Journal of Philosophy 13

One of the most perplexing ideas within philosophy, theology, human sciences and mysticism discourses is the question of ‘Self’ and its realization. There are many contrasting views within universal history of intellectual concerns about what it really means to realize the ‘Self’. Is there any hidden nucleus within the shell of human soul that needs to be extracted through ascesis or modern formal education is capable of cultivating the equilibrium within the heart of modern man? In this article the question of individual realization as a conscious process of anti-alienation is under investigation by comparing three distinct paradigms of ‘Individual Realization’ in relation to Satori (Buddhist Tradition), Enlightenment (Modern Tradition) and ‘Irfan (Islamic Tradition) by concluding that the realm of realization within the parameters of self is of transcendental nature that trespasses the myopic fetters of naturalistic constraints.

Introduction

There is no doubt that the catchword within the Liberal tradition in regard to the human self is ‘Education’. The importance of education is so paradigmatic within the Liberalism that some of its proponents claimed God makes Man and Education makes him a Gentleman. In other words, there is a specific conception of education that is embedded within Liberal Tradition that takes the divine creation in the person of Man and brings out the potentialities to a higher stage of dynamism. What is a gentleman? There are two answers for this question; one is of a historical-social character and the other one is of a philosophical nature. The former is historically associated with a man of gentle birth, who was entitled to bear arms, ranking above a yeoman in terms of social class and hierarchy. In this sense the idea of Gentleness, which is a universal and a divine grace to the Mankind was hijacked by a minority in order to serve their ill-purposes and perpetuate their family position within economic aristocracy system, which is a distorted reflection of spiritual aristocracy based on personal and spiritual achievements. In the second sense, which is closer to the spirit and letter of Liberal Tradition, the idea of gentleness is closely related to a philosophical conception of human existence. The anthropological philosophy which lies at the bottom of this understanding is related to the dual equation of Nature and Nurture. The first one is divine and the sum of all potentialities which are collected and embedded within the Image of God in the person of Primordial Man and the second pair is what one calls culture. By culture one intends in the liberal tradition a process, which attempts to refine and bring out the good qualities embedded in the human nature and at the same time remove, so to speak, the ‘weed’ from the garden of personality. This metaphor brings to mind the idea of garden in an agricultural context and it is not very farfetched to think in this sense in relation to Liberal notion of education either. The image of human existence and how to bring the good qualities out from the human soil is similar to the art of gardening and as the result for a perfect gardening is a garden full of beautiful flowers without any weeds, the result of good education should be the realization of gentleness. What is the meaning of gentleness within the liberal anthropological philosophy? The liberal philosophy, unlike the radical Enlightenment anthropology, does not assume that human nature is the repository of all virtues in need of Rousseauian methodology to bring out the Emilian personality out to the open nature. The liberal notion of education is based on the assumption that Man is a repository of vices and virtues and the role of society is not to be conceived as all-inducing and all-powerful demiurge that draws all it wishes on the Tabula Rasa of man’s nature. Hence the idea of ‘Educator’ as a ‘Gardner’ made in the image of a. ‘Cultivator’ is born within Liberalism. The whole process of education and the fundamental elements of upbringing are related to the idea of ‘Cultivation’ and as the gardener is in need of a pair of scissors to cut the weeds and let the flowers and grass grow into a proportionate form, the educator needs to have at its disposal a conceptual tools to cut the vices and facilitate the growth of virtues in the person of Man. This process of cutting the weeds of vice and facilitating the growth of flowers of virtue is called education and would lead to Gentleness or, to use a philosophical term, Moderation and, to use a religious term, Nobility of Soul. Unlike the notion of Enlightenment that was endorsed by French radicals and would not in any sensible and intelligible way lead to ‘Light’, the Liberal notion of education is what one may term as a process towards removing of the clouds of ignorance that ultimately would allow the Man to see the Sun of Light within his own Garden based on an incessant and tireless process of cultivation. The idea of cultivation is not to be confused by the idea of modern notion of ‘culture’, where the solemn ideals of ‘proportion’, ‘wholeness’, ‘beauty’, and ‘geometry’ are alien notions and irrelevant for anybody who is interested in cultural activities within modern context. Within Liberal Tradition, the idea of education is to be resembled with the art of Gardening or the primitive farming, where the whole attempt was to find the ‘right position’ for each and every seed and flower in the garden or the farm. In this tradition, the education is to man what farming is to the wild land and the end result is Gentlemanliness. The pristine meaning of gentleness is to be ‘Noble’ and the term in the philosophical tradition is not fundamentally different than having ‘high moral qualities’ and being ‘magnanimous in deed’. To be magnanimous within Liberalism in its religious aspect is not different and could not be even fathomed without education and the latter is not even conceivable without having ‘Knowledge’ of ‘First principles’ and intellectual contemplation. In other words, one finds out that to be noble is not to belong to a privileged social or political class whose status is usually indicated by a title conferred by sovereign authority or descent. On the contrary, to be noble means to be capable of knowing, to use Erich Fromm’s maxim, the art of truthful living and finally it should come as a surprise to notice that the primordial meaning of ‘nobility’ has nothing to do with social class or political affiliation, though they may have historically hijacked it socio-politically, but with noscere, namely ‘Knowledge’. In Liberal tradition what leads to nobility is education and that is Light and enlightening due to the fact that it leads the student to find out about his true nature and the real nature of virtues and vices within his own self. The noble man is man in the Image of God and education brings him towards this state of being and this is realization of knowledge or noscere and nobility. This conception is not fundamentally distinct from the idea of illumination and knowledge in Islamic philosophy of ‘Irfan and is essentially related to the notion of Satori in Zen Buddhism.

The Light and Gnostic Tradition of ‘Irfan

‘Irfan; the term itself means ‘recognition’ or ‘acquaintance’. At the heart of this term there is an idea, which is essentially interconnected with the reality of the process that is assumedly leading towards ‘Irfan, namely the notion of ‘cognition’. Within the modern paradigm of knowledge¹ when one thinks of ‘Knowledge’ one does think of it in a very institutional sense and it is hard not to forget the realisational dimensions of knowledge-pursuit.² What are the realisational dimensions of knowledge-pursuit?

The modern concept of knowledge is substantially based on a socialized understanding of knowledge-pursuit. That is to argue that the epistemological basis of modern education is premised upon the idea of utility for collective conscience and the institutions which are materialized expressions of the will of society. The concept of utility is not as negative as some critics may argue but it contains many vast fields of human existence both individually and collectively and moreover it is not totally alien to the idea of religiosity as such. By ‘utility’ within modern episteme one intends to convey the idea of ‘usefulness’ in practical terms but the terms of practice are not all determined by the philosophy of ‘Utilitarianism’ in its crude instrumentalist sense. On the contrary, the concept of usefulness and the terms of praxis are of a higher and more subtle level, which are best expressed by the radical school of Pragmatism in American tradition of philosophy by men such as C. S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and Herbert Mead. The nub of their philosophy, which constitutes the substantial elements of the idea of ‘Utility’ is the capacity to cope with life. A true education should give one a useful tool to cope with existential ups and downs of life and the utility of the education could be measured at the stage of life once one enters into the battleground and the meaning of measurement is not what quantitatively-inclined educators endorse. By measurement is intended the extent and degree one has traversed upon the map of life and overcome its de-centralizing forces upon individuality and nobility. But these latter aspects have al but disappeared from early modern education which was an extension of liberal tradition and the second phase of modernity that is concomitant with the reign of quantity and now with the third phase of modernity upon us, where the commercialisation is the reigning philosophy, there is not much to be said in terms of ‘Realization’ and ‘Knowledge-pursuit’ within modern frame of philosophy.

On the contrary, the ideas of education and ‘Irfan are both of the same roots, where the seeker of gnosis is a student who aspires to be educated in its primordial sense. That is to say, the idea of cognition is not what one intends within institutional and socialized context of modern education based on ‘Utility-index’. First of all, the term ‘cognition’ is not referring solely to traditional conception of science, where it separates the observer from the observed and encircles the ultimate goal of science in knowing in a rational sense, which is independent of the observer. The kind of knowledge which would be powerful enough to enable us to realise the tenets of essential truths within the realm of primordial self is fundamentally related to ‘consciousness’ or the subject’s experiencing of the object. In other words, the observer cannot be separated from the observed, for it is precisely their relationship that is relevant for realization within the paradigm of ‘Irfan. When it is admitted that the point of reference in cognitive approach is not solely the mental process by which the subject acquires knowledge within physical parameters of phenomenal reality, then the scope of cognition is enlarged enough to embrace ‘perception’, ‘intuition’, ‘reasoning’, ‘intellection’, ‘inspiration’, and ‘revelation’. Once the parameters of cognition is redesigned in this fashion, one would realize that this is not very far from the Liberal idea of education, which seeks to bring out the noble nature of man into the light based on ‘noscere’ and this is the primordial meaning of ‘cognition’, namely knowledge. In other words, ‘Irfan is the educational process whereby Man attempts to rescue the soul from falling into the realm of vices and losing the capability to be-come realized as the divine image in its primordial sense. How to achieve this is what ‘Irfan attempts to impart to those who seek ‘cognition’, namely by an individual approach to the realm of Truth. One must stop thinking in terms of collective, social, political, and so on and so forth. The realm of Truth is as communal as it is individual. The Face of God is as Universal as it is Personal and the uniqueness of divinity is beyond rational cognition but it is within the realm of re-cognition or attainable once Man embarks upon the path of enlightenment and realization of nobility in one’s self.

Within the formal institution of knowledge, unlike the Liberal Tradition (despite of what many today wrongly thinks of contemporary education as an expression of Liberal Education) and the Tradition of ‘Irfan, the pursuit is primarily concerned with the physical dimensions of reality and normal states of awareness. The complex edifice of reality is always understood within the parameters of unintentionality. That is to argue that the subject’s experiencing of the object, which Brentano and Husserl deemed fundamental to phenomenological understanding of reality, is neglected and consequently the complete knowledge of the structure of phenomenal worlds is lost and phenomenal world is wrongly equated with physical (sense data) world. Or whatever that appears to the sight in its myopic sense is called reality and the vast phenomena that appears in consciousness, including perceptions, imagination, thoughts, recollections, intellection, noble dreams, and so on and so forth are omitted from the domain of cognition, which ultimately would lead to the eschewal of the very realisational dimension of knowledge within modern education. The disappearance of this aspect from knowledge-pursuit is not a formal loss, which could be rectified, in an institutional sense but it is a spiritual poverty in its very fundamental sense, namely manslaughter at best or murder at worst.

When one talks of ‘Irfan within Sacred tradition of Islam, one thinks of ‘Gnosis’ and by that one intends a very specific notion of knowledge, which embrace the entire gamut of man’s existential faculties and the individual attempt based on devotion to the realization of noble man. Within the parameter of ‘Irfan, the pursuit of knowledge is not confined to what one acquires formally and rationally. On the contrary, the pursuit of knowledge is exactly the rendering of fundamental meaning of ‘pursuit’ in its essential sense, namely to follow incessantly after the ray to its source of origin. This is called by Gnostics ‘knowledge by presence’ and the beam of light when ignited within the darkness of man’s seventh solitude gives rise to a qualitatively different kind of individuality, i.e. ‘Arif or the Enlightened One. The aim of education when is taken in its existential sense is not the impartation of disconnected or domain-connected knowledge but a holistic sense of outlook based on an experiential knowledge that results in an individuated self or a noble man. This is to view life and whatever it offers in a very existential sense and it is an attempt on behalf of Man to confront life fully and in all fronts and levels of being by avoiding to determine the nature of reality a priori without travelling through.

Satori is the heart of Zen; an Awakening or Enlightenment. It is the Awakening to one's Original Face and Primordial Nature, to the ultimate reality of all.³ It is an Awakening of the Heart flowering into endless compassion for all beings. Almost all Buddhist sects can be called religions. There are many sects in Buddhism, but the core or essence of them all is the experience called Satori or self-realization. The theories and philosophies of all the sects are but the clothing covering the core. These outer wrappings are of various shapes and colours, but what is inside remains the same. And the core, this experience, is not adorned with any thought or philosophy. It is merely a fact, an experienced fact, in the same way that the taste of tea is a fact. A cup of tea has no thought, no idea, no philosophy. It tastes the same to Buddhists as it does to anybody else. There is no difference at all.

One may ask what makes this experience happen. Well, quite simply, it is when certain conditions are present to the consciousness of a human being, and a reaction occurs. This reaction is called the Zen experience. The reaction of this experience is always the same, regardless of the beliefs we may hold or the colour of our skin. It could be compared to playing billiards. When we hit the balls with the same amount of power and in the same direction, all the balls roll along the same course and at the same angles, regardless of their colour.

Now one may wonder, what are the conditions that bring our consciousness to the experience. It is to concentrate with our mind in one-pointedness, and to forget ourselves in it. The one-pointedness is achieved sometimes in breath-counting, sometimes in what we call ‘following the breath’, sometimes just sitting, and sometimes working on koans. You will notice that all these ways point inwardly. It is a very interesting fact, but when we concentrate on an object outside ourselves, for example as in archery where we aim at a target, no matter how strong the concentration may be, we cannot attain the Zen experience. So in Zen practice, when we want to attain Satori, we have to be absorbed inwardly.

Here one must remember that the experience attained by Zazen practice is not a thought or a philosophy or a religion, but merely a fact, an existential happening. And strange as it may seem, the experience of that fact has the power to free us from the agonies of the pains of the world. It emancipates us from the anxiety of all worldly sufferings. No one knows why that experience has such wonderful power, but it does. This is the most important point, and it's the most difficult to try to explain by a linguistic frame of knowledge which is not based on existential findings.

In the Zen experience, a certain unity happens, subject and object become one and we come to realize our own self-nature in its primordial sense. This self-nature cannot be seen, it cannot be touched, it cannot be heard. Because of these characteristics, one refers to is an ‘empty’ (in Japanese, ku) but its activities are infinite. So, one says the Zen experience is the realization of the empty-infinite of one’s self-nature or one’s essential-nature, as it is often called. When this happens, the fact is accompanied by a great peace of mind and tranquillity will reign supreme. At that moment, one feels as though the heavy burdens one has been carrying in the heart or on one’s shoulders, indeed all over the body and soul, suddenly disappear as if thrown away. The joy and happiness at that time is beyond all words. This is called Satori, or self-realization, or enlightenment.

The first, to develop concentration is of utmost importance in establishing and maintaining a successful life in this world. The ability to concentrate calms the surface of our consciousness. This is most necessary in making correct decisions, and for receiving external impressions and information the right way. Also, when the mind is deeply absorbed, it does not easily yield to the influence of external circumstances. And, moreover, when we want to actualise ideas, which arise in our heart, or when we want to accomplish some work or business, a strong concentration of mind is indispensable.

The second, Satori, is the most important to a Mahayana Zen Buddhist. Dogen Zenji, the great Zen master who brought Soto Zen to Japan, has clearly stated that without enlightenment there is no Zen. This Satori does not happen necessarily by mere concentration. This is especially true, if the mind is brought to one-pointedness in the objective world. And even if this is achieved inwardly our life problem, the problem of life and death, cannot be solved fundamentally by concentration. It can only be resolved by enlightenment and the personalization of that magnanimous experience. So if one wants to free oneself from the anxiety of the sufferings of life through Zazen, the Satori experience should be the main purpose for practicing Zazen.

The third aim of Zazen, the personalization or embodiment of Satori, comes as a matter of course only after having attained Satori. This is the nub of education in realisational aspect. To attain this experience of enlightenment in order to accomplish our ultimate personality is very difficult indeed, and requires an extremely long period of time. The experience itself is only the entrance. The completion is to personalize what we came to realize in the experience. After washing away all the ecstasy and glitter in the experience, the truly great Zen person is not distinguishable in outward appearance. He is a man who has experienced deep enlightenment and consequently extinguished all illusions, but is still not different externally from an ordinary man. Through Satori and Zazen, one would be-come an integrated person. Enlightenment is the goal of Zen Buddhism. One can understand enlightenment as knowledge of the truth; but this knowledge is not the accumulative and rational knowledge as one comprehends within secular paradigm. Satori, however, is a form of enlightenment, which is at the bottom of realized notion of education. A monk went to the Zen master wanting to know more about the truth of enlightenment. When he asked this question of the Zen master, the master replied, ” Do you hear the sound of that running brook.” Yes, I hear it,” answered the monk. “ That is the entrance to the truth” the Master replied to him.

When the beam of light has been ignited within the heart and the rays of Light realized within the realm of primordial self, the birth of noble man is not very far off. This is what Satori is about in its permanent sense and this is the true aim of education within Buddhist tradition.⁴

The Realisation and Alienation of the Self

The very term of ‘Individual’ is metaphysically possible if there are, at least, two fundamental realities present. One is the idea of ‘Freedom’ and the second one is the idea of ‘Conscience’. The entire edifice of individuality boils down to these very two significant aspects without the birth of an individual would be inconceivable if not impossible. Regardless of the tradition one adheres (the school of Satori, the school of ‘Irfan, or the school of Liberalism) it is not possible to think of the birth or the death of individuality without consolidating the metaphysical importance of freedom and conscience within the realm of Self. Otherwise one would pave the way for the entrance of a mechanistic notion of self, which could do without either, and the result is ‘socialization’ (in the place of conscience) and ‘hedonism’ (in the place of liberty). There are many definitions of ‘conscience’ within secular thought but to cut a long story short it would not be inappropriate to classify the mainstream ones as a refined derivation from the concept of socialization within modern socio-cosmogony. Within this school of thought (popularly considered as the Modern Paradigm), there is no inherent capacity within human self (such as soul or conscientious cordial seat) that could rise above particularities and point out towards universal Good, Beauty, Love, and Care beyond the relational contingencies. The human self born and bred within this paradigm is nothing but a particular expression of the grandeur ‘Collective Conscience’ that permeates like the almighty goddess within all corners of human psyche and socius.⁵ It is hard not to wonder then how spiritual innovations, poetical voyage of discoveries, grandeur visions of art, sublime schemes of architecture, sorrowful sonnets, doleful songs, heart-touching stories and many others aspects, which breath life into our universe come about?

Within the modern socio-cosmogonical paradigm the liberty of self is measured by reference to the scope of its external expressions and the length of the sustenance of such sporadic (and mainly free of moral-ethical considerations) events that crystallize the very content of self-expressions. That is to argue that the reality where the self is moving within is not an expression of Intelligible Brahman but a construction accumulated by haphazard mobility of a blind evolutionary process. This is to deny that the physical universe is only a ‘container’ of meaningfully expressed ‘contained’ realities that fall under a hierarchy of intelligible orders and responsive to both the ‘container’ and the ‘contained’. Within this scheme of thought, then, the question of self and its realization or self and its alienation are not similar to what the proponents of socialization have so far argued by denying a) the intelligibility of Reality, b) the necessity and existence of intelligible soul within each self as conscience, and c) the relation between liberty and conscience as the ‘inner voice’.

When the conscience as ‘inner voice’ is premised as an inevitable source of self-realization and the individual heed to this voice as the first necessary step towards expression of liberty, then it is not farfetched to see the ontological absence of each of these as powerful expressions of self-alienation.⁶ It would be careless of the author to assume that the concepts of ‘self’ and ‘alienation’ are very recent innovations within contemporary thought and moreover to deny the fierce modern debates on how to rectify the illness caused by alienation of human self. Needless to mention that modern secular thinkers do admit that alienation is as real as rain in the spring and its prevalence as detrimental as the spread of poison within human physical body. However what is of disagreement is not the reality of an individual dimension called ‘self’ or even the powerful dis-ease, which might cause the self to be paralysed, namely ‘alienation’. None of these are at risk or there is no theoretical need to defend and prove that these are real and not fictional problems. In other words, there are many points of agreements between secular school of thought and religious school of thought in terms of problems but what is not agreed upon is the ‘source’ of each and individual problem, which might affect the realization of self or alienation of self.

Within the secular school of thought, the centre of reality is the conventions which make up a collective unit called ‘Society’ and the textures of what these realities are all but ‘impermanent expressions’ of known and unknown forces of material origins. By material origin the proponents of this school do not intend crude or vulgar notions of ‘materia’ but argue that matter is not a physical object without any intelligence. On the contrary, it embraces within its substantial make-up a very variegated form of intelligibility but what they do deny is the source of ‘material intelligence’ in any extra-material composition. In their view, ‘materia’ is intelligible but there is no source to return to but circularity and best to regard it as a self-independent sphere unto itself. The trick in this position is the very semantic definition of ‘intelligibility’ and what one should make of the role of it in relation to the matter within scientific discourse of modernity. One of the highest forms of intelligible expressions or what made an expression intelligible has traditionally been the ability to ‘apprehend’, comprehend’, or ‘understand’ and ultimately put it in expressible format. Nobody can dispute that any matter is capable of such expression but the scientific discourse has altered few rules of the metaphysical game by arguing that even the very simple inorganic matters within physical universe do express themselves comprehensively. But what makes such a grandiose expression go amiss is the ‘format of expression’, which by the aid of scientific hand would come to comprehensible light. When this fact is comprehended in the light of science anybody would admit the intelligibility of the matter and confess the closed nature of the physical universe as a sufficient system unto itself and realize the intelligible character of the matter. But the question remains unanswered and that is ‘who’ brought all these to the light?

A scientist is a human being and regardless of his/her denial of the intelligible reality beyond and above the material realm he is a doomed expression of intelligibility but what he does within the secular school of thought is to be a spokesman of matter by relying unknowingly on ‘intellectual faculties’ that operate above ‘sensible’ and ‘material’ realms. This choice is not a scientific result, which even it was it was a very insignificant choice, but a metaphysical ignorance. By employing this term ‘metaphysical ignorance’ it is not intended to pass a moralistic judgment, which is normal to pass when one is unable to reason and produce reasonable critique, which would finally pave the way for the intelligible contemplation. On the contrary, this term refers to a very essential point, which is absent from modern philosophy of science due to the fact that the craftsmen within this school are all but inattentive to the holistic nature of reality and the spirit which envelopes its nature, namely purposefulness. This is inaccessible to materialist school of science, which reduces the multifarious dimensions of reality to phenomenon and again re-reduces the phenomenal world to material system of physicality. In this context, the term ‘ignorance’ is not fraught with ethical connotations but it has a very strict metaphysical message to convey, namely ignarus = not to know of. Not to know of what? Within this context ignarus refers to a mind which does not know of the degree of knowledge and stations of reality that are expressed gradually (i.e. stage by stage) in each level of reality according to the potential realm of each and one level of reality. The lack of the unfolding process of reality and to conceive of Realness as either a Big Bang or one-dimensional expressible demonstrative self-contained stage is metaphysically considered as ‘ignorance’. To be ignorant of the stage of reality in relation to physical dimension and natural order would express itself in misconceived approach to utilization of natural resources, which is a minor reflection of the greater ignorance before the degrees of reality in relation to Human Self that does express all three levels of reality: sensible, reasonable, and intelligible. Now the question is how to view the realization or alienation of self in relation to multilayered nature of Reality? In any realization there must be essentially a glimpse of ‘realness’ that is aimed to be released or brought forward or the lack of it, which would surely lead to alienation. If the whole gamut of reality is confined to the sensible realm and educational system erected accordingly then what is realized is nothing but a cripple self, which is incapable of nobility and truthful expression. Or again, if the gamut of realness is stretched as far as the abstract realm of reason, then the self is not fully expressed and its cordial dimension ignored in toto. A total self-realization should bring about the forces of all three dimensions of reality into the heart of human soul and therefrom set on to realise fully the entire empire of potentialities into the dynamic realm.

