Background

Abstract

The logic of modality was a relative latecomer to the domain of Arabic logic. Only after the time of Abū Bishr Mattā ibn Yūnus (ca. 870–940), translator of Posterior Analytics, did the study of Aristotle’s modal syllogistic come to be taken up.³ In its wake, interest in other Greek ideas regarding modality sprung up, and in the 10th century there was a lively polemic in the School of Baghdad — whose principal figure was al-Fārābī (ca. 873–950) — against Galen’s views on modality, especially his rejection of the modality of possibility.⁴ That mainstream of Arabic logic which stayed within the tradition of the School of Baghdad, culminating in Averroes (1126–1198), always remained closely faithful to Aristotelian views.⁵ On the other hand, the influence of Galen, and especially — perhaps through his mediation — of the Stoics, made significant headway in that part of the Arabic logical tradition whose fountain-head was Avicenna.⁶ There can be little doubt that the theory of temporal modalities with which we shall be dealing in the present monograph goes back, either entirely, or at any rate in its original and generative impetus, to Greek, and above all to Stoic logic. We shall, however, postpone any detailed consideration of the cognate conceptions of Megarian and Stoic until Section 13, after our examination of the Arabic materials has been completed.