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Shihadeh, Ayman (2013) 'The Argument from Ignorance and Its Critics in Medieval Arabic Thought.' Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 23 (2). pp. 171-220.

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Abstract

The earliest debate on the argument from ignorance emerged in Islamic rational theology around the fourth/tenth century, approximately seven centuries before John Locke identified it as a distinct type of argument. The most influential defences of the epistemological principle that ‘that for which there is no evidence must be negated’ are encountered in Muʿtazilī sources, particularly ʿAbd al-Jabbār and al-Malāḥimī who argue that without this principle scepticism will follow. The principle was defended on different grounds by some earlier Ashʿarīs, but was then rejected by al-Juwaynī, and was eventually classed as a fallacy by Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī whose Nihāyat al-ʿuqūl contains the most definitive and comprehensive refutation of classical kalām epistemology and the first ever defence of Aristotelian logic in a kalām summa. According to the eighth/fourteenth-century historian Ibn Khaldūn, this debate provided the main impetus for the philosophical turn that Ashʿarism took during the sixth/twelfth century.

Item Type: Journal Article
SOAS Departments & Centres: Departments and Subunits > School of History, Religions & Philosophies > Department of History
Legacy Departments > Faculty of Languages and Cultures > Department of the Languages and Cultures of the Near and Middle East
ISSN: 09574239
DOI (Digital Object Identifier): https://doi.org/10.1017/S0957423913000027
Date Deposited: 21 Feb 2013 14:03
URI: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/id/eprint/14864
Related URLs: http://journals ... Id=0&issueId=02 (Publisher URL)

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