Islamic political philosophy: Al-Farabi, Avicenna, Averroes Part 3

Avicenna (980-1037 A.D.)

The extracts in the Readings come from Avicenna, The Healing, 'Metaphysics', Book X (translated M.E. Marmura, in Lerner and Mahdi, p. 99 ff).

Read Chapter 2 (pp. 99-101).

Compare Plato, Protagoras, 322. Republic 369-371.

'The First Principle': God.

'xvi, 102' and the like are references to the Koran.

'He ought not to involve them': religious knowledge does not include everything that philosophers should know.

'Nor is it proper... vulgar': This explains why Muhammad never indicated that parts of the Koran were to be interpreted allegorically.

Read chapter 3, pp. 101-3.

Thus Avicenna finds philosophical reasons for the practices of religion.

Read chapter 5, pp. 107-110

'Caliph' means 'successor', i.e. of Muhammad. 'Imam' means 'leader'.

'If a city other than his has praiseworthy laws': This and the rest of the paragraph seem to be intended to explain why Jews and Christians are to be treated more leniently.

'Acts that harm the individual himself': Avicenna, like J.S. Mill much later, thought that people should not be legally compelled for their own good.

Averroes, 1126-1198 A.D.

Al-Farabi and Avicenna lived in the eastern part of the Islamic world; Averroes lived in Spain, at that time partly under Muslim control. He was a judge in the city of Cordova. He wrote a series of commentaries on the works of Aristotle, which were translated into Latin and were very influential in the universities of medieval Europe.

In Islamic culture 'philosophy' (in the sense of a continuation Greek philosophy) was somewhat suspect. It never gained a foothold in publically supported educational institutions, it was never well connected with any profession (in contrast with western Europe after the 12th century, where philosophy was the main subject in Arts faculties of the universities). The subject best established in medieval Islamic education was the study of the law (i.e. of the religious law). The extracts from Averroes in the Readings are from The Decisive Treatise Determining the Nature of the Connection between Religion and Philosophy, in which Averroes tries to show (with a readership of lawyers primarily in mind) that philosophy is a legitmate study for Muslims - indeed, that it is the highest form of religion. Like Alfarabi, and like Plato, Averroes envisages a state in which philosophers are the elite. The extracts are from the translation by G.F. Hourani in A. Hyman and J.J. Walsh, Philosophy in the Middle Ages (B721.P48), p. 287 ff)

Read chapter 1, pp. 287-291.

The headings in small print (e.g. 'What is the attitude of the Law to philosophy?', 'If teleological study... then the Law commands philosophy') are not part of the original text but have been supplied by editor or translator.

'teleological': in terms of purpose or end (Greek telos, 'end').

'The Artisan': God, the maker of the world.

'LIX, 2' and the like: references to the Koran.

'Demonstrative', 'dialectical' and 'rhetorical' reasoning: According to Aristotle 'demonstrative' reasoning gives certainty and understanding by showing the reasons why the thing is and must be so. 'Dialectical' reasoning shows that it is probably so by reasons that give no understanding or certainty (e.g. arguments from what is commonly believed, or analogies). 'Rhetorical' arguments induce the listener (perhaps by some emotional appeal) to believe that the thing is so. (Plato used 'dialectic' for the highest form of reasoning; Aristotle gave the word a less favourable meaning.)

'The lawyer': i.e. the student of the religious law of Islam.

'Syllogisms': arguments.

'regardless... shares our religion': Averroes' great antagonist, Al-Ghazali, held similarly liberal views on this topic. 'If we adopt the attitude of abstaining from every truth that the mind of a heretic has apprehended before us, we should be obliged to abstain from much that is true' (Al-Ghazali, in Hyman and Walsh, p. 273).

'Those ancients who studied these matters before Islam': that is, the Greek philosophers.

'For the natures of men are on different levels': This was also the view of Al-Farabi and Avicenna, who also inferred that philosophy was for the elite and religion for the masses.

Read chapter 2, pp. 292-4

Note the argument that on theoretical matters it can never be shown that there has been unanimity, since some of the experts may have believed that they should not communicate their knowledge to the public.

The next few pages are omitted, since they go into controversies on technical questions of philosophy.

Read Chapter 3, pp. 301-6.

'Abu Hamid': Al-Ghazali, whose book The Incoherence of the Philosophers was an attack on philosophy.

'Accidentally certain': i.e. 'happen to be certain'. A dialectical argument uses as premisses common beliefs, and there is no guarantee that commonly held beliefs are true; but it may happen in some instance that they are true.

The rest of the chapter is clear enough.

Like Al-Farabi, Averroes holds that philosophy and Islam are in harmony, that superior intellects ought to philosophise but not in public, that ordinary people should be taught by means of the Koran and the traditions without trying to turn them into philosophers. (Compare Plato's city, where ordinary people are ruled by philosophers who know what is good for them better than they do themselves.) Note that these Muslim philosophers do not suggest (and presumably did not believe) that the Koran and the traditions are in any way false: by a miracle, God has provided a book that is both perfectly accessible to ordinary people and a true guide.

Further Reading

Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (ref/B41.E5), art. 'Islamic philosophy'; R. Lerner and M. Mahdi, Medieval Political Philosophy (JA82.L4).