The major theories of self-realization or self-alienation are grandly operative either within the sensible realm or the reasonable domain and even when the proposed theories set to rectify the ills of non-realization, one alienating force is replaced by a multiply one and the goose chase goes on ad infinitum. This endless attempt to rectify the alienating forces and pave the way for realizing forces of self to express itself is related to the complexity of human psyche (within psychoanalytical discourses) and human society (within social-philosophical discourses). Although it is undeniable that human existence and all the dimensions of human life, whether individual or collective, are of great complexity nevertheless it should be re-emphasised that the complexities of human life are not of the same order under debate within modern secular discourses.

When one thinks of realization there must be something to be realised and the lack of what is there to be realized is what may lead to alienation. The conviction that life is without purpose or meaning is associated with a loss of existential values and within modern discourses of existentialism is equivalent to outrageous mood of anxieties, which ultimately would lead to alienation, and loss of self. However it seems the conviction that life is with purpose within this discourse is a matter of ‘individual choice’ and related to social dimensions and unrelated to cosmological aspects of reality. This self-realization of self-alienation is disconnected from the wider reality which envelopes man in his entirety and ensures that his entire self is in deep relation to the all-embracing force of reality, which does express itself in the fragrance of a rosaceous as well as in the tears of an orphan child. In other words, the purposefulness of social reality cannot be established without any essential connection to the cosmological purposefulness, which embraces all aspects of reality in its matrix by expressing itself in all levels of realness.

In psychiatry and clinical psychology, alienation is not regarded as a mental disorder in and of itself. It is recognized as playing a role in antisocial personality disorder, which is characterized by a lack of interest in the rights and feelings of other. This approach to lack of realization of self is based on socialization-paradigm and does not relate in any profound sense to the idea of Satori, ‘Irfan, or Nobility as discussed above. Historically speaking the current modes on the question of realization is related to the philosophical atheism that goes back to Ludwig Feuerbach who developed his philosophical atheism from a negative reaction to Hegel.

He sees man's nature as a social being to be grounded on sensible reality as opposed to Hegel's 'pure thought'. He calls Hegelian Philosophy ‘the last prop of theology.’⁷

He does use Hegel’s concept of self-alienation, the return of the absolute Spirit to itself from a self-alienation in Nature, in his philosophy. He substitutes man for the Absolute Spirit. He sees this substitution as a transformation of theology into anthropology. Thus, religion becomes a philosophical anthropology. We shall look at two aspects of this philosophy_,First, how man's dependence on Nature leads to a projected God of man’s self-consciousness. Secondly, how he views Christianity as the apex of religions.

In his work The Essence of Religion Feuerbach considers historical religion. Man begins by venerating the forces of Nature because he is conscious of his dependence on the outside world. The concept of personal gods or a God arises from self-projection. In polytheism man deifies the qualities which differentiate one man from an other. We see anthropomorphic deities each with a unique personal characteristic. In monotheism man projects his concept of man as essentially a social being into a unified transcendent God. The evolution from polytheism to monotheism takes place when man realizes he can manipulate Nature for his own purposes. He then sees Nature as that which exists for him. This implies an intelligent Creator with a purpose. This Creator is nothing more than a projection of man's own essence into an infinite personal Deity. This Creator becomes the expression of man’s alienation from himself. This objective God

… is the absolute positive, the essence of all realities, while man is the negative, the essence of nothingness.⁸

This alienation in religion must be overcome. It is just a stage in man's development of self-awareness until he realizes this objective essence is really his very own essence. Thus, we start with a dependence on Nature and progress to religion. In religion we progress from polytheism to monotheism. Finally, we progress from God to the essence of self.

Feuerbach sees Christianity as the apex of religion. The Trinity is a projection of the power of love in the essence of man as a social being. The Incarnation unites the word God with the word Man to make a God-Man. He sees this God-Man as achieving the link between humanity and its projection God. We must develop this insight a bit further by reversing humanity as an attribute of God to see God as an attribute of man. This reversal overcomes the self-alienation in religion. Man realizes God is really his own idealized essence projected into a transcendent image. This allows man to recover faith in himself regarding his power and future.

Love is the universal law of intelligence and nature—it is nothing else but the realization of the unity of the species on the plane of feeling.⁹

We see by this statement the only positive aspect of love in Feuerbach’s philosophy even though he had to destroy Christianity to arrive at it. Thus, Christianity becomes nothing more than a means to an end for man's self-awareness.

In conclusion, Feuerbach sees man as evolving in his self-awareness from dependence on Nature to the idea of God as a projection of man's self-consciousness. Christianity is seen as the apex of religion because it links the humanity to the Divinity. We must further evolve to realize the divinity of humanity. Then we will see God as nothing more than a projection of our essence.

The philosophical metaphysics of modernity within social theory is not essentially different than the scientific discourse, which empties the symbolic texture of reality by dividing it into various disciplines and domains without any symbolic significance. To realize then is even conceptually a disputed question and the lack of it is itself an epi-phenomenon due to the fact that ‘Self’ does not have any interior dimensions capable of harbouring any potentiality for inner consciousness and dynamic awareness. For, there is no inner dimension and the self is a tapestry of disconnected sporadic imprints of events and incidents and what keeps this elusive persona together is the imposing social force, namely collective conscience.

On the other hand, the process of self-realization in each of the three traditions of Zen, Islam and Liberalism is an attempt to transform the subject by awakening the inner voice of conscience and bring about all the dispersed forces of moral agent into unity, integrity and balance. This realization happens by the light of soul-searching. No new knowledge is acquired, but old assumptions fall away. No effort in the world can make you what you already and actually are. The truth behind ego is a no-thing-ness too close for investigation, since it is the very source from which the attempt to investigate arises. Seeing this makes it clear that the activating agent in all your actions is not a fictional ‘me’, but the universal energy, or one's true Self. The belief in a ‘me’, as well as the seeking for enlightenment, is seen through by no-one as nothing but the playful activity of this primal activating energy. The cosmic joke in the journey of the seeker is that the energy that fuels the seeking is precisely what is being sought. In Zen this is called riding an ox in search of an ox. Wei Wu Wei compared it to looking for your spectacles, not realizing that they are on your nose and, were you not looking through them, you wouldn't be able to see what you are looking for.¹⁰ IT awakens to itself or, more to the point, IT is Awakeness itself. It is the light in which all apparent opposites reveal their interdependence and ultimate One-ness; it is the clarity in which the illusion of separation dissolves. The witness and that which is witnessed merge into witnessing, while the illusion of past and future dissolves into the clarity of timeless presence. As It Is, life is not a meaningless absurdity. The meaningfulness of life is not bestowed upon by mortal man, either individual or collective. The meaning of life is inherent in life and once it is not obvious to the very eyes of mankind in its collectivity, then it is the beginning of Great Occultation. Life has no meaning beyond itself. The Beyond is manifested as Life and the whole existential universe of man is implicated within the matrix of manifested Beyond. It is always at the point of completion and, simultaneously, as fresh as the morning dew at the dawn of creation.

Notes

1. On this issue see the author’s ‘The existential relevance of religious thought in modern social philosophy’ in SUFI Illuminations, Vol. 3 No. 1 Spring 2002, 34-43.

2. Elizabeth Sirriyeh: Sufis and anti-Sufis :the defence, rethinking and rejection of Sufism in the modern world, Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 1999.

3. James Kirkup: Zen contemplations /James Kirkup..[1st ed.]...Osaka: Union Services, 1978.

4. Nishida Kitaro, Intelligibility and the Philosophy of Nothingness. Three Philosophical Essays. Translated and introduced by Robert Schinzinger in collaboration with I. Koyama and T. Kojima; The International Philosophical Research Association of Japan. Greenwood Press, Publishers. Westport, Connecticut.

5. Kolak, Daniel: Self and identity: contemporary philosophical issues /Daniel Kolak, Raymond Martin..New York: Macmillan; Toronto: Collier Macmillan, 1991

6. Seyyed Ahmad Rahnemaei, The Concept of Self-Realisation in the Educational Philosophies of John Dewey and Allama Tabatabai, Ph. D. Thesis at McGill University, Canada, 1999.

7. Frederick Copleston, Fichte to Nietzsche, in A History of Philosophy, Vol VII, ed. Edmund Sutcliffe, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1965, pp298.

This study was an attempt to verify the accusations directed to Ibn Khaldun by western and eastern scientists regarding his use of a fake induction in his study of the political, economical, educational, ….. aspects of the social phenomenon. In this, the author used a new method he developed –positive super meta-physics-. The study consists of five phases: Ibn Khaldun induction between modernity accusations and unfamiliarity with the heritage, Ibn Khaldun’s method between the other and the self, Ibn Khaldun’s life and its effect on the investigation of the social phenomenon including the educational phenomenon, analysing some parts of the “Muqaddimah”, and verifying the accusations directed to Ibn Khaldun. The study concluded that Ibn Khaldun used amplifiante –incomplete- induction, complete induction and hypothetical field induction respectively. I nominated this process “wide induction”. In writing down his “Muqaddimah” he used hypothetical induction in writing what he concluded in the form of a heading or a rule. Then he used complete induction to apply it on all parts of the phenomenon, and then he used incomplete induction to confirm that the phenomenon is within the borders of the rule. I nominated this “Narrow induction”. Ibn Khaldun used this method in his study of various cases of one phenomenon for example, the educational phenomenon inside the social phenomenon rather than the whole phenomenon. I have summed up the result of this study in the form of a drawing at the end of this article. It includes the new method I discovered that Ibn Khaldun used.

Some researches suggest that Ibn Khaldun used a scientific distinct method in studying the educational phenomena in different countries. Mahros Ghaban observed that:

His method consisted of several methods including live observation, and the historical, comparative, and inductive methods.¹

However, contemporary scientists suggested that Ibn Khaldun used a fake induction, Mahros says:

They claim that he did not use induction to extract results but he put results first then uses events induction to prove its correctness based on preset premises².

Mahros’s work laid doubt on Ibn Khaldun induction method in treating the educational phenomenon in his book (Ketab El-Ebar) which he wrote in Ibn Salam’s castle. However, there is a consensus on the pioneering of Ibn Khaldun works in politics, economy, philosophy, sociology, education, psychology, and medicine.

There are various views and concepts for induction, quoting Ibn Sena ‘It is a whole judgement on the presence of his judgment in the parts of the whole. If the induction allows for generalization of results on the whole parts without reservation it is induction complete, however if results cannot be generalized because some parts were not represented in the results its induction amplifiante (incomplete).³ So “there is a complete induction that allow generalization on all parts without reservation, while incomplete induction does not allow generalizing the result because some parts are not represented in the results”.⁴ Narrow induction is different from the previous two, it is as the author procedurally suggests: defining what the researcher –Ibn Khaldun- concluded through living, observation, and subjective experience. It is not an inference that the researcher performs, he does not move from the whole to the part, and it is not a complete induction because it attempts to verify a special case reached through incomplete, then complete induction, and hypothetical deduction.

The accusation Mahros quoted from other scientist regarding Ibn Khaldun’s alleged fake induction will be examined through the following procedures:

1- Ibn Khaldun induction between modernity (modern Western scientists) accusations and unfamiliarity with heritage (Eastern scientists).

2- Ibn Khaldun method between the other (Western scientists) and the self (Eastern scientists).

3- Ibn Khaldun’s course of life and its relation to his investigation of the socio-educational phenomenon.

4- Activating Ibn Khaldun induction in his Muqaddimah on the socio-educational phenomenon (analysing the chapter “Ibn Khaldun an Imam and Innovator in educational research, and sections five and six).

1- Ibn Khaldun Induction between Modernity Accusations and Unfamiliarity with the Heritage

A- Accusations directed to Ibn Khaldun regarding his induction method: A study suggested that the major accusation directed to Ibn Khaldun by western scientists professionals in socio-educational knowledge was that he used an arbitrary and fake kind of induction.⁵ Mahros says:

Ibn Khaldun did not use induction to come to conclusions but he put conclusion first then uses events and facts induction to prove its correctness based on a preset premises. Critics support this view by unjustly selecting certain incidents to demonstrate that Ibn Khaldun’s method was not experimental induction nor pure deduction but a mixture of both.⁶

B- Accusation directed to Ibn Khaldun regarding his treatment of the socio-educational phenomenon inductively: Ibn Khaldun attached the educational phenomenon to the social phenomenon and applied one rule on both. He saw science and education as a natural reflection of the development of society, thus there is a positive relation between construction and science and learning industry, and the opposite is true, the decline of the society is followed by a deterioration of this industry. Ibn Khaldun did not believe in the separation and independence of the educational phenomenon from the social phenomenon, rather it is dependent on it and is governed by its laws⁷, Mahros says:

Some western scientists added that Ibn Khaldun did not pay attention to the quantitative measurement of phenomena, in other words he did not present a numerical description of the educational aspects of the countries he mentioned in his “Muqaddimah” like for instance educational surveys about schools, its students and teacher ...etc except for short hints about the number of studying years, students and teachers.⁸

C- The accusations directed to Ibn Khaldun regarding his inductive conclusions about the socio-educational phenomenon, for example: It is said that a major portion of his observations and conclusions which he developed as rules or generalizations is in fact no more than hypothesis fit for accounting for some partial instances, and it is inappropriate to be nominated as rules or laws or general principles fit for all times and places. Take for example, some generalizations that came as headings for his chapters in his “Muqaddimah” Mahros quotes Ibn Khaldun:

Scientists are the furthest of all people from politics and its ideologies”, “Occupation with writing hinders achievement” and “Arabs are very far from industries “provision of education is a prerequisite for science development”, “travelling after knowledge and meeting scientists is a additional kind of education, and “science learning is a complementary industry for urban not Bedwian.⁹

D- Accusation directed to Ibn Khaldun regarding his induction of a social phenomenon indirectly related to the socio-educational phenomenon: This is manifested in what they called geographical determinism. Mahros relied on Ibn Khaldun’s description of the temperament and behaviour of deviated people like the people of Ethiopia and Sudan of as more related to animal behaviour rather than to human, that religion, education, and learning is missing amongst them attributing this to being far from moderate regions as an evidence of this accusation.¹⁰

Mahros also affirm that Ibn Khaldun was wrong in his conclusion that the weather influences people’s temperament as well as the colour of their skin, and that he did not correctly understand nature and human soul, describing his conclusion of being unscientific as was the science of his age.¹¹

E- Unfamiliarity with profound reading of heritage for those who study Ibn Khaldun: Mahros’s repetition of accusations directed to Ibn Khaldun without verifying them. In his study –Ibn Khaldun’s contribution in comparative education- Mahros supported the west in judging Ibn Khaldun induction in the treatment of the socio-educational phenomenon as fake. He Justifying this by:

The way he recorded, and that he put the rule or the result and the beginning of the chapter as contemporary engineers do in inducting their theories. The researcher suggests that he agrees with this justification to clear some of the accusations leaving the rest of them for others to clear.¹²

Ibn Khaldun explained the social phenomena including the educational one unilaterally and developed a single law for the phenomena justifying this by saying that historical events do not totally support or reject what Ibn Khaldun said.¹³He agrees with Ibn Khaldun critics regarding his educational quantitative measurement and lack of figures and statistics in the Muqaddimah by pointing out that the state in his age was not concerned with statistics in general not withstanding educational statistics.¹⁴

He also agrees with the western scientists in saying that Ibn Khaldun described some of his observations and conclusions as general laws while it is no more than presumptions.¹⁵ He also suggests that Ibn Khaldun was wrong in the geographical determinism. He used historical events to judge the incorrectness of Ibn Khaldun’s opinion saying that “most of the regions which he Ibn Khaldun considered deviated had taken the path of science and learning which developed their temperaments and behaviour, and they followed various religions breaking the laws of Ibn Khaldun’ determinism that controlled their potential to develop and promote because of the geographical conditions.¹⁶

I find an excuse for the researcher –Mahros- by one of Ibn Khaldun’s laws that states “the defeated always tends to follow the victorious”. Arab world suffered from colonialism until he get used to it, probably addicted to it, and became a vessel of its colonialist though blindly taking it for granted and lost its ability to think. Colonialism departed but left civil and research societies prepared to receive the products of its intellect.

2- Ibn Khaldun’s Method between the Other and the Self

A- Ibn Khaldun’s method in the mind of the other: Based on logic and philosophy we will discuss this, then try to describe method as it is for the other:

A1- Ibn Khaldun’s logic

Modern philosopher criticized the Aristotelian logic in favour of calling for a new logic; the logic of experimental materialistic science. Moslems who criticized this logic did this to defend their Islamic creed, except for Ibn Khaldun who criticized Aristotelian logic based on its deficiency to reform it and understand social life as it is in reality according to Ali El-Wardy. In this Ibn Khaldun is similar to a great extent to modern philosophers.¹⁷

Ibn Khaldun criticized conceptual logic for its inability to reveal the new because it relies on general abstract principals that cover some but not the whole reality.¹⁸

Mostafa El-Shaka quotes De Poor contradicts Shmet in his work “The History of Philosophy in Islam” he says:

Aristotelian-Plutonian thought influenced Ibn Khaldun, and that he criticized the principals of rational philosophy. Others suggest that Ibn Khaldun refused philosophy and logic as did the Ghazali, as is clear in the chapter headed “Invalidating Philosophy” in his Muqaddimah.¹⁹

Pons Boigues; the Spanish Orientalist states that Ibn Khaldun is one of the greatest characters representing the long range history of philosophy.²⁰

Ibn Khaldun had no conceptual logic because he criticized the three principals of Aristotelian logic. Rationality logic, Ibn Khaldun affirms that human mind is unable to comprehend divine or social issues, causal principal, Ibn Khaldun affirms the inability of the human mind to comprehend the relation between cause and effect. In this Ibn Khaldun is similar to the modern scientific approach.²¹

From the previous discussion, the author concludes that some had acknowledged the pioneering of what Ibn Khaldun wrote in his Muqaddimah, while others attributed the pioneering to themselves, but the vast majority suggested that Ibn Khaldun sought to correct the path of investigating the social phenomenon in general and socio-educational in particular through conceptual research logic concerned with the mental image of the phenomenon, and induction logic concerned with the material image of the phenomenon. Ibn Khaldun suggests that the two are not detachable.

In a conference held by Durdel Institute in 1995, a paper was presented about the contribution of Islam in social research, it mentioned that Ibn Khaldun not only lied the foundations of the scientific approach in the study of the social phenomenon, but he also was the first to use scientific methodology in the study of econo-political phenomenon, and that he was distinguished in the study of history included in his Muqaddimah.²²

Social positivism philosophy Studies -which August Conte wrote its history during the French revolution in 1789- affirms that Ibn Khaldun who was born in Tunisia in 1332 was the first to scientifically study the social phenomenon in the same way natural phenomena were studies and that he was the first to use experiments and observations.²³

Ibn Khaldun has trodden a bath no one before him did, and that he was a precedent, that orientalist evaluate him as a great philosopher and thinker. Altamera describe him as a great intellectual power, inventor, and a non preceded genius who has accomplished an innovative works.²⁴

Thus we can see that contemporary scientists has acknowledged the pioneering of Ibn Khaldun’s positivist, experiential thought through which rational philosophy advocates in its conceptual form are criticized for its neglect of extension for the under investigation phenomenon.

As one Orientalist says about Ibn Khaldun that he take facts as his premise, Ian creep says:

These facts that he concluded through his vast experience in life, and his continuous observations of construction status –the social phenomenon particularly the educational one- and the news he heard. He does not rely on transfer only, but he closely examine news and facts based not only on conceptual reality –objectivity- but also on the materialist reality in his endeavour to reveal its concrete causal relations.²⁵

Contemporary research on positivism theory acknowledges Ibn Khaldun role in suggesting the possibility of using control and interpretation, and scientific prediction in the study of the social phenomenon-and the educational phenomenon as a sub-system-. Scientific method has to a certain extent succeeded in monitoring the social phenomenon and investigate it in a dynamic context despite the static theory that the nature of the social phenomenon needs as scientific model.²⁶

If it is true that philosophy is an abstraction and incorporation of the spirit of the age, methodology would be more appropriate to incorporate the spirit of the age. If Beacon’s name were connected with the experiential method, what would we have to say about Gaber Bin Hyan and El-Bayrony. Ibn El-Hythem Yomna says:

This led the German orientalist Edward Sacho to say that Abo El-Ryhan El-Byrony (362-440H) is one of the greatest men in Islamic civilization, and the greatest intellect in the middle ages.²⁷

If this was the case with Ibn Khaldun who shared his ancestor Ibn El-Hythem in inducting what happens during vision and investigating visuals, and distinguishing particles charachersitic²⁸ would he be such a pioneer in economy, politics, education, psychology, and sociology without a scientific experimental method?²⁹

The author concludes as Bendokrochi suggest, human history is a whole, if one epoch was to be cut or a contribution was to be ignored man would need primitive tools to be able to live. By analogy, Ibn Khaldun applied the experimental method known induction on the social phenomenon including the educational one as did his ancestors in the natural phenomenon.

Ali El-Wardy says that Ibn Khaldun believed that there are three kinds of logic:³⁰

1- The discovering logic: appropriate to investigate divine and spiritual issues.

2- Rational logic: appropriate for the investigation of analogical issues like geometry, and mathematics.

3- Sensory logic: appropriate for the investigation of social and political issues.

That Ibn Khaldun suggested that he mastered logic in its conceptual form which study the case and analogy conceptually, and material forms which study the case and analogy materialistically, in other words the validity of their elements and matching to reality.³¹

Ibn Khaldun contradicted the Aristotelian deductive logic, which was not purely conceptual but rather materialistic, thus its analogy was to prove a known fact, rather than to discover a new one. It is consequently as Ibn Khaldun said a logic searching for the truth not in it or in its structure, as is Ibn Khaldun’s logic.³²

If the Khaldunian logic is inductive and experimental different from the Aristotelian logic which was formal moving from the general to the particular, and as thus judged as an abstract gestalt logic concerned not with validity but with the concept that do not totally apply to the partial cases. Ibn Khaldun tackled this by combining both the form and the essence, the concept and extension, induction and deduction.

