Al-Ghazālī on the Form and Matter of the Syllogisms

Henrik Lagerlund, The University of Western Ontario

Abstract

Al-Ghazālī's Maqāsid al-falāsifa is an intelligent reworking of Avicenna's Dānesh-name (Book of Science). It was assumed by Latin scholastics that the Maqāsid contained the views of Al-Ghazālī himself. Very well read in Latin translation, it was the basic text from which the Latin authors gained their knowledge of Arabic logic. This article examines the views on the form and matter of the syllogism given in the Maqāsid and considers how they would have been viewed by a Latin reader in the thirteenth century.