Logical Forms In the Quran (Pr3)

Surrogacy & Duality

As we can see, dualism or duality is essential, and the dual representation of any process stresses the fact that any given process consists of two main elements one of which serves as constructive and the other as the element being constructed. This intends to capture the idea that our own thinking about things involve us as surrogates for our objects of thought, that we actually embody, in the process of forming ideas, the negatives forms of those ideas; that i’m in some sense the moon, whenever i’m observing or contemplating the sun; that i’m the light whenever i’m observing the darkness, i.e disambiguating, or the darkness, whenever i’m observing the light, i.e obscuring.

Cognitive operations thus come to reveal a certain role of surrogacy, where the observer or analyst, being confined to the sphere of his object, takes on an identity isomorphic or co-extensive to that of the object, that the topic of the essay that you’re writing for your school assignment influences you in much the same manner that you do the topic, the topic exercises a restrictive role in relation to you, its writer, and you an adaptive role in relation to the topic (reciprocal modification), ensuring that the words are relevant to the topic. This is quite reminiscent of one of the ideas of C.S Peirce, who held that 

“that signs are not static entities but are dynamic and subject to continuous interpretation and re-interpretation. As such, humans themselves can be seen as signs because they convey meaning to others through their actions, behaviors, and expressions”

We are as involved in symbiotic processes as we are semiotic ones, shape-shifting, transforming and adapting ourselves to different semantic conditions. By far the richest and most prolific model for this type of thinking is the Quran. We find in this book what we may call ‘formulea’, two word constructs approximating the compound nouns of English. For example 

                        العزير الحكيم      الغني الحميد    الرحمان الرحيم   ٱلْحَكِيمُ ٱلْخَبِيرُ    الرؤوف الرحيم

These constructs are, as we’ll soon find, are a perfect representation of the notion of coefficiency (in the etymological sense of cooperating to produce a certain result). These compound phrases involve an intensifier (the first terms), which serve to add emphasis or strengthen the words which follow, and adjectives (the second term) the concepts modified. These compounds  can be understood by analogy to the English compounds, ‘strangely quite’, ‘extremely satisfying’, ‘highly probable’. They’re an efficient method by which to concisely convey high concepts with relative simplicity. 

let’s start with   ٱلْحَكِيمُ ٱلْخَبِيرُ which we find in the first verse of chapter 34, and which consists in the two distinct and independently meaningful terms ٱلْحَكِيمُ and ٱلْخَبِيرُ. 

The definite article & epitomic concept

Firstly, a few things to consider. The definite article AL (ال), when applied to faculties such as ‘hearing’ ‘vision’ ‘intellect’ etc.. epitomizes or quintessentializes the faculty, that is, as universal as hearing, vision and intellect are, they are always limited to and by the limited experience of the person who’s said to be intellectual or visionary; and being so limited, the faculties are bound to be ‘fallible’ and will often err in their application. In such cases, we can only say that a certain person possesses the faculty in an approximative sense. Thus fallibility in the use of these faculties cancels out the only condition in virtue of which the definite article is granted, which in the Quran is applied to concepts as they originally or truly are, as opposed to their diminutions. Thus these universal faculties when modified by the definite article refer to the quintessential and paragonal use of said faculties. 

And what’s a quintessential or true intellect or wisdom, as opposed to an approximative wisdom but the absence of error. Someone with perfect intellect cannot possibly err or make mistakes; but note that for one of these faculties to be perfect, all the rest must be perfect, perfect intellect implies perfect wisdom, perfect memory, perfect vision, for these faculties are all interrelated and interdependent, being that they belong, much like the 5 senses, to one and the same system of faculties. Memory as a repository must be complete, in any and every instance of judgment of a perfect (epitomic) intellect, with the material necessary for the adequate and thoroughgoing formulation of judgement, inasmuch as judgment must perform the perfect ordering and sequencing of the random data found in memory. For that, perfect knowledge is required as to the meaning and to a higher degree the universal connections between those mnemonic data in order to know in what sequence they must be arranged. For that you’ll need the right occasions in which to deploy this scheme. 

Thus the definite article as applied to the faculties can only express their divine source, that only the divine can merit them. Thus a core principle associated with the composition of formulae is here formulated. The faculty of wisdom Hekma, is a faculty of judgment, when modified by the definite article refers to the highest wisdom, if intellect, the highest intellect, and so on. 