B2) Ibn Khaldun research philosophy

Some suggested that Ibn Khaldun relied on a scrutinizing principal consisting of four interrelated dimensions:³³ temporal dimension, logical dimension, epistemological dimension, and methodological dimension (Pragmatic).

Others argue that his study of the social phenomenon –and the educational one- was based on a Islamic fundamental reference.³⁴

Ibn Khaldun was not but a faithful scholar for old philosophers particularly Ibn Roshd. It seems than Ibn Khaldun was the only thinker who tried to construct a societal science based on the principals of the old philosophy, finally he says that he used the same philosophical foundation on which modern sociology was based.³⁵

Scholar suggest that if the individual is the child of his environment and a product of its culture, Ibn Khaldun is no exception, his scientific and research product was based on an explicit Islamic background. He was a Moslem scientist, and a scholar in Fikh (doctrine), thus, his achievements were indeed an Islamically based.³⁶

That Ibn Khaldun in spite of his Islamic nature, was a philosopher like August Kont, and Herbert Spencer.³⁷

Others suggest that the most distinguishing characteristic of Islamic Arabic thought is the fundamentality of knowledge would it be religious or humane.³⁸

Ibn Khaldun was born in a recessed civilization period in the 14^th century, yet his Muqaddimah was a fertile source of cognitive generated discipline combining temporal, civilized, and cognitive dimensions allowing him to produce an intellectual dimension reflected in the mixture of specialties in human knowledge which opens the ways of integration and discovery of the total facts for the mind. This was the scientific experimental method which was known in Europe after the collapse of Islamic civilization known as induction in the study of the socio-human-educational phenomenon. Then it was modified to include abstract observation and experiment to reach a conclusion based on induction and deduction, and eventually to generalization and laws.³⁹

Some compare Ibn Khaldun’s method with that of August Kont explaining that both believed that the appropriate method to investigate the social phenomenon should be a positivist method base on induction and observation. Mahros Ghaban outlines Ibn Khaldun’s method in investigating the socio-educational phenomenon as follow:⁴⁰

1) Sensory observation: Ibn Khaldun denies full dependent on the mind and ignoring reality which he relied on in his travels. This is demonstrated in his chapter about teaching children, when he described teaching methods in eastern part he confirms that he did this through hearings, but his description of the western parts was based on direct observation.

2) Historical method: Ibn Khaldun excelled his ancestors in the study of the socio-historical phenomenon. The latter relied only on monitoring and recording of events, while the former added matching events to logic and reality. This benefited him in the study of the socio-educational phenomenon.

3) Induction: He used induction as a method to reach the rules and laws governing the social phenomena in data collection from the present and the past, categorizing, and contrasting it, then generating the laws. His method was much similar to deduction used by engineering scientists.

4) Scientific comparison: Comparative education scientists noticed that Ibn Khaldun sought to demonstrate similarities and differences and causes as is shown in his comparison of science and education status in Baghdad, Basra, and Cairo on one hand and Spain, Morocco, and Africa in the other, as well as comparing education methods in different Islamic states.

We can notice that Ibn Khaldun was the first to use empiricism in the study of the socio-educational phenomenon, he was a pioneering positivist who preceded Beacon in activating the experiential method known with induction in the study of the socio-educational phenomenon. The following is an application to the study of the socio-educational phenomenon as recorded by a researcher, using his chapter headed “Science grow where construction and civilization spread”:

1- Ibn Khaldun used one law he concluded as a heading for his chapter “science grow where construction and civilization spread”.

2- He proves this by relying on one of his previous theories –teaching science is an industry-.

3- He reminds us with the previous theory and proves it, he says “Industries flourish in urban states, and that there is a positive relation between construction and civilization, and the quantity and quality of industries”. He proves this by stating that when livelihood allows urban people some spare time it is directed towards science and industry.

4- He proves the previous theory with a reversed demonstration stating that villages and uncivilized states are poor in science, stating that “those who live in villages and desert finds not education, because education is an industry, and these places suffer from the lack of industries, and there must be a state to support education”.

5- He supports what he has said with concrete historical events saying that “when construction and civilization was rich in Kortba, Baghdad, Kirwan, Basra, and Kofa at the beginnings of Islam, science, art, and educational reforms flourished, but when construction decreased science and education moved to other states”

6- He adds to these historical events contemporary ones saying “We notice that science and education is established in Cairo in Egypt for its vast construction and old civilization and settled industries among which is science teaching”.

3- Ibn Khaldun’s Life Course and its relation to his Methodological Treatment of the Socio-Educational Phenomenon

Ibn Khaldun was born in 27 May 1332 in an Arabic family originally from Hadrmauwt in Yemen.⁴¹ His grandfather goes back to Wael Bin Hagr; a sahaby–companion- to prophet Mohamed peace be upon him. His grandfather; Khalid participated in the conquest of Spain. His father travelled to Tunisia where Ibn Khaldun was born. His family had a long history as fighters and men of letter. Ibn Khaldun received his education under the supervision of his father, where he learned the Quran, and Maliki Fikh. This phase is called the socialization and scholarship and achievement phase, it continued for 25 years.⁴²

In this phase he took many political and councilar posts, he was tasked to write the speeches of the Sultan of Tunisia; Abu Ashaq. He also was the secretary of the Sultan of Fas; Abo Anan. Sultan of Magreb imprisoned him latter on, and the prince of Granada exiled him to Henin.⁴³ This phase is known as the political and councilar professions phase.⁴⁴ It continued for 25 years.⁴⁵

It covered the period form 760 to 761H. He worked in Mohamed Ibn El-Ahmer’s court as an ambassador, who was very generous to him. He gained good reputation due to his proficiency in managing political issues. But Ibn El-Khateb; Ibn El-Ahmar’s minister plot for him and spoiled his stay in Granada and forced him to leave to Bougie in mid 766 H. This phase lasted for only one year.⁴⁶

This phase covered the period from 766-776 H. Sultan of Bougie assigned to him a high offices, however, he dedicated some of his time for teaching. But things went bad and he was caught in the middle of the struggle of rulers, and he went back to Spain in 776H but he did not settle down in it because of the plots that were woven against him. This phase lasted for 10 years.⁴⁷

He went to this castle located in the city of Nadroma in Talmasan region north west of Algeria⁴⁸ where he dedicated himself to completing his work “Ketab El-Ebar, Wa Dewan El-Mobtada Wa El-Kabar”. This phase covered the period from 776-780 H and lasted for about 4 years.⁴⁹

He returned to Tunisia under the protection of Sultan Abo El-Abas. After he finished his Muqaddimah, he presented a copy to the Sultan. In the period from 780 to 784 H he was occupied with teaching and researching, he afterwards travelled to Alexandria at the end of 784.⁵⁰ This phase of his life was called the phase of dedication to writing, it lasted nearly 8 years from 776 to 784 H the most of which he spent in Algeria and Tunisia.⁵¹

He travelled to Cairo, Mamluk capital in 784H and stayed there until his death in 808 H. He worked in teaching in Al-Azhar, particularly he gave teaching courses in Maliki Fikh in the Qamhiyya school during the era of Sultan Al-Zahir Barquq.⁵² He was assigned the post of the Malikia judge of judges six times and relieved. He died lonely after his family was drowned at the entrance of Alexandria during their journey from Tunisia to Alexandria.⁵³

Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah is considered a comprehensive research due to the nature social phenomenon, defined as the act of multi-activities human behaviour in one dimension. Professionals in this field described the human phenomenon as social being before human and placed the social phenomenon before the human phenomenon because according to them man acquires the human traits only inside a society, consequently, politics, culture, philosophy, education,.... all are parts of the social phenomenon. Ibn Khaldun lived and interacted inside the crucible of the social phenomenon with all its previous characteristics. I do not nominate these classifications of social phenomenon, but rather characteristics of the social phenomenon because classification suggests separation but characteristics suggest interaction inside the whole phenomenon.

The current paper suggests that Ibn Khaldun made the historical phenomenon a dependent variable to the social phenomenon with all its characteristics as an independent variable. Mahmoud El-Kordy says:

The genius of Ibn Khaldun is demonstrated in his construction of a methodological bridge between history and sociology for the purpose of objectively investigating the society. It seems that he consciously studied the social phenomenon as an approach to the study of sociology.⁵⁴

Thus his genius is manifested in his comprehensive awareness in the investigation of the social phenomenon where his direct observation and the other tools of his scientific methodology a major role in understanding the phenomenon. However, the social phenomenon is a comprehension of various characteristics representing various research domains including economic, politics, culture, and education which his own subjective experience grasped during his life course. This rendered his Muqaddimah all-majors thesis due to his recognition of the objectivity of studying history through sociology, without such inclusiveness his work would have been unobjective and deficient because all previous domains are complementary aspects of the social phenomenon.

Ibn Khaldun’s observation of the struggle between the self and the other inside the crucible of the society may have had influenced the framing of his investigation of the social phenomenon in general and the educational phenomenon in particular. Therefore, his Muqaddimah took this form and it reflects a deep understanding of the dynamism and staticism of the socio-human phenomenon. This is the subject of the next section.

Knowledge and science are not created accidentally, nor it is in all the made of geniuses, rather, it is accumulative process not separated from social systems and values. They interact and had mutual influence on each other. Fouad El-Khory says:

Ibn Khaldun’s work was unpreceded, he used scientific analysis in interpreting and justifying historical events by searching in its social bases, and the systems under which political groups are formed and changed when the economical and social conditions in its environment change.⁵⁵

This is manifested in tribism and blood ties as a major pre-request to the erection of the state. He stressed that the collapse of a state is a result of the weakness of these elements.⁵⁶ Thus Ibn Khaldun life course in which he encountered various customs and traditions of different people in the Islamic context was a source of qualification to develop anthropology and other sciences based on the scientific method.

The different political post he held –minister, and writer of sultan speeches- and his direct observations and experience in the negative and positive side of these posts, and his witnessing of the collapse of kingdoms and sultanates and erection of new ones in its places, as well as his imprisonment and deportation experience inspired his chapters of the third section of his Muqaddimah about ruling and Khilafa and Sultanate ranks and all related issues⁵⁷ and led him to conclude that: scientists are the most inappropriate individual to hold political posts.

Ibn Khaldun studies socio-economic; the science which investigate the economic phenomena related to wealth production, handling, distribution and consumption to unveil the laws governing this phenomenon, and the relations that connect them to each other and to other phenomena. Ibn Khaldun recognized that this phenomenon which is a characteristic of the social phenomenon is a production of daily human needs and related influencing elements like authority, politics, environment as discussed in the fifth section of the Muqaddimah headed: “Different ways of making living and industries and related issues”.⁵⁸

Man is a bio-cultural being, and that every human action is a bio-cultural action (eating, drinking, sleeping).⁵⁹

Ibn Khaldun may have considered this when he explained that language is a vessel of culture. He learned all Arab dialects, and the Persian and Spanish languages which enabled him to work as an ambassador for Ibn El-Ahmar in Kishtala. Prince Abo Hamo and Sultan Abo El-Abass sought his assistance to attract Barbar tribes to their side in their war against their foes. In his Muqaddimah, the chapter headed “Arabic languages science” demonstrates his interest in languages.⁶⁰

Thus, Ibn Khaldun has deeply investigated the interactions of different elements of the socio-cultural phenomenon like cultures, languages and dialects thanks to his course of life.

The comprehensiveness of Ibn Khaldun’s research in the social phenomenon is demonstrated in the part about health in his Muqaddimah. In it he stressed the importance of diet and the danger of over-eating which leads to diseases. He says

No doubt that hunger is healthier than over-eating, and that hunger is good for both body and mind.⁶¹

He disagrees with doctors who stress that hunger is fatal except when it is forced on man. This explains the scientific experiments Ibn Khaldun practiced all his life in his phenomenal dialogue.

In 1825 Fredrick Sholtz; the German professor of philosophy criticized the focus on the study of Islamic poetry, and called for studying philosophical research like Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah, which he considered a real philosophical research in history.⁶²

The result of Ibn Khaldun’s experience and direct involvement with people is a better style in the record of history. He wrote down the life of Barbars and tribes of Magrab countries. Mahmoud El-Kordy says:

Sociology is the methodological bridge to study history. The current paper suggests that the historical phenomenon is a dependent research variable in Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah to an independent variable; sociology with all its cultural, health, and educational characteristics. This is expressed in the second section of the Muqaddimah.⁶³

Ibn Khaldun preceded August Kont in relying on the positivist philosophy -which his own experience played a major role in its creation- in the study of the various characteristic of the social phenomenon. But for Ibn Khaldun it has a religious reference for his positivism unlike Kont whose positivism was secularism negating religion; a one pillar of the social phenomenon. As thus, the latter’s research results were inaccurate and unobjective as shown in the third section headed “Ibn Khaldun and Sociology”.⁶⁴ It seems that Ibn Khaldun have related logic and philosophy and this made his philosophy and method rather empirical.

Ibn Khaldun discussed the socio-educational phenomenon in the fifth and sixth chapters in the second section of his Muqaddimah. He realized that this phenomenon is only one ring in the continuum of the social phenomenon which formed his bath to accurately and objectively record history. Through his work as a teacher he acquired basic and principles in education and psychology, which he discussed in his chapter headed “violence is damaging to the learner”.⁶⁵

This attests to Ibn Khaldun’s pioneering in comprehending this comprehensive phenomenon, and that he treated it with unordinary awareness. His experiences and travels inside the society had a great impact on his literary works, to the extent that we could conclude that if it wasn’t for this particular course of life, this creative work would not have seen the light.

4- The Effect of Activating the Induction Method in Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddimah on the Socio-Educational Phenomenon

For example analysing the chapter “Ibn Khaldun an innovative in educational and psychological research”, “Ibn Khaldun’s research method and result presentation style, and criticism directed to this style, and “Learning and education industry” in section five, and science discipline in chapter six.

We will discuss these points to reveal the Khaldunian’ complete and incomplete induction, and hypothetical deduction method, and the so called fake Khaldunian induction.

In his chapter headed “The right way to teach science and ways of benefiting from it”⁶⁶ Ibn Khaldun reveals the necessary conditions for learning in technique and content in an inverse form by illustrating the don’ts inside the classroom. He warns against stating with the complex pointing out that frustrates the learner, rather, learning should start with the easy then gradually move to the complex, and illustrations should be included. He says that he had experienced this matter. This means that the experience was preceded with observation and involvement with the socio-educational phenomenon when he worked in teaching in Maghreb countries and Cairo. Feeling that the learner suffers, he lived the experience with its advantages and disadvantages.

He dedicated a whole chapter to explain that excessive abbreviation disrupt learning⁶⁷. He noticed that this problem is associated with learning in every place he visited at all times, he felt it as a problem existing in all the partial cases he experienced, thus it is liable for generalization. It became a result and a rule which he concluded by incomplete induction first in Spain, then again incomplete induction in Morocco, Algerian and Tunisia, then a complete induction. The accumulation of knowledge and terminology abbreviation supports Ibn Khaldun’ seven centuries old vision.

In one of his chapters headed “Excessive writing in science hinders achievement”⁶⁸ he points out that redundant may add a further burden on the learner. This represents a contemporary problem in the information and economy of knowledge age. This also is another testimony for Ibn Khaldun’s broad mindedness as he reached this conclusion through incomplete then complete induction. The chapter headed “Teaching children, and the different techniques used in Islamic states”⁶⁹ show that his induction was accompanied by comparison to achieve precision in the study of the disciplines of the educational phenomenon; including comparative education. He stressed that he had not write down a rule or a generalization except through incomplete induction from one nation, that turns into a complete one after his travels to investigate the phenomenon in other nations. That he wrote his Muqaddimah at Ibn Salama castle near the end of his life imply this.

Ibn Khaldun’s gradual investigation of the socio-educational phenomenon parallels the rise of the educational phenomenon and its logical arrangement of teaching method accompanied with psychology, then study content problem, and finally with the learner in the classroom. In the chapter headed “violence harms learners”⁷⁰ he points out that maltreatment of learners especially the younger ones make them hate and quit learning. And that the teacher should not resort to very strict discipline that may lead to spoil the character of the learner by resorting to lies and laziness. Modern educational psychology supports this view.

In the fifth section as in the chapters headed “Industries need teachers”, “Industries settle where construction develop”, “Industries becomes established when the civilization is old and established”⁷¹ he attempt to achieve what must be in the social phenomenon using analyses and explanation. This is one phase to reach the rule or the general principals, he prepares to reach “Learning and education is an industry”; one chapter in the sixth section.⁷² He stressed the importance of the teacher as the most influential element in the learning process. This suggests here that Khaldunian induction seems incomplete, complete and what I call complex or wide. The latter combines induction of the educational phenomenon in reality, a logical sequenced intellectual induction that covers the four elements of learning (teaching methods, content, learner, teacher).

Thus Ibn Khaldun’s induction was incomplete, complete, and hypothetical deductive as well. He develops a hypothesis and proves it by deduction and induction. He says “violence harm learners” and at the end he says ”teacher should not strictly discipline their students”. In the sixth section he wrote a chapter headed “excessive writing hinders achievement” and another one to point out that travelling after knowledge and meeting teacher is additional source of learning” to stress the importance of the qualified teacher in the advance of learning.

After incomplete and complete induction, Ibn Khaldun ends up forming the rules or conclusions as a hypothetical deduction – a chapter heading- he seeks to prove using deduction and induction and at the end of the chapter establish what he first presented as its is or in another form that carry the same meaning in the context of what I called “wide induction” (field incomplete, complete, and hypothetical induction respectively) The writing phase is writing the heading using a hypothesis or a rule he attempts to prove by narrow induction (abstract hypothetical complete, incomplete induction respectively).

Thus Ibn Khaldun’s induction is not fake, but some read the Muqaddimah without a full appreciation and consequently launch incorrect accusations. Ibn Khaldun reached incomplete induction regarding some aspects of the educational phenomenon in Spain, he went to Morocco to find the same aspects of the phenomenon, then the same in Algeria and Tunisia Ibn Salama Castle and thus generated a complete induction out of the incomplete induction which he developed from his travels. He wrote in all aspects of the general phenomenon using the deductive hypothetical method that requires starting with a hypothesis or a prediction then deduction and induction as a second phase method after deduction. Hypothetical deduction is considered the third phase Ibn Khaldun used in his research after the incomplete and complete induction (wide induction as the author nominate) in the field phase.

In the abstraction phase, he wrote in every aspect of the social phenomenon including the educational one, and in one of its elements –the learner- he used hypothetical induction in its narrow form (violence harm learners). He puts the hypothesis at the beginning of the chapter after verifying its existence as a rule by wide induction (incomplete, complete, and hypothetical induction respectively) but he wants to impart to us how this happened, so he starts the chapter by a heading that is a rule, then he starts with the hypothetical induction then the complete and the incomplete one which the current paper has nominated narrow induction (hypothetical, complete, and incomplete induction respectively). My application of the new research method – positive super (beyond) metaphysics- had a great influence in understanding this especially in its positive form which includes the dependent historical variable based on the independent social variable of the event conditions.

5- Settling the Problem of Ibn Khaldun’s Induction between Accusation and Reality (The Results)

A- Settling the essence of induction regarding the socio-educational phenomenon (accusation-reality)

Based on objective scrutiny of the point of view of the other before the self, the present paper concluded the following results:

A1- Ibn Khaldun used a scientific method before Roger and Francis Beacon which was used by his antecedent Ibn El-Hythem. He also preceded August Cont in investigating the social phenomenon-including education- using scientific method, Ibn Khaldun excelled him in combining dynamic and static features of the phenomenon. He studied the political, economic, and educational features, where he used wide induction in investigating the dynamic aspect of the phenomenon, and narrow induction in the static ones.

A2- Ibn Khaldun’s method combined phases of scientific method discovered recently consisting of observation (direct and indirect) experience, involvement, real experiment, generalization, arriving to the rule. His method was also historical, comparative, and inductive.

A3- Ibn Khaldun’s induction was incomplete in its first phase of investigation of the socio-educational phenomenon, then he moved to the complete induction phase. The rule was present in most partial cases, and through moving to anther place to test the educational phenomenon, then a third one, the rule was included in all partial cases, thus it was complete, then came the final rule by hypothetical deduction as a field phase, the author nominated (wide Induction that include incomplete, complete, hypothetical induction). In general, when writing, he writes the rule in the form of a hypothetical heading of the chapter, then he uses deduction and experiment in the field study of the phenomenon.

A4- Why was it induction? If it was not induction, how would Ibn Khaldun long time ago discovered what is recently known, that violence harm learners, except by practicing and experiencing the phenomenon in different places and different times, and how he suggested the intervention if he did not study it . I consider it narrow induction because a chapter heading like the previous one represents a case of the socio-educational phenomenon not all case of the phenomenon. Thus it is a limited induction of one restricted research element rather than a wide one that include generalization on different phenomena inside the social phenomenon (economic, political, etc). We can notice that Ibn Khaldun separated all other phenomena when he was studying a limited element, but he did not neglect them in his comprehensive research –The Muqaddimah- because he realized that phenomena are interactive; a non-preceded awareness not realized by the self and those who studied his work.

A5- Ibn Khaldun followed methodological rules which he invited researcher to adhere to. Such rules include objectivity, caution, and doubt. He says do not take for granted information reported to you, examine it with the right rules and you would have scrutinized it in the best way⁷³. Thus Ibn Khaldun’s induction is not fake but narrow induction resulting from a wide induction of the spatial and temporal limits of the phenomenon. It was as if Ibn Khaldun wanted to say that every situation has its appropriate declaration, reality needs a particular inductive method, and abstracting reality needs another appropriate inductive method.

B- Regarding the accusations directed towards Ibn Khaldun pertaining to his treatment of the socio-educational phenomenon inductively

B1- Ibn Khaldun’s induction varied to face the various aspects of the educational phenomenon even the whole phenomenon as an aspect of the social phenomenon. Thus in his treatment he was aware of all aspects and traits, so how can he be criticize for attaching the educational phenomenon to the social one, can we study the educational phenomenon outside its social context? Can we study the educational phenomenon separated from the characteristics of the social phenomenon? If yes, then we have to deny the social trait of education, but without education there would not have been a society. Can we be human without a society?

B2- Ibn Khaldun related civilization with prosperity with learning and teaching, and availability of teachers. He stressed the importance of a qualified teacher in the growth of learning and teaching. Thus, he did not attach the educational phenomenon to the social phenomenon haphazardly, but to maintain a level of objectivity in introducing the other elements participating in forming the socio-educational phenomenon.

B3- I do not believe that Ibn Khaldun neglected quantitative measurement of the educational phenomenon because the figures he used were not inadequate. Education in his age was mostly confined to the privileged minority, it was not available to the public, thus, the figures he presented paralleled this. In addition, Mahros Ahmed Ghaban’s justification that statistics were not common in Ibn Khaldun’s age is wrong, statistics were known in all states and civilizations, otherwise how would Moslems and before them Caesar the Great organized their armies that conquered the world?

