| Footnote 6:74-83 on The Quran: A Reformist Translation [message #50098] |
Wed, 04 March 2009 23:42  |
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 alanic
Messages: 34
Registered: April 2005
Location: St. Louis, MO, USA |
Beginner |
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Hi,
I've been trying to study The Quran: A Reformist Translation for a while as I can. I must say it's really good. There is one point that I would like to leave feedback on:
On the footnotes 6:74-83, on paragraph 3 sentence 2, it is stated that the logical argument on 21:21-22 is called "denying antecedent". I'm not an expert of logic in the philosophical sense, so I looked it up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denying_the_antecedent
It looks like it's actually the name of a logical fallacy, which surprised me. This is probably a minor editing mistake because I think the argument is simply modus tollens, which also seems to be called "denying the consequent".
To be clear, 21:22 says:
P: If there were gods in them except for God,
then
Q: they would have been ruined.
1. P->Q (21:22)
2. Not Q -> Not P (by modus tollens on 1)
3. Not Q (we know they are not ruined)
4. Not P (by 2 and 3)
21:22 => Not P: There are no gods in them except for God.
Of course, I don't know Arabic and I'm assuming the "they" and "them" are pointing at "the earth" in the previous verse, hence I can write the statement 3 in this proof. Is this correct, or does "they" mean "other gods" here? If so, how is that denying the antecedent? (Proving that Not Q is true, that other gods are not ruined, does not make sense to me.) Or denying the consequent? (Which would require the assertion Not Q, that other gods are not ruined, which doesn't make sense.)
Btw, wouldn't it be nice if there was a translation that gave more information about pronouns (gender, two or more when plural, etc)? Please let me know if there is one.
I always thought that Abraham blaming the biggest statue for breaking the others was to make people realize that statues are powerless. But in fact, as mentioned in the footnotes of 6:74-83, it's a beautiful logical argument that there can't be more than one god: Assume there were multiple gods with their own free wills. At some point there would have to be a disagreement between them and the most powerful one would take away the powers of the others, leaving only one god. This contradicts the assumption that there are multiple gods, therefore there can't be more than one god. By blaming the biggest statue, it seems Abraham made this exact case.
I really like this interpretation. Even though it may not be an objective proof for everyone, it definitely strengthens my belief.
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| Re: Footnote 6:74-83 on The Quran: A Reformist Translation [message #50583 is a reply to message #50098 ] |
Tue, 14 April 2009 11:44  |
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Mehdi
Messages: 29
Registered: October 2007
Location: Montreal - Canada |
Beginner |
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Hi alanic,
I too agree that there is a problem with the translation. It should be ‘denying the consequent’ or more precisely ‘proof by contraposition’ because in our case we want to prove "If P (other gods except God), Then Q (all have been ruined)" by the method of contrapositive, which means to prove "If Not Q, Then Not P". It is a fact that the universe (heavens and earth) are perfectly and accurately designed (Not Q) therefore there must be only One Designer (Not P).
BTW, both ‘them’ and ‘they’ in 21:22 refer to heavens and earth mentioned in 21:19. The problem with English, French and many other languages is that verbs are only conjugated in singular or plural form, there is no ‘pair’ form as in Arabic language. Furthermore, we have to remember that in the original scripture there were no punctuation marks to separate sentences.
Peace,
Mehdi
17:111
Say, :"Praise is to God, who has not taken a son, nor does He have a partner in sovereignty, nor does He have an ally out of weakness" Glorify Him greatly.
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| Re: Footnote 6:74-83 on The Quran: A Reformist Translation [message #52856 is a reply to message #50098 ] |
Sun, 20 September 2009 09:37 |
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Dear Alanic:
Thank you for this criticism. I noticed that error after the publication and I have already corrected it for the new print.
You are the first one who noticed this horrendous error; and I am proud of you. It is a horrendous error, since the error portrays a valid logical rule (one of the 19 divine aya in the construction of our brain) as invalid one. Of course, I meant Denying the Consequent or Modus Tollens.
You are impressive. I am honored to have such a careful reader. Please send me your post address so that I can send you a gift.
Peace,
Edip
[Updated on: Sun, 20 September 2009 09:46]
Edip Yuksel; J.D.
www.yuksel.org
www.19.org
www.islamicreform.org
19@19.org
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