Islamic Existentialism

[Sophist]

Dear Q,

 

Oh my dear fellow, such a invitation is much dreaded my many! But not this nomad; he indeed takes great pleasure in challenge. Challenge is the water that grows the crops or some such.

 

On absolute Truth

 

What is then “absolute truth” Like in any combined words, we have to first define what is absolute? This word means; Perfect in quality or nature; Not limited by restrictions or exceptions; unconditional; conclusive. Now what is truth linguistically? The answer can be said it to be; Conformity to fact or actuality or perhaps Fidelity to an original or standard. Many writers have said “ often Truth that which is considered to be the supreme reality and to have the ultimate meaning and value of existence” thus “Absolute truth" is according to this definition inflexible reality: fixed, invariable, unalterable facts. This is of course to say, the existence of the “real” is independent from our sense. For example, the actuality of this keyboard could not be disputed even though I can type on it because I am not in the living room. The fact that I am not in the living room does not negate the existence of this corporeal thing. This would be material example. More enticing to the metaphysical lovers (this is Epistemology mixed with Metaphysics) would the example of the creator. Without the creation God would have existed; thus making him the ultimate and absolute truth.

To stretch the matter-no doubt this will anger some relativists amongst you- the colour white may be inherently better than say the colour green. The fact that we the human agents have different tastes, say some prefer red to black or vice versa does not dispute the inherent better-ness of say red—though we can not judge this by ourselves for we have different acquired tastes; it is said that the creator knows which is better. Others would bring theological argument and say colour white is better than other as far as clothing is concerned for it was the favourite colour of the Prophet. He SCW being the best of man ever created, he is indeed has better taste than others; this of course is stretching the matter a bit further.

 

On Logic,

 

What is Logic? It is the mode in which philosophers analyze inferences. The famous mantra goes like this; All men are mortal, Sophist is a man, now we can infer that Sophist is mortal. Notice, it is a system; derived from our sense of intellect. Human intellect which is fallible; or is?

 

To answer this question one first has to doubt the fallibility of man. However, if man is fallible then it would be painless to respond. Thus, I will say. Because Logic is conditioned by human intellect, and human intellect is fallible, we can infer that logic is not perfect mode of knowing more obscure things.

 

I hope this helped.

[Mutakalim]

Oh my dear fellow, such a invitation is much dreaded my many!

 

Just when I thought that the Somali fora lacks the "will to debate" , the will to Power as Nietzche would have said. I shall, by God, bring-forth deductive reasoning that will induce insanity in the sane and therewith let loose the dogs of philosophic war!

 

This is of course to say, the existence of the “real” is independent from our sense.

 

I will give you an example of an Absolute Truth: There is something. Should someone prove that the afore-mentioned statement is not "absolute" (i.e. relative), I shall not read a book of philosophy again.

 

The knowledge of mathamatics, the synthetic a prioria as Kants labels it, is not relative aught. The statement "5 + 7 = 12" may or may not be self-evident, depending on the precise meaning envisioned. However, the statement "5+7=12, if the Peano Postulates hold, and the common meanings are assigned to all "terms", seems, indeed, to be an absolute truth. Mathematical demonstrations are not relative but absolute.

 

 

For example, the actuality of this keyboard could not be disputed even though I can type on it because I am not in the living room. The fact that I am not in the living room does not negate the existence of this corporeal thing. This would be material example.

 

Actually, the "actuality" (I must say you are using this term as it is used by the vulgar not the philosophers; Aristotelian actuality) of the existence of the keyboard can not only be disputed but, in fact, confuted. The keyboard's "existence" is dependent on a perciever(e.g. you). If there is no perciever then there is no keyboard. The concept of a corporeal, physical substance, or material substratum is a very circular and foolish enterprise.

 

According to Berkeley , a theory about the world is only valuable, if it can advance our knowledge about the world. For example, if I say that I have found the answer to gravity, and it is as follows:

 

1. Gravity is caused by Zorks.

2. Zorks are things that cause gravity.

 

With (1) and (2) I have not established much. All we know is that zorks cause gravity. We do not know how, and we can't make any predictions with this information.