The concept ‘ٱلْحَكِيمُ’, the second, is often translated as ‘all-wise’, which is quite vague, if not for the fact that wisdom itself as a notion is somewhat ambiguous, a more adequate translation is the Aristotlean ‘phronesis’, or the Kantian notion of ‘practical reason’;

Phronesis is the ability to discern in certain circumstances, the morally right course of action. It involves practical judgment and the capacity to navigate complex situations. One can only correctly judge or navigate complex situations if they possess knowledge of universal principles, i.e. an intellect sufficient enough to account for any instance in which said universal principles are occasioned. This demands that one, in judging subsume the universals in the particulars, and in recognizing or knowing that these particulars belong to those generals, and vice versa, this is ‘memory’ (السمع) which isn’t memory in the sense that we think memory is, but a memory which ‘recognizes’ or makes connections based on universal principles, i.e deduction. (Cassirer). But there’s another side to this function. 

Rather than having our judgment be based on what we understand to be universal rules or principles, such as ‘all cars have wheels’, or all birds can fly, rules which may not always be true or even available for us; we can instead admit of relative rules, data which we temporarily hold to be true, but which we may replace at any moment, restricting our judgments to observations, or empirical conditions; judging something, say ‘car’ in terms of the state in which it presents itself to me here or there and not on the basis of what it is platonically, a car may indeed have wheels, but this may seize to be true in the future, though the idea of car may not. It’s a mode which accounts for the specific conditions in which objects are found, i.e. their contingencies. Ceasing to think of something as being eternally the case render the judgement relative, and therefore inductive. Here we want to be able to distinguish between the two modes of judgment. It Quran makes this distinction quite brilliantly in the concept of ٱلْخَبِيرُ the ‘all-aware’. It is the antynom of العليم which means ‘all-knowing’. The two exemplify the notion of duality or co-efficiency. Whereas عليم refers to the sort of knowledge we call ‘Platonic’, things are they are eternally or ontologically, as in verse 81 of chapter 36, 

أَوَلَيْسَ ٱلَّذِى خَلَقَ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضَ بِقَـٰدِرٍ عَلَىٰٓ أَن يَخْلُقَ مِثْلَهُم ۚ بَلَىٰ وَهُوَ ٱلْخَلَّـٰقُ ٱلْعَلِيمُ

Is not He who created the heavens and the earth able to create the like of them? Certainly. He is the All-Knowing Creator.

The act of creation here seems to us reproductive; to create the likeness of something presupposes knowledge as to its underlying principles. You need to know what it is to actually make it, regardless, though no doubt as informed by, the various conditions in which the thing originally appeared to us. The the use of ٱلْعَلِيمُ here reflects knowledge as ontological, knowledge of the things as they eternally are, the sort of knowledge that tells what things are in themselves and not the contingent forms in which they may assume for us in experience. The addition of the definite article ٱلْعَلِيمُ points to this knowledge as absolute and therefore divine, highlighting the necessarily universal conditions involved in each act of creation. As indeed is logically the case, to create something is to create it as it is in distinction from what it’s not. This distinction says that there’s a conscious selection and exclusion from a plethora of other principles; implying that one must know all those other principles, to perform an act of the magnitude of ‘creation’ which is to found something that’s totally unfounded. This is ٱلْعَلِيمُ or ‘all-knowing’ modifying ‘ٱلْخَلَّـٰقُ’ the creator. 

 ٱلْخَبِيرُ in contrast to عليم  here means no more than the state of being acquainted with things as they appear in experience, their activities, their motions, the spontaneous or contingent side of things.  

“Thus if “ horse ” signifies the attributes possessed by a horse, it is taken in intension. If it signifies any other idea which includes horse,” e,g. cart-horse or race-horse, it is taken in extension” 

F.H Bradley ‘The Principles Of Logic’ p198

Before writing a paper, in which a new theory or new framework is proposed, the medical scientist must be ‘up to date’, or in a phrase, ‘aware’ with the latest literature, he must be well informed as regards the news, the latest development that have been taking place within the industry. In order to accurately report an event, journalist must be ‘sufficiently’ aware of the details of the event or at least the chain of other events involved in the one being reported. A judge in the court must account for all that has taken place in order to build a sufficient judicial ground to pass judgement. This is called ‘scaling’, the larger the amount of data we manage to assimilate, the more informed, so we think, our decisions, which is true but only insofar as these ‘data’ are included within the framework of understanding certain phenomena.

