نگاهي به مشاهدات در منطق

An Overview of Observations in Logic

Manʹs senses, particularly his five senses, act as a bridge connecting him to the world of nature. Man gets acquainted with this world and communicates with it through such senses. Each of these senses is like a window through which man can look at his surroundings and create concepts and images from what he sees in his mind. A question that has frequently been asked in the fields of philosophy and logic, especially in those new schools of philosophy which mainly follow an epistemological approach, is "How do these sensory forms and concepts come into existence in the mind and to what degree are they valid and objective?" This question and its related answer have such a vast scope that we can claim a great part of epistemological philosophy is devoted to dealing with this very important issue. However, in Aristotelian logic, since the conformity of mental concepts and images with the outside is considered certain, some questions have occupied the minds of scholars since long age: What are the characteristics of ʹsense propositionsʹ (which are considered as a part of ʹcertaintiesʹ and the most important part of the foundations of syllogism)? What are their types? What is the role of the intellect in such propositions? What is the difference between these propositions and empirical premises? Are these propositions universal or particular and how could we account for this quality of them? In this article, the writer has tried to provide an answer for each of these questions by relying on the theories of such great logicians as Ibn - Sina, Khwajah Nasir al-Din Tusi, Quth al - Din Razi, Shirazi, Suhrawardi, etc. He claims that he has been able to find some very delicate and novel points in the works of these scholars in relation to the above questions. A thorough study of such problems reveals that a great number of issues in the methodology and philosophy of science which are now of increasing interest to scholars had also attracted the attention of early thinkers, including Muslim philosophers in certain cases (although not always in a focused and conscious fashon).