The corruption of philosophy

The sciences occur in civilization. They are much cultivated in the cities. They can greatly harm religion.

The intelligent representatives of the human species think:

• that the essences and conditions of existence, both the perceivable and those beyond sensual perception, as well as their causes, can be perceived by mental speculation and intellectual reasoning.
• that the articles of faith are established as correct through (intellectual) speculation and not through tradition, because they belong among the intellectual perceptions.

Such people are called “philosophers” falasifah, plural of faylasuf. It is Greek for “lover of wisdom”.

They research on the problem of perception. With great energy, they tried to find the purpose of it. They laid down a norm enabling intellectual speculation to distinguish between true and false.

They called that norm “logic.”

The quintessence of it is that the mental speculation which makes it possible to distinguish between true and false, concentrates on ideas abstracted from the individual existentia.

From these individual existentia, one first abstracts pictures that conform to all the individual manifestations of the existentia, just as a seal conforms to all the impressions it makes in clay or wax.

The abstractions derived from the sensibilia are called “primary intelligibilia.”

These universal ideas may be associated with other ideas, from which, however, they are distinguished in the mind.

Then, other ideas, namely those that are associated (and have ideas in common) with the primary intelligibilia, are abstracted from them.

Then, if still other ideas are associated with them, a second and third abstraction is made, until the process of abstraction reaches the simple universal ideas, which conform to all ideas and individual manifestations of the existentia.

No further abstraction is possible. They are the highest genera.

All abstract ideas that are not derived from the sensibilia serve, if combined with each other, to produce the sciences.

They are called “secondary intelligibilia.”

Man studies these abstract intelligibilia and seeks through them to perceive existence as it is.

For this purpose, the mind must combine some of them with others or keep them apart with the help of unequivocal rational argumentation.

This should give the mind a correct and conformable perception of existence, if the process takes place according to a sound norm.

The combination of (abstract intelligibilia) and the judgment (concerning them) is apperception (tasdiq).

At the end, philosophers give apperception precedence over perception (tasawwur). But at the beginning and during the process of instruction, they give perception precedence over apperception. This is because they think:

• that perfected perception is the goal of the search for understanding and
• that apperception is merely a means for undertaking that search.

In the books of the logicians, perception has precedence and apperception depends on it.

It means the arriving at consciousness and not the achieving of complete knowledge.

This is the opinion of the greatest of them, Aristotle.

Aristotle

Philosophers think that happiness consists in arriving at perception of all existing things, both:

• the sensibilia and
• the things beyond sensual perception, with the help of rational speculation and argumentation.

The sum total of their perceptions of existence is the following.

First, they conclude from observation and sensual perception that there is a lower substance.

Then, their perception progresses a little. The existence of motion and sensual perception in animals makes them conscious of the existence of the soul.

The powers of the soul, then, make them aware of the dominant position of the intellect.

Here, their perception stops.

They draw their conclusions with regard to the most high celestial body in the same way they drew their conclusions with regard to the human essence.

They thus consider it necessary that the celestial sphere must have a soul and an intellect, like human beings.

Then, they take as a limit for the whole system, the number of units, which is 10.

Nine are derived in essence and pluralistic.

One, the tenth, is primary and singular.

They assume that happiness consists in the perception of existence with the help of such conclusions (if, at the same time, such perception is) combined with the improvement of the soul and the soul’s acceptance of a virtuous character.

Even if no religious law had been revealed (to help man to distinguish between virtue and vice), they think the (acquisition of virtue) possible by man because he is able to distinguish between vice and virtue in (his) actions by means of his intellect, his (ability to) speculate, and his natural inclination toward praiseworthy actions, his natural disinclination for blameworthy actions.

They assume that when the soul becomes (virtuous), it attains joy and pleasure, and that ignorance of (moral qualities) means eternal pain. This, in their opinion, is the meaning of bliss or punishment in the other world.

They go further in this manner, and by the words they use, they display their well-known obtuseness as far as details are concerned.

Aristotle the Macedonian was the leading representative of these doctrines. He:

• presented the problems connected with them
• wrote books on them as the subject of a systematic science, and
• penned the arguments in favor of them

He was:

• from Macedonia in Byzantine territory
• a pupil of Plato and the teacher of Alexander
• called “the First Teacher,” 1016 with no further qualification. It means “teacher of logic,” because logic did not exist in an improved form before Aristotle.
• was the first to systematize the norms of logic and to deal with all its problems and to give a good and extensive treatment of it

He would have done very well with his norm of logic if (only) it had absolved him of responsibility for the philosophical tendencies that concern metaphysics. 1017

Later, in Islam, there were men who adopted these doctrines and followed Aristotle’s opinion with respect to them very closely except on a few points.

The Abbasid caliphs had the works of the ancient philosophers translated from Greek into Arabic. Many Muslims investigated them critically.

Scholars whom God led astray adopted their doctrines and defended them in disputations. They held different opinions on some points of detail.

The most famous of these Muslim philosophers were:

• Abu Nasr al-Farabi in the 10th century, at the time of Sayf-ad-dawlah
• Abu Ali Ibn Sina (Avicenna) in the 11th century, at the time of the Buyids in Isfahan
• and others.

The opinion of those Aristotlean philosophers is wrong in all its aspects.

They refer all existentia to the first intellect. They are satisfied with the theory of the first intellect in their progress toward the Necessary One (the Deity).

This means that they disregard all the degrees of divine creation beyond the first intellect. Existence, however, is too wide to be explained by so narrow a view.

The philosophers, who restrict themselves to affirming the intellect and neglect everything beyond it, are like the physicists who restrict themselves to affirming the body but disregard both soul and intellect because they believe that there is nothing beyond the body in God’s wise plan on existence.

The arguments that the philosophers parade for their claims regarding the existentia and that they offer to the test of the norms of logic, are insufficient for the purpose.

The arguments on the corporeal existentia constitute what they call the science of physics.

They assume that the results of thinking are produced by rational norms and reasoning.

The insufficiency lies in the fact that the conformity between the results of thinking and the outside world is not unequivocal.

All the judgments of the mind are general ones, whereas the existentia of the outside world are individual in their substances.

Perhaps, there is something in those substances that prevents conformity between the universal (judgments) of the mind and the individual (substances) of the outside world.

At any rate, however, whatever conformity is attested by sensual perception has its proof in the fact that it is observable.

It does not have its proof in (logical) arguments.

Where, then, is the unequivocal character they find in their arguments?

The mind is also often applied to the primary intelligibilia, which conform to the individual existentia, with the help of pictures of the imagination, but not to the secondary intelligibilia, which are abstractions of the second degree.

In this case, judgment becomes unequivocal. It is comparable to judgment in the case of sensibilia, since the primary intelligibilia are more likely to agree with the outside world. This is because they conform perfectly by definition, to the individual manifestations of the existentia.

Therefore, in this case, one must concede the philosophers’ claims in this respect.

However, we must refrain from studying these things because a Muslim should not do what does not concern him.

The problems of physics are of no importance for us in our religious affairs or our livelihoods.

Therefore, we must leave them alone.