In one case we look for the eternal and changeless in things, on the other we look for all the changes of which a thing is capable, but in precisely this dynamic is found the real kernel of what constitutes identity. We say that in all the changes or activities of which a thing is capable, there are only a few core principles and everything is a repetition. In a computer system for example, what does not change, are the main functions, consisting of the processor, the RAM, memory, and others which the computer system would decidedly not function without. Data or information, lower and higher level programming languages are, on the other hand, are what repeats. The core principle, i.e the hardware, decide the nature of the output (what repeats), yet what repeats informs the nature of the input (what does not change). Now in judgement, what we do is always narrow down the scope of our vision to those core principles. This is not yet judgement حكمة, but a phase which precedes it, one with more ‘measure’ than decision; this we find in قدير, meaning ‘rigourous’ or ‘exacting’ 

 ۞ ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِى خَلَقَكُم مِّن ضَعْفٍۢ ثُمَّ جَعَلَ مِنۢ بَعْدِ ضَعْفٍۢ قُوَّةًۭ ثُمَّ جَعَلَ مِنۢ بَعْدِ قُوَّةٍۢ ضَعْفًۭا وَشَيْبَةًۭ ۚيَخْلُقُ مَا يَشَآءُ ۖ وَهُوَ ٱلْعَلِيمُ ٱلْقَدِيرُ

It is Allah Who created you in a state of weakness, then developed ˹your˺ weakness into strength, then developed ˹your˺ strength into weakness and old age.1 He creates whatever He wills. For He is the All-Knowing, Most Capable. 30:54

Contrast this formula with the earlier  ٱلْخَلَّـٰقُ ٱلْعَلِيمُ v36:81, and the difference will be clear. القدير though decisive is not mainly so, inasmuch as Hekma involves measure though not mainly so. This mutually inclusive feature is our biggest clue as far as the core principles which inform the identity of any substance, the mutual dependence and reciprocity of certain rules. القدير in the context of this verse relays details concerning certain morphological detail of the body. That the body must grow senile and weak, is something which is decided by anatomical and physiological norms.

The body must grow weak and senile is a corollary of the phenomenon of aging, we understand one as the cause of the other, and the dynamic of cause and effect together gives us a concept which is too subtle to be called ‘Hekma’ or decision, as we see decision is involved merely as a copula or conjunction sensibly connecting the idea of strength and youth and that of weakness and senility, however, the overall scheme could not as such be call ‘Hekma’ as that will shift our attention from the context over to more general considerations regarding it, which is not what we want. Rather, we keep Hekma as a condition that holds universally between the two ideas of youth and strength and aging and weakness but defer judgement regarding the nature of this scheme to a more specific ‘context-dependent’, ‘detail-oriented’ concept. This would be Qadeer القدير. 

What’s fascinating here is that this dynamic is itself modelled after the faculties of ٱلْخَبِيرُ which accounts for the contingent or circumstantial and عليم which refers to the ontological and platonic. All the more for the fact that this is, as it was earlier, the point of distinction, between any two concepts sharing the relation of duality or coefficiency. Now if we consider the formula ٱلْعَلِيمُ ٱلْقَدِيرُ as a whole, and ask why the function ‘all-knowing’ is used in conjunction with ‘Qadeer’ ‘rigorous’ ‘exacting’, and answer can easily be provided. Like all other formula, the logic of this combination will be found in everyday activities, since we ourselves possess these faculties. 

We see this in civil engineering. Civil engineering is a science or craft, and it is a craft or a science specifically because its objects are diverse and adaptive. This science gives us houses, which accommodate a small of group of people, but also skyscrapers that house thousands of people (like Burj Khalifa that can hold up to ten thousand people at any given time). Civil engineering also erects roads and bridges which allow of the movement of vehicles across often inhospitable terrains or dams to deter water or exploit. The science does not change, though its application as well as results vary accordingly. Like we saw with the example of food, farm and market, any concept can be used to understand or contextualize the other, and the result in each case will adhere to the nature of the chosen reference frame. Try it yourself, pick a concept like Book, and use it as a sort of ‘lens’ with which to view the world, like Borges who envisions the world as a library, 

“The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite, perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries”

