Home / Ḥāshiyat al-Bājūrī ʿalā al-Sullam / Lesson 9 of 18
Locked
The proposition: what admits truth of itself
Back to Ḥāshiyat al-Bājūrī ʿalā al-SullamNorth-African path · level 2 · Ḥāshiyat al-Bājūrī ʿalā al-Sullam · Lesson 9 of 18
The proposition: what admits truth of itself
Propositions · taʿrīf al-qaḍiyya · p. 66
تَعْرِيفُ القَضِيَّةِ
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
Need another language? “Google Translate” opens a passage in Google's machine translation — handy for a first idea, but not checked by us. Or copy the text into a translator of your choice.
Quoted from the Arabic of Ḥāshiyat al-Bājūrī ʿalā matn al-Sullam, with al-Anbābī's taqrīr in the margin, Cairo 1324/1906
(قَوْلُهُ ما احْتَمَلَ إِلَخْ) ما واقِعَةٌ عَلَى اللَّفْظِ الشّامِلِ لِجَمِيعِ الأَلْفاظِ، فَهِيَ جِنْسٌ، وَخَرَجَ بِقَوْلِهِ احْتَمَلَ الصِّدْقَ ما لَمْ يَحْتَمِلْهُ كَزَيْدٍ وَعَمْرٍو وَكَغُلامِ زَيْدٍ، وَبِقَوْلِهِ لِذاتِهِ ما احْتَمَلَهُ لا لِذاتِهِ بَلْ لِلازِمِهِ كَالإِنْشاءاتِ مِنَ الأَمْرِ وَالنَّهْيِ وَغَيْرِهِما، فَإِنَّ قَوْلَكَ: اسْقِنِي مَثَلًا وَإِنِ احْتَمَلَ الصِّدْقَ لٰكِنْ لا لِذاتِهِ، بَلْ لِما اسْتَلْزَمَهُ مِنْ قَوْلِكَ: أَنا طالِبٌ لِلسَّقْيِ مِنْكَ.
(His words “what admits …”): “what” applies to the utterance, covering all utterances, so it is the genus. “Admits truth” leaves out what does not admit it, like “Zayd”, “ʿAmr” or “Zayd's servant”; and “of itself” leaves out what admits it not of itself but through what it implies, like performatives — commands, prohibitions and the like. “Give me to drink”, for instance, though it admits truth, does so not of itself but through what it implies: “I ask you for a drink.”
Google Translate ↗p. 66
وَدَخَلَ بِهٰذا القَيْدِ ما قُطِعَ بِصِدْقِهِ أَوْ بِكَذِبِهِ؛ فَالأَوَّلُ أَخْبارُ اللهِ وَأَخْبارُ رُسُلِهِ وَالأَخْبارُ المَعْلُومُ صِدْقُها بِضَرُورَةِ العَقْلِ نَحْوُ: الواحِدُ نِصْفُ الاثْنَيْنِ، وَالثّانِي كَأَخْبارِ مُسَيْلِمَةَ الكَذّابِ فِي دَعْواهُ النُّبُوَّةَ.
And this restriction lets in what is known for certain to be true or false: the first are the reports of God and of His messengers, and reports whose truth reason knows immediately, like “One is half of two”; the second are like the reports of Musaylima the Liar in his claim to prophethood.
Google Translate ↗p. 66
The lesson
The Sullam defines the as “what admits truth of itself”. Al-Bājūrī reads the word by word. “What” refers to the and is the . “Admits truth” leaves out single words like “Zayd” and phrases like “Zayd's servant”, which are neither true nor false.
“Of itself” leaves out performatives — commands, prohibitions and the like — which admit truth only through something they imply: “Give me to drink” implies “I ask you for a drink”, which can be true or false, but the command itself is neither.
The same restriction lets in reports known for certain to be true or false. A report of God or of His messengers, or a truth of reason like “one is half of two”, cannot be false; the claims of Musaylima the Liar cannot be true. Yet each admits truth and falsehood of itself, as a sentence; what settles it is something outside the sentence.
Terms
- القَضِيَّةُ al-qaḍiyya
- proposition: what admits truth of itself
- الإِنْشاءُ al-inshāʾ
- performative speech: commands, prohibitions, questions
- لِذاتِهِ li-dhātihi
- of itself, not through what it implies
Examples
اسْقِنِي
“Give me to drink”: admits truth only through “I ask you for a drink”, not of itself
Test yourself
3 questions on this lesson. With 6 out of 10 or more (two stars) the next lesson opens.
Question 1
Which part of the definition leaves out “Zayd's servant”?
“Admits truth” leaves out what does not admit it, like “Zayd”, “ʿAmr” or “Zayd's servant”.
Question 2
Why is “Give me to drink” not a proposition?
It admits truth only through “I ask you for a drink”, which it implies; so “of itself” leaves it out.
Question 3
Is “one is half of two” a proposition, though it cannot be false?
“This restriction lets in what is known for certain to be true or false”: such sentences admit truth and falsehood of themselves.
Next lesson: Contradiction
Continue →