An Introductory Course On Perspectives Of

Western And Islamic Philosophy

Agenda

•Initiate session 10:25

•About the lectures10:25 – 10:40

•Western perspectives 10:40 – 11:25

•Break11:25 – 11:40

•Islamic perspectives 11:40 – 12:25

•Questions and answers12:25 – 13:00

Lecture Series

A total of nine lectures are anticipated to be delivered on a monthly basis over

a period of nine consecutive months

Each of the lectures shall provide a rudimentary understanding of various

philosophical concepts

Please refer to the provided handbook for further details

Sessions Date and Time Subject Matter Western

Perspectives

Islamic

Perspectives

1 of 924th August 2014

10:15am - 1.00pmIntroduction to philosophy

What is philosophy?

Why study philosophy?

Meaning and definition

2 of 921st September 2014

10:15am - 1.00pm

What can we know?

Knowledge

[Epistemology 1/2]

What is knowing?

What is knowledge?

Belief, truth and evidence

The sources and concepts of knowledge,

reason and experience

3 of 919th October 2014

10:15am - 1.00pm

What is the world like?

Perceiving the World

[Epistemology 2/2]

Realism

Idealism

Our knowledge of the physical world

4 of 923rd November 2014

10:15am - 1.00pm

The way the world works

Scientific Knowledge

[Philosophy of Science]

Laws of nature

Explanation

Theories

Possibility

The problem of induction

5 of 921st December 2014

10:15am - 1.00pm

What is and what must be?

Freedom and Necessity

[Metaphysics]

Causality

Determinism and freedom

6 of 918th January 2015

10:15am - 1.00pm

What am I?

Mind and Body

[Philosophy of Mind]

The physical and the mental,

The relationship between the physical and the mental,

Materialism

7 of 915th February 2015

10:15am - 1.00pm

What else is there?

[Philosophy of Religion 1/2]

Ontological, cosmological and teleological arguments for the existence

of God

8 of 922th March 2015

10:15am - 1.00pm

What else is there?

[Philosophy of Religion 2/2]

The concept of God

The problem of evil

Religious concepts

9 of 919th April 2015

10:15am - 1.00pm

The is and the ought

[Problems in Ethics]

Meta-ethics

Theories of goodness

Theories of conduct

And Once Again . . . The Objective

The primary aim and overall objective, among other subsidiary

benefits, is to assist in familiarising and acquainting its

recipients with the conceptual [and intellectual] perils, predominantly encountered by religion in todays society, which are propelled by [or

in the name of] philosophy.

Lecture 2/9

Epistemology

Perceiving the World

What we Anticipate to Cover in this Session

Plato points towards the sky

Aristotle is shown with the palm of his hand turned down

Proposed Meaning of these Hand Gestures

The Idealist

Ideas are what is real

PLATO

Pointing up

The Realist

What is, is what is real

ARISTOTLE

Holding his hand above the ground

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave

The Parable of The CaveMajority of

human kind are like the prisoners,

content with a world of mere appearance.

Only Philosophers

make the journey out of the cave and

learn to experience

things as they really are; only they can have

genuine knowledge.

The world of everyday

perception is constantly

changing and imperfect. But the world of

Forms to which Philosophers have access is

unchanging and perfect.

The world of Forms can’t be perceived by

the five senses: it is only by the means of thought that anyone can

experience the Forms.

Plato’s Theory of FormsO

PI

NI

ON Is of the

world presented to the senses

KN

OW

LE

DG

E Is of a super – sensible eternal world

TH

US Opinion is

concerned with particular beautiful things, but knowledge is concerned with beauty in itself

Aristotle’s Rejection of The Theory of Forms

Plato’s theory of forms claims to explain the nature of things but in fact the abstract forms are only useless

copies of actual things, and fail to provide any explanation of the existence and changes of concrete

things;

Plato’s theory of forms sets up an unbridgeable gap, a dualism between the world of intelligible ideas and

the world of sensible things; the theory makes it impossible to explain how sensible things and

intelligible forms are related at all.

P L AT O A R I S T O T L E1. Truth was something

abstract.

2. If something is true, it must always be true.

3. You could not find truth in the world – truth resided in the Realm of Forms.

4. Plato wanted big truths:

• The perfect form of cat

• The perfect form of justice

• The perfect form of goodness

1. Truth was something concrete.

2. Something does not have to be always true, to be true in a particular.

3. The truth was the world all around us.

4. Aristotle preferred to collect little truths:

• I fell out of bed.

• The can fell from the tree.

• The rock fell down the mountain.

THUS THINGS FALL

What isIdealism and Realism?• Any doctrine holding the reality is fundamentally

mental in nature.

• The view that only minds and mental representations exist; there is no independently existing external material world.Id

eali

sm

• A theory which holds that entities of a certain category exist mind – independently, i.e. independently of what we believe or feel about them.

• Most commonly the view (contrasted with Idealism) that physical objects exist independently of being perceived.

Rea

lism

Idealism

Matter doesn’t exist

The external world is a construction of the mind

Reality exists exclusively of “ideas”

Reality is due to the sensory abilities of the human mind

and not because reality exists in itself

RealismObjects outside mind have existence and are mind –

independent

Objects exist regardless of human perception

The physical world is objective

Knowledge acquired through the senses is only real

VS

Why is it Important

The Aristotelian Threat

What does a realist account of the

world mean for religion?

Truth is all around you.

If you take time to observe and reflect on the little truths,

they can reach higher truths all on

their own.

Where Do You Stand?And Why?

IDEALISM REALISM

BREAK

15 MINUTES

Islamic Perspective

Does Islam Recognise Such Philosophical Concepts?

Islam is under no obligation to conform to any such Philosophical Concepts.

WHY?

It does not require substantiation from any such Philosophical Concepts.

How Then Does Islam Explain

Perception of the World

األشياء ثابتةحقائقEverything has its own

fixed reality

1

What Does It Mean?[A

] There is an objective reality to each and everything.

[B] Water, in fact,

is water and fire is fire. It would be absurd to believe otherwise.

[C] To engage in

argumentation or subtle reasoning in order to prove such beliefs is no more than sophistry.

How Then Does Islam Explain

Perception of the World

عالم المثال

2

World of Images

What Does It Mean?[A

] A non-elemental world exists in which abstract meanings are represented by quasi – bodily forms corresponding to them in quality.

[B] There things

take on their ‘materialization’ in some form before they are materialized on earth.

[C] Thus, when they

come into existence they are the same in in a certain sense of sameness.

How Do You Synthesise Between the Two

Belief

A level of spirituality

Knowledge

Other Ontological Theories

Reality of the World

The Mu’taziliteNaẓẓām:

Latency and Manifestation

Imām al –Ghazhālī:

Occasionalism

Ibn Rushd: Refutation of

Occasionalism

NEXT LECTURE

THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

23RD NOVEMBER 2014

10:15 – 13:00