How Did Avicenna Understand the Barcan Formulas?

Abstract

Abstract In 2003 Zia Movahed pointed to a passage of Avicenna, written probably in 1022, which Movahed claimed anticipated the modal formula of Barcan (that ‘For every $x$ necessarily $\phi $’ entails ‘Necessarily for every $x$$\phi $’), and its converse. Since 2003, examination of early logical writings of Avicenna has clarified how he understood entailments between modal sentences, using his own new temporal language to provide a kind of semantics. In the light of that, Movahed’s claim for the Barcan formula needs some tidying up but is basically correct. But by his semantics Avicenna should not have claimed the converse Barcan formula and probably didn’t claim it.