'Alī Qushjī’s Philosophy of Language: On the Metaphysical Principle of Linguistic Existence

In early Islamic thought, the phenomenon of wad‘, which is mostly studied as an indirect issue in s tific traditions such as language, logic and especially uṣūl al-fiḳh, has turned into an independent literature with the discussion of ambiguous words (al-alfāẓ al-mubhama) that ‘Adud al-Din al-Ījī brought to the agenda in al-Risālah al-waḍʿiyyah and the subsequent texts. As a part of that literature in the first chapter of ʿUnqūd al-zawāhir, ʿAlī Qushjī examined the phenomenon of wad‘ and its general problems and re-expressed the accumulated knowledge of nearly a century he inherited in a very systematic manner and enriched. Also he made the phenomenon of wad‘ the main subject of examination, thereby reorganized the issues into a new composition. In this context, unlike the previous works, the author positions the science of wad‘ as the principles of ʿIlm matn al-lugha. As the discipline that determines the particular acts of designation (waḍʿ) and signification (dalāla) of singular expressions, matn al-lugha constitutes the material foundation of linguistic existence. In this sense, Qushjī is essentially engaged in an inquiry into the philosophical foundations of linguistic being. In the article, based on Qushjī’s positioning of wad‘ knowledge as the principle of matn al-lugha, the phenomenon of wad‘ is interpreted as the metaphysical principle of linguistic existence and signification. In this context, first of all, the universal-particular connection between the absolute phenomenon of wad‘ and matn al-lugha was touched upon, and then it was emphasized that the elements of wording and meaning, as the parties of the signification, became clear with the phenomenon of wad‘ and became part of the language and finally it has been indicated that all linguistic usages are extensions of the phenomenon of wad‘.