Abū Hāšim’s Theory of States: The Middle Between Existence and Non-existence
Abstract
In this article, I present a formal semantics for Abū Hāšim’s theory of states. According to
Hāšim al-Ǧubbāī (d. 933), there is a middle between existence and non-existence, and some
entities, namely states, are neither existent nor non-existent. Moreover, states, which their
objecthood follows from Abū Hāšim’s definition of objects, are not themselves objects. Roughly
speaking, states explain the similarities and differences between objects in general and accidents
in particular. The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct the theory of states in the context of
contemporary logic. This has been done by a formal semantics based on LP.