Dictionary of Islamic Philosophical Terms

Khaa

khas

Lit. "particular". The fifth predicable of the alfaz al-khamsah as set out by Porphyry (233-c. 304 C.E.) in his Isagoge(Isaghuji, q.v.) that was the introduction to Aristotle's work titled "categories." This entry is not the printed text..

kharq al-‘adah

"The splitting of nature"; that which is against the usual or customary way of nature, i.e. any extraordinary or miraculous phenomenon.

al-Khatabah

The Arabic title given to Aristotle's seventh book on logic, viz. Rhetorica; see also Rituriqa.

khasm

Lit. "enemy", but technically the adversary in a discussion, i.e. each one of the two controversialists who speaks either for or against an issue.

khala’

"Void". According to most philosophers, particularly the Peripatetics, void or vacuum as empty nothingness does not exist and that it is "only a name" or better "an empty thought". Void is impossible, it is argued, because all space can be increased, diminished or divided into parts and so must contain something which is capable of being increased, diminished, or divided.

khalf

The antithesis of a thesis or a proposition which falsifies another proposition; in general khalf means simply an objection.

khalq

Creation of the world of nature, i.e. an act of creation which is through the intermediaries of matter and time and which presupposes causal priority; to be distinguished from ibda‘ (q.v.).

khawalif

Lit. "surrogates", a term used by the logicians for demonstrative or personal pronouns.

al-khayal al-muttasil

The universal or Idea as embodied in and conjoined with the particulars of which it is the universal-a thesis of Aristotle and the Aristotelians.

al-khayal al-munfasil

The universal or Idea separated from the particulars and subsisting in the realm of (Platonic) Ideas-a view held by Plato and the Platonists.