mean that any effort to distinguish unitary features of a single natural philosophy is doomed to fail? On the contrary, although there was a multiplicity of schools, the physical debate was nonetheless focused on certain fundamental problems. This means not only that certain questions were recognized as particularly significant by all the schools, but also that the answers proposed to them proceeded from some basic intuitions that were held in common. These shared intuitions may thus be viewed as typical of the classical period, even if points of disagreement were more evident to those embroiled in the controversy.

A chapter on logic in an introductory book on Islamic philosophy could legitimately be expected to cover a range of topics, from the argument techniques used by ninth-century theologians and jurists to the semantical analyses of the fourteenth-century grammarians. But by the late tenth century, the Arabic word commonly translated as “logic,” mantiq, had come to refer almost exclusively to Peripatetic traditions of distinguishing a good from a bad argument, and those are the traditions to which this chapter is limited. This means that the Arabic logical writings examined here are, like their medieval Latin counterparts, concerned with a problematic arising from the Aristotelian texts; more than medieval Latin logic, however, the dominant tradition of Arabic logic is mainly at one remove from those texts, as will be exemplified below.

Even with this limitation, the writings which fall under the chapter’s remit stretch from 750 to the present day, covering the whole course of subjects developed in the Organon. For practical purposes, I impose the further limitation of referring the material covered back to al-Risāla al-shamsiyya, the Logic for Shams al-Dīn by Najm al-Dīn al-Kātibī (d. 1276). I do so because down to the twentieth century it was commonly the first substantial text on logic which a Sunnī Muslim would study in the course of a madrasa education. Because the problematic considered by the Shamsiyya acquired its precise form in Avicenna’s writings, and acquired its commonly accepted resolution by the late thirteenth century, I will not consider any logical work written after this time. This should not be taken to imply that original work in logic came to an end in 1300, but rather that other problems had taken center stage.

Most Arabic philosophers took the general inspiration for their discussions of soul (al-nafs) and intellect (al-'aql) from the Arabic translations of Aristotle’s De Anima and Parva Naturalia and later Greek commentaries on Aristotle, although a few philosophers, such as al-Razi, were of a more Platonic bent. In addition to assimilating Greek sources into their own philosophical psychology, Arabic philosophers were also sensitive to the need to address the competing views of the Islamic theologians (mutakallimun), who upheld an atomistic metaphysics in which all created beings were understood to be mere aggregates of atoms and accidents held together by God’s absolute power. This yielded a bundle theory of personal identity which left no room for an immaterial soul. Such a view of human nature was vehemently denied by the philosophers, although it was attractive to the theologians since it allowed them to offer an account of the revealed doctrine of the resurrection of the body.

THE NATURE OF THE SOUL AND ITS RELATION TO THE BODY

Unlike their theological adversaries, all the Arabic philosophers accepted some conception of the soul derived from the Greek tradition. In most cases it was Aristotle’s definition of the soul in De Anima, II.1, as the first “form” or “actuality” of a body which is potentially alive, that held sway. Under this conception, the soul is simply the animating and organizing principle of a body and is therefore “inseparable from the body.” Most of the Arabic philosophers also accepted Aristotle’s division of the parts and powers of the soul, according to which “soul” is an ordered genus divided into three species, corresponding to the division of living things into plants, animals, and humans.

SALIENT FEATURES OF LATE ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Plotinus: a new reading of Plato

During the imperial age, in many centers of the Roman world, philosophy was taught in close connection to the doctrines of the great philosophers of the past: Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Zeno. Not only in Rome, Athens, Alexandria, but also in Pergamon, Smyrna, Apamea, Tarsus, Ege, Aphrodisias in the east of the empire, Naples and Marseille in the west, a “school” of philosophy disseminated either Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, or Epicureanism. Against this background, the thought of Plotinus represented a turning point in the history of philosophical ideas which was to play a decisive role in the creation of falsafa and to influence indirectly philosophy in the Middle Ages, in both Latin and Arabic.

Coming from Alexandria, where he studied Platonism under the guidance of Ammonius Saccas, Plotinus arrived in Rome (244 C.E.) and opened a school. From his explicit claims, as well as the content of his treatises, we know that he was a Platonist and taught Platonism, but also took into account the doctrines of the other philosophers, especially Aristotle. As we learn from the biography that Porphyry prefaced to the edition of Plotinus’ works, in the daily meetings of the school the treatises of Aristotle, accompanied by their commentaries – especially those by Alexander of Aphrodisias – were read before Plotinus presented his lecture.

