Lecture 5: Signification, Universals, and the Five Predicables

This lesson continues al-Akhdari’s discussion of dalala (دلالة), “signification” or how a word points to a meaning. Logic is not mainly interested in language for its own sake, but because ordered language helps us think and argue with precision. The three basic kinds of conventional signification are mutabaqa (مطابقة), complete correspondence; tadammun (تضمن), partial inclusion; and iltizam (التزام), necessary implication. For example, “human” can fully correspond to the thing intended, while using “human” to point only to “animality” or only to “rationality” would be partial. A necessary implication would be like saying “physical object,” which rationally implies being spatially extended.

A major caution in the lesson is that “complete correspondence” in ordinary logical usage does not necessarily mean that we have captured the deepest metaphysical essence of a thing. The philosophers, especially the Peripatetic tradition associated with Aristotle and Ibn Sina, often speak as though a correct definition by jins (جنس, genus) and fasl (فصل, differentia) captures the haqiqa (حقيقة), the real essence of the thing. But this is difficult to verify. Fakhr al-Din al-Razi’s critique is important here: definitions do not usually give us brand-new concepts. Rather, they clarify, organize, and communicate concepts that we already possess.

This leads to a helpful distinction, familiar in modern philosophy of science, between the context of discovery and the context of justification. We often acquire concepts through sense perception, introspection, and reports: we see humans and animals, we feel hunger and sadness, and we hear about places or beings we have not seen. Definitions, however, function more in the context of justification: they help us express and analyze a concept precisely. In this sense, logic is not a full psychology of how humans first discover concepts; it is a disciplined method for clarifying concepts and later building propositions and arguments.

After the break, the lesson turns to mabahith al-alfaz (مباحث الألفاظ), the investigations of expressions. A used expression, lafz musta'mal (لفظ مستعمل), is contrasted with a meaningless or unused sound, lafz muhmal (لفظ مهمل). Used expressions are either murakkab (مركب), composite, or mufrad (مفرد), singular. A composite expression is made of parts where each part contributes to part of the total meaning, such as “Zayd stood up.” A singular term, like “Zayd” or “human,” does not work that way with respect to its meaning.

The singular term is then divided into kulli (كلي), universal, and juz'i (جزئي), particular. A universal is a concept that can, in principle, apply to many things, like “lion,” “human,” or even “phoenix” if no actual phoenix exists. A particular applies to one thing, such as a named individual. This distinction is conceptual: a term may be universal in meaning even if in reality it applies to only one entity, such as the sun in older cosmology, or wajib al-wujud (واجب الوجود), the Necessary Existent, which applies only to Allah in reality.

The lesson then introduces the famous “five universals” or predicables: naw' (نوع, species), jins (جنس, genus), fasl (فصل, differentia), khassa (خاصة, specific property), and 'arad 'amm (عرض عام, common property). These are ways of analyzing what can be predicated of a thing. Some universals are dhati (ذاتي), intrinsic or essential to what the thing is; others are 'aradi (عرضي), extrinsic properties that can be removed without destroying the thing’s identity. Animality and rationality are treated as essential to the human in the classical model, while walking or laughing are treated as non-essential properties.

Finally, the instructor clarifies important metaphysical terminology. Jawhar (جوهر) in this kalam context should not simply be translated as “essence”; it refers to an indivisible particle or substance-like unit that underlies bodies. Mahiyya (ماهية), often translated as “quiddity” or “whatness,” answers the question “What is it?” The Ash'ari/Sunni position presented here treats universals like “humanness” as real mental abstractions, umur i'tibariyya (أمور اعتبارية), not as separately existing objects outside the mind. We meet actual humans, not an independently existing abstract object called “humanity.”