Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Arabic Philosophy? What's in a Name?



Whether we call it Arabic philosophy or Islamic philosophy or philosophy in the world of Islam (that seems more popular nowadays), there is little doubt that this philosophical tradition is significant for our understanding of human history and intellectual endeavour and indeed the world in which we live and deal with one other. Of course, at one level labels and names are important: naming is an act of defining, of making connections, and indeed of including. While one may debate whether Islamic as a label must necessarily entail a narrowly defined normative theological engagement, if we have learned anything from both Talal Asad's notion of Islam as a discursive tradition, and Shahab Ahmed's consideration of Islam as a rich tradition within the Balkans-to-Bengal complex, it is that Islamic can be used in a far broader sense. And it is also the case that even for a number of the thinkers engaged in this volume (Avicenna in particular), it seems rather presumptuous to deny that their theological commitments were genuine. But even further for the current debates on the identity of Europe and the wider question of the role of Islam in Europe which is strongly resisted by the nativist right, it does matter that we embrace a more expansive notion of 'Islamic philosophy' and its receptions and indeed continuing living engagement (not in the name of tradition as such but in terms of the life of the mind with its extensive forms of embodied experience). Academic scholarship matters; it informs and identifies who we are and helps us to make sense of our world. 


This rich collection of articles, La philosophie arabe à l'étude,  represents an excellent window into the state of research in European scholarship on the intellectual history of ‘Arabic philosophy’. The fact that this latter term is chosen is in itself indicative of a certain approach: Arabic and not Islamic with a focus on the language of philosophical expression and not the cultural context and theological and ethical commitment. In theory, one might even in that sense include works written in Turkish, Persian and other languages inflected by the Arabic debates – perhaps Islamicate philosophy or philosophy in the Islamic World (as is the term used by Peter Adamson whose approach through his popular podcast the History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps and his Very Short Introduction has become highly influential). 





But there is still a sense in which the term Islamic is too theologically compromised, too compromising to the analytic, precise and rational nature of philosophy. 


Of course, by that token there is a focus on Arabic as a conduit and transformation of the ancient traditions and their influence on medieval and early modern scholasticisms in Europe, but also by implication somewhat a cut off point for inquiry; ‘Arabic philosophy’ whether in the form of ‘Islamic philosophy’ with its theological commitments in the period say after the 13th century, and in the form of contemporary debates, receptions of continental and analytic traditions in Arabic are both decidedly excluded (although there is some reference to the latter in one article). Nevertheless, given the focus on the question of method, this debate is engaged in the volume.

 

After a brief introduction by the editors in which the volume is said to evolve from a conference in 2013 and where a brief question is raised about method and labelling and where there is an explicit comparison to studies that attempt to gauge the state of research in medieval Latin philosophy, the articles are divided into five sections. All of the major figures of the European study of Arabic philosophy are included here. Fittingly the volume is dedicated to two major figures whom we now miss in the field: Marc Geoffroy (1965–2018) who was working closely with Jules Janssens and Meryem Sebti on Avicenna’s commentaries especially on Metaphysics Lambda and the so-called Theology Aristotelis/Uthūlūjiyā (and had previously worked on Averroes and Fārābī, translating al-Jamʿ bayna rayʾay al-ḥakīmayn - a work that most people now think is pseudo-Fārābī), and Mauro Zonta (1968–2017), one of the leading specialists on medieval Jewish philosophy. Both went far too early. Requiescant in pace.

 

The first (and longest) part comprises eleven chapters on method and the historiography of the study of Arabic philosophy and unsurprisingly Dimitri Gutas looms large. 

The first is a reprint of Dimitri Gutas’ classic study of the historiography of Arabic philosophy focusing on four approaches: Orientalism, mysticising, the conduit connecting ancient and medieval philosophy, and Straussianism or the political and esoteric reading of Arabic philosophy. The article was originally a lecture at the BRISMES conference in Cambridge in 2000 and has functioned as a defining text for the study of Arabic philosophy since. Orientalism accounts for the attitude that sharply divides philosophy and theology and religion, insists on its heterodoxy dealt a death blow by Ghazālī’s critique, identifies Averroes as a last hurrah for Aristotelianism, for philosophy to die away. In a sense a mysticising reading of philosophy is also Orientalist in that it objectifies and essentialises Arabic philosophy as the exotic other of analytic philosophy. The main extension of this – and Gutas’ favourite thinker to critique – is Henry Corbin and his ‘theosophical’ reading which allows his to establish his polemic against the use of the term ‘Islamic’ philosophy. The clash of orientalisms and essentialisms indeed. At stake of course is the very definition of philosophy: thought, explanation and analysis that includes the uses of poesis and myth, recourse to non-propositional thought and even mystical intuition allied with strong theological commitments takes the work into the realms of para-philosophy for Gutas. In a sense, the insistence on Avicenna as the Arabic philosopher begs the question of his own commitments: did Avicenna not have a sense of what philosophy was as a way of life, did the broader context of the assumption of Islam and the processes of divinity and prophecy not affect him? But then as a colleague recently commented why should we care about narrow definitions of philosophy, not least of what is analytic given the broad inability (the irony!) to establish a clear, coherent and explanatory definition of analytic philosophy. 

This piece is followed by Gutas’ postscript, a rather short note primarily concerned with critiquing the revival of Straussian approaches (represented in this volume by David Wirmer), and while broadly agreeing with his earlier piece also condemned some recent ‘fanciful’ and plainly bad histories of philosophy. Of course, more recently he has decried the problem of the eclipse of philosophy after the classical period and its dissolution into pseudo-philosophy (thought that has distinct theological and other commitments). At the end of the day, approaches and the way in which we seek to do the history of philosophy is directly related to how we define and understand philosophy and then locate that understanding in the texts that we study. If we define philosophy in Islam as Aristotelianism (somewhat influenced by but also suspicious of the excesses of Neoplatonism) and reject the possibility of distinct theological commitments and indeed any sorts of theological and ontological commitments that are extrinsic to the syllogistic substrate of argumentation, then one wonders what philosophy in Arabic, in the world of Islam can possibly be. 

Catherine König-Pralong’s study examines the development of the concept of Arabic philosophy in European thought from the time of Pierre Bayle in the 17th century through to Ernest Renan in the 19th century. What she shows rather interestingly is the eclipse of earlier usages of Arabic philosