Critical Analysis of the Relation between Conception and Assertion for Avicenna, Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī, and Mullā Ṣadrā

Conception and assertion have always been considered as two basic and systematic parts of logic. The basis of two-partite logic is the discussion of conception and assertion; so, from the time of Avicenna until today, and according to the modern logic of the West, various issues have arisen in this regard. Two-partite logic is based on dividing the knowledge into knowledge by representation (ʿIlm Ḥuṣūlī) and knowledge by presence (ʿIlm Ḥuḍūrī). Given the nature of the division and the difference between the species, the issue of the relationship between conception and assertion is the most important of all these issues. The nature of this relation has a direct effect on the "logic of division", "dependence of one of them on the other", "possibility of the mental realization of each without the other," and other related issues. Avicenna, Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī, and Mulla Sadra (in an independent work) are among the thinkers deliberated on this issue. The present article has reflected on analytical problems in the division of the knowledge by representation into conception and affirmation in the works of the three thinkers. So it aims to obtain the relationship between conception and assertion, the role of each one in achieving the other, and finally a comprehensive view of the three philosophers on the nature of conception and assertion. In this research, by separating the status of language (word) from the status of quiddity, the knowledge by representation has been explained and analyzed: in the status of quiddity, only assertion arises, and through the status of language and the relationship between language and thought, conception is obtained. If the knowledge by representation is of merely one core, logic will in fact be one-partite.