Symbolic Logic In the Quran

There's no word, i believe, beside 'felicitous' that can do justice to the Quranic use of words. its words are strategic, to say the least. The meaning of a particular word is gauged by its depth. It looks not at a dog’s features and posits it in association with the conventional term ‘dog’ like we do, not at its physical 'form', but at something else, a dog's 'Eidetic identity', by which I mean that aspect of 'dog' that we mean when we say that something is 'dog-like'.

"Here as always the metaphorical usage has methodological priority. If a word is applied to a sphere to which it did not originally belong, the actual "original" meaning emerges quite clearly"

---Hans-Gerog Gadamar 'Truth & Method' (p103)

It's that element that we have to thank for the advent of metaphor or analogy. in fact, i would stretch the statement as far as to say that language is entirely based around the property of 'transference', is a particular concept broad enough, 'general' enough as to be, so to speak, applicable elsewhere than in its 'native' context. (e.g loyal as a dog...)

"Language has performed in advance the abstraction that is, as such, the task of conceptual analysis"

..That is, from the standpoint of symbolic logic, dog is a reference to a certain 'pattern', a pattern that's a combination of a select number of 'qualities' which I judge to be unique to this animal. To 'symbolize' it, we assign a certain symbolic function/operation whose meaning I find to correspond with each of these qualities. a crude example of this is found in onomatopoeia, only here we do it with sound. But the physicist does it when he/she assigns to a phenomenon the properties of 'mass', vector (direction) etc.., look up any 'notation' system, it'll give you an idea.

The logic of this linguistic property is found where, having grasped a certain law or principle, we're able, through transference to assign to such and such quality a function that's analogical to the one inherent in the system from which we're 'importing' the function, e.g using, a medicinal or botanical theme as our 'mode of explanation', saying that

'the seed for the idea was planted by John',

The problem is irremediable, and continues to fester with each passing day...'

The terms 'seed' and 'plant' are borrowed from botany, 'Irremediable' and 'fester' from pharmacology, or, let's say that they're not native to the context in which we here find them used, yet being used in this sense really puts them into perspective. It's the use of the terms (the 'techne') that's interesting here not the terms themselves, this is what we mean by 'language' is based around this property. Now think about this property, consider its parochial setting; that we don't always, in 'regular use' resort to botanical or medical analogies as a staple mode of explanation, or as a way of explaining everything, but only do so strategically, in certain contexts or particular settings (often in frustration), to 'illustrate a point' or 'paint a picture', to render our expressions as felicitous as possible, which is the task or, as I argue, the Raison D'etre of language.

What we find 'exceptional' here--i.e the analogy--exists in universal form. We call them 'grammatical' cases, or rules, which are 'temporal' coordinates of sorts, that, we may not explain everything 'botanically' but we sure do 'temporally'. We've abstracted this from language and found a radical use for it in mathematics, which is a game of rules, utterly useless unless 'transferred'. Now, explaining anything by analogy to something else is what we call 'transference'. What we're saying here is, using a particular lexicon or system to explain anything means that said 'system' has more reality than the things to which they point. As to what those fundamental rules are which both language and mathematics appear to share (the apriori stuff--or the 'catagories') is what the 8 hundred pages of Kant's 'Critique Of Pure Reason' is occupied with.

What we're here trying to bring your attention to is the essentially 'analogical' operation of language. That, at any point, we're using the equivalent of a botanical analogy in explaining phenomena, only that this 'analogy' is so universal, so 'necessary' that it does not fall within the sphere of 'analogy'. In a sense, it's so customary, so 'natural' that we're blind to its use, and when hidden in such a way, it functions as a law. This implies a number of things; mainly, that analogy is a good measure of felicity, and that, 'felicity', as so defined, reflects consciousness and mastery of said 'hidden universal' rules, as, to explain something by analogy to something else means that we have placed it within a domain whose 'constituents' relations and the rules governing them we have a sufficient grasp over, a 'grasp' that allows me to figure out where, in the vast and often technical field of, say, botany, this thing to which i'm applying the analogy, definitively fits.

What does this mean if not that botany, which i use only as a metaphor, is a system whose relations I have an comprehension of, and that it's 'fitness' as an 'interpretive' analogue rests on the degree of said comprehension, meaning by extension, that those 'universals' are things which are so comprehensible, so simple, that our use of them is not even 'accounted for', a sort of 'second nature'. It's this which the crude, but not by any means, 'fruitless' or 'invalid' programs of Leibniz's charactaristica Universalis, or Eular's universal algebra attempt to codify. The 'faculty' of transference is what allows us to use Boole's logic as a computational model, or Maxwell's equations as a 'tool' with which to study the behaviour of waves and electricity. They're so masterful, so 'useful' that their 'analogical' reality is conveniently obscured. And again, when a model is obscured, like so, its effect are dogmatic, or, authoritative.