C- Verifying what has been attributed to Ibn Khaldun regarding his inductive conclusions of the socio-educational phenomenon for example.

C1- Ibn Khaldun’s rules or generalizations were not remarks or conclusions or hypothesis, They were in fact rules he realistically concluded, then tried to impart to us by writing following the narrow induction method after using field wide induction method. His generalization that scientist are the furthest of all people from politics is true. A scientist cannot combine both science and politics, if he worked with politics he would neglect science, and the reverse is true, In addition, objectivity requires abstraction and integrity and this requires that he dedicate himself to science. In addition, Ibn Khaldun was imprisoned and almost lost his life because of politics.

C2- “Too many writing in science hinders achievement” is also true. Ali Abdel Wahid Wafy explains this by saying that “this expresses excessive redundancy which forms additional burden on the learner a problem which contemporary learners suffer from, this also reflects his pioneering because he foresaw a problem seven centuries after his age. Another interpretation, which I agree with, is that the researcher who writes too many books negatively affects his achievement because inaccurate hasty reading accompanies writing.

C3- If we examine his saying that “Arabs are the furthest people from industries” we would recognize that Ibn Khaldun saw our present and past through his good study of history. He recognized the past, present and future history. Arabs did not have enough time to pick the fruits of their civilization which is industry, their fruit went to those who latter on occupied their lands after the collapse of their civilization “state collapse theory”. Also Ibn Khaldun’s rule “that the defeated always tends to follow the victorious” is true. Arabs are expecting the west to think for them, they export the products of their scientific method, without having product tools. Arabs export raw materials that are imported as end products. The author of this paper adds another generalisation “There wasn’t any industry, colonialism departed leaving the Arab nation a nation suffering from the phobia of the colonialism or the other.

C4- Having a wide base of professionals, scientists and teacher is a major prerequisite for advancement. Wealth and civilization is another support for education. It was also true that urban people are more likely to have access to education than rural people, and that many people leave their homes searching for education, Arabs and people of other liberated nations are the most common travellers after education.

D- Settling the dispute about accusations directed to Ibn Khaldun regarding his use of a social phenomenon indirectly related to socio-educational phenomenon

D1- Professor Rosintal suggests that the Ibn Khaldun discovered the causality law or the determinism law in the mutual influence between social phenomena which was a progressive discovery. Ibn Khaldun’s discovery confirms that the availability of certain social phenomena leads to the prediction of new social phenomena.⁷⁴ The criticism directed to Ibn Khaldun geographical determinism was incorrect because until today their are cannibals in remote areas leading a very primitive life in isolation affected by the environment and the weather. The two Indian girls Amala and Kamala represent a clear example. The two girls were raised by wolves consequently their behaviour was like that of wolves, and when they were transferred to the human society they couldn’t cope and died. Psychology and education had proved that man is the child of his environment. As thus, Ibn Khaldun genius is manifested in that he preceded environmentalists in refuting Galton and Genino opinions about the heredity of emotional and physical traits which Sezari Lambaroza –founder of criminology- has confirmed before they were born.

D2- Ibn Khaldun is accused of being unscientific as was he age. If this is true from whom did Roger and Francis Beacon take the experimental method that the western civilization was based on? Wasn’t he Ibn El-Hythem the father of modern physics and methodology, didn’t a number of Orientalists acknowledge the role of Islamic world in the construction of modern civilization, and the greatness of Byrony.

E- Unfamiliarity of heritage, and lack of instigation of the accusation to the Khadunian induction by the Arab researchers –Mahros Ghaban-

E1- In his work, Mahros Ghaban agreed the western scientists in that Ibn Khaldun used a fake induction similar to the one used by geometry theorists in proving their theories. The author disagrees with this opinion. His induction had no relation to geometry, the so called fake induction is kind of induction not known in contemporary history, a narrow induction against the wide induction he used in the field study of the phenomenon. What he wrote is an induction representing the abstraction of reality. The current paper’s use of the new beyond-metaphysics method may have a role in inducing the past history. In addition, geometry depends to a great extent on formality, it is more abstract than the science that study the socio-educational phenomenon, which is a reflection of a thinking living being. Do the geometrical phenomenon think?

E2- Mahros Ghaban suggested that Ibn Khaldun explained social phenomena including the educational phenomenon a unilateral explanation and developed a single rule for the phenomenon. The previous discussion suggests that the social phenomenon –the educational included- can not be studies separately. Ibn Khaldun explained the importance of considering the interaction between these phenomena to research objectivity. The single governing rule Ibn Khaldun developed may be considered revolutionary as he developed it long time before the string theory or the duality theory. The former states that the most importance organism in the universe is a small string from its vibration all forces and particles are produced. The single string ring ranges between 10-23 cm in length⁷⁵.

Centuries after Ibn Khaldun, Shrodinger attempted to apply mechanical quantum as a theory in natural science on social daily life. Richard achieved great success recently.⁷⁶ Isn’t Ibn Khaldun’s call for using a single rule for social phenomenon like natural science a revolutionary call which the west ignored and as a result western civilization was delayed. Michio Kaku; the physics professor at City College says that human civilization was greatly delayed and it is still at zero level.⁷⁷

E3- Mahros Ghaban justified lack of numerical quantification in Ibn Khaldun’s research by saying that there was no interest in statistics in general not withstanding educational statistic in Ibn Khaldun’s age. I would say that education at that age was selective not common as it is now. Common education began with French revolution in 1789, in addition, states were interested in statistics as indicated in their registration of army ordnance and number of soldiers.

E4- Mahros also agrees with Ibn Khaldun’s critics that his generalization do not reach the level of laws. The researcher of the current paper invites the reader to consider the following generalizations: “Violence harms learners”, “to have good education, you need to have good teachers”, “The defeated always tends to follow the victorious”, “Travelling after learning is a sort of education”, “Abundance of science is an indication of an established civilization”. Didn’t recent psychological and educational research worn us of using violence with the learner, didn’t international conferences and the American report in 1991 on educational strategy 2000 stressed the importance of teacher development as a significant element in the educational process.⁷⁸ Also observations indicate that colonized states intellectually and economically follow their colonialists in Africa, Americas, Europe, Australia, and Asia. Ghaban says that Ibn Khaldun’s rules are only generalizations, if such, how did it stand until today?

E5- Mahros challenges Ibn Khaldun geographical determinism by pointing to states which Ibn Khaldun nominated deviant in the past but enjoying common education in the present. Ibn Khaldun preceded modern environments in refuting what Galton and Geneno suggested about the heredity of emotional traits, and classifying people according to their genetic heredity. Other people confirm that man changes his geographical environment to his advantage.⁷⁹ The author suggest that geographical environment shape its inhabitants and direct their activities, Japan plants rise on mountains, some people work in fishing because they have shores of lakes. In addition Aids is prevailing in the states Ibn Khaldun mentioned as a result of having sexual intercourse with animals, they also suffer from immorality, and laziness. Sudanese people leaves great fertile lands unplanted and works in unstraining jobs. Ibn Khaldun combined in his geographical determinism –which I call the influence of the geographical location- a number of interacted elements in those people including laziness, lack of religious commitment, and lack of education and science. Africa is an excellent example.

Ibn Khaldun defined the effectiveness of the educational process in the school in three phases:⁸⁰

First phase: a preparatory phase used for preparing the learner to receive the educational material.

Second phase: depth phase where the learner is taught the specific content, and different points of view, explanation and comments are presented.

Third phase: fixing phase, where graduality is preserved to master the subject matter.

A diagram showing how Ibn Khaldun studied the various aspects of the social phenomenon including the educational one.

1- Mahros Ahmed Ibrahim Ghaban: “Ibn Khaldun contributions to the comparative education”, King Saoud university Journal, Reyad, 1993, p.364.

2- Mahros Ahmed Ibrahim Ghaban: Ibn Khaldun, a founder of comparative education, A study in Islamic sciences, Reyad, King Fahid National Library, 1994, p.63.

3- Morad Wahba: The philosophical Dictionary, Cairo, Dar Keba for publishing and distribution, 4^th edition, 1998, p. 55.

4- Maher Abdel Khader Mohamed: The Philosophy of science “Methodology”, Alexandria, Dar El-Marifa El-Gameya, 2000, Pp. 15-28.

5- Mahros Ibrahim Ahmed Ghaban: “Ibn Khaldun’s contributions in comparative education”, Ibid, p.367.

6- Mahros Ibrahim Ahmed Ghaban: Ibn Khaldun, a founder of comparative education, Ibid, p.63.

7- Mahros Ibrahim Ahmed Ghaban: “Ibn Khaldun’s contributions in comparative education”, Ibid, p.366.

8- Mahros Ibrahim Ahmed Ghaban: Ibn Khaldun, a founder of comparative education, Ibid, Pp.61-62.

9- Mahros Ibrahim Ahmed Ghaban: “Ibn Khaldun’s contributions in comparative education”, Ibid, Pp. 339-354.

10- Mahros Ibrahim Ahmed Ghaban: Ibn Khaldun A founder of comparative education, Ibid, p.62.

11- Hosein Moines: Civilisation, A study in its origins, elements of establishment and evolution, Alam El-Marifa series, Kuwait, the National Council, 2^nd edition, 1998, Pp.33-35.

12- Mahros Ibrahim Ahmed Ghaban: “Ibn Khaldun’s contribution in comparative education”, Ibid, pp354-367.

13- Mahros Ibrahim Ahmed Ghaban: “Ibn Khaldun’s contribution in comparative education”, Ibid, p.368.

15- Mahros Ibrahim Ahmed Ghaban: Ibn Khaldun, a founder of comparative education, Ibid, p.65.

18- Melhm Khorbany: Khaldunian laws, Beirut, El-Moasasa El-Ghameya for publishing and distribution, 1984, Pp. 47-53.

19- Mostafa El-Shaka: Islamic basics in Ibn Khaldun’s thought and theories, Cairo, El-Dar El-Masrya El-Libnanya, 3^rd edition, 1992, Pp. 194-197.

24- Mahmoud Ismael: The end of legend of Ibn Khadun’s theory, El-Mansoura , Amer for publication, 1996, Pp.28-30.

25- Ian Creep: The social phenomenon from Bar sons to Happer Mass, Translated by Mohamed Husein Ghlom , Alam El-Marifa series, Kuwait, National council ,issue 244, 1999 ,p.8.

27- Yomna Tarif El-Kholy: The philosophy of science in the 20^th century, Alam Al-Marifa series, Kuwait, National council, issue 264, 2000, Pp.27-64.

31- Abd El-Rahman Ibn Khaldun: Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldun, Edited by Ali Abdel Wahid Wafy, Cairo, Dar Nahdat Masr for publishing, Part 1, p.167.

34- Mahros Ahmed Ibrahim Ghaban: “Ibn Khaldun contributions in comparative educations”, Ibid, p.364.

38- Abd El-Salam El-Masdy: Readings in El-Shaby, El-Motanabe, El-Gahiz, and Ibn Khaldun, A critical series, Kuwait, Dar Soad El-Sabah, 4^th edition, 1993, p.150.

40- Mahros Ahmed Ibrahim Ghaban: Ibn Khaldun, founder of comparative education, Ibid, Pp.49-56.

43- Abd El-Rahman Mohamed Ibn Khaldun: Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldun, Part (1), Ibid, p.30.

44- Mahros Ibrahim Ahmed Ghaban: “Ibn Khaldun’s contribution in comparative education”, Ibid, Pp. 3-8.

47- Abd El-Rahman Ibn Khaldun: Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldun, Part (1), Ibid, Pp.69-76.

51- Abd El-Rahman Ibn Khaldun: Muqaddimat Ibn Khaldun, Part (1), Ibid, Pp.77-81.

53- Abd El-Rahman Ibn Khaldun: Muqaddimat Ibn Khaldun, Part (1), Ibid, Pp.85-99.

55- Fouad Isak El-Khory: Anthropology doctrines and the genius of Ibn Khaldun, (Beirut, Dar El-Saky, 1992), Pp.5, 6, 36-37.

57- Abd El-Rahman Ibn Khaldun: Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldun, Edited by Ali Abd El-Wahid Wafe, (Cairo, Dar Nahdat Masr, 3^rd edition, Part (2) ) , Pp. 521-821.

59- Moan: “Man is a bio-cultural being”, Translated by Mohamed Sabila & Abd El-Salam Bin Abdel Ali, Dafater Falsafia series, Casablanca, Dar Tobokal for publishing, 1996, Pp.13-14.

60- Abd El-Rahman Ibn Khaldu: Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldun, Edited by Ali Abd El-Wahid Wafe, Cairo, Dar Nahdat Masr, 3^rd edition, Part (3), Pp. 1264-1365.

61- Abd El-Rahman Ibn Khaldun: Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldun, Part (1), Ibid, Pp.396-397.

62- Hussein Hindawy: History and the state between Ibn Khaldun and Hegel, Beirut, Dar El-Saky, 1996, p.114.

63- Abd El-Rahman Ibn Khaldun: Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldun, Part (1), Ibid, Pp.115-126.

65- Abd El-Rahman Ibn Khaldun: Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldun, Part (1), Ibid, Pp.132-137.

67- Abd El-Rahman Ibn Khaldun: Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldun, Part (3), Ibid, p.1242.

69- Abd El-Rahman Ibn Khaldun: Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldun, Part (3), Ibid, p.1249.

70- Abd El-Rahman Ibn Khaldun: Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldun, Part (3), Ibid, p.1253.

71- Abd El-Rahman Ibn Khaldun: Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldun, Part (2), Ibid, Pp.936-938.

72- Abd El-Rahman Ibn Khaldun: Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldun, Part (3), Ibid, p.1019.

73- Mahros Ahmed Ibrahim Ghaban: “Ibn Khaldun’s contributions in comparative education” , Ibid, p.365.

75- Mokaergy: “Approaches to modern physics”, Translated by Adham El-Seman, Magalat El-Elom series, Kuwait, Kuwaiti scientific advancement organization, Vol. (13), issue (918), 1997, Pp.50-52.

76-Yam: “Restoring Shrodinger’s cat”, Translated by Atia Ashor, Magalat El-Elom series, Kuwait, Scientific advancement institution, vol. (13), issue (12), 1997,Pp.48-49.

77- Michio Kaku: A futuristic vision, Translated by said El-Dein Kharfan, Alam El-Marifa series, (Kuwait, National council, issue (270), 2000), Pp. 9-45.

78-Badr El-Deep: Comprehensive planning mechanism for educational reforms, an educational document from the United States, (Reyad, Gulf States Education Bureau, 1992).

79- Abd El-Rahman Ibn Khaldun: Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldun, Part (1), Ibid, Pp.230-232.

80- Abd El-Salam Shadady: “Ibn Khaldun”, Mostakbaliat series, Educational thinker, (Cairo, UNISCO publishing center, Part (2), 1996), Pp. 36-37.

The notion of dialogue stems from the precondition of some kind of pluralism. In other words it is necessary for there to be at least two factors involved. In one unique system there is no need for any negotiation, discourse or dialogue. In assuming a process of dialogue plurality is therefore an important feature. In such a case the notion of ‘many’ replaces that of the ‘one-ness’ of unity. According to this perspective the various civilizations of the world are not seen as a single complete entity, but rather as an assortment of diverse collectivities occurring at different times and places, giving the impression of having diverse priorities and itineraries. Civilizations are not evaluated as a single progression of the ‘mind’ and ‘action’ of humanity in itself, but as different facets functioning at diverse levels. This way of categorizing humanity stems from a particular view of the universe as a whole. From such a perspective Huntington’s idea of a ‘clash of civilizations’ cannot be dismissed, and the kind of dialogue between civilizations as proposed by Khatami is not guaranteed. What Mauwlana suggests for our world is for us to change our viewpoint by replacing dualism and pluralism with unity and love, which could then become a source for the transformation of differences and the perception of otherness. In such an environment it would not be necessary to discard or eliminate the differences between cultures in favour of summoning forth a condition of uniformity. Distinctive characteristics among various cultures should not be a reason for the separation of people and making them enemies of one another. Dialogue would achieve harmony and unity if it had a foundation in the love of others and respect for them, whomsoever they may be. This is what our world needs today.

Love and dialogue in Mauwlana’s poetry

Only few days have elapsed of the Year of Dialogue among Civilizations, appointed by the United Nations according to a suggestion from the prominent scholar Mr Khatami, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The year 2001 has already passed and it has indeed become most obvious that the need for dialogue has definitely not diminished but has in fact become indispensable. It seems that it has now increased to such an extent that the requirement of mutual understanding has entered a new dimension. How this idea could play a real part in the life of humankind is still hazy and ambiguous, both conceptually and with regards to some kind of method for putting it into practice. In what manner could dialogue be used to bring various communities to a point where they might be able to recognize that their differences should not necessarily be a source of conflict, and acknowledge the equality of humanity as a whole and the mutual respect that this summons forth? How might the idea of otherness established by western colonial discipline vanish from the world, so that there might be different methods of understanding between the various societies and nations of the world? Orientalism is just one way of presenting another facet. In our times the process of globalization has had the effect of accentuating differences in the world rather than bringing about harmony and consonance. Communication technology may have changed the face of the world, but it has profoundly fragmented it far and wide. Information technology has moved the world into a different position compared to that of the past, but it cannot reduce a difference between North and South, or developed and undeveloped countries nor has it the capacity to do so. We can be sure that differences in this new world have assumed more prominence than they had before. In such a situation discourse between various cultures and civilizations has to follow a different path: one, which is not simply based on talking and listening without accepting and acting. Ethical behaviour could play a crucial role in reducing clashes of interest within societies and the causes of wars between different groups and nations.

Dialogue must begin with a new evaluation of the meaning of ‘self,’ and then the development of the ability to observe others on an equal footing as human beings and not as entirely distinct entities. If the source of humanity is unique and there is the possibility of realizing a sense of this source within the world, how did concentration on particular differences become a major distinguishing characteristic of mankind? There must be a way whereby there could be a return to the kind of situation without discrimination and differences wherein the world was established in the first days. What I mean by this is that it could be possible to make an attempt to reduce the sense of difference and otherness that exists in the minds and behaviour of people all over the world. One way of looking at this issue is to discover factors that could help people eliminate the ambiguity and conflict of their inner state and then develop the ability to reflect it outside the self. In this respect the great Persian poet Mauwlana Jalaluddin Rumi has many things to say that could be elaborated upon for the benefit of our world. Words and ideas such as his might expand our minds and souls into a vast space wherein we would be able to think and breathe purely and properly. How does Mauwlana’s discourse suggest a discipline and method that could be applied to our world? Before answering this question we should know a little about Mauwlana and his message for the world.

Mauwlana Jalaluddin Rumi was born in 1207 to a family of learned Persian theologians in the city of Balkh, Afghanistan, which at that time was part of the Persian Empire[1]. Escaping from the destruction of the Mongol invasion, Rumi and his family travelled extensively in the Muslim lands, performed the pilgrimage to Mecca, and finally settled in Konya, Anatolia, then a part of the Seljuk Empire. After his father Bahaduddin Valad passed away, Rumi succeeded him in 1231 as professor of religious sciences. At twenty-four years of age Rumi was already an accomplished scholar in the religious and natural sciences.

A wandering dervish known as Shamsuddin of Tabriz introduced him into the world of mysticism. Rumi’s love for Shamsuddin and the bereavement he felt following his death found their expression in the ‘Diwani Shamsi Tabrizi,’ a surge of music, dance and lyric poetry. Rumi is also the author of the six volume epic didactic work ‘Mathnawi,’ which Jami, another respected Persian poet, called ‘the Qur`an in Persian,’ and his discourses, ‘Fihi ma Fihi,’ were written as an introduction to metaphysics for his disciples.

Mauwlana Jalaluddin Rumi died on December 17^th 1273. Men of five faiths followed his bier. That night was named Sebul Arus (the Night of Union). Ever since that time the Mauwlawi dervishes have kept that date as a festival.

According to Annemarie Schimmel, a prominent scholar who has studied Mauwlana and his poetry in depth, the central point in Rumi’s poetry and indeed his whole life is the idea of ‘love.’ This love is not a human creaturely love. It is rather the divine love toward the creature that brings forth the whole universe: a love that is extended to all parts of the universe, including the human being. She writes:

“If there is any general idea underlying Rumi’s poetry, it is the absolute love of God.”[2]

How could love in this sense help a process of dialogue that has become so important for our world of today? How can the idea of ‘love’ become a method of ‘evaluation’ and ‘action’ and thereby enhance the development of understanding among contemporary civilizations?

To answer these questions we have to look at the bases of ‘dialogue’ and ‘love’ and the connections that they might have with each other?

The notion of dialogue has its inception within that of dualism and plurality. An organism that is unique has no need for negotiation, discourse or dialogue. The assumption of a process of dialogue presupposes the existence of plurality as a predominant feature. In such a case ‘many’ has replaced ‘one’ and the unity of oneness, and the civilizations of the world can no longer be regarded as aspects of a single entity. On the contrary, it is regarded as a collection of different isolated phenomena occurring at different places and times with different priorities and directions. Under such circumstances human collectivities cannot then be evaluated as the development of ‘mind’ and ‘action’ from a unique source, but rather as completely distinct facets and levels in isolation to each other. This manner of distinguishing various civilizations is rooted in a particular way of looking at the universe as a whole. The contrasting notions of physics and metaphysics, this world and the next, self and other, and so forth, are disparaged when expressed openly, rather than remaining dormant as an unspoken inner dualism as in the conventional view of reality according to our present world. It is apparently true that within contemporary imagination conditions before and after death constitute two separate states completely unconnected to each other. Nonetheless, in reality there is no absolute distinction between the two. One is rather the continuation and consequence of the other. The origin of ‘I’ and ‘you’ is one. The concept of unity is not something that exists only in our minds. It is an entity that, according to Rumi, is the water that feeds the world. It is the essence of the universe. It is the love that has filled existence. The one that governs all things. In this respect Mauwlana said:

Love is the One who masters all things;
I am mastered totally by Love.
By my passion of love for Love
I have ground sweet as sugar.[3]

The notion of the other in addition to myself is based on difference and discontinuity, and necessarily incorporates a quasi-absolute distinction between you and me. If these differences are limited to the sphere of physical objects it can naturally be accepted as a logical and practical reality of the world in which we function. If, however, it is extended into the field of ethnicity it can have disastrous consequences, as we see happening in several places around the world nowadays. The subject of race is of course a natural phenomenon and should be evaluated in its proper context, where variation and difference form a pattern that is both interesting and enriching. But if these differences are regarded as a cause for hostility and complete alienation it becomes an appalling practice. The sense of otherness, however, is an aspect of the differences that occur not only in nature and race, but also in the field of ideas and the relative priorities that are applied in all areas. The words ‘orient’ and ‘oriental’ do not carry negative connotations except when they have been used, by some western orientalists for example, as a disparaging inference of inequality and otherness. History shows us that up until the relatively recent past mankind did not face such differentiating hostility and fragmentation between cultures and civilizations as we witness nowadays. One of the main causes of this is that the basis for evaluation has changed, and difference has adopted negative connotations and become a major issue, displacing unity and harmony in the minds and behaviour of people at large. Historically dialogue and mutual understanding have generally been practised between civilizations. Translation of verbal and written material could be cited as just one example of a process that attempts to understand the background and ways of life of others. Familiarization with other cultures forms a kind of unspoken dialogue that has been perpetuated throughout history. The development of communication technology and the processes of modernization have had a shrinking affect on time and space, and have accelerated the processes by which people are likely to become aware of the different social backgrounds of others. This could not have happened to the same extent in the past. Although when various societies become increasingly aware of each other this often smoothes the ground for better understanding and co-operation between them, this phenomenon does not totally resolve the basic problems that mankind is faced with today. Perhaps the pace at which this happens in our modern world is simply too fast for humanity to digest. All international attempts to reduce racism, hatred, poverty and exploitation, fail to even approach a solution that might avoid the potentially disastrous consequences. As mentioned before, one of the biggest problems is the manner in which different societies and civilizations regard each other – the way one group may portray another in its way of thinking. The processes involved in the social psyche of any large group of people are based on two things. The first is the reality that has shaped its identity. The second is the way in which the particular culture presents itself to society. This being the case, the starting point for dialogue would therefore not be above all else to discover whatever similarities there may be between different civilizations, although this of course is also a necessary ingredient for embarking upon the enterprise as a whole, but on the contrary, to try to affect a change in the imagination of others, and appeal to the inner core of their hearts and minds.