 

Berkeley argues that if the physical matter exist independently of our perceptions (as materialists and dualist believe) then their should be a way to describe it without reference to our perceptions. In other words, we should, if our theory of material world (external) has any validity, be able explain physical matter independently of our perceptions--or of perceptions in general--since it is believed by materialists and dualists to be independent of our perceptions.

 

1. Physical matter causes our perceptions (color, height, firmness...)

2. Our perceptions (firmness, height, color...) are caused by physical matter.

 

According to Berkeley the materialist and dualist can say no more than this, for we have no other way to talk about physical matter, without referring our perceptions. A very circular enterprise, indeed.

 

Berkeley argues that his theory does not "beg the question" and hence is not circular:

 

1. Perceptions are caused by the mind.

2. The mind can be defined independently of the way we describe our perceptions.

3. Therefore, Berkeley's argument lacks circularity and only need to meet the criteria of prediction to be a good theory.

 

A second argument, although in a somewhat modern form, can be stated like this:

 

According to science, millions photons bounce off an object and hit specific color cones in your eyes. However, if the photons cause the color blue by hitting color cones, then the photons themselves are not blue. At least it is hard to see how they could be, if they cause the color and are not the color blue. A thing can not be and not be at the same time (the principle of non contradiction)

 

But the color cones in your eyes are not blue either. If I were to look in your eyes, I would not see blue substance making its way from your eyes to your brain. I would simply see your eyes. Also, if I traced the signal (signifying blue) from neuron to neuron I would not see blue either. Neither would I see it when it reached the occipital lobe of your brain--wherein visual information is interpreted.

 

So it seems as if the color blue is "caused matter" but is only "in your mind," since clearly the 'blueness' isn't located anywhere in the material world.

 

What Berkeley is arguing, is like Locke's secondary properties, all properties of the physical world pertaining to perception are secondary.

 

1. We perceive what we think are physical objects, and their properties

2. We are the only ones experiencing these perceptions, because they exist solely in our minds (we don't have access to other people's mind, and they don't to ours).

3. Skepticism about the cause of our idea (physical matter) seems reasonable, since we only have access to our own idea and perceptions.

4. Idealism is a better hypothesis than that of the materialist or dualist since it lacks circularity and is simpler.

5. Therefore, [1] perceptions cannot exist unpreceived or without a mind, since they can only exist in our mind, and given conclusion [1] and premise (4), [2] idealism is more reasonable to believe than materialism or dualism.

 

Berkeley's argument basically amounts to reducing perceptions to ideas and arguing that ideas can only exist in minds--therefore, the hypothesis of physical matter is unnecessary, because we can account for perceptions independently of matter; that perceptions seem to be only in the mind. The "blueness" does not exist anywhere in the physical world. It has its existence in the mind.

 

Since all perceptual data eventually ends up in the brain, then idealism is a much better hypothesis. If perception is just in the mind, then how can we say that the matter substance causing it really exists? It is foolish to assume as many Philosophers do, the existence of the thing-in-itself (Da sing an sich); everything is nothing more than "perceptual descriptions", if you take away all the "sensible qualities" of a thing, you are left with no-thing.

 

1. Perceptions are in the mind (follows from the defintion of perception; use modes ponens).

2. We can account for those perceptions without reference to the physical world (the blueness example).

3. The hypothesis of physical matter is circular and unnecessary (2)

4. Therefore, idealism is a better hypothesis and it probably closer to the truth.

 

"To Be is to be percieved. No Mind, does not matter. No matter, never Mind."

 

 

Thus, I will say. Because Logic is conditioned by human intellect, and human intellect is fallible, we can infer that logic is not perfect mode of knowing more obscure things.

What a fallacy. Why are Humans so intent on constructing the most fallacious arguemtns. "Ata waasoow bihi bal..."

[Mutakalim]

I must say "mea culpa" for the derailing of this thread. The above-written post was a necessary digression. In the same way that the Sun as it rises, emanates light and radiates heat (i.e. necessarily, the rising of the Sun and the subsequent effect of light and heat is not accidental but necessary), I digress "necessarily"; yes I am still digressing..