This makes 'analogy' an 'Alethic modality', and 'botany' and Alethic model/modal. An Alethic modal is a system which we understand to any degree that renders it useful--that allows me to use it as a host (an alethic modal) for another idea.

Isn't utility', or 'usefulness' posterior to comprehension?.

This somewhat approximates Whitehead's term--'prehension' (to be understood in conjunction with the program of 'organic philosophy'). Insofar as things descend from other things, so that they have things 'in common', those 'commonalities' make up a law, meaning that there's something uniquely 'prehensive' about them, or, let's say, their 'terms of use'. The 'prehensile' of the two is always the 'metaphor', not the term 'metaphorized'. The terms in group A below are evidently more universal than those found in group B.

Group A: 'solid', 'loose', high, internal, literally,

Group B 'concentric', 'comprehensive', 'universal', 'primal';

This is attested by the fact that the first group of terms are more popular than those in the second group. To what, then, do we owe this difference in popularity?, if not to the 'wider import' which group A enjoys by contrast to group B. And to what do we attribute this difference?, why are some terms more 'popular' than others?. The answer should be obvious, because they are 'simpler', they suffice as 'coordinates' by which to locate the 'immediate' objects of 'experience', the, as it were, 'impressionable' stuff, the stuff that requires the least amount of 'effort' and brain power, or what in philosophy is called 'empirical data'.

Think of the colour red. Red is 'prehensile' when used as a category, as in the 'shades of red', or 'red' as containing a spectrum of colours that range in 'intensity'. The depth, that we find in 'red' is exactly the same as that which we find in its metaphorical use (when we associate red with 'heat', 'anger', violence', or 'love' etc..).

The connection, as well as its implication, is undeniable. By implication, I mean that the more 'specific' or 'technical' a set of vocabulary is, the 'less popular' it tends to be, the more 'recherché', as it were, and more restricted is its domain of use, in other words, the less 'prehensile' they are. Thus 'prehesiveness' in itself, is 'scalable' and subsequently, a category in the Kantian sense.

Examples from the Quran

Lengthy, though the above introductory section is, it's indispensable as regards this next section.

Take the word 'Yaleg' and the many forms (inflexions) in which it occurs in the Quran

The 'diverse' manner in which a word occurs/takes place is intrinsic to the unity of its identity.

Though translated as 'passes' through, the meaning is more than to be attained in this one instance, but to--nonetheless--elaborate,

What occurs to you first as you contemplate the preposterous scene of a camel 'passing through' the eye of a needle?. Your mind might (as it's naturally wired to do) to deal with such an impossibility' (as mine did), ascribe to the camel an elastic property such as would enable it to squeeze through the needle, but I want you to look passed comical nature of the scene, and identify the aporia to which you're mind, rather inventively, responds.. Is it not first the 'beginning' or the 'possibility', of 'passing through' the needle that comes to your mind and not the eventuality or the success thereof?.

This is somewhat crude, so let's take another example to add more definition.

'He knows' whatever 'goes into' the earth; It's here translated as 'goes in

to'. The meaning of the term is not to replace 'passes into' of the previous verse, but we 'hold onto it' or 'defer the decisive meaning' to a later point, but as regards this particular verse, we are to contrast 'Goes into 'with 'comes out' and consider the difference in 'sense'. The difference, in a nutshell, is entirely contingent on the meaning of 'earth', and what 'earth' is, is what 'earth' is phenomenologically speaking.

It points, as its use in the Quran abundantly attests, to what Aristotle calls 'entelechy'. Even when we think or talk about the earth, we do so not as something 'opposed' to us, as 'this thing out there' (as this is impossible), but as 'where we already are' as we make those judgements. Earth is 'reality' itself, anything that's real, even if invisible, or unmanifested, is included under the class term 'reality'. 'Reality' is a unique concept, and what makes it the perfect analogue for 'earth' is that 'reality' is often used in the same sense, to refer to what's both manifestly and potentially 'real'.

Earth is the hostess of all actualities, whether said actualities are beings (animals or creatures), or 'processes' enacted, sponsored, or mediated by them. We walk this vast plane always in a state of 'expectancy', totally blind as to the exhaustless amount of creatures and situations that at any point we're walking through, into, or out of.