According to Mauwlana, love is able to play a very important role in this process. In this respect, love is not simply the emotion and passion that one person may feel towards another. Love is openness between one another. Such openness requires the prerequisites of similarity, harmony and unity. If too much emphasis is placed on dissimilarities to the extent that it becomes a preoccupation, we cannot expect that there will be harmony amongst people. Genuine communication and dialogue between civilizations would also follow on from the same premise of closeness and openness. If we can imagine a nation as a closed system, brought forth and developed completely independently and without any exchange or modification of its beliefs and ideas from outside, in such a case we should not consider the possibility or necessity of communication and dialogue. In actuality any closed system can only exist in isolation if it is to maintain all its parts intact, simply because it would otherwise lose the unified balance which is obligatory for its existence and perpetuity. Many civilizations in the past have collapsed simply because they could not co-operate with others. The rise and fall of any nation are largely connected with its flexibility, the capacity to co-exist with other nations, and its ability to exchange ideas with other cultures.

To achieve this condition of love, Mauwlana presented his philosophy by looking at the whole of existence and explicitly allocating to man the position of centre, thereby attached to the source of the creative power of the universe. In all the methodology of Islamic Irfan and mysticism God occupies the central position and everything is related to Him, not only because of His creativity, but also because of the cord of love that binds man to his Creator. Through this love and passion man seeks a way to return to the central source from which he has received his being and existence. All life is actually the struggle to find a proper path of return to the root of existence. The whole universe functions by working in this same direction in varied ways, consciously or not, even though differences appear in the actions of each entity. Accordingly, people are then not evaluated by their differences, but on the contrary, by their degree of harmony and conformity in the direction of unity. The love of God in the perspective of Mauwlana is the right path for mankind to follow in order to reach final victory. He said:

The lovers of God have fallen in a furious river;
They have surrendered themselves to Love's commands.

In the universal river man must surrender to love. Love eradicates differences and demolishes hatred. In such conditions unity and harmony would permeate the life of mankind, and dialogue would be both indispensable and natural for the continuity of human existence. Violence and war could then be regarded objectively as abnormal and deviant.

Moreover, Mauwlana has emphasized that love releases man from the perception of the differences of the two worlds. This conception of there actually being a difference is based on a dual perspective that has been able to penetrate the minds of all people. He asked God, his Beloved, to burn him from inside and demolish him totally if he set his heart on anything other than Him. What sort of unity is this that Mauwlana was seeking? It is not only the unity that binds an individual to his beloved God. It is surely the love that, in addition, is able to unite all individuals, the whole of humanity, and bind it to the one source of existence. In this regard we may heed Mauwlana’s words:

Oh Beloved, take me. Liberate my soul.
Fill me with your love and release me from the two worlds.
If I set my heart on anything but you, let fire burn me from inside.

Oh Beloved, take away what I want.
Take away what I do. Take away what I need.
Take away everything that takes me from you.[4]

Based upon his personal struggle, Mauwlana tried to set up a whole system of evaluation and action, that was not focussed on divergences but established in unity and harmony. Love is the source of his philosophy and perspective. People suffer the effects of many different things in their lives, but these phenomena should not change their nature and identity. Conflicts and contradictions are not representative of the essential inner core of the human being. The unified and harmonious body of the universe represents a continuous matrix of communication and dialogue between each of its parts. Love is the cord that is able to thread the whole of mankind together. The river of love flows constantly and can still be reached. People need to decide whether they are to be inside or outside the flow of this river. Channels for the exchange of ideas could be immersed in love. This river can wash away all the illusions of conflicting otherness between cultures and establish harmony, which is precisely what our world is thirsting for.

[1]- Moore, T. (1999). Rumi: The Path of Love, Element Books Limited.

[2]- Schimmel, Annemarie ( 1996 ) Look! This is Love: Poems of Rumi, Boston, Mass: Shambhala.

[3] - Harvey, Andrew (2000) The Way of Passion: A Celebration of Rumi

[4] - Hush Don’t Say Anything to God: Passionate Poems of Rumi, Translated by Shahram Shiva

Can the Sadraean Notion of Mental Causation Remedy the Perplexity of the Contemporary Philosophy of Mind on Mental Causation?

Mahmoud Khatami, University of Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Causation is an important but perplexing issue in the contemporary philosophy of mind. To justify mental causation which is generally done on the basis of physicalism, several interpretations of the causation, either in reductionistic or non-reductionistic approaches, are now in force. It seems that these interpretations all suffers from lack of an ontetic basis. My objective in this paper is to introduce Sadraean notion of mental causation to see how far it can contribute to remedy this.

After formulating the contemporary problem of mental causation, I will start from the understandings of causation by tracing it through a rapid study of epiphenomenalism, mental realism, mental anomalism, counterfactual and supervenience approaches, and then I will continue to recapitulate Sadraean view aiming to express its fresh and novel aspects.

A. The Problem

In recent decades analytical philosophers have become increasingly aware of the importance of causation in the analysis of the mind. It seems, however, that there is a perplexity in explaining mental causation in contemporary philosophy of mind. The crucial aspect of this perplexity is hidden in two interrelated factors: (I) abolition of the substantival view of the mind; and (II) restricting the concept of causation to the physical efficient causation. I would proceed to trace a brief description of these factors, and then will turn to Sadra’s approach to see if we can find any support for mental causation.

(I) Abolition of the substantival view of the mind- Although they have not been almost successful in explaining the mind-body relationship, ancient great philosophers described mind as soul and believed in mental substances. The main idea is that each of us is a composite being made up of two distinct substances, an immaterial mind and a material body. By ‘substance’ almost understood something that can “exist independently” and have properties and enter into relationships with other substances. This view that found its modern formulation in Cartesian dualism is rejected by many contemporary philosophers of mind for it does not seem credible that an immaterial substance, with distinct and independent characteristics and totally outside physical space, could causally influence, and be influenced by the motions of material bodies that are strictly governed by physical laws. It seems to them that this substantival view is unable to explain the possibility of mental causation, namely, how mentality can make a causal difference to the material body. [1]

With rejecting the substantival view of the mind, we are asked to characterise the mental with ‘properties, events, and processes all of them must be classified in terms of physical behaviours and functions (e.g. sensation, perception, memory, consciousness, and the like). This is why the principal characteristic of contemporary philosophy of mind is its physicalistic frame.

(II) The restricted concept of causation- Thanks to modern scientific view the concept of causation confined to efficient causation and other possible kinds of causation were omitted within the physicalistic frame of contemporary philosophy of mind. On the basis of this restricted concept of causation, the problematic aspect of mental causation appears in explaining two interrelated questions:

(1) Has the mind any causal power to create mental events or to cause a change in a material body and to initiate a causal chain of physical events?

(2) If the mind has such a power, does mental causation require backing by laws connecting mental and physical events and properties?

B. Current Solutions

In the contemporary philosophy of mind there are three approaches to the issue:

(A) Epiphenomenalism- Epiphenomenalism supposes that (a) all mental event are caused by physical events, and (b) mental events are only epiphenomena, that is events without powers to cause any other event (be mental or physical), and when there is no causal power for the mind, there will be no need to the connecting laws. Scientific behaviourists, type/reductive physicalists are examples of this approach.[2]

(B) Mental realism- While epiphenomenalistic approach denies any causal power for the mind, mental realism indicates that the mental causation is possible and there must be laws connecting the mental to the physical. This approach widely accepted has its defenders in contemporary philosophy of mind, even though with a functionalistic/ instrumentalistic version.[3]

(C) Mental anomalism- It is a doctrine suggested by Donald Davidson and seems to imply a third approach which intermediated between mental realism and epiphenomenalism and one may regard it as an attempt to reconcile them with each other.[4] As for the first question (1) Davidson accepts that there is some forms of causality, but his answer to the second question is negative that is there is no strict psychophysical laws. Along with mental realism, this approach agrees that the mental events sometimes cause physical events; however, this causation is a property causation which is based on token physicalism, because it claims that all events, including mental events, are physical events; this means that, in agreement with epiphenomenalism, the mental may have no causal power in itself because, Davidson argues, there is no psychophysical laws connecting the mental to the physical, and since mental causation requires such laws, it follows that there is no causal relations between the mental in itself and the physical. Property mental causation then is the claim that the mental events are causes and effects of physical events; and to say this is to say that the mental event has a physical property such that an appropriate law connects this property with the property of the physical event. Mental properties have causal efficacy whether these are construed as properties of events or of objects.

Though Davidson’s view can help mental realism against classic epiphenomenalism by accepting a special kind of mental causation, he nevertheless leaves it with two basic unsolved problems; first as classic epiphenomenalism, he agrees that the mental has no causal power in itself; the mental can cause a change so far as it has physical properties. Second, it is not clear how anomalous mental properties, properties that are not fit for laws, can be causally efficacious properties. To remove these problems, some philosophers of mind have tried to modify the nomological conception of causality as understood by Davidson. They suggest two alternative versions of causation on which mental properties, though anomalous, could be causally efficacious: The first is the counterfactual account of causation and the second is the supervenience account of causation.

(1) The counterfactual account (be accepted in its nomic-derivational or in its possible-world versions) accepts mental causality as understood by common sense, and then we need laws, even though non-strict. According to its nomic approach, causality explores a necessary condition; so when we say that X caused Y, we have already said that if X had not been the case, Y would not have been the case. Then there is no mystery. The mental events in virtue of their mental properties can and do sometimes cause physical events because we can and do sometimes know appropriate psychophysical counterfactuals to be true. Mental causation is possible because according to this approach such counterfactuals are sometimes true. [5]

(2) Supervenience account of mental causation is still more interesting. This approach indicates that mental properties supervenient on physical properties; any two objects or events that are exactly alike in all physical respects can not differ in mental respects; that is, there can be no mental difference unless there is a physical difference. According to this approach, the mental which is supervenient on one physical base, can be a supervenient cause for another physical event, but we must not understand by this that the mental is really an efficative cause in the sense that it brings about that physical change and event. On contrary, it is the former physical base that cause the latter; suppose that you feel a pain in your elbow so that causes you to wince; this pain supervenes on a physical base which is neural state; commonsensely it is understood that it is pain that causes muscle contraction to wince. According to supervenient approach, however, it is right if we understand by the word “cause” here “superveniently cause”: the pain supervenes on the neural state and the wincing supervenes on the muscle contraction; the pain’s causation of wincing consists in its supervenience base of wincing which is fully physical, then when we say the pain causes muscle contraction it is because the pain’s supervenience base (which is physical) causes it; we may also speak of the pain as a supervenient cause of the wincing, but in the sense that its supervenience base causes the supervenience base of the wincing.[6]

As one may rightly expect from the above depiction, contemporary philosophers of mind are probably able to explain the physical-mental causal relation in terms of their accepted principles; but they seem to be no much success in explaining the mental-mental, and the mental-physical causal relations. This is not only because of the restricted concept of causation employed here, but also, as I already hinted, because of the expulsion of minds as substantival entities. Mental events and processes are now considered as certain physical systems like biological organisms, not substantival immaterial minds. The problem of mental causation is then formulated in terms of two kinds of events or properties within a physicalistic frame.

The challenge thus posed by contemporary philosophy of mind in explaining mental causation consists in a twofold idea against which it seems logical that if one denies immateriality and substantivality of the mind, one can conclude that there is only one form of causation; that is the physical efficient causation. All approaches mentioned above accept this main idea. To remove this challenge, however, it would seem that we may take a twofold way of responding to this challenge: First, we may try to reject its principal premise, namely the negation of immateriality and substantivality of the mind; and second, we may try to show that the physical efficient causation- in particular as presented and understood by contemporary philosophy of mind is not the only concept of causation, and that there are alternative concept of causation on which the mind could causally efficacious. In the next section, I will try to explore this possibility by introducing Sadraean point of view.

C. Sadra’s Concept Of Mental Causation

To understand Sadra’s concept of mental causation, I think best to introduce first of all his concept of the mind which differs from the current one and then enter his notion of causation to exert his view of mental causation.

C1. Sadra’s Concept of the Mind- Sadra holds, and demonstrates that the mind is a simple immaterial substance which emerges along/with the body so that it becomes “the first entelechy (perfection) of the body”.[7] The human reality is initially revealed and shaped as a totally corporeal entity. There is one being which passes through various stages of perfection, and in every stage it exhibits unique behavioural patterns appropriate to that stage.[8] This indicates the corporeal origin of the mind. This by no means, however, indicates that the mind is considered as a quality of the body (as we see in type physicalism). On the contrary, to Sadra, the mind is a substance which is immaterial in essence while material in performance. This means for Sadra that all biological and intellectual functions of human organism are nothing but outward manifestations of a single and simple reality. This is what Sadra expresses by the following principle:[9]

Physical Emergentism- The mind bodily emerges in its origin but remains spiritual in its survival.

This principle implies three interrelated principles:

First it indicates that there is a mind-body attachment or dependence:

Mind-body dependence- The mind depends on the body in its identity and generation but not in its substance.

This principle indicates that the mental forms can not be emerged regardless of physical conditions and occasions, but this dependence is not happily viewed as causal; namely, it is not as if the mental is brought about by the physical.

Second, it indicates that there is a special kind of change through which the mind emerges:

Substantival change- The mind emerges on the body through a substantival motion which is in its turn ontetic and existential.

On this principle which is in its turn based on Sadraean specific theory of Being, from one hand, and a reformulation of the principle of potency-act in the traditional metaphysics, from other hand, the mind comes into being in the form of bodily existence and then through its substantival motion it passes through physical stages towards its refined nature. It is not the case that the mind comes to the body from outside; rather, the very reality of the mind, as Sadra saw it emerges on the material body at the beginning of its temporal course; and then the actualisation of the physical reality under the principle of substantival change ends in the spiritual stage. In other words, human existence changes and develops by itself and this change is from the less instance to more instance; this change and movement constitutes the entity of the mind, and because of this developmental motion, new possibilities open up.

The same principle demands that, since the mind emerges on the basis of matter it can not be absolutely material, for ‘emergence’ requires that the emergent be of a higher level than that which it emerges out of or on the basis of; and then the identity of the body is due to the mind which is its final form. This idea is accomplished in the following principle:

The irreducibility of the emergent mind- The emergent mind (including its forms, events and processes) is irreducible to and unpredictable from the lower-level matter from which it emerges.

These principles all indicate that the natural phase of the existence of the mind begins with a physical nature. Sadra writes:

“The truth is that the human mind is physical in its temporal occurrence and participation, whereas it is spiritual in its subsistence and intellection; that it is spiritual in its participation in the material world, it is corporeal, while by its intellection of its own essence and of the essence of its cause, it remains spiritual.”[10]

In this manner the traditional dualism of human nature tends in Sadraean approach to a unity. Man, instead of being a composite of body and mind, is considered as a single and simple reality which comes into being in a body and gradually becomes transformed into its spiritual substance, as if the body of man were a catalyst by which the physical reality ascends to the spiritual:

It is evident that the human form is the ultimate stage of the physical reality as well as the initial stage of the spiritual reality.[11]

The substantival change of the mind from a bodily genesis to a spiritual entity leads to the total actualisation of the rational faculty which is just a potentiality in the primitive stages of the development of the mind, that is, when the mind has not yet cast away its vegetable and animal shells. The mind is inner force behind all the developmental processes; it is in its vegetable stage when man is still a fertilised cell; then it passes through animal kingdom, which in turn culminates in the initial stage of manhood, wherein the rational faculty is about to achieve actualisation. Thus, the intellect becomes manifest after the full realisation of the sense organs and the internal faculties like perception, memory and the others.[12]

The mind has its being as a continuous reality at all these levels and at each of these levels it is the same in sense and yet different in a sense because, as the hierarchic doctrine of existence demands, the same being can pass through different levels of development.[13] So considered, the mind becomes purified and realised its actualities as it is existentially provided with variety of faculties and powers. Faculties are the ‘ modes’ or ‘manifestations’ of the mind. It is one of the novel aspects of Sadra’s theory of the mind that he attributes the quality of having powers, organs and faculties to the mind and not to the physical body which makes the mind a function of the body. Sadra expresses this position by the following principle:

Mental Faculties- The mind in its own unity is all of the faculties.[14]

This celebrated position is indeed a radical departure from the cardinal approaches in classic as well as contemporary philosophy of mind. Sadra claims that this interpretation of the mind removes the difficulties experienced by the definition of the mind; further, it raises the mind from the status of a purely physical form to a form which, although in matter, is capable of transcending it, for the extent of its immanence in matter is less than that of a simple physical form. This position frankly corresponds with the principles of physical emergentism and substantival change. Indeed, when the mind which is an existential unity in all experience achieves its highest form through its substantival change, it contains all the lower faculties and forms within its simple nature. This idea leads Sadra to a further interesting principle:

The principle of Mental creativity- The mind has a supra-power to create by and in itself all perceptible forms.[15]

The mind, although generated with/in the body, is not of the body; but something higher than it, and employs bodily functions. As for sense perception, its subject is also the mind, not the sense organs. Physical organs are required for sense perception but only thanks to the accidental fact that we exist in a material world. The reason for this is that the external sensibles and the affections of the sense organ are merely preparatory and provide the ‘occasions’ for the creation of the perceptible forms in and by itself from within.

This is because the mind is provided with such faculties by its ontetic substantival movements. So, in the case of audition, for example, it is not the case that the external sound produces a movement in the air which is exactly transmitted through successive airwaves to the interior of the ear and thus hearing takes place. The movement of the air and its airwaves are preparatory conditions for the sound to be heard, but they do not transmit the sound.

This idea is supported by Sadra’s doctrine of the identity of the subject and object in knowledge on the basis of which knowledge in general is interpreted in terms of existence; this doctrine indicates that knowledge in general, including perceptive and imaginative, can not be merely interpreted in terms of abstraction; it is not the case that the mind abstracts forms from mater or material attachments.

C2. Sadra’s Concept of Causation- So far I tried to present the principal traits of Sadraean concept of the mind. Let me now introduce Sadra’s concept of causation:[16]

For Sadra, causation has a wide sense and a narrow sense. In its wide sense, causation may be applied so that includes occasion and condition which are not real cause. In the narrow sense of causation, so far as its nature is concerned, Sadra suggests again an existential interpretation. According to this interpretation; causation is bringing into being; this means that cause causes an object to exist; the cause, therefore authors only existence and not the essence of that object. In other words, the effect depends on its cause only for its existence not for its essence. When the object comes to exist, it then manifests its proper essence. Moreover, he suggests that what are called natural, temporal causes are not real causes but only occasions or preparatory conditions, since they only cause movement or change and do not give existence to the effect; true cause is only that which not only gives existence to its effect but also its continuity, so that it becomes inconceivable that an effect should last without its cause. The effect, therefore, has its being only in the cause, not outside of it, since the cause must be ‘present with’ the effect throughout the latter existence [17]

C3. Sadraean Mental Causation- At the beginning of this paper I mentioned that contemporary perplexity on mental causation in philosophy of mind is hidden in two interrelated factors: (I) abolition of the substantival view of the mind; and (II) restricting the concept of causation to the physical efficient causation. Now we see that Sadra accepts the substantival view of mind with an absolutely non-classic expression and meanwhile provides us with an ontetic concept of causality which can pioneer a non-physical concept of mental causation. In the light of these concepts, we may now exert Sadra’s view of the mental causation. As we already formulated, mental causation is principally whether the mind has any causal power to create mental events or to cause a change in a material body and to initiate a causal chain of physical events.

To understand Sadra’s position,[18] we must start with the agency of the mind which are characterised by free volition and choice. So everybody finds within itself that he has capacity to perform actions and this involves his causing. This is preceded by will which is the result of knowledge or imagination accompanied by desire or appetition. Having the experience of itself as the agent the mind discovers itself to be at the origin of its acting. It is upon it that the existence of acting as such depends: in it, it has its origin, and it sustains its existence. To be the cause means to produce an effect and to sustain its existence, its becoming and its being. Mind is thus in a wholly experiential way the cause of its acting. There is between mind and action a sensibly experiential, causal relation, which brings mind to recognise its action to be the result of its efficacy; in this sense it must accept its actions as its own property. This is the most evident kind of "mental efficient causation." Without going into the details of this thesis, we have at any rate to accept that part of it which asserts the special self‑evidence of mind’s efficient causation in acting, that is, the efficient causation of mind that acts.

This view strongly confirms mental realism in the sense that, contrary to epiphenomenalism, the mind has power to create mental forms or cause a change in a material body and to initiate a causal chain of physical events. In latter cases, the appearance of the mental emergents, as Sadra holds, depends on the presence of appropriate conditions and occasions; and as we saw, this means that the mental emergents in these cases emerge only when right physical bodily conditions obtain. According to Sadra, however, once the mental emergents have emerged, they begin to have a life of their own and manifest their powers by causally affecting physical bodily phenomena. This position clearly supports a positive solution for the most important problem of mental causation which is called ‘downward causation’ in contemporary philosophy of mind. Perhaps it is obvious from Sadraean principles mentioned above that acceptance of downward causation is a fundamental commitment of Sadra’s perspective: as he expresses the mental forms including mental properties, events and process are real in the sense that they have causal powers; that is, having a mental form must endow the object that has it with powers to affect courses of events. Meanwhile as Sadraean principle of irreducibility of mental emergents demands, the mental forms are distinct from their physical bodily basis. Now if being real means having causal powers, the mental realism implies irreducible causal powers which must be absolutely different from those of physical body which as we saw Sadra called them physical preparatory conditions and occasions. If so, the question is: how does the mind, (including mental forms, properties, events and process) manifests its causal power?

