The Negative Proposition: Negation of Judgement or Negation of Predication

Kheradnameh Sadra Quarterly 11 (unknown)
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Abstract

In the second part of Al-asfar Mulla Sadra raises the issue that nothingness cannot mediate as copula between two things. He says that the relation of predication is affirmative in all propositions and that negation is not real predication, and there is no real copula in negative judgements but only negation of predication. To support his idea, Mulla Sadra mentions that parts of these propositions differ from each other as to composition, affirmation and negation. The case in point here is whether or not Mulla Sadra has believed that negative propositions do not have predicates and if so, whether he has ever attributed this belief to the preceeding philosophers. With several places in Al-asfar where he clearly confirms the presence of predicate in the negative proposition, we can judge that he cannot have believed otherwise. And what is more, like the preceeding philosophers, he finds that negation and affirmation can both have predicates. Mulla Sadra does not rule out the point that there is no predication and relation in the negative proposition; yet, he maintains that this is not equal to the non-existence of a predicate in such a proposition but is equal to the existence of a predicate which itself negates predication and relation. The renowned contemporary philosopher, Allameh Tabatabaei is the first person among Islamic philosophy experts to say that there is no predicate in a negative proposition. According to his argument, affirmative propositions have predication or predicates. As for negative propositions, since they do not have predication, they inferentially cannot have predicates either. The least to say here is that if based on Allameh Tabatabaei's argument no predicate exists in the negative proposition and yet there is a subject in it, then how can anything be predicated when there is no predicate at all? It seems that this argument which is an exclusive idea of Allameh Tabatabaei needs a much safer ground to be accepted by the philosophical community.

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