If you picture earth as a spectrum (as we did the color red), the middle point at which things hitherto unmanifested are manifested, then you've here successfully formed the idea of 'earth' as used in the Quran, since earth, so conceived, is not 'a thing', but something that 'we're in', a preconception, a 'dwelling',a 'habitus', (my 'pre-conception of 'red' is my direction--dialogical-- relation to it before i identify it in things) in the sense that our cognition is definitively confined within the spectrum of 'existence' and 'coming into existence', outside of these catagories, nothing is thinkable, let me explain;

To know everything is to know both what's manifest, manifested and what's yet to manifest; all the combinations, variations and permutations of genes, molecules, 'atoms', 'matter' that go on to form 'entities' and by extension, all the 'actions' and reactions that are to spawn from said entities (or have spawned and whose effects, however inconspicuous, are live) is based on both their genetic, atomic or molecular constitution, as well as those of the environment and other entities. To know all that stuff, such that nothing catches you off guard, puts you outside the domain of 'earth', and only God has that. Because, you don't just know it, but you know its nature, its history, what makes it unique to everything, its place in the chain of being.

Now having established 'earth' as a spectrum, it's much easier now to identify the term 'yaleg': as that process that involves the 'transmutation' of entites from the sphere of possibility, into the sphere of 'actuality'. Say, a 'new' molecular combination or chemical reaction that's so far unprecedented, finally being actualized in an unlikely event, or through a eugenical process, or mixture as in chemistry, or a new bread of dogs being created. These are the product of 'yaleg'. Thus we use the term 'yaleg' to describe 'novelties' of this nature, to 'interpolations', or 'inventions', to the products of autopoietic and allopoietic processes. In Short 'physis'. This is what God intends to communicate in those verses.

'Physis' and yaleg are perfectly analogous, or, synonymous, for one specific reason; both describe generative processes occurring within the given, generic 'fundamentum' of nature; they both involve 'variation' or 'combination' of 'different things', or what Aristotle calls 'techne' (art, or skill), though this isn't art or skill in the human sense, but 'poiesis', where the distinction is made between the aprioristic 'creativity' of nature--her formal contained-ness of all 'life' forms (entelechy), and the more specific process of 'generation' that involves the agents or 'agencies' of said 'creativity'. In other words,

an entity as the product of nature (as it exists formally) ≠ Reproduction, an entity as the product of mating

In Yaleg, as Physis, both describe the 'how' part; the efficient cause. Whereas earth or nature (these two also being synonymous) describe their 'final cause'.

The term 'yaleg' here is used in a radically different context (not sense) than that used to describe nature; here, if understood exclusively in terms of this context, and in ignorance of all the other contexts; it would mean 'resort' or 'refuges'. Adequate as that would be for the context, we'd miss out on all those other things which the term implies, its ontological basis, that is. Waleeja, the form in which it appears in this verse, seeks to highlight the unprecedented nature of the event, that a believer 'turning to' (waleeja) someone other than God and other 'believers' is an event that's as unbecoming' as that which produces 'new' life forms. The meaning is drawn ontologically (hence the diversity of the contexts in which the term yaleg appears), from the contrast between how things 'formally' are, and how they 'change', but it goes much deeper....

A believer 'turning to' a non-believer, when specifically modified by the expression 'yaleg', gives us the image of a 'novelty or, in this case, an aberration being caught in its genesis, thus we're initially neutral, as regards the 'moral' basis of the act, regarding only its phenomenological or aberrant status, (that its aberrant before it's abhorant), before we discern the moral status of the act, which is found in the following verse

Here the 'what if' part of the previous verse ('turning to'--waleeja) is specified, we have the term 'Yatawallah' (highlighted in yellow) which is more 'specific', or 'committed', let's say, than 'waleeja', in that, the latter (waleeja) is a 'prospect', a 'hintergedanken' as the Germans would say, an ulterior motive, but not, a proper 'turning to' or an actual swaying of allegiance. This too describes a phenomenological rather than an ethical situation. It only acquire its 'ethos' in the expression ٱلظَّـٰلِمُونَ (wrong-doers) which, more than suggested by the vague 'wrong-doing', describes, in keeping with our 'ontological' or phenomenological scheme, the act of opposing the 'nature' or 'order' itself.