As the principal problem of mental causation reveals, there are two cases:

(a) A mental form has the power to cause another mental form to be instantiated;

(b) A mental form causes a change in a material body and to initiate a causal chain of physical events.

The case (a) reveals a same-level causation, the case (b) shows downward causation. While many contemporary philosophers face troubles in explaining specially the latter case, we see that Sadraean position can support to justify this.

First, one may show that the case (a) presuppose the case (b); because in the case (a), when the mental form causes another one, the latter emerges on the presence of a physical bodily occasion or preparatory condition which is physically releaser of that mental form; As Sadra already said the physical events can not be true causes but only motivating reasons, then they can not cause the mental form to be instantiated, and that mental form is not an effect of such physical releaser. In such case, according to Sadra, the former mental form, on the principles of mental faculties and creativity, causes the latter mental form by causing its physical releaser/s to be instantiated. In the case of bring in a pain about, we must bring about an instance of physical bodily condition, and to cause or eliminate it by working through its physical releaser/s. This position proves the claim that the acceptance of causal relations among the mental forms implies the acceptance of downward causation.

It is worth noting that this position changes the current understanding of mental causation, and is something that neither the reductivist nor antireductivist approaches (counterfactual and supervenience included) could accept it; because from this perspective, even the importance of physical conditions and occasions frankly accepted, the mental causation remains property of the mind and not of the physical body. On contrary, on the reductionistic approach, the causal powers of the mental are wholly derived from the physical. The mental has no new causal powers over and beyond the causal powers of the physical. Antireductivist approaches, including counterfactual and supervenience versions, even though are against this claim, however, since they believe in causation of the physical differ from Sadraean approach in this fact that they interpret the mental downward causation in terms of physical causation which simultaneously happens among the releasers of the mentals, and this is what Sadra fundamentally rejects.

By this account we see that Sadraean interpretation of mental causation puts forwards a different interesting perspective which can helpfully contribute to remedy the issue.

D. Final Considerations

I would conclude this paper with several important points to sufficiently clarify novel aspects of Sadra’s overall depiction of mental causation:

First, we must note that Sadraean concept of mental causation provides us with a metaphysical ontetic view which automatically removes any epiphenomenalistic as well as physicalistic understanding of causation which confines it only to the physical efficient causation.

Second, contrary to contemporary philosophers of mind Sadra continues to hold the substantival view of the mind; even though he agrees, as we saw, that the mind emerges on and within the body. His ontetic existential account of the emergence of the mind with/in the body allows us to keep the substantiality as well as simplicity of the mind and at the same time avoid the difficulties of the classic view of mind-body dualism and interactionism, just as it allows us to avoid difficulties with the basic idea of abolition of the mind as a simple substance which is commonly accepted as departure point of contemporary philosophy of mind.

Third, as we saw, Sadraean view supports mental realism insofar as by mental realism is understood that the mind by itself has power to cause; however, if mental realism indicates that mental causation can be real in the same sense of physical causation (as contemporary mental realists hold), it then find no support in Sadra’s transcendent account.

Fourth, Sadra’s interpretation has no need to involve the problem of bridge laws or psychophysical laws which is one of most important issues in current discussion on mental causation. As I classified as second question of contemporary formulation of the mental causation, it is asked whether mental causation requires backing by laws connecting mental and physical events and properties. According to Sadra, we need not such laws. This seems to agree Davidson’s ‘anomalous monism’ which also rejects such laws; however, this is not the case; because they differ from two aspects: (1) Davidson accepts physical efficient causation and his interpretation of mental causation, as we saw, leads him to a property epiphenomenalism which does not accept any causation for the mental in itself; while Sadra rejects any kind of epiphenomenalism and does not hold true causality for the physical. (2) Davidson denies psychophysical laws only in intentional mental events and states, those with prepositional content, while Sadra rejects such law in general. His position is clearly evident from the principles I mentioned above: according to them, being an emergent substance, the mind (along with its mental forms, event, states etc.) becomes of all faculties during its substantival change and keeps continue to posses all lower-level powers and potencies in their actual formats so that it can bring them in force and create them on the occasion of the appropriate physical conditions. So the mind does not need bridge laws or psychophysical laws, because it existentially and then actually possesses lower-level physical potencies in itself. This is without doubt a novel account and can help in this concern.

Fifth and finally, Sadra’s account confirms, even if indirectly that any exposition of mental causation needs a more metaphysical/ontetic expression, and we should not confine ourselves to scientific psychology and cognitive sciences.

Notes:

[1] For Descartes see his Meditations on First Philosophy, Meditations II, and VI; for his contemporary critics on his substantival view of the mind see Ryle G., The Concept of Mind, (London 1949) ch1, pp.11-24; also Anscombe G, Mind and Language, (London 1975) pp. 45-65 and Rorty A. (ed), Essays on Descartes’ Meditations (Ca 1986)

[2] See Huxley T., Methods and Results: Essays (NY 1975) ch5; see also; Armestrong D. and Malcolm N. (ed), Consciousness and Causality (oxford 1984) and Skinner, Science and Human behaviour (NY 1953), also Hempel C., ‘ The Logical Analysis of Psychology’ in Ned Block’s Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, V.I; J. J. Smart, ’Sensations and Brain Processes’ in Rosental’s The Nature of Mind; Armestrong D., A Materialist Theory of Mind (NY1968), and Macdonald C., Mind-Body Identity Theories (London 1989)

[3] See Shomaker S., Identity, Cause and Mind (Cambidge 1984); Searl J., The Rediscovery of the Mind (Camb 1992); also see kim’s ‘Multiple Realization and the Metaphysics of Reduction’ in his Supervenience and Mind (Camb.1993)

[4] See Davidson D., Essays on Actions and Events (NY1980), and his Mental Causation (Oxford 1993)

[5] See LePore E. and Loewer B., ‘Mind Matters’ Journal of Philosophy 84(1987): 630-642

[6] For Supervenient causation see Kim’s Op.Cit. Also C&G Mackdonald, ‘Introduction: Supervenient Causation’ in their Philosophy of Psychology (Oxford 1995)

[7] Mulla Sadra (Mohammad Shirazi) Asfar, V.8 pp.7; also 8ff Sadra interprets this classic definition of the mind on his existential/ontetic fundamentals. For the mind’s substantiality see Ibid pp.23ff and for its simplicity see pp.287ff; he brings about 14 reasons this.

[8] Ibid, V.2, p.185;

[9] For Sadra’s detailed discussions on this issue and the principles we mention here see his Asfar V.8 (also 9 and 3) also Al mabda’ wal ma’ad ‘Fi Isbat Annannafsal Insaaniyyah Haadesaton Bi Hodousel Badan’; see also Sabzevari’s Sharhol Manzoumah, Maqsad4, Fareedah6. Sadra brings about at least six arguments to demonstrate this doctrine.

[10] Asfar, V.2, p.268

[11] Shawaheid (Mahdad1346 HS), p.95

[12] Mafateeh [Tehran, lito.] Pp.128-32/Asfar, V.2., pp.223-43

[13] Asfar, V.4, pp. 21, 60-3

[14] Ibid, V.8 p 221: Ennanafsa Fi Wahadatihaa Kollol Ghowa. See also: Sabzevari’s Manzoumah P.314

[15] See Ibid, p.114ff

[16] Concerning Sadra’s concept of causation see Ibid, V.I, pp. 131ff, 145ff; 194ff; 257ff

[17] Sadra classifies six types of temporal cause; see Ibid, pp.213, 220, 223-6

[18] Sadra’s position is expanded throughout his detail discussions on various aspects of the mind; Cf. Ibid, Vols. 8, 9

Book Reviews

Religion With/Out Religion: The Prayers and Tears of John D. Caputo

Aryeh Botwinick, Temple University, USA

Following is a review-essay based upon the following four books: Religion With/Out Religion: The Prayers and Tears of John D. Caputo; Deconstruction in a Nutshell; The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida; and God, the Gift, and Postmodernism. Religion With/Out Religion: The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida, edited by James H. Olthuis (London: Routledge, 2002), is as much about Jacques Derrida's metaphysics and philosophy of religion as it is about Caputo's. Caputo has been a major expositor of Derridaean deconstruction in the United States -- and in a series of three books, Deconstruction in a Nutshell[1], The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida[2], and God, the Gift, and Postmodernism[3] has sought to connect the recent "weakly Messianic"[4] Derrida with a systematic philosophy of religion. The crux of Caputo's thesis is that deconstruction as "the passion for the impossible 'is' ... the passion for God, the passion of God."[5] In what follows I would like to focus on some of the key philosophical and theological understandings encapsulated in this sentence -- and to expose some of their vulnerabilities. In the course of doing this, I will bring some of the participants in the Olthuius symposium into the dialogue -- invoking them to help me paraphrase the conjoint Derridaean-Caputoean position.

What is the relationship between deconstruction and the impossible? In what sense does deconstruction teeter on the brink of the impossible? In the first instance one could say that deconstruction is about the instability of sense and reference adhering to any string of words that we utter. How we construe the words and sentences that we formulate is partially a function of the words and sentences that we contrast them with. As the "other" of our verbal formulation changes, so does the content of our formulation. Since the set of verbal constructions to contrast with our original formulation is potentially infinite, the precise signification of what we utter can never be firmly fixed.

One cannot interject in defence of closure by saying that whatever objects or states of affairs our strings of words refer to by their specificity delimit the sense and reference of the words invoked to describe them. What is out "there" in the world is always potentially describable by multiple and even conflicting strings of words -- so that the problem of what Derrida calls "differance" ("The meaning of a word is defined differentially, relative to the meaning of other words."[6]) is highlighted when one attempts to point to the "finite presence of objects" in the world. "Underdetermination" subsists for Derrida in two dimensions which mutually reinforce each other: Words in relation to "objects" and words in relation to words. These two ostensible dimensions constitute from Derrida's perspective a continuum which calls into question the certainty of our identification of even one object or phenomenon in the world. This factor, in turn, engenders a third dimension of "underdetermination": The universe in which we move about continually calls into question not only the ostensible character of the furniture of the world and the orientating character of our defining sentences, but the whole conceptual and material history of the world constitute so many fungible "traces" that can be everlastingly redone and redrawn. It is not just text that is combustible. Context, too, is combustible into the endless series of possible texts out of which it was formed.

The connection between deconstruction and religion occurs at precisely this point. The extreme scepticism manifested in the very broad scope of Derridaean "underdetermination" means that no possibility can be foreclosed -- including the possibilities of the Other, of God, and of ultimate redemption. This is the theoretical setting in which to appreciate Derrida's statement in his 1989 Circumfession that he has been "read less and less well over almost twenty years" because his readers are not able to fathom his relationship with Judaism -- his "religion about which nobody understands anything."[7] The connection with Judaism is quite clearly with negative theology -- with the Biblical God about which the first verses in Genesis announce that He creates the world through speech, thus immediately veiling and deflecting any talk of Divine essence and ensuring that our ongoing engagements with Him will always remain on the level of metaphor and never approach the literal. Judaism is a religion about a God whom we never get to -- just as the Derridaean intellectual universe is about a world that we never conceptually appropriate.

The Other and redemption occupy the same paradoxical location as God and our relation to worldly events and phenomena.

Derrida's "passion for the impossible" thus refers in the first instance to entities such as God, the Other, and worldly events that we can never attest with indubitable certainty are "there." Human life for millennia has been structured around these categories, and yet we cannot be sure that they truly, objectively exist. There is another dimension to "the impossible" that defines Derrida's oeuvre that develops out of the quandaries engendered by the first dimension. Derrida's relentless questioning of the identity and stability of the "objective correlatives" to our verbal constructions situates him in the camp of the sceptic. Scepticism, however, is a contradictory doctrine. To be consistently sceptical requires one to be sceptical of scepticism as well as of competing and alternative doctrines -- which suggests that there is no noncontradictory way to state scepticism. Either one acknowledges this point and withdraws from formulating scepticism -- or, if one insists upon formulating it, one is immediately mired in contradiction because one is privileging and exempting scepticism from the strictures of scepticism. Deconstruction is, in many respects, scepticism "by other means": Not a direct denial of objective reality, but a critical undermining of the possibility of language to ever get us there.

Once one approaches Derrida's philosophy in this way (noticing the pervasiveness of contradiction in his premises), then his endorsement of a "weak Messianism" follows almost as a matter of course. As Karl Popper has reminded us in his essay "What is Dialectic?", the laws of inference enshrined in Aristotelian logic show that "if two contradictory statements are admitted, any statement whatever must be admitted; for from a couple of contradictory statements any statement whatever can be validly inferred."[8] Throughout his exposition and practice of deconstruction, Derrida implicitly affirms "two contradictory statements": that scepticism which legitimates our right to question everything is true (which is to say that scepticism is not true. Deconstruction's "passion for the impossible" is thus not only the substantively, worldly impossible -- but also the logically impossible.

Deconstruction's romance with the logically impossible sets the stage for Derrida's weak embrace (since at least the early 1990's) of the Other, God, and redemption. It is very important to note that his highly tentative overtures toward these concepts follow as immediate corollaries from the tenets of deconstruction and do not require the interposition of some of Derrida's favourite categories stemming from the 1990's such as the gift and khora in order to emerge into prominence.

The category of the gift helps us to make sense of how a God which scepticism has only negatively disclosed through its limitless uncertainty relates to humankind and the modes of ethical behaviour that human beings should seek to emulate. According to Derrida, "If the gift is given, then it should not even appear to the one who gives it or to to the one who receives it, not appear as such."[9] A proper gift requires the total displacement of giver, receiver, and gift because if any of these entities were affirmed in their realist guise it would engender "a circle which encircles the gift in a movement of reappropriation,"[10] i.e., the gift would cease to be a gift and would become a counter in some process of exchange. According to Derrida, the notion of gift models for us the theological concept of redemption. Redemption is not a function of a giver or a receiver or actual, palpable redemption -- but of the conceptual logic of the word "gift" whose relationship to its "others" dictates their physical removal. Divine redemption understood in this way mirrors for us the proper way to conceive of human ethical behaviour: "God requires changed hearts willing to give away what is due them, willing to release the offending other from obligation, willing to dismiss the past and be bound only by the law of love, which is the law of the gift."[11]

What has happened here with the category of the gift is that the open-ended, generalized-agnostic variety of scepticism insinuated by Derrida's courting of the logically impossible in his theory and practice of deconstruction has been reified into a particular set of metaphysical and ethical configurations that closes-off certain key options without any hint that Derrida is aware that this premature closure militates against his own premises. As Caputo phrases the metaphysical point (by way of approval rather than by way of critique): "The very idea of a Messiah who is never to show and whom we accordingly desire all the more is the very paradigm of deconstruction."[12] Derrida's theorizing of the gift is part and parcel of his theorizing of the eternal non-materialization of the Messiah. But if the scepticism undergirding deconstruction is of the generalized-agnostic sort I have sketched (which includes scepticism within its own purview of sceptical questioning), then Derrida is not entitled to know that the "Messiah ... is never to show." It is the openness that counts -- and not some metaphoric encapsulation and unconscious reification of the openness such as is found in Derrida's figure of the gift which then ends up undermining and derailing the openness.

A parallel vulnerability is discernible in the ethical import Derrida attaches to the category of the gift. "Gift" for Derrida becomes the highest regulative ethical ideal. But the ideal of openness interlaced in a consistent reading of the theory and practice of deconstruction should not prejudge this question. As Emmanuel Levinas has implicitly argued against Derrida, why should not obligation trump gift in ethical theorizing? In a climate of metaphysical openness, there is nothing to preclude my primordial obligation to the Other coming before my evolving strategies of circumvention of the circle of exchange by inventing the gift. There is nothing in the endless scepticism announced by deconstruction to favour the one formulation above the other. In effect, Derrida is reading deconstruction with a Christian bias toward passivity as embodying the highest ethical ideal (since we are purged of the illusion that we can ever achieve more than ambiguous doing) -- and Levinas has linked the scepticism suffusing deconstruction with the activism enshrined in the notion of primordial obligation as epitomizing a Jewish religious sensibility. It would indeed be strange if Derrida who has himself linked deconstruction with his unconscious Jewish religious yearnings should develop a version of deconstruction that illustrates its profoundly Christian religious affinities!

The problematics surrounding Derrida's notion of khora parallels the problematics attendant to his concept of the gift. Khora is the "surname" of differance. It is "one of those 'places' in the history of philosophy where the differance by which all things are inhabited wears through, where the abyss in things opens up and we catch a glimpse of the groundlessness of our beliefs and practices."[13] The origins of the concept are dualistic -- Greek as well as Jewish. The "Greek version is overt: the account given in the Timaeus of the 'irreducible' place in which the Demiurge inscribes the likenesses of the Forms for the sake of the Good."[14] The Jewish counterpart to khora is found in Genesis 1:2 -- the notion of tohu wa-bhohu (which is usually translated as "without form and empty") out of which God creates the world. "Creation was a work of differentiation, making light to differ from darkness, seas from land, day from night, sky from earth, living creature from non-living, humans from non-human, male from female, all by the power of his word. The world, then, is like a word God has spoken, a response to his call, and creation is, as Levinas says, the answer to a word that we never heard spoken."[15] The structure of khora in the Biblical sense is of an "archi-covenant or alliance" between God and the world to enable the cosmically-rooted undecidability of speech (always hovering on the verge of multiple and even contradictory differentiations) to harbour subliminally the promise of a "yes, yes" "to the impossible, the stranger, the other, justice and God."[16]

Conceived in this way, khora constitutes another central category (alongside the gift) for obfuscating that the thoroughgoing scepticism (which encompasses an interrogation of scepticism itself) endemic to Derridaean deconstruction really clears space for the possible eventual emergence and acknowledgement of God in the full-blooded theological sense. Derrida's reification of khora (like his reification of the gift) engenders the fashionable but unsustainable translation of the concept by a primordial yes -- so that "we always speak 'within the promise.'"[17] God has been brought down to earth as some kind of vague, indeterminate presupposition to human speech. From the perspective of Derrida's reification of the concept of khora, we are left with the sense that this human postulation or projection is all there is to God. A consistent scepticism has been renounced in favour of a spurious certainty (that we have exhausted the content of the God concept) generated by an inconsistent scepticism.

Derrida's reading of khora is in dramatic contrast to the Talmud's conceptualisation of tohu wa-bhohu. In the Babylonian Talmudic tractate of Sanhedrin 26b, we find the following statement: "R. Hanin said: Why is the Torah called Tushiyah? ... Because it is composed of words, which are immaterial, upon which the world is [nevertheless] founded. [Tohu-shutath, indicated by the syllables composing Tushiyah: Tu - tohu, void; shiyah - shis, foundation. Tushiyah is read as an acronym of two Hebrew words which when expanded to their proper length mean founded upon void.][18] The classic medieval Jewish Biblical and Talmudic exegete, Rashi, in glossing this statement says: "No verbal formulation has any real feeling [i.e., materiality, intrinsic or irreversible identity], just like this tohu. Nevertheless, the world is based upon them."[19]

R. Hanin's statement as interpreted by Rashi constitutes a remarkable inter-textual gloss on the phrase tohu wa-bhohu that occurrs in the second verse of Genesis. The famous first two verses of Genesis read as follows: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The earth was without form and empty [tohu wa-bhohu], with darkness on the face of the depths, but God's spirit moved on the water's surface."[20] In accordance with Rashi's exegesis of the Talmudic text in Sanhedrin 26b, the world is based upon -- is created -- by the power of speech. Since the Bible emphasizes God's inexpugnable Otherness, the term creation cannot be applied literally to God but constitutes instead a metaphoric registering of a human power. The form that the world has (rather than its persisting in its original state of formlessness) is a function of speech. The primacy attached to language in the act of creation suggests that words are underdetermined by things. It is the words that we use that give shape to the world rather than the things of the world being classifiable by one univocal appellation in each case. However, since this sceptical inversion of the common sense understanding of the relationship between words and things gives rise to a whole set of logical conundrums and aporias epitomized by the dilemma that to be consistently sceptical requires one to be sceptical of scepticism as well as of other possibilities (so that even the verbal categorization of scepticism is inadequate to the phenomena it seeks to reflect), then the formlessness connoted by the phrase tohu wa-bhohu is preserved as the pregnant underside or shadow of the multifarious forms imposed by words. The formlessness is translatable into a sustained openness which suggests that Messianism in one direction as well as a return to primal chaos in the other direction both coexist alongside all of our exercises in fragile worldmaking in which (in accordance with the Biblical account) words have ontological priority over things.

What is partially at stake between the Talmudic gloss upon the second verse of Genesis versus the conventional, literal reading is the determination of what is text and what is context in the first two verses of Genesis. In the conventional reading, the first two verses consist of text and context. In the beginning God created heaven and earth. How did He do this? The second verse fills in the context of the first verse by informing us that God transformed the primal formlessness into the particular forms described in the first verse. According to the Talmudic reading, the first verse speaks about creation. The second verse does not enlighten us about the process of creation -- how God came to form the world. The second verse takes creation for granted -- and merely emphasizes that the formlessness persists alongside creation. It is the created world that harbours enduring formlessness -- and not just the world that had not yet been created. Verses one and two of Genesis are both text. The second text does not merely supply a context for the first text.

The upshot of this approach is that the Talmudic formulation leaves God out of its explication of khora (tohu wa-bhohu). Derrida interprets the concept in terms of a tenuous relationship with God and thus presumes a degree of finality with regard to the question of God. The Talmudic reading carries no import with regard to the question of God -- and thus leaves the issue of His existence completely open.

The Talmudic deciphering of tohu wa-bhohu gives us an inter-textual hermeneutical key for appreciating the depth content of some famous verses in the Psalms. In Psalms 34:13-15 which has been incorporated into the Jewish sabbath and holiday liturgy, we find the following: "Which man desires life, who loves days of seeing good? Guard your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit. Turn from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it."[21]

From a literal perspective, these verses seem to be about various levels of doing good and avoiding evil: Guarding one's tongue; turning from evil to good; pursuing peace. The interpretive key for deepening our sense of what these verses might be about by discerning a pattern of interrelationship that subsists between them might be their assigning pride of place to speech and language. When coupled with the emphasis on time in the immediately preceding verse ("who loves days of seeing good"), the focus of these verses upon speech and language for avoiding evil might refer to our invocation of language to create the world and its objects that we then relate to the prospects of doing good and avoiding evil. The Psalmist is not referring only or primarily to the sin of Lashon Hara (speaking vilely of another human being) but to the role of speech in shaping the world that we inhabit. Given the emphasis on time in the preceding verse, it is as if the Psalmist were conjuring up the negative theological vision of God whom we cannot access on a literal level. We are therefore left with the equation that life equals time ("Chaim" [life] translates into "Yomim" [days]) rather than being linked with something transcendentally ordained and given. The Psalmist projects life from a human point of view (as a succession of days) rather than from the Divine perspective (as something conferred from Above). The Above remains irredeemably metaphoric. What is experientially available and definable is the passage of days.