 

Back to the Original topic:

 

Everything we know we know via the senses, after all, we are sentient beings (a posteriori). For example, that the sky appears to be blue. However, there are some truths we know with out the application of our sense, such knowledge we call independent of senses ( a priori). For example, that a triangle has three sides is not known solely a posteriori , it would be impossible to conduct an experiment verifying or "falsifying" (as Kopper would have insisted) this axiom; look at a hundred, million, billion triangles and you will find that they all have three sides. How do you know what a traingle is? Why do you know what a triangle is? Why does a triangle "necessarily have three sides? A triangle is not a "chimerical abstraction" of mathematicians but a "true" axiom (i.e. it is not made up).

 

We can not see, hear, taste, feel God. We can not know God a posteriori. What about the "evidences" of his creation , is not that a potent argument a posteriori (telelogical argument). I have already stated in preceding threads the inherent difficulties of this argument. I will refer the readers to Hume's analysis of this problem. Also, the cosmological arguments of St. Aqunias , in asmuch as they are arguments a posteriori (cosmological argument) are not logically strong and valid. I will refer readers to Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason".

 

Is it possible to know God a priori? Through pure abstraction is it possible to infer the existence of a Supreme Being. Anselm thought he had formulated a "deductive" argument for the existance of God. A "being than which a greater can not be concieved" is the most fundemental form of the ontological Argument. This argument is an ingenious play of "semantics". It is not possible to concieve anything into existence. Again, I refer the readers to St. Anselm's Prosologium for the argument. Furthermore, you will find a cogent destruction or "tahafut" (as Ghazali would have said) of the argument in Kant's Critque of Pure Reason.

 

In sum, there is no way of knowing (a posteriori or a priori ) the existence of God. What shall we do. We must needs believe because it is "existentially" important that we believe. Q's response contains some good examples.......

 

With Salaamss......

 

PK

[Sophist]

We ask Allah in His majesty that transcends all bounds and His munificence that goes beyond all ends to shed upon us the lights of His guidance and to snatch away from us the darkness of waywardness and error; to make us among those who saw the truth as truth, preferring to pursue and follow its paths, and who saw false as false, choosing to avoid and shun it; to bring us to the felicity He promised His prophets and saints; to make us attain that rapture and gladness, favoured bliss and joy (once we depart from this abode of delusion) from whose heights the greatest ascents of the understanding stand low and from whose distanced stretches the utmost reaches of the arrows of the imagination waste away; to grant us, after arriving at the bliss of paradise and emerging from the terror of the judgment day, "that which neither eye has seen nor ear heard, nor occurred to the heart of men," and that He may bestow His prayers and His assured peace upon prophet, the chosen, Muhammad, the best of men.

 

 

It is not too repellent to shield what tiny terrain of thought that I inhabit when under the attack of regally marshaled magnetic vocabulary. A resistance that would be compelled to meet vengeance; alas we are in the treacherous position of a dog whose tail has been attached with sumptuously fatty meat, and so it hounds the piece of meet on a circle motion eventually falling from exhaustion. I hope the thinking mind will not behave like this creature. Therefore, the convenience of ridiculing is now something that I must deny to my self. Moreover, it is in our common interest to consider a joint venture in understanding each other’s perspectives, only then will we truly have the knowledge to determine each other’s intentions. But that does not mean I will not tear apart the misconstrued pseudo-philosophical ideas of our esteemed fellow. I shall endeavor to shed some light on the blunders our brother has made.

 

Philosophy is not a subject for the sentimental mind, reason; thinking and independence are sustenance of the intellect. But as any nourishment, it needs to be tested; some vegetable/animals are perilous to our health thus they are not consumed as victuals.

 

To argue we believe in Allah not because of priori knowledge or even posteriori is show ignorance about the scripture of our holly religion. In numerous verses, Allah speaks of his existence and the signs that surround us to him. Science perhaps is one shining star that guides us to the creator.

 

Allah Says

 

“God is the light of the Heavens and of the earth. His light is like a niche in which is a lamp - the encased in a glass, - the glass, as it were, a star’†(24:35).

