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The definers: two kinds or three?
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The definers: two kinds or three?
Conceptions · aqsām al-muʿarrif · p. 61
أَقْسامُ المُعَرِّفِ
Draft · awaiting review
Our own lessons with quotations from the print of Cairo 1324/1906 · translation by The Mantiqi, draft
About this text
Ḥāshiyat al-Bājūrī ʿalā al-Sullam حاشِيَةُ الباجُورِيِّ عَلَى السُّلَّمِ
Ibrāhīm al-Bājūrī (d. 1276/1860)
- Text
- Arabic: passages quoted in the lessons, transcribed by The Mantiqi from this print (the whole text is not reproduced): Ḥāshiyat al-Bājūrī ʿalā matn al-Sullam, with al-Anbābī's taqrīr in the margin, al-Maṭbaʿa al-Azhariyya al-Miṣriyya (2nd printing), Cairo 1324/1906, pp. 26–112 (passages) View the scan
- Lessons follow
- The lessons are The Mantiqi's own explanations of the Sullam, verse by verse, following Ibrāhīm al-Bājūrī; his words are quoted where they matter most.
- Translation
- The Mantiqi's own; a draft.
- Review
- Draft, awaiting review by Ustadh Muhammad Yusuf.
In Ibrāhīm al-Bājūrī's words
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Quoted from the Arabic of Ḥāshiyat al-Bājūrī ʿalā matn al-Sullam, with al-Anbābī's taqrīr in the margin, Cairo 1324/1906
وَزادَ بَعْضُهُمُ التَّعْرِيفَ بِالمِثالِ، كَقَوْلِهِمْ: العِلْمُ كَالنُّورِ وَالجَهْلُ كَالظُّلْمَةِ، وَالتَّعْرِيفَ بِالتَّقْسِيمِ، كَقَوْلِهِمْ: العِلْمُ تَصَوُّرٌ وَتَصْدِيقٌ، وَالتَّحْقِيقُ أَنَّ كُلًّا مِنْهُما كَالتَّعْرِيفِ اللَّفْظِيِّ داخِلٌ فِي الرَّسْمِ، لِأَنَّهُ مِنَ التَّعْرِيفِ بِالخاصَّةِ … وَعَلَى هٰذا فَالمُعَرِّفُ عَلَى قِسْمَيْنِ فَقَطْ، فَتَكُونُ القِسْمَةُ ثُنائِيَّةً لا ثُلاثِيَّةً كَما فَعَلَ المُصَنِّفُ.
Some added definition by example, as when they say, “Knowledge is like light and ignorance like darkness”, and definition by division, as when they say, “Knowledge is conception and assent.” The truth is that each of these, like the verbal definition, falls under description (rasm), because it is a definition by a property … On this view the definer is of two kinds only, and the division is twofold, not threefold as the author made it.
Google Translate ↗p. 61
The lesson
The Sullam divides the definer into three: the real (ḥadd), by the and the ; the description (rasm), by the genus and a property; and the verbal definition (lafẓī), by a better-known word. Each must be equal to what it defines, clearer than it, and free of .
Al-Bājūrī reports that some added two more: by example (“ is like light, ignorance like darkness”) and definition by division (“knowledge is and ”). The truth, he says, is that both, and the verbal definition too, fall under description, because each defines by something proper to the thing: being like light is proper to knowledge, and dividing into these two is proper to it.
On that view the definer is of two kinds only, real and description, and the poem's threefold division becomes twofold. It is a good example of how the gloss works: it accepts the poem, then shows where a more exact account would put things.
Terms
- الحَدُّ al-ḥadd
- real definition: by the genus and the differentia
- الرَّسْمُ al-rasm
- description: by a property
- التَّعْرِيفُ بِالمِثالِ al-taʿrīf bi-l-mithāl
- definition by example
Examples
العِلْمُ كَالنُّورِ وَالجَهْلُ كَالظُّلْمَةِ
“knowledge is like light and ignorance like darkness”: definition by example
Test yourself
3 questions on this lesson. With 6 out of 10 or more (two stars) the next lesson opens.
Question 1
“Knowledge is like light” is, for those who added it, a definition by…
Some added by example, as in “ is like light and ignorance like darkness”.
Question 2
Where does al-Bājūrī place definition by example and by division?
“Each of these, like the verbal , falls under description, because it is a definition by a property.”
Question 3
So into how many kinds does the definer fall on his view?
“On this view the definer is of two kinds only, and the division is twofold, not threefold as the author made it.”
Next lesson: The proposition: what admits truth of itself
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