They maintain that the logician studies the very genus of evidence, just as the specialist in the principles of jurisprudence examines the scriptural proof-texts and their ranks, distinguishing between what is a Sharʿī proof and what is not, and weighing the various proofs so that, when they conflict, the stronger is preferred over the weaker. They allege, moreover, that the logician investigates proof in its absolute sense—a scope broader than the Sharʿī—and that he discriminates between what is truly a proof and what is not.

They further claim that the relation of their logic to meanings is like that of prosody to poetry, of money-scales to coinage, of timepieces to hours, and of the cubit-rod to objects that are measured.

The majority of Muslim scholars, and indeed other rational people, have declared this assertion false, for their logic does not distinguish proof from non-proof—neither in the form of the proof nor in its material. There is no need to weigh meanings by it; in fact, meanings cannot properly be weighed by it as it now stands. Granted, it contains some truths—every author’s discourse must contain something true—but it also contains falsehoods which, if used as a measure for the sciences, would corrupt them.

Their claim that logic is a systematic tool whose observance safeguards the mind from error is a false claim—indeed, one of the greatest falsehoods.

Our discussion with them concerns only the notions they have embedded in logic and their contention that the required conceptualizations can be attained only through these notions, and that the required affirmations can be attained only through them. They have articulated for their logic four claims: two negative and two positive.

They have asserted that conceptualizations cannot be obtained except by the method they have set forth in it, and that