Arabic logicians in the thirteenth century discussed a set of arguments raised by the theologian Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1210) that in some respects closely resembles Carroll’s paradox. Roughly, the paradox states that we can never reach a conclusion from a set of premises without incurring an infinite regress. The present article presents and discusses Rāzī’s formulation of the problem with syllogistic deduction, his own solutions to the problem, and the contributions of Afḍal al-Dīn al-Khūnajī (d. 1248) and Najm al-Dīn al-Kātibī (d. 1276). It is argued that the proposed solutions developed by these authors are best understood as tending in the direction of Gilbert Ryle’s distinction between knowing-that and knowing-how.

十三世纪的阿拉伯逻辑学家讨论了神学家 Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī（卒于 1210 年）提出的一系列论点，这些论点在某些方面与卡罗尔悖论非常相似。粗略地说，悖论表明我们永远无法从一组前提得出结论而不招致无限倒退。本文介绍并讨论了 Rāzī 对问题的三段论演绎的表述、他自己对问题的解决方案，以及 Afḍal al-Dīn al-Khūnajī（卒于 1248 年）和 Najm al-Dīn al-Kātibī（卒于 1276 年）的贡献). 有人认为，最好将这些作者提出的解决方案理解为朝着吉尔伯特赖尔 (Gilbert Ryle) 对“知道什么”和“知道如何做”的区分方向发展。