The resentment that prompts us to be uncharitable in our judgments of our fellow human beings and thereby transgress and commit the sin of speaking Lashon Hara is a function of our intolerance to the limits traced in the human condition by negative theology. We speak Lashon Hara` (in an unfair, excessively critical vein of our fellow human beings) by way of dramatizing to ourselves and to others that there are limits to interpretation, that words do hit up against the hard reality of things in relation to our fellow human beings and therefore also in relation to our conceptualisations of God. The revulsion against the de-reification imposed upon us by negative theology finds an outlet in our rush to judgment with regard to our fellow human beings.

Given the absence of literal corroboration of our dependence upon God, in the end it is our verbal faculty for conceptualising good and evil and demarcating between them that determines the content of the orientating markers that govern our lives. Whatever guidelines we receive from the Biblical text and its Rabbinic commentators have to be interpreted and applied in a context where God remains an enduring Absence rather than a palpable, literal Presence.

The negative theological understanding of God engendered by the coupling of life with time suggests that the pursuit of peace with which the passage concludes also has prime self-referential overtones. Life is about incompleteness -- where both the world as we conceive it and the categories of good and evil that we use to evaluate our actions within it have to be conjured up and validated out of the resources of language. But if life is about incompleteness, it is also about reconciliation to that incompleteness. We need to become reconciled to the idea that we do not get to God in a literal sense -- and we need to become reconciled to ourselves as creatures who are not able to traverse the distance separating us from Him.

If we stray in our conceptualisations and translations -- and translation labours under the handicap that we lack contact with an "original" (text or phenomenon or experience) from which the translation process begins -- the negative theological moral imperative becomes to immediately restore our condition as "lovers of days" who reenter the stream of time and history by engaging in meaningful actions that are responsive to our (im) perfectibility. Given the literal absence of our final validating source, the equivalence from the loftiest perspective that we are capable of mustering between our perfectibility and imperfectibility (with the final status of these concepts remaining unknown) is achieved under the aegis of the notion of reconciliation -- peace.

Tohu wa-bhohu from the perspective of this reading of the verses in Psalms 34 needs to be seen as an ongoing concomitant of creation: We dip in again and again into the inexhaustible reservoirs of language to fashion new logical and conceptual possibilities. Contra Derrida, tohu wa-bhohu does not bespeak a primordial yes resonating across the covenantal bond enshrined in the act of Divine creation out of tohu wa-bhohu -- and thereby represents an enduringly reified deconstruction of the God-concept, so that God remains everlastingly out of the picture. From the perspective that I am defending here, "covenant," like all the other terms in our God-vocabulary, remains unreconstructibly metaphoric so that its ultimate fate remains unknown.

Levinas in Otherwise than Being[22] and Derrida in his work from the 1990's onward go astray in approximately the same way. When they both try to move to affirmation, their critical philosophy becomes a premature and unsustainable resource instead of restricting them to a more steadfast adherence to the via negativa. In Otherwise than Being, Levinas fails to take sufficiently into account that the only way to attest to one's polarization by the pole of infinity rather than by the pole of totality is to notice the fragility of the very first step(s) involved in the acknowledgement of the Other. To delineate a separate and distinct Other is fraught with all kinds of metaphysical and logical difficulties. One can never be sure that the verbal subsumptions and demarcations under which one conceptualises and situates the Other do not represent more the argumentative manoeuvres and projections of the Same rather than an accurate reflection of the otherness of the Other. Once this endless teetering on the brink of conceptualisation is violated by stipulating the substitution of the self for the Other (as Levinas does in Otherwise than Being), then one has already been polarized by totality and renounced infinity. It is what is reflected in the negative hesitation and uncertainty that disallows the positive steps of identification of and substitution for the Other that is evocative of infinity.

An analogous point can be made about Derridaean khora: The reifying of uncertainty and indeterminacy takes you beyond uncertainty and indeterminacy. One needs to pull back not only from certainty but also from uncertainty and scepticism and not to project them outward in any way (even as harbouring traces of a primordial yes) as givens.

The author of the Aruch Ha-Shulchan -- Rabbi Yechiel Michel Epstein -- attributes to the rabbinic sage Rabbi Akiva a conception of the relationship between the possible and the impossible that is in refreshing and dramatic contrast to the positions developed by Levinas and Derrida.[23] Rabbi Epstien claims that Rabbi Akiva subscribes as a general principle to the view that one cannot infer or deduce the possible from the impossible and that this shapes his understanding of the subject-matters dealt with in both the legal and homiletical and philosophical portions of the Talmud. This principle of the non-inferrability of the possible from the impossible represents a kind of methodological condensation and translation of the principles of negative theology so as to render them applicable for the fashioning and construing of Halakhic rules and Aggadic (homiletic, non-legal) material as a whole. Negative theology comes up against the limit that in order for God to serve as our ultimate "explanatory" concept, He has to embody a principle of difference so radically dissimilar to things human that He cannot explain anything at all in a literal sense. The theological upshot of monotheism (according to the critique offered by negative theology) is that we cannot make sense of the possible (our daily familiar selves and world) by invoking the impossible (God). Rabbi Akiva applies this principle of not drawing inferences to the possible from the impossible as a general meta-Halakhic norm and decision-making rule -- as well as a hermeneutical principle for interpreting non-legal formulations in the Talmud. Rabbi Epstein adduces two examples in support of this reading of Rabbi Akiva -- and I would like to add two more:

1. A braita cited in the Talmudic tractate of Sukkah 11b says the following: "'For I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths'"[24]: These [the booths] were clouds of glory, so Rabbi Eliezer. Rabbi Akiva says, They made for themselves real booths."[25] Apparently according to Rabbi Akiva, the physical artifact called "booth" can in no way be compared to the "Divine artifact" called "clouds of glory." Since there is no way to close or to traverse the space between the possible and the impossible, the Biblical model for the Halakhic requirement that Jews build and reside in a booth during the festival of Sukkot has to be the physical booths that the Jewish community constructed for themselves during their sojourn in the desert rather than the "impossible" "clouds of glory" which we cannot comprehend and therefore cannot duplicate. Rabbi Eliezer, by contrast, permits inferences across the chasm that separates the possible from the impossible. He could conceivably be adhering to a realist position in comparison with Rabbi Akiva's implicit nominalism -- so that a general term and concept like God need not be answerable to the rationalistic constraints on patterns of derivation from discrete particulars to universals that might inhibit Rabbi Akiva from extrapolating from "clouds of glory" (which cannot be deconstructed into discrete, humanly accessible particulars) to literal, physical booths. From Rabbi Eliezer's perspective, as rationally unencompassable as the term God is, it can still be realistically (in the sense of philosophical realism) postulated and we can draw whatever inferences we deem appropriate.

2. The Mishnah in Menahoth 82a states that "Everything [e.g., animal sacrifices] that is obligatory may be offered only from what is unconsecrated." The Halakhah stated in the Mishnah comes to preclude fulfilling one's ritual obligations to slaughter and eat certain prescribed animals by utilizing animals that had been previously consecrated as "Second Tithe Animals" which one has to consume in Jerusalem and the consecrator might be tempted to think that he could use this animal both to meet his Second Tithe obligation and for whatever additional ritualistic requirement he wanted to use the animal for. The Mishnah states that the Biblical source for the notion that obligatory sacrifices can only come from what is unconsecrated is the paschal lamb sacrificed on the day preceding Passover. The Talmud immediately goes on to ask: "And whence do we know it [this principle] for the Passover-offering itself? -- It was taught [in a braita in Yebamoth 46a]: Rabbi Eliezer said: A Passover-offering was ordained to be brought in Egypt and a Passover-offering was ordained for later generations; as the Passover-offering that was ordained in Egypt could be brought only from what was unconsecrated [For at that time the law of the Second Tithe had not been promulgated, and even later when this law was given it was not to come into force until the Israelites entered the Holy Land], so the Passover-offering that was ordained for later generations may be brought only from what is unconsecrated. Said to him Rabbi Akiva: Is it right to infer the possible from the impossible? [The Passover-offering in Egypt could not possibly have been brought from Second Tithe whereas that of future generations could.]"[26] As in the case of the Biblical model for Sukkot (booths), Rabbi Akiva again invokes the principle that it is illegitimate to infer the possible from the impossible. The Passover-offering tendered at the time of the Exodus from Egypt could not possibly have come from a consecrated Second Tithe animal. Therefore we are not entitled to draw any inferences from that unique event to later phases of Jewish history when the law of the Second Tithe had already been promulgated and the Jews had already come to inhabit the land of Israel which made this law obligatory. It is important to note that Rabbi Akiva interprets the principle that one cannot infer the possible from the impossible in exactly the same way when the subjects of comparison are God and man (as in the case of Sukkah) and when the subjects of comparison are two different phases of Jewish history (as in the case of the ruling that everything that is obligatory may be offered only from what is unconsecrated). Apparently, Rabbi Akiva seeks to stay within the parameters of the rational and the humanly sustainable whether he is dealing with God-data or human-data. The God-data, also, has to be assimilated and rendered coherent within a human context.

3. The Talmud in Pesahim 22b informs us that "Simeon Imsoni -- others state, Nehemiah Imsoni -- interpreted every eth in the Torah [as an extending particle]; [but] as soon as he came to, Thou shalt fear [eth] the Lord thy God[27], he desisted [holding it impossible that this fear should extend to another]. Said his disciples to him, 'Master, what is to happen with all the ethin [plural of eth] which you have interpreted?' 'Just as I received reward for interpreting them,' he replied, 'so will I receive reward for refraining from interpreting them.' [Since the eth in one verse does not does not signify extension, it cannot do so elsewhere.] Until Rabbi Akiva came and taught: 'Thou shalt fear [eth] the Lord thy God' is to include scholars. [Hence the verse exhorts obedience to religious authority."[28] Apparently, again according to Rabbi Akiva, since fearing God is an impossible demand to sustain because we cannot grasp what the epithet "fear" means in relation to God, we renounce the effort to deduce the possible from the impossible and we extend the reference of this verse to include the fear (i.e., reverence and compliance) owed Rabbinic leaders. Rabbi Akiva does not displace God as the reference of this verse (the verse is still referring to God even according to Rabbi Akiva). He merely extends the scope of the verse to include human sources of authority while leaving untouched but also untranslated (except in the mediated sense of holding in awe the promulgations of rabbinic expositors of the Divine word) the literal requirement to fear God.

4. In Baba Mezia 62a, we find the following braita: "If two are travelling on a journey [far from civilization], and one has a pitcher of water, if both drink, they will [both] die, but if one only drinks, he can reach civilization. -- The Son of Patura taught: It is better that both should drink and die, rather than that one should behold his companion's death. Until Rabbi Akiva came and taught: 'that thy brother may live with thee': thy life takes precedence over his life. ['With thee' implies that thy life takes first place, but that he, too, has a right to life after thine is assured.]"[29]

The assured death of two parties when one party (the party that is the official owner of the life-sustaining resource) could have survived represents for Rabbi Akiva the condition of the impossible. Death is in this sense like God that it constitutes a limit to the human condition which suspends the applicability of the traditional human logical and rational "operators" such as reasoning by way of analogy or direct inference. (My travelling companion is exactly like me. If I have a right to life, so does he.) In such a context, Rabbi Akiva advocates a rational and moral "regrouping" from the perspective of the possible -- from the perspective of life. On a sheerly pragmatic basis, since the pitcher of water is owned by only one person, he becomes the person who is entitled to stay alive in a climate defined by limits and impossibilities of all sorts: Limits of resources (an amount of water that can only keep one person alive); limits to knowledge of self and other (we cannot indubitably attest who of the two travelling companions is the more morally virtuous person); limits to knowledge of the Divine will or perspective (we have no way of knowing how God evaluates these people -- and what fates he has decreed for them).

Rabbi Akiva's refusal to draw any inferences across the boundary that separates the possible from the impossible can be interpreted as reflecting certain logical scruples. To draw such inferences would be to deny scepticism and the idea that there are limits to rationality. However, to reject the category of the impossible would also not be an acceptable alternative because that would involve illegitimately transforming limits to knowledge into a spurious knowledge claim: The impossible does not exist. Rabbi Akiva opts for a position that can be construed as being a counterpart to a generalized agnosticism. He does not take a decisive position against the idea of the impossible -- and refrains as assiduously from rejecting it as he does from affirming it by debarring the conceptual and logical apparati of the possible from regularly interacting with it. The impossible remains intact as a "possibility" that is neither affirmed nor denied -- and the regular operations of mind are restricted to the domain of the possible.

The Talmud's gloss in Sanhedrin 26b of tohu wa-bhohu as the speech upon which the world rests can also be seen as implicitly following Rabbi Akiva's principle that one cannot infer the possible from the impossible. The categories of the possible and the impossible regardless of what they do and do not refer to are after all human conceptualisations -- human leaps and delimitations above the interminable flux of experience. To be committed to the value of infinity means to acknowledge that the challenges, stumbling-blocks, and elisions that confront us as we go about wending our way through the labyrinthine mazes of our own conceptualisations and the relationships that they spawn reflect back upon our own efforts to stabilize our situation in the world and leave us in the dark as to what reality (mediate and ultimate) is about. Creation from a humanly-graspable perspective takes place on the level of speech -- which means that it ceaselessly questions its own questioning and questionableness and leaves the nature of reality as a continually-deferred, open question questioning its status as a question.

***

Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam

Kafkazli Seyyed Javad M. Meynagh

Seyed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas

Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam: An exposition of the fundamental elements of the worldview of Islam. Published by the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC), 2001. 205A Jalan Damansara, Damansara Heights, 50480 Kuala Lumpur, first edition 1995, second edition 2001. 358 pages.

For readers within the fields of 'The Contemporary Islam', Professor al-Attas is not an unfamiliar voice in contemporary Islamic intellectual debates. The work under review is composed of seven chapters, a lucid introduction, and an open-ended epilogue.

In the first chapter the idea of 'Religion' is compared with the concept of DIN and the consequences of such a difference is related to the foundations of Ethics and Morality in Islam.

In the second chapter, the idea of meaning Ma'na and the very semantic and ontology of happiness S'ada in contrast to qualitative unhappiness is discussed in details in a comparative manner.

In chapter three, one is confronted with the idea of Islam and its relation to the Philosophy of Science. However, it is of importance to note that, when al-Attas uses the concept of philosophy or even science, the semantic of these concepts are far from the analytical or post-Popperian philosophy.

In chapter four, the very idea of modern psychology is under severe attack. al-Attas proposes a very simple but fundamental question to the jury of Modern psychology by asking them: what is the main purpose of science to establish itself on the idea of Psukhē or 'Soul' but be unconcerned with the metaphysics of Man? In this chapter, he conducts a metaphysical surgery of the idea of 'Man' (Insan) and 'Human Soul' in accordance to Quranic worldview and ontology.

The main idea in chapter five is the very primary and primordial sense of 'existence' (Vujud) and its intuition and Shuhud. In continental philosophy, one comes across ideas such as 'Existenz' and 'Transzendenz' by existentialist philosophers such as Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger, or even Jean Paul Sartre who take the intuition of existence in historicisit terms. By doing so, they reduce the existential tension in man to a modern problem which is a by-product of societal and political arrangement. In other words, the ontology of existence is replaced by the politology of social life. Although, Jaspers's is an attempt to go beyond this total historicism nevertheless the idea of 'intuition of existence' does not even appear in its implicit horizon. In this chapter, the idea of Vujud and the process of Vijdan or how man becomes 'aware' of his cosmological significance in terms of amana't, mithaq, alast and etc. are all related to the very idea of existence in its metaphysical sense.

What is 'Quiddity', and how different is Mahiye't from 'Essence' in Islamic Philosophy is the main idea in chapter six. By demonstrating that both essence and quiddity are based on the very movement of existence, which is equal to Hubb or Divine Love, al-Attas makes clear that the very metaphysics of Vujud is a multi-layered reality. It is important to note that; al-Attas means Vujud is a 'reality', and not just a concept. The concept of reality is not the same as reality. So, when he argues that Vujud is a multi-layered reality, he is paving the way for the idea of grad-ual (i.e. moving in stages) existence or as he puts it: the degrees of existence.

The degrees of existence is the very problem of last chapter where al-Attas investigates both the history of gradual unfolding of Vujud as a concept among Muslim Philosophers, Theologians, and Metaphysicians and as a metaphysical drama in the midst of Life.

After this short exposition, I would like to go back to the main ideas of the book, which are the problem of metaphysics in Islam and more importantly the sources of metaphysical thinking among Muslims. In al-Attas' view, the worldview of Islam cannot be rescued or revitalized by relying on secular or modern elements. In other words, the malaise of contemporary Muslim thought is not of a political character and for this very reason its revitalization cannot be brought about by policy-makers or alike. The authenticity of Islamic Thought should be based on an Islamic worldview, which takes its substantial inspiration from Revealed sources. In order to demonstrate the viability of this argument, al-Attas exposes the very basics of secular thought which is, in his degree-like notion of existence, the lowest part of Vujud which one might call in Quranic terminology as 'alame al-sufla. The importance of empirical world is not its regulative status that has been wrongly assigned to it by secular philosophies. On the contrary, the world of Sufla is important as an exercise ground for the soul to lift its existential stage to the realm of Sublime or 'alame al-'ulya. However, the main purpose of al-Attas' philosophy is not an intellectual gymnastics. On the contrary, his philosophy has a praxiological dimension, which is not directed to the Citizens of the states but to men and women who strive to be-come Insan al-Kamil.

Now the main question is how is possible for a man to enter to this metaphysical realm explicated and put forward by al-Attas as the Metaphysics of Islam? In other words, is the transmission of metaphysics in the same wavelength as the transmission on knowledge or information? Reading his work would lead us to believe that this is not the case. Because the idea of knowledge, the notion of religion, the reality of man, and the birth of divine man (in the matrix of sublunary man) are not divided issues. This would lead us to his philosophy of education, which is not the topic of this review. However, it is not out of context to conclude this review by a question, i.e. how in a modern world where men are divided in lines of their ethnicity, income, biographical background, and etc. is possible to reach to an existential height and appropriate what al-Attas calls the metaphysics of Islam? Is al-Attas' metaphysics a rare pearl assigned for few 'elected' or the very meaning of Islam? However, the first and last question is how to reach to this height? Maybe, the answer to this question is what the ideals of Islam are all about, i.e. the idea of 'ilm in Islam is not divorced from the idea of 'amal. That is to say, one should not rely on sensible means alone but resort to the Islamic arsenal of education in its deepest sense, such as salat, du'a, saum, dhikr, and etc. Maybe!

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Books of Definition in Islamic Philosophy: The Limits of Words

Kiki Kennedy-Day

Books of Definition in Islamic Philosophy: The Limits of Words, London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, pp. xiii+200, cloth, £55.

It is always with great delight that one receives a new title on Islamic philosophy. This work on Ibn S¢n¡’s Book of Definitions is certainly a welcome addition to the growing literature of Islamic philosophy in the English language. The book is based on the first complete translation of Ibn S¢n¡’s Kit¡b al-¦ud£d with substantial comparisons to al-Kind¢ and al-F¡r¡b¢ as well as a commentary accompanying the translation. The author has tried to make her book as accessible to the general reader as possible, and it is safe to say that she has achieved her goal.

The first chapter of the book (pp. 9-18) is devoted to the concept of “definition”. After a brief discussion of the role of definition in philosophy, the author provides three kinds of definitions: essentialist, prescriptive, and linguistic (p. 14). Essentialist definitions refer to “a core meaning that all members of a class share”, and according to the author, the definitions given by Greek and Muslim philosophers fall under this category. Prescriptive definitions provide “rules and assign which members qualify in a class”, and finally linguistic definitions denote “current practice”. Though short, this chapter provides a useful discussion of definition in both classical and modern philosophy.

The author’s philosophical assumption that “words must mean exactly what they say; for development in philosophy to occur meanings must not shift in the hands of each successive writer” (p. 1), however, is contradicted few pages later by the stated purpose of the book, i.e., demonstrating “how definitions change over the two centuries of our study, both in regard to the references they make, and in the words selected in the definientia” (p. 11). Such cases raise the question of the clarity and coherence of certain philosophical issues discussed in the book. As it becomes clear in the subsequent chapters, however, the book is more of a survey than analysis with a central thesis. In this sense, it is a work that is enriching historically but fails to engage philosophically.

The second chapter (pp. 19-31) focuses on al-Kind¢’s “Book of Definitions”. The purpose of this chapter is to provide some specific examples of how Muslim philosophers formulated various definitions and created a considerable literature of philosophical lexicons, and the author focuses on three concepts: jawhar (substance), al-‘illah al-£la (the first cause) and al-‘illah al-§ab¢‘iyyah (the natural cause), and finally al-hay£la (matter). This part provides a very useful introduction to these key philosophical terms in Islamic philosophy. The author’s discussion of matter as “physical stuff”, however, is fraught with problems unless we understand the word “matter” in a non-philosophical and even casual sense. Given the long history of Aristotelian hylomorphism and its various formulations at the hands of Muslim philosophers, it will be too simplistic to translate matter (m¡ddah and hay£lah) as “physical stuff … without specific properties” (p. 29). Matter as physical stuff that can bear forms does away with the idea of potentiality, which lies at the heart of hylomorphism, and fails to bring out the intended meaning of hay£la and m¡ddah by the Peripatetic philosophers. It will be more accurate to say that matter does not denote any stuff, however differently and loosely we may define the term, but rather “pure potentiality” in the Aristotelian scheme of things. Matter as bearing a particular form and thus being actualized by it makes sense only if it is defined as a “receptive agent”. In fact, this is what Kind¢’s definition of hay£la suggests when he says that matter is “a potentiality, put down for bearing forms, it is acted upon” (p. 28).

The third and fourth chapters (pp. 32-60) are devoted to al-F¡r¡b¢, Ibn S¢n¡ and their role in refining Islamic philosophical vocabulary. The primary focus of these chapters is to show the ways in which al-F¡r¡b¢ and Ibn S¢n¡ incorporated, refined, and re-formulated their philosophical vocabularies. For this, the author uses al-F¡r¡b¢’s “Book of Letters” (Kit¡b al-¦ur£f) and analyzes the same three terms discussed in the second chapter. A similar endeavor is undertaken in chapter four where the author turns to Ibn S¢n¡ and his “Book of Definitions” (Kit¡b al-¦ud£d). The three concepts of substance, cause-effect, and matter are discussed with translations from Ibn S¢n¡. This part of the book is very informative and prepares the ground for the fifth chapter (pp. 61-83) where the author argues that the Muslim philosophers constructed a philosophical vocabulary by incorporating elements from the translations of Greek philosophical works on the one hand, and produced substantial revisions and reformulations as a result of their independent philosophical outlook, on the other. This chapter also articulates the differences among the three philosophers in formulating their definitions of the three terms mentioned above.