Thus if as we said, nature is entelechial, in that, its operation (its modality) is encoded in its essence, then, any remotely 'divergent' or 'aberrant' act, aberrant at any rate, will fall under the class of 'Dhalemun' (ٱلظَّـٰلِمُونَ). Thus 'ethicizing' though the adjective ٱلظَّـٰلِمُونَ is, still preserves its ontological or 'natural' ground. The sense of being 'aberrant' or aberration, is here indicative of the 'counter-productive' turn which the otherwise 'generative' process would normally take.

We see that through 'Yalej' a host of other concepts are defined, this is because, generally speaking a term is constituted by its relation, and in the case of the Quran, all those operations take place within, or are encompassed by the Alethic modal of the Quran, which is called 'Alketab' (الكتاب) which we're explaining here.

Let's conclude with another example of yaleg

Here it occurs twice in the same verse; and is translated into ' to merge'. Now take into account, as you should have been doing anyway, all that's been said about the concept, that it describes a process of 'transmutation', of 'physis', of poiesis', and contemplate the manner in which day breaks through the night, and night 'coats' the day, (as in verse 61 of Surat 7--يُغْشِى), seeing how incredibly felicitous the expression yaleg is, on two levels. Firstly, the verse intends to capture the process 'of' Yaleg, as it occurs in the transitional relation between Day and Night, depicting the 'genesis', the absolute 'beginning' of the transition where the first streak of light pierces through the 'coating' of the night, or the instance in which the night begins to coat the day.

Take care here of the meaning of 'begins to' and 'beginning', I intend to differentiate between change as a novel occurrence (physis), and the perception of change, of 'seeing' the day turn into night' or 'night' into 'day'. Yaleg is the part of change which we don't yet see, but that's implied. The meaning of the verse, and the marvellous specificity of its terms would be pointless if we stop here, that is, if we don't define that in relation to which the term 'yaleg' occurs in conjunction.

That's day and night, and believe it or not, there's no context in which we've not so far included (albeit implicitly) the term 'day' and 'night' in our exposition of 'yaleg' (this is what we mean by terms are constituted by their relation, and ketab as an Alethic modal). Think about it, is yaleg in itself comprehensible without the notions of 'potentiality' and 'actuality'?, (by that i mean the process of potentiating and actualizing, not what is being 'potentialized' or 'actualized')

Obviously Not....

What does this tell us then?, if not that said 'potentiation' and 'actuation' correspond to, or are themselves the ideal or symbolic representation of day and night. And since earth, which we defined as 'reality', is that hyperbolic point wherein the potential and the actual meet and 'manifest', then we can begin to see consistency between the symbolic and the actual world, as captured in the Quranic use of language, especially with regards to this context; Earth is 'reality', reality is a conclusive or decisive, hence our use of 'entelechy', but what is that which reality is conclusive or decisive to?, is there a thing higher than 'reality'?, no, it's just that Earth merely 'completes'--as a second half of a circle completes and 'concludes' the concept 'circle'--something with which it always occurs in association.

This is the sama, whose closest (and I defer the full exposition of this relation to another essay) 'western' analogue i found in Plato (not in the modern conceptions of space or aether), the world of 'forms'. Reality is always a 'specific' reality, thus when we talk about 'reality', we use it prehensively, as a catagory first, shoving all 'real things' into it. This makes it a rule, or analogous to a grammatical rule.

Now 'implied' in this prehensive or 'conclusive' description, a sense of direction. Thus more than something which 'envelops' or 'grasps', reality is 'direct' or determinate', towards 'unfolding', or, as whitehead describes 'prehension', a 'vector-character' property, or as implied by the very title of the book from which the quote was extracted 'Process & Reality' (A prehension reproduces in itself the general characteristics of an actual entity: it is referent to an external world, and in this sense will be said to have a 'vector character'; it involves emotion, and purpose, and valuation, and causation" chp2, p19).

Now 'reality', or, the 'real', is that which, when adequately specified gives us the things of normal experience, but whose 'universal' undefinable essence is that of a simple 'vector', what's preserved of it, is its sense of direction, which intensifies as it becomes more 'specified', this 'vector-like' charactar is not its reality, rather, its 'vector-ness' is the form in which it appears when denominated, or 'enveloped', so that it's 'a particular thing and not another'. It's direction or 'determinate-ness, when separated from it, gives us the combined whole that's the earth and sama', In that, if earth = reality at large (or as a category), then Sama = the 'sense of direction' which reality represents, as evinced by the emergence of real things and real processes....

Day and Night are the phenomena of emergence, from potentiation (night) to actuation (day), or their combination or relation, actualizing what's potential' or potentiating what is actual. Earth is the reality round which revolve those two processes, and sama is the sense of direction which each of them, or together, possesses in relation to the other.