The Second Point: “A Definition Yields a Conception of Things”
We say: Discerning scholars of rational inquiry hold that the function of a definition, like that of a name, is to distinguish what is defined from everything else—not to convey a conception of it or make its reality known. This latter claim is made only by the Greek logicians, the followers of Aristotle, and those among Muslim thinkers and others who follow their path in imitation of them. The great majority of those engaged in rational inquiry and theology, whether Muslims or others, hold the contrary view.
This view was introduced only by those who discussed the foundations of religion and jurisprudence after Abū Hāmid, towards the end of the fifth century AH. They were the ones who treated definitions according to the method of Greek logic. Other scholars of rational inquiry, from all the various schools—the Ash'arīs, Mu'tazilīs, Karrāmīs, Shi'a, and others—hold that a definition serves only to distinguish what is defined from everything else. This is well known in the works of Abū al-Hasan al-Ash'arī, Judge Abū Bakr, Abū Ishāq, Ibn Fūrak, Judge Abū Ya'lā, Ibn 'Aqīl, Imām al-Haramayn, al-Nasafī, Abū 'Alī, Abū Hāshim, 'Abd al-Jabbār, al-Tūsī, Muhammad ibn al-Haysam, and others.
Furthermore, there is no doubt that the art of definition described by the logicians is a convention of their own devising. Nations before them knew the realities of things without this convention, and the great majority of nations