No doubt, the opening sentence of the verse gives the impression of an escape from an individualistic conception of God. But when we follow the metaphor of light in the rest of the verse, it gives just the opposite impression. The development of the metaphor is meant rather to exclude the suggestion of a formless cosmic element by centralizing the light in a flame which is further individualized by its encasement in a glass likened unto a well-defined star. This of course uses the capacity of the mind, in Islam there had been three periods as of the greatest Islamic political philosopher’s has said Islam’s conceptualization is devided in tow, the faith period and reason pereid. The Qur’an accentuates this in many verses. The main purpose of the Qur’an is to awaken in man the higher consciousness of his manifold relations with God and the universe. It is in view of this essential aspect of the Quranic teaching that Goethe, while making a general review of Islam as an educational force, said to Eckermann: ‘You see this teaching never fails; with all our systems, we cannot go, and generally speaking no man can go, farther than that.’ (Cf. John Oxenford (tr.), Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann and Sorret , p. 41.) Unlike Christianity of which the plethora of men you quote have been brought up (Hume, Burk, Kiegraat lock, Nietzsche etcetera) Islam believes and celebrates both the brilliance of man and his condemns when his ego surpasses his reason. When attracted by the forces around him, man has the power to shape and direct them; when thwarted by them, he has the capacity to build a much vaster world in the depths of his own inner being, wherein he discovers sources of infinite joy and inspiration. Hard his lot and frail his being, like a rose-leaf, yet no form of reality is so powerful, so inspiring, and so beautiful as the spirit of man! Thus in his inmost being man, as conceived by the Qura’n, is a creative activity, an ascending spirit who, in his onward march, rises from one state of being to another:

‘But Nay! I swear by the sunset’s redness and by the night and its gatherings and by the moon when at her full, that from state to state shall ye be surely carried onward’ (84:16-19).

Man is a thinking being, god had given mental capacity to only guide himself and be aware the perils of the world he inhabits but also to contemplate what is in the creators creation.

Though I can go on, and I feel I have plenty more to say about this matter, I got to dash now.

 

I await your comments.

 

Thus spake I

[Maymuunah]

what an interesting read! I hope I won't be confused by your different views.

[Mutakalim]

After perusing the "pseudo-philosophical" meditations omnipresent in this thread, I must needs address the corollary of the argument; or perhaps I should call them "claims" , as many of the responses are nothing save statements lacking "logical strengh" and validity. At any rate, I will address the imperative argument that has been alluded to; viz., the argument from design, the teleological argument. I shall try to elucidate, succinctly, (using the First Princinples of Philosophy) the absurdity and, as it were, the logical paralayisis inherent in this Argument. Notice I say, I will confute the argument "philosophically" not theologically. For to assume that the argument can be rebuked in the realm of theology is very close to the impossible.

 

For the simple Nomads, below-listed is the teleological argument in a simple, syllogistic form; there are more complex versions of the argument (often found in Modal Logic); however, the cardinal part therof is as follows:

 

1.To speak of design is to imply a designer

2.Great design implies a great designer

3.There is great design in the world

4.Therefore, there must be a great designer – God.

 

Hume wrote in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religon

Look around the world, contemplate the whole and every part of it: you will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivision to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy which ravishes into admiration all men who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to end throughout all nature resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the production of human contrivance, of human design, thought, wisdom and intelligence. Since therefore the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble, and that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work which he has executed. By this argument a posteriori and by this argument alone, do we prove at once the existence of a deity and his similarity to human mind and intelligence.

 

Ofcourse, the champion of skepticism, Hume, presented this argument as a preliminary to demolishing it. And demolish it he did!

 

It does not thence follow Hume expounded, that:

1.The analogical reasoning used in the teleological argument is weak and not convincing.

2.Even if we accept the analogy, the argument from design cannot show that:

a)That the "designer" has infinite attributes.

b)That the design is "faultless" and a sign of the greatness of the designer.

c)Even if the design can somehow be shown to be faultless, we cannot conclude that the designer is great or faultless.

d)That there is only one designer.

e)That the designer(s) is (are) still alive.