The sixth chapter (pp. 87-97) titled “The Socio-Political Milieu of Ibn Sina” attempts to provide a narration of Ibn S¢n¡’s times and the milieu in which he composed his works. This part, however, reads rather like a medley of various considerations on Ibn Sina and his life. The author’s linking of Ibn S¢n¡ to the Shu‘£biyyah movement is an interesting argument but falls short of giving any convincing evidence. There is no mention or discussion of the extensive literature on the Shu‘£biyyah as a politico-cultural movement in Islamic history, and it is not clear in what ways Ibn S¢n¡ could and should be seen as part of this movement. The author argues that Ibn S¢n¡’s Man§iq al-mashriqiyy¢n was lost “even in his life time” (p. 91) without mentioning any sources. This is, however, not correct because the first part of this work has survived and in fact triggered an interesting debate in modern scholarship about the alleged mysticism ‘orientalism’ of Ibn S¢n¡. This short treatise has been translated into English by Mehdi Aminrazavi and is scheduled for publication in near future.

The author mentions the idea of a guide in Ibn S¢n¡ when discussing his struggle to understand Aristotle’s metaphysics and his final grasp of it after reading al-F¡r¡b¢’s commentary. Then she presents Khi¤r as the “most famous Sufi guide” (p. 96). The insertion of the figure of Khi¤r here is not only somewhat out of place but also misleading. Traditionally, Khi¤r (lit. meaning “green”, i.e., fresh and alive) is usually associated with that mysterious person with whom the Prophet Moses had met and set out on an enigmatic journey The story in the Qur’an, narrated in S£rat al-Kahf, does not mention the name of this person but tradition has usually identified him as Khi¤r. His role as a spiritual guide in Sufism has been limited to those who have been called “uways¢” referring to Uways al-Qaran¢, i.e., those who have received spiritual initiation and vision without a human master. They can also be described as those who, in spite of their spiritual authority, do not have a silsilah in the ordinary sense of the term. Now, it is not clear in what way and/or sense Ibn S¢n¡’s debt to al-F¡r¡b¢ in understanding Aristotle’s metaphysics is comparable to the idea of spiritual guidance in Sufism, and the author does not provide any clarifications. Lastly, the author mentions Ibn S¢n¡’s “Treatise on Love” (Ris¡lah fi‘l-‘ishq) in discussing mystical tendencies in Ibn S¢n¡’s thought. But I think it would be more to the point and convincing, as Mull¡ ¯adr¡ and other mystic philosophers as well as such modern scholars as Corbin and Nasr have done, had the author discussed Ibn S¢n¡’s celebrated discussion of the “Stations of the Gnostics” (Maq¡m¡t al-‘¡rif¢n) at the end of his al-Ish¡r¡t wa’l-tanb¢h¡t to draw attention to this aspect of his thought.

The seventh chapter (pp. 98-114) is the complete translation of Ibn S¢n¡’s Book of Definitions followed by chapter eight (pp. 115-159) titled “Commentary” where the author provides a freelance commentary on Ibn S¢n¡’s work. The translation is verbose free and as such quite readable. One little suggestion: The word itti¦¡d is translated as unity (p. 113), which translates taw¦¢d rather than unification. “Unification” would be a better word to render this specific term in Ibn S¢n¡, especially considering the checkered controversy over “conjunction” (itti¥¡l) versus “unification” (itti¦¡d) with the Active Intellect.

The commentary is a very useful addition to the translation. The author has chosen to provide “a wider ranging Commentary, instead of a line-by-line exegesis” (p. 116). Throughout the Commentary, a number of questions concerning Ibn S¢n¡’s thought in general and The Book of Definitions in general are asked and answered. This part of the book provides ample material for philosophical reflection. They also read as the author’s reflections on Ibn S¢n¡’s philosophy. The last question of this section, Question 22, asks why Ibn S¢n¡ is not better known in the West. On page 157, the author identifies the notorious problem of God’s knowledge of particulars (juzi’yy¡t) as whether or not God “knows the individual particulars of a person”. To the best of my knowledge, this interpretation is wrong as the debate over the knowledge of particulars pertains to all particular things, not simply individual persons. In fact, the examples given by Ibn S¢n¡ and refuted by al-Ghaz¡l¢ suggest nothing of the sort. In the same paragraph, it is claimed that “the emphasis in the Qur’an is that God is the Creator, not how or why he created the world or the composition of the matter of creation”. This, I think, is a minimalist reading of the concept of creation in the Qur’an because the Qur’an uses a significant number of terms to explain the way God creates things such as khalaqa, bada’a, ¥awwara, ja‘ala, and ¦adatha.

This section concludes with a short discussion of the decline of Islamic philosophy and al-Ghaz¡l¢’s role in it. The author attributes this decline, albeit somewhat implicitly, to al-Ghaz¡l¢’s devastating attack on the Muslim Peripatetics. This assumption, however, is questionable on two accounts. First of all, it assumes that Islamic philosophy did decline after al-Ghaz¡l¢. There is a long history behind this debate, going back to some modern Muslim scholars of the 19^th century as well as the Orientalists. Given the long history of philosophical activity in various parts of the Islamic world and scores of Muslim philosophers after al-Ghaz¡l¢, however, this view is in need of serious revision. Secondly, even if we accept the decline of Islamic philosophy taking place at a particular point in Islamic history, it cannot be attributed to one single author or book. This would be a simplistic reading of a very long and complex history.

Before closing, let me refer to several points in the book that need to be corrected and improved upon. “Khalifal” and “khalif” (p. 13) are not correct transliterations. It should be either khal¢fah or caliph and caliphal. “Al-§ab¢‘iyy” on p. 39 should be “al-§ab¢‘iyyah”. “Al-mashar ilyhi” on p. 39 should be “al-mush¡r ilayhi”. “Al-§abiy’a” on p. 49 should be al-§ab¢‘ah. “Of” is missing from p. 52, line, 19 where the sentence should be “…since the time of Aristotle…”. William Charlton’s article is mentioned in the footnotes but not in the bibliography. The author does not explain if the bibliography contains all the works mentioned throughout the book or just selected works. The work al-Mu¥§ala¦ al-falsaf¢ ‘ind al-‘arab edited by ‘Abd al-Am¢r al-‘A¥amm, which contains several treatises on philosophical vocabulary by different Muslim philosophers and not just by Ibn S¢n¡, is listed under the works of Ibn S¢n¡. The author uses the words “potential” and “possible” as synonyms on p. 60. This usage eliminates the philosophical difference between the words imk¡n and quwwah, which is a key distinction in the Aristotelian tradition.

It is claimed on p. 69 that “… in the Islamic environment … God is viewed as the cause of human’s actions. Humans only acquire their actions, they do not create the actions”. In a very broad and loose sense, this description can be taken as expressing the majority view of the Islamic tradition but I think in a book on definitions in Islamic philosophy it is important to point out that this is primarily the view of the Ash‘arites and their famous doctrine of acquisition (kasb), which has been contested by their rivals. Unless the author claims that Ibn S¢n¡ subscribes to the doctrine of kasb, this interpretation is incomplete and misleading.

Putting these points aside, this is a fine survey of an important aspect of Islamic philosophy and will be of use to the scholars as well as new students of Islamic thought.

Ibrahim Kalin, College of the Holy Cross

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The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way

Nāgārjuna, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā

The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, translated with commentary by Jay L. Garfield, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. xix + 372, paper, £11.50.

The first English translation from the Tibetan version of Nāgārjuna’s classic exposition of Madhyamaka Mahāyāna Buddhist Philosophy is to be welcomed, all the more so because it initiates a philosophical dialogue with students and practitioners of academic philosophy. Nāgārjuna, a popular name associated with a series of early Indian thinkers, in this context refers to the South Indian Buddhist philosopher (ca. 2^nd century CE), the most influential and studied Mahāyāna Buddhist Philosopher. The significance of the text is that differing interpretations mark out differences in philosophical schools (and continue to indicate different persuasions and approaches among contemporary scholars of Buddhist philosophy). The work is divided into two parts, a full translation of a text followed by a commentary to separate, as the author says, what is Nāgārjuna and what is Garfield. While the first part will be an invaluable teaching aid providing a key primary source in readable English, the second part is the philosophical exposition and engagement that attempts to analyse the key metaphysical notions of śūnyatā (emptiness) and pratītyasamutpāda (dependent origination). His method is to steer a middle path between, as he puts it, the ‘extremes of Buddhological orthodoxy and Western revisionism. The text is divided into 27 versified discourses examining arguments on metaphysical, psychological and ethical categories. While Garfield retains the verse form in the translation, he does not capture the poetry of the text nor does he have anything to say about the poetics and rhetorical structure of the text in his commentary, which is a shame because the performative aspect of the text is neglected. The 27 chapters are divided in the commentary into three sections. The first section (chapters 1-7) comprises the fundamental theoretical constructs of Buddhist ontology, namely dependent origination, change, the self and the universe, and the relation between substance and attribute. The second section (chapters 8-13) considers the Buddhist account of the self and the fallibility of subjective experience. The third section (chapters 14-21) develops this account through an examination of the relation of the self and the external world. The final section (chapters 22-27) some key Buddhist notions such as the Four Noble Truths, nirvāna and Buddhahood (tathāgata). Consistent with Garfield’s conventionality explanation of Nāgārjuna’s thought, it is important to remember that this division is not canonical; even the division into chapters is not found in the original text but was a device used by Candrakīrti. The focus of the text is the postulation of three theses: first, the language of metaphysics is thoroughly conventional; second, things do not possess intrinsic existence but it does not follow that they do not exist per se; third, so all things are dependently arising.

Understanding Madhyamaka as a middle path between absolutism and nihilism, Garfield considers Nāgārjuna’s solution to be cogent and philosophically defensible, although his aim is to elucidate sympathetically and not to assess critically.[30] He follows the philosophically sophisticated scholastic style of the Tibetan (Geluk-pa) tradition (indeed his is the first translation and study that seems to follow a prāsaṅgika as opposed to a svātantrika interpretation much like the main commentary on the text by Candrakīrti)[31] which partly explains the decision to translate the Tibetan text and not the Sanskrit original.[32] Consonant with his own philosophical leanings, he propounds critically a controversial understanding of the central notion of emptiness.[33] The issue is whether emptiness entails a denial of metaphysical realism (essentialism), the proposition that phenomena possess individual self-existence, or whether Nāgārjuna accepts an anti-realist, conventionalist view of reality, the proposition that while phenomena do not possess self-existence, they do exist conventionally and it is meaningful to say that they exist.[34] By utilising the key Buddhist form of argumentation, the reductio ad absurdum, Nāgārjuna shows that the various categories that seem to make up reality do not possess intrinsic existence and are empty (śunyā). An absolutist’s conclusion would be to deduce that the ultimate nature of reality transcends rationality and categorisation. However, the nihilist concludes that there is no reality. Garfield suggests that Nāgārjuna has a different result in mind, a subversion of the mindset of realist metaphysics that he has systematically refuted. Emptiness of phenomena entails neither their ineffability nor their non-existence. Rather, it reveals the conventional reality of things. Thus we say of something that it exists, we cannot mean that it is an inherent existence, a substance independent of attributes in virtue of having an essence; instead, we can mean that it exists conventionally or dependently as the conventional referent of the term without any independent existence. This might seem like a rather bland solution and it may be suggested that the subversive nature of Nāgārjuna’s concept is somewhat watered down by such an explanation. The unease that Buddhists felt in the face of Madhyamaka is not retained through a conventionality explanation since most felt that Nāgārjuna point was to reduce things to conceptual constructs (prajaptimātra). Conventionality might also seem inappropriate when deployed, for example, to explain Nāgārjuna’s notion of causality as consistent with the regularity theory of dependent origination that may see him as a ‘sceptical realist’. At the heart of such disquisition may be what some see as Garfield forced translations of the text and even his thick reading of phrases as expressing ontological commitments that are actually not present. Furthermore, the assimilation of Nāgārjuna’s conventionality to Wittgenstein’s common sense seems not just anachronistic but highly problematic. For Buddhist thought, the ignorance that is intrinsic to common sense would make the latter highly unattractive. It is this sort of equivocation that makes some of Garfield’s arguments addressed to the contemporary philosophy rather unconvincing.

Despite reservations that pertain to the sympathy of the author and the question of the commensurability of thought, Garfield’s work is a major contribution that will be of benefit to students and scholars of philosophy interested in Buddhist thought.

Sajjad H Rizvi, University of Bristol

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Plato’s Timaeus as Cultural Icon

Gretchen J. Reydams-Schils (ed)

Plato’s Timaeus as Cultural Icon, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003, pp. xiv + 334, paper, $22.

A sophisticated collection of articles based on a conference held at the University of Notre Dame in April 2000, Plato’s Timaeus as Cultural Icon attempts an analysis of the central and truly astonishing influence of this text and places it at the heart of the Platonic corpus as the key dialogue as it once was considered in Neoplatonic Late Antiquity. Traditionally acknowledged as a vehicle for the expression of platonic cosmology, another recent work written by contemporary cosmologists tries to take the physics of the dialogue seriously.[35] The work under review, however, is more historically and philologically attuned, whilst retaining a comparative interest in the significance of the Timaeus for contemporary intellectual history. One of Plato’s later works (although there is a healthy level of controversy on its dating),[36] the Timaeus propounds some of the key Platonic doctrines on cosmology and metaphysics such as the contrast between the higher intelligible and lower sensible world and the notion that time is a moving image of an intelligible and immutable eternity, and focuses on a theme that would be of great interests to the theistic philosophies that succeeded late antique paganism, namely the relationship between the world, its creator the demiurge and humanity. The hierarchy implicit in this triune relationship was a key impetus for Neoplatonic musings on the chain of being emanating from the Principle and also speculations in medieval thought on this metaphysical hierarchy and its consonance with theistic accounts of the divine creation of the cosmos.

The collection comprises 13 articles ranging from studies on the dialogue itself to its reception in Neoplatonisms, Islamic philosophy, Renaissance Humanism to German Idealism. Miller and Sayre kick off with two contributions on the role of the Timaeus in the Platonic corpus and the success or otherwise of the text itself. They are succeeded by historical and philosophical approaches to the text. Dillon’s piece on the Old Academy addresses the question of the relationship between the three realities, God, cosmos and humanity and their homologies, attempting to see how these homologies draw the realities into the mundane such that the demiurge becomes a demythologised, anthropomorphised agent acting in this world and not in the higher intelligible realm. Brisson continues the theme of mythology by mapping the creation myth of the Timaeus upon similar texts that locate the myth within the context of oracular consultations, magic and what the Neoplatonic tradition called ‘theurgy’. The link between the text, its talismanic property and the spiritual sensitivity of the act of commentary lies at the heart of his comparison of it with the Chaldean Oracles. Thus, he brings the Timaeus into the orbit of theological texts concerned with a doctrine of the divine, altogether consistent with Neoplatonic readings. It is critical that the Timaeus introduced a key theme in medieval cosmology of the human as a ‘small universe’, a ‘microcosm’, the subject of a recent study by Brague.[37] It also raises a central theme of philosophy as a process of ‘becoming godlike’ by imitating the rational demiurge.[38] Runia runs with the theological theme by examining the relationship between Plato’s cosmogonic account and Christian understandings of the agency of a Creator God. Plato’s rather monotheistic creational account (and it seems to be the case certainly that the prime cosmogonic ethos of late antiquity and its reception of Plato was monotheistic) was easily reconciled with early Christian thought. But at that both Neoplatonism and Christian Platonism gave up on the creation myth and moved towards a hierarchical monistic metaphysics that seemed to blur distinctions between creatio ex nihilo and instrumental emanation, and creator and created. Sorabji’s paper considers the text in the light of psychological debates about the mind-body relationship and Gersh examines musical theory. Beierwaltes considers the impact of the Timaeus on 19^th century German idealism and romanticism, focusing on Schelling, who wrote an adolescent study of Platonic cosmology and Windischmann, an influential translator of Plato’s text.

Four further papers examine the reception of the text. Allen looks at the influence of the text upon Renaissance science, especially in the work of the Platonist and Humanist Ficino. Levy tackles a Stoic response to the Platonic text in Cicero’s Latin translation, a theme investigated also in the contribution by Dutton. Finally, D’Ancona, one of the best of a new generation of specialists on Arabic/Islamic Neoplatonism looks at the influence of the cosmogony of the Timaeus upon Arabic philosophical expression. Her paper is an excellent study in the multi-layered development of Avicenna’s doctrine of creation drawing upon a providential demiurge’s care for his creation (the Timaeus) and linking it to the Neoplatonic notion of the divine nous, and the self-intellecting divine nous of Aristotle’s Metaphysics Lambda. Such an amalgamation was possible because Arabic translations of the Timaeus itself, Galen’s epitome, parts of Proclus’s commentary and Metaphysics Lambda were available. The result was that the demiurge, the Plotinian One, the divine intellect all became names for the God of Islamic philosophy.

A revival of interest in the Timaeus is a welcome shift as it allows us to appreciate the reception of Plato and assess his significance. The centrality of the text to the higher Neoplatonic curriculum and its continuing importance in the medieval period are such that a better understanding of the text and its doctrines as they were understood will place us in good stead to a more nuanced and richer understanding of medieval thought, Christian, Jewish and Islamic and its Platonic roots and sympathies.

Sajjad H Rizvi, University of Bristol

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Notes:

[1]. John D. Caputo, ed., Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida, New York: Fordham University Press, 1997.

[2]. John D. Caputo, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.

[3]. John D. Caputo and Michael J. Scanlon, eds., God, the Gift, and Postmodernism, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999.

[4]. The phrase "weak Messianism" comes from Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History," in Walter Benjamin, Illuminations. Ed. Hannah Arendt; trans. Harry Zohn, New York: Schocken Books, 1968, p. 254.

[5]. Olthuis, Religion With/Out Religion, p. 111; citing Caputo, Prayers and Tears, p. 339.

[6]. Caputo, Deconstruction in a Nutshell, p. 100.

[7]. Cited in Olthuis, Religion With/Out Religion, p. 111.

[8]. Karl R. Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963; rev. ed. 1965, p. 317.

[9]. Caputo, Deconstruction in a Nutshell, p. 19.

[10]. Ibid., p. 18.

[11]. Olthuis, Religion With/Out Religion, p. 66.

[12]. Caputo and Scanlon, God, the Gift, and Postmodernism, p. 186.

[13]. Caputo, Deconstruction in a Nutshell, pp. 96, 98; Olthuis, Religion With/Out Religion, p. 144.

[14]. Olthuis, Religion With/Out Religion, p. 144.

[15]. Olthuis, Religion With/Out Religion, p. 145.

[16]. Olthuis, Religion With/Out Religion, p. 112.

[17]. Ibid.

[18]. The Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin. Trans. Jacob Schachter, London: Soncino Press, 1987, p. 26b.

[19]. Ibid., my translation.

[20]. The Living Torah. Trans. Aryeh Kaplan, New York: Maznaim Publishing Corp., 1981, p. 3.

[21]. The Complete ArtScroll Siddur. Trans. Nosson Scherman and Meir Zlotowitz, New York: Mesorah Publications, 1984, pp., 377, 379.

[22]. Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise than Being. Trans. Alphonso Lingis, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981.

[23]. Yechiel Michel Epstein, Aruch Ha-Shulchan, New York: Jonathan Publishing Company, 1961, Orach Chaim, Volume Three, Siman 625, Paragraph 2, p. 63.

[24]. Leviticus 23:43.

[25]. The Babylonian Talmud: Sukkah. Trans. Israel W. Slotki, London: Soncino Press, 1984.

[26]. The Babylonian Talmud: Menahoth. Trans. Eli Cashdan, London: Soncino Press, 1989.

[27]. Deuteronomy 6:13.

[28]. The Babylonian Talmud: Pesahim. Trans. H. Freedman. London: Soncino Press, 1967. I have introduced two emendations into the Soncino Press translation.

[29]. The Babylonian Talmud: Baba Mezia. Trans. H. Freedman, London: Soncino Press, 1986.

[30] Pace Richard Hayes’ claim in ‘Nāgārjuna’s appeal’, Journal of Indian Philosophy 22 (1994), 299–378 that Nāgārjuna’s arguments are largely fallacious.

[31] Candrakīrti’s commentary Prasannapadā (Lucid Exposition) has been translated into English by Michael Sprung, Lucid Exposition of the Middle Way, Boulder: Prajna Press, 1978.

[32] Earlier translations from the Sanskrit include: Kenneth Inada, Nāgārjuna: A Translation of his Mūlamadhyamikakārikā, Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1970; David J Kalupahana, Nāgārjuna: The Philosophy of the Middle Way, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986.

[33] For a lucid but different explanation of this key concept in Mahāyāna philosophy, see David F. Burton’s doctorate written under the supervision of Professor Paul Williams at Bristol now published as Emptiness Appraised: A Critical Study of Nagarjuna’s Philosophy, Richmond: Curzon, 1999.

[34] For a critique of Garfield on this point, see Ewing Chinn, ‘Nāgārjuna’s fundamental principle of Pratītyasamutpāda’, Philosophy East and West 51 (2001), pp. 54–72.

[35] Luc Brisson and F. Walter Meyerstein, Inventing the Universe: Plato’s Timaeus, the Big Bang, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. Other recent studies on the Timaeus include: Interpreting the Timaeus-Critias, eds. T. Calvo & L. Brisson, Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 1997; Le ‘Timée’ de Platon: Contributions à l’histoire de sa réception, ed. A. Neschke-Hentschke, Louvain: Peeters, 2000; Reason and Necessity: Essays on the Timaeus, ed. M. R. Wright, London: Duckworth, 2000.

[36] On this question, see G. E. L. Owen, ‘The place of the Timaeus in Plato’s dialogues’, in Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics, ed. R. E. Allen, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965, pp. 313-38, contra H. Cherniss, ‘The relation of the Timaeus to Plato’s later dialogues’, in the same volume, pp. 339-78.

[37] Remi Brague, La sagesse du monde: Histoire de l’expérience humaine de l’univers, Paris: Fayard, 1999.

[38] See David Sedley, ‘The idea of godlikeness’, in Plato 2: Ethics, Politics, Religion and the Spiritual Life, ed. G. Fine, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 309-28.

Kafkazli Seyyed Javad M. Meynagh,

University of Bristol, UK

Abstract

Introduction

The Light and Gnostic Tradition of ‘Irfan

The Realisation and Alienation of the Self

Notes

2- Ibn Khaldun’s Method between the Other and the Self

A1- Ibn Khaldun’s logic

B2) Ibn Khaldun research philosophy

Love and dialogue in Mauwlana’s poetry

Mahmoud Khatami, University of Tehran, Iran

Abstract

A. The Problem

B. Current Solutions

C. Sadra’s Concept Of Mental Causation

D. Final Considerations