INTRODUCTION

When contemporary philosophers probe the relation between faith and reason, their focus is on the propositional content of religious belief. They ask whether doctrinal propositions can be proved by sound arguments from premises acceptable to unbelievers, or, failing that, whether adherence to such theses can be rationally justified. Christian philosophers often see themselves as responding to pressure from the outside to defend the rationality of Christian faith. In the waning years of the Roman empire, St. Augustine, too, was preoccupied with defending the faith, first externally, against its pagan competitors (not only but principally the Manichaeans); then against heretics (Donatists and Pelagians) within.

St. Anselm’s eleventh-century situation was different from both of these. He spent most of his life in the Benedictine Monastery at Bec. Most of his works were penned for and at the behest of his monastic brother-students. Their overarching common aim was to become persons who could see and enjoy God’s face. Their intellectual pursuits were integrated into that project. Anselm’s written investigations of non-theological subjects were all occasioned by the exigencies of their doctrinal inquiries. These facts about Anselm’s career have left deep imprints on his philosophical theology, not least on his method. If he was eventually drawn into polemical contexts and confronted with real non-Christians, Anselm continued to see the drive to understand Christian faith by reason alone (sola ratione) as predominantly internal, arising not simply from his own monastic vocation, but from the natural teleology built into human nature itself.

Why, still today, do we find the name of Ferdinand de Saussure featuring prominently in volumes published not only on linguistics, but on a multitude of topics, volumes with titles such as Culture and Text: Discourse and Methodology in Social Research and Cultural Studies (Lee and Poynton, 2000), or the intriguing Plastic Glasses and Church Fathers (Kronenfeld, 1996)? It is to this question that the present volume attempts to bring at least a partial answer, by looking afresh at the intellectual background to Saussure's work, the work itself, its impact on European structuralism in general and linguistics in particular, and its changed but continuing influence today.

The titles above, then, are enough to showthat nearly a century and a half after his birth, the ideas of this Swiss linguist and thinker still excite interest. He is best known for his Cours de linguistique générale, edited after his premature death from the notes of students who had attended his lectures and first published in 1916. This ‘Course in general linguistics’ has gone through numerous editions in France, has been translated into numerous languages, and has had an influence far beyond the area of linguistics. This book, however, is far from being the sole reason for his importance as a thinker, the recognition of which has gone through various phases since his death. In his own lifetime, he was regarded – and regarded himself – primarily as a historical linguist who had made his mark with a brilliant and precocious study in Indo-European linguistics.

This chapter will look at various aspects of the relationship between Saussurean linguistics and debates within twentieth-century philosophy of science. After all it was Saussure's chief aim to see linguistics placed on a properly 'scientific' footing, that is, to reconfigure the field in accordance with certain well-defined principles that would constitute an adequate, rigorously theorised account of language and signifying systems in general. The first task was to elaborate those various distinctions that would henceforth provide its working methodology, among them the cardinal oppositions between langue and parole, synchrony and diachrony, the paradigmatic and the syntagmatic, and the orders of signifier and signified. This would open the way to a structuralist account that left no room for naive (pre-scientific) ideas about the one-to-one 'correspondence' between words and ideas or words and objects. Rather it would show how the systematic character of language - its differential structures of sound and sense - can only be described by means of a theory which itself breaks free of such delusive 'commonsense' beliefs and acquires the full range of conceptual resources whereby to articulate its own grasp of those same signifying structures.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) claimed that there are only three possible ways of proving the existence of God by means of “speculative reason.” He called one of them “the ontological proof,” and it is often said that this (or “the ontological argument” as it is now commonly called) was first advanced by Anselm in Chapters 2 and 3 of his Proslogion. Anselm's collected works run to many pages, but nothing he wrote has commanded so much attention as these short texts. Yet what was he arguing in them? And how should we evaluate his reasoning? These are questions which have been answered in a bewildering variety of ways. In this chapter I aim only to present a brief introduction to the reasoning of Proslogion 2 and 3 together with some tentative suggestions as to how we might reflect on it.

FAITH, REASON, AND THE PROSLOGION

Anselm’s writings are not what some would regard as typical works of philosophy. Philosophers cannot, of course, avoid speaking from some viewpoint or other, but they often foster the impression that they seek only to follow “where reason leads,” and they encourage us to suppose that they have no serious beliefs to start with, especially religious ones. Anselm, however, rarely does this. Almost all of his writings are presented as the work of a committed Christian, and such is the case with the Proslogion. This text is conceived as a religious treatise from start to finish. It is even written in the form of a prayer.

On the history of the Cours, the task which faced its 'author-editors' Bally and Sechehaye in 1913, and how they acquitted themselves, the reader can consult Godel (1957), Engler (1959, 1968b, 1987b), Vallini (1979) and Linda (2001).