 

 

P.S. To advance as premises of an argument the "narrational", in a philosophical cofabulation, is indicative of either a "misstep" in discourse or a severe myopic apprehension of Philosophy and Religon. This does not mean that the truths lying in the religious texts are not the aim, but they are not mentioned, otherwise it would not be a philosophical, or purely rational, demonstration. Finally, Qur'anic verses require interpretation, and that alone increases the factor of complexity of our debate many times (I need not mention all the linguistic, rhetorical, historical, scientific, philosophical, jursitic, theological.... elements that must be considered in the interpretation of any qur'anic text, be it a fragment of a verse or a whole chapter. All the Nomads who have attended any tafseer lecture know this or so I hope.

 

With Salaaams

PK

[Sophist]

Much ado about nothing huh?

[Mutakalim]

Much ado about nothing huh?

 

That sounds like what a "logical positivist" would say. Think you it is trivially inconsequential the inquiry as to the existence of a Diety; "Does God exist". When the logical positivists held that the sentence "God exists" is cognitively meaningless (and it is important to note the qualification "cognitively," since they allowed that the sentence was meaningful in all sorts of other ways, e.g. poetically or emotively) they did not mean that it was meaningless because we did not, or even could not, know the answer to whether God exists. Not at all. There are many questions to which we shall never know the answer (e.g. did Julius Caesar sneeze when he crossed the Rubicon?) which are perfectly cognitively meaningful. What they meant by unverifiable was "unverifiable in principle." And, what the logical positivists meant by unverifiable in principle is that we could not even imagine any way in which we could have any data which would even be relevant to the truth or falsity of the sentence, "God exists." But I digress.

 

After a few posts, it is clear your mind has not the peculiar "viscosity" of curiosity and malleablity of mind that one discovers in the philosopher's psyche. Should you wish not to be pressed in that manner, I will, necessarily, respect your wish.

 

Again, if there be any member, who can bring-forth a refutaion (even if it be a modest one; I do not believe a irrefutable refutation can be stipulated, perhaps it is my Nietzchean hubris that is causes me to think in that way )of the the conception that the existence of God is not "knowable" and "demonstrable", I would fain accept it. This does not negate His existence, Exalted be He, but it asserts that it is ultimately "faith". No "sophistry" , No "red herring", and No incoherence is needed.

 

P.S. Critical Thinking is an invaluable proficiency enjoyed by the select few. However, "acquired" critical thinking can be enjoyed by the the layman too( I will not delve into the nuances thereof). No one on this fora has displayed the luxury of having either the former or the latter. It is as if the art of "dialectics" was non-existent aught.

[postman]

Can the designer – God- have such infinite attributes that he can elude the smartest of minds, with the deep motive to disprove him, that is to say those minds which lack objective motives, to actually elude them to the conclusion that they have disproved them, when they did not? In other words, God’s perfection not only comes from the creation of the world (which is clearly not ‘THE’ only masterpiece, if not a masterpiece at all, which you get when you read the Quran), but actually comes from the perfection of Free Will. That is to say, a mind set out to disprove God is correctly exercising its free will to do so and hence nothing will change it, till itself changes.

 

peace

[Mutakalim]

Postman:-

 

I think you have often heard the hackneyed phrase :"absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence". The point of this whole thread was that: disproving the existence of God is just as impossible as proving His existence (logically).

 

Ah! you have alluded to the age-old question of the freedom of the will. I shall, God willing, venture to initiate a thread pertaining to that matter.

[postman]

Dr. William Hatcher , who is a self-proclaimed Platonist philosopher with a Ph.D. in mathematics, delivered a logical proof for the existence of God.

 

Hatcher outlines a simple logical proof for the existence of God, an accomplishment made possible, he said, by reexamining a classic proof of God offered by the great Muslim philosopher Avicenna (ibn Sina, 980-1037) and applying to it some new logical tools derived from recent developments in mathematics.

 

I wanted to post the short excerpt of his book here, but unfortunatly the forum would not allow me to paste the required symbols here. Instead here is a link. Go read it and lets do discuss it afterwards.

 

http://www.onecountry.org/e102/e10214xs.htm

[Sophist]

Insults huh! my poor fellow is so broken he is in the mercy of his run of the mill mind! oh such a pretence of intellect leads to the futility of....! oh well go figure!

