THE EXTENSION OF REALITY

Abstract Avicenna’s distinction between external existence and mental existence is seminal to logic and philosophy in the Islamic tradition. This article examines philosophers who depart from Avicenna’s external-mental existence framework. They view the former as failing to support a general analysis of reality and truth, as mental existence is neither necessary nor sufficient for analyzing propositional truths, i.e., true propositions are true irrespective of “the very existence of minds” and “the perceptual acts of perceivers.” They propose that Avicenna’s semantics for categorical propositions needs revision, as there are true metathetic and hypothetical propositions, i.e., subject terms need not exist – in external reality or in a mind – for such propositions to be true. This counter-Avicennan current of thought articulates a third distinction in the analysis of reality, which focuses on the mind-independent nature of propositional content – particularly propositions with empty, hypothetical, or impossible subject terms – as a way to think generally about reality, in contrast to the Avicennan emphasis on the existential status of terms and essences. Notably, the analysis of mind-independent reality is supported by a novel semantics of “real” ( ḥaqīqī ) categorical propositions, which avoids external and mental existence conditions.