J.L Borges 'The Library Of Babel 1940

Or perhaps trees, which would give you a genealogical view of the world, or a pyramid which would give you hierarchical view of the world. The magic of metaphorical extension cannot be overstated, and its the language of poetry. Now concepts, we see, can be made into principles or faculties by which to order or modify our experience of the world, this use renders said principles as ‘sciences’, that is if we have them as methods dedicated to solve a particular set of problems. That being said, the formula ٱلْعَلِيمُ ٱلْقَدِيرُ can be said, is the application of said principles to the situations in which they would have their greatest yield, or rather, in the situations in which they are designed to be applied. If we say that to each occasion or problem, there corresponds just the right method, and if these methods are modelled after concepts embodied in objects of experience, and if these objects permeate the universe, then the case can easily be made that we need a definite article with the faculty ‘all-knowing’ to be able to give justice to the concept, as here only God knows and as such can use any concept in existence to solve any given problem in the universe. 

Objects of experience are actually ideal principles, and its this ideality, i.e that a book can be metaphorized into a world-model as in Borges’ story, or trees as in genealogy, that constitutes the engine, or in Leibniz’s phrase, vis viva, living force of any given life form, physical or ideal. Thus this formula tells us, very clearly, that although we possess and regularly use this formula, only God give it justice. This is of the utmost relevance in regards to the use of analogical and symbolic forms in the Quran; that God uses the Cow as a metaphor for ‘growth’ means that no other symbol captures this idea as perfectly and inimitably as this, and the evidence for this is to be found in the story of the exodus, the transition of the Israelites from decadence and slavery to rulers and and kings of the earth  

يَـٰقَوْمِ ٱذْكُرُوا۟ نِعْمَةَ ٱللَّهِ عَلَيْكُمْ إِذْ جَعَلَ فِيكُمْ أَنۢبِيَآءَ وَجَعَلَكُم مُّلُوكًۭا وَءَاتَىٰكُم مَّا لَمْ يُؤْتِ أَحَدًۭا مِّنَ ٱلْعَـٰلَمِينَ

And ˹remember˺ when Moses said to his people, “O my people! Remember Allah’s favors upon you when He raised prophets from among you, made you sovereign,1 and gave you what He had never given anyone in the world. (5:20)

But concepts, objects and ideals are things which are only meaningful when recognized in experience. The interaction between mind and objects of sense impression is mediated by another faculty, a faculty which is to associate the objects of experience with those symbolic forms we hold in our mind, the faculty of memory, or recognition, السمع, that is, the ability both to recall and recognize, and subsequently form connections based on underlying structural patterns; this is what allow one to recognize the problems by their nature, and the solutions, as the solutions for precisely such problems. Here we find the formula السَّمِيعُ الْعَلِيمُ which refers this dynamic interplay between memory, as the repository of information, and memory as recollection, or the ability to recall specific memories based on their pertinence to given situations. The faculty of السمع here modifies or qualifies that of علم, making possible the very applicability knowledge, to the situations or conditions in which their application is required, this produces, or anticipates the notion of ‘practical knowledge’, or simply deduction. Thus in these compounds, the modifying term animates or adds a certain feature to the concept being modified, just as in ‘rigorous explanation’ ‘rigorous’ adds to the notion of ‘explanation’ the quality of rigor or intensity.  

Like the following verse, where Abraham asks of God to accept a good deed of his; invoking formula, to say that God will recall this deed, that this deed will be accounted for, and that it’s not in vain. السمع does not, contrary to the common belief, refer to hearing as in, sounds, but rather to memory; hearing is nothing if the thing heard could not be recalled, thus ‘hearing’ is a just an indirect reference to memory, just as the heart is an indirect reference to creed, or Hand to possesses. 

           وَإِذْ يَرْفَعُ إِبْرَٰهِـۧمُ ٱلْقَوَاعِدَ مِنَ ٱلْبَيْتِ وَإِسْمَـٰعِيلُ رَبَّنَا تَقَبَّلْ مِنَّآ ۖ إِنَّكَ أَنتَ ٱلسَّمِيعُ ٱلْعَلِيمُ ١٢٧

And ˹remember˺ when Abraham raised the foundation of the House with Ishmael, ˹both praying,˺ “Our Lord! Accept ˹this˺ from us. You are indeed the All-Hearing, All-Knowing.

(2:127)