This week was about medieval logic. In medieval times, logic was seen as an art, which is nowadays hard to believe. Whereas logic in ancient times was more of a discipline, it now became a way of telling truth and getting attention. One way of doing that was, for instance, criticizing ancient philosophers like Aristotle. Arabic logic was quite similar to the Ancient Greek logic. Subjects that were discussed a lot are categories, interpretations, analytics and sophistical refutation. Logic was not solely being used as a way to examine ordinary subjects, but was also a tool to proof the existence of God.
To me, the most interesting philosopher we discussed was Avicenna. Avicenna is seen as one of the most influential philosophers in the history of the western thinking. He said there were two ways of forming a logical judgement: through acquiring knowledge of concept or acquiring knowledge of fact. He said that ‘logic is a science or art through which we can gain knowledge that we did not previously have‘. According to Avicenna, language was more than what was just spoken; it was also what was unspoken. Avicenna put a lot of work in logically analyzing Aristotle’s texts. I find his point of view towards logic quite refreshing and he even makes it kind of interesting to exercise logic. The logic we have had as a course in the first semester was quite dry to me, but the way Avicenna uses logic to analyze Aristotle and to practice philosophy in this way, was an eye-opener to me. Especially for his time, this was a new way to practice philosophy as well as logic and to me that made this lecture very interesting.