Let us make a few points clear. The Cours (or CLG) does not contain Saussure's 'actual words' but a subsequent digest of three courses (based on lecture notes kept by a few conscientious students) and of certain handwritten observations which testify to a longstanding reflection on the 'essence' of linguistics. Saussure had always said that he would never publish any of these reflections. Without the bold and assiduous determination of Bally and Sechehaye, Saussure's thought would probably have never reached the reading public, any more than did that of his contemporary Marty. Without the CLG, the interest shown today in the discovery of any new Saussurean document would not exist

Hence the existence of the CLG is in itself a fact of historical significance. The publication of the first ‘authentic’ texts associated with the linguist (Godel, 1957; Saussure, 1968 and 1974 (CLG/E, vols. 1 and 2)), is the second event of importance and it has allowed for a two-way evaluation. It led to new interpretations, valuable but provisional, as has been shown by the 1996 appearance of a Saussurean manuscript dating from 1891, and containing in essence the whole of Saussure’s ‘general and semiological linguistics’, as well as totally unexpected thoughts on ‘semantics’ (Saussure, 2002 (ELG)).

Anselm of Canterbury is at once one of the best- and least-known of medieval thinkers. Two chapters of his third major work (Proslogion 2 and 3) are almost notorious. Commonly said to contain the first “ontological argument” for God's existence, they are widely read and studied even at the undergraduate level, and they continue to puzzle both atheist and theist philosophers. Yet the rest of Anselm's writings have been less subject to scrutiny. Many philosophers and students of philosophy know little about them, which is regrettable. Anselm had much more to offer about God than a single argument for His existence. And he also had much to say on a range of other topics, some of it still well worth attention.

The purpose of this book is to introduce readers to the range of Anselm’s thinking in a way that will help them to reflect on it for themselves. So, as well as including a chapter on the arguments to be found in Proslogion 2 and 3 (chapter 7), and one on Anselm on God in general (chapter 6), the volume includes accounts of how Anselm thought about a number of other matters. Readers who work seriously through Anselm’s writings will find that he had things to say on matters of religious epistemology, logic, the nature of truth, the reality and significance of human freedom, and the evaluation of human behaviour. In what follows, therefore, readers will find discussions of Anselm covering all these concerns. They will, in addition, find discussions of how Anselm can be situated against his intellectual background, one dominated by the Bible and the writings of St. Augustine (354–430), and of how he applied his mind to questions arising from key Christian doctrines such as the teaching that God is somehow three in one, and the claim that people are saved by virtue of Christ.

When William Dwight Whitney died in 1894, the American Philological Association, of which he had been co-founder and first president, asked scholars in America and Europe to contribute appraisals of his work for a memorial meeting. Professor of Sanskrit and comparative philology at Yale College, Whitney had a long and distinguished career, and his work on Sanskrit and on general linguistics reached students, scholars and even a lay readership. Absent from the many prominent linguists sending public tributes to Whitney's work was Ferdinand de Saussure. It was not that Saussure disapproved of Whitney's work. To the contrary, he was a strong proponent who 'never ceased to feel indebted to the American scholar [Whitney] and . . . when he offered courses in general linguistics at the University of Geneva, he did not fail to mention Whitney's name with praise and to discuss his ideas' (Godel, 1966: 480).

The American Philological Association had invited Saussure to contribute to the Whitney memorial, and he began a notebook for drafts and comments of what he planned to write, but he never completed the letter. The notebook, however, survived and fragments were eventually published (Godel, 1957; Engler, 1968–74; Jakobson, 1971b). From these it is clear that what Saussure most admired in Whitney was his attempt to move forward from the details of nineteenth-century comparative grammar, especially German comparative grammar, and toward generalisations about the nature of language. The new linguistic science that Whitney envisioned ‘makes the laws and general principles of speech its main subject, and uses particular facts rather as illustrations’ (Whitney, 1867: 315).

INTRODUCTION

Anselm makes full use of the stock-in-trade of all philosophers: he identifies ambiguities and distinguishes various senses of words; he sometimes appeals to and sometimes rejects ordinary usage; he insists, often dogmatically, that some expressions are proper and others improper, and tries to legislate usage; he coins new words; he complains about how grammar and grammatical form can be misleading. No special theory of language need be behind such activities. Yet Anselm did have a general semantic theory that not only licensed these activities but also enabled him to address particular questions in the philosophy of language - how words are linked to the world, whether meaningful language has to be denotative, what makes true statements true, and the like. His philosophical dialogue De Grammatico is entirely devoted to the philosophy of language, as are parts of DeVeritate and his Philosophical Fragments. Even the Monologion contains extensive discussion of semantic issues. Anselm says virtually nothing about formal logic, but he takes up issues in the philosophy of language in nearly everything he wrote.

INTRODUCTION

When Anselm completed his Monologion, he submitted it to his teacher, Lanfranc, for his approval. Although we do not have the text of Lanfranc's reply, it seems to have called for Anselm to give appropriate sources for his assertions. In response to Lanfranc's criticism, Anselm sought to justify himself this way: