Structure of Logical Propositions in the View of Muslim Philosophers and Logicians

Logical propositions are divided qualitatively into affirmative and negative types, and each of them is also divided into three attributive-predicate, privative-predicate, and negative-predicate types. Nevertheless, there are serious disagreements among philosophers and logicians regarding their structure and content, which demands more research. Neither is there any unanimity as to the number of the constitutive components of the truth of propositions and the components necessary for their realization. The number of components of a proposition is determined based on the difference between simple questions and affirmative and negative compound questions. Moreover, some thinkers maintain that the judicial relation is an affirmative and ontological relation in all propositions, whether affirmative or negative. However, some others believe that it is affirmative only in affirmative propositions, while it is negative and non-existential in negative propositions. Furthermore, the conditional or non-conditional nature of the actualization of modified affirmative propositions has been propounded, and the negative-predicate proposition has been debated. The structure of a negative-predicate proposition, when pronounced, is similar to a negative attributive proposition but is different from it regarding its content and signification. The content of a negative attributive proposition pertains to the elimination and interruption of the affirmation judgment, while the content of a negative-attributive proposition focuses on affirmation of negation. Khwajah Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī and ‘Allāmah Ṭabātabā’ī, the contemporary philosopher, do not accept such aproposition as a logical proposition.