Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Spelling, Names, and Sources
- Introduction
- PART ONE THE FORMATION OF THE ISLAMIC TRADITION OF REASON
- 1 The Problem of Reason in Islam: Is Islam a Non-Rational Religion and Civilization?
- 2 The Diversity of Reason
- 3 Empirical Knowledge of the Mind of God
- 4 The Failure of the Fārābian Synthesis of Religion and Philosophy
- 5 Mysticism, Postclassical Islamic Philosophy, and the Rise and Fall of Islamic Science
- PART TWO LOGIC, EDUCATION, AND DOUBT
- PART THREE THE FALL AND THE FUTURE OF ISLAMIC RATIONALISM
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
2 - The Diversity of Reason
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 March 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Spelling, Names, and Sources
- Introduction
- PART ONE THE FORMATION OF THE ISLAMIC TRADITION OF REASON
- 1 The Problem of Reason in Islam: Is Islam a Non-Rational Religion and Civilization?
- 2 The Diversity of Reason
- 3 Empirical Knowledge of the Mind of God
- 4 The Failure of the Fārābian Synthesis of Religion and Philosophy
- 5 Mysticism, Postclassical Islamic Philosophy, and the Rise and Fall of Islamic Science
- PART TWO LOGIC, EDUCATION, AND DOUBT
- PART THREE THE FALL AND THE FUTURE OF ISLAMIC RATIONALISM
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Reason and rationality are difficult conceptions to pin down. Encyclopedias of philosophy tend not to have specific articles devoted to them. When we look at what specific philosophers mean by reason and rationality, it quickly becomes obvious that they mean many different things. Most of the time philosophers claim to follow reason and rational methods, but it often seems that “rational” is no more than a philosopher's assertion that his methods and conclusions are obviously correct.
Consider that in the Enlightenment, “reason” meant a substitution of individual thought for inherited religious authority; for the medieval European philosophers it was a supplement to revelation; and for the Utilitarians it was the practical ideal of the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Modern relativism denies that reason can reach ultimate truth, and Romanticism rejects it in favor of a prerational experience of the world. It is not difficult to identify comparable competing notions of rationality in Islamic civilization. Clearly we are not dealing with a single, unambiguous concept. Therefore, if we are going to talk about reason in Islamic civilization, we need to make clear exactly which form – or, more likely, forms – of reason we are talking about.
Western ideas about reason are not the standard against which Islamic reason should be judged – there is, in any case, no single Western conception of reason to use as a touchstone – but Western intellectual history is diverse and thus unequalled as a point of comparison.
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- Information
- God and Logic in IslamThe Caliphate of Reason, pp. 15 - 29Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010