 

"irrefutable refutation can be stipulated, perhaps it is my Nietzchean hubris that is causes me to think in that way " prey tell my poor fellow what is your Neitchian hubris! hubris and disdain are the ingredients that make men of low calibre! Federick was indeed anything but but disdainfull.

[NGONGE]

Gibran's take on a similar thing.

 

Once there lived in the ancient city of Afkar two learned men who hated and belittled each other's learning. For one of them denied the existence of the gods and the other was a believer.

One day the two met in the market-place, and amidst their followers they began to dispute and to argue about the existence or the non-existence of the gods. And after hours of contention they parted.

That evening the unbeliever went to the temple and prostrated himself before the altar and prayed the gods to forgive his wayward past.

And the same hour the other learned man, he who had upheld the gods, burned his sacred books. For he had become an unbeliever.

From the book The Madman

His Parables and Poems.

[Matkey]

Much of the learning accomplished by human mind or intelligence is based upon sense-experience. Mind or intelligence stands for faculties or power employed in learning from experience and in modifying behaviors in consequence of such learning. In other words all of our adjustments to environment must be learned through experience.

 

Is the human mind single cognitive power that involves the functioning of senses—memory and imagination; or can human mind be divided into two distinct cognitive powers—sense and intellect? Here I refer intellect to the instrument by which human species apprehend the intelligible object. The question provides irreconcilable alternatives. Firs alternative is what you have postulated in your previous post, that is, the human mind as one single cognitive power. It is my conjecture that a man of your caliber comprehends the consequence of limiting human mind to senses.

 

Needles to say the proponent of this view (Berkeley, Hobbes, Hume and Lock) deny intellect as being one of the instruments by which humans understand, judge and reason intelligible objects. It is equally imperative to note that there are other objects of our conceptual thought, liberty, justice, virtue, and metaphysical objects apprehend by human intellect. Denying presence of intellect is tantamount to equating or reducing the human mind to that of the infra-human organism. What this statement means is that there is no such thing as rational being. Furthermore, the serious consequence follow from denying the intellect is that we differ from the animal in degree; and therefore, humans and animal share for the most part similar traits, that is performed pattern of behaviors. Darwin’s rejection of the status of human species, for example, became an enterprise for challenging the traditional view advanced by Plato and Aristotle, which had been predominate from antiquity to seventeenth century. Plato and Aristotle advance the view that human as rational species differ radically in kind. Darwin, in his effort to refute thier view, did not hesitate to draw the conclusion that we [human species] evolved from the apes or chimpanzee..

 

According to Dler, this view of the mind, taken without qualification by Hobbes, Hume and Berkeley can be stated simply as follows: the mind is sensitive faculty, without any trace of intellectuality about it. Though these British philosophers, according to what I have gathered from the readings, don’t accept the scientific theory of evolution, their view of human mind as one cognitive power is tantamount to accept the view that human mind as constituted by sense and imagination. The advocate of this view go too far in asserting the mind as being bereft of intellect. One can easily ascertain (of course with help of philosophy for dummies found in Chapters) the similarity between Hobbes, Hume and Darwin with regard to human mind. I shall leave it here before i run out the little i gained from these books for dummies

 

Fi amana Allah

[Mutakalim]

Sophist:-

 

In all honesty, I find myself abhorring the philosopher, Nietzche. Intellectual arrogance is a minor charge in comparison to the purely nihilistic philosophy that he espoused. Perhaps it was Divine Justice that caused him to die a most pitiful death.

 

 

Matkey:-

 

During my undergraduate years, I , too, had the advantage of reading Philosophy for Dummies. The book is useful in asmuch as it elucidates the concepts of the philosophy of religon. However, it does not address adequately, the different philosophical dispostions propounded in the days of yore. It would be advisable, should you have the natural interest in philosophy, to read the History of Philosophy before you delve into the abstracts thereof. I would recommend the following two rudimentary books for a novice:

 

1) Philosophy: History and Problems by Samuel E. Stumpf

2) Sophies World by Josten Gaarder ( a fictional novel of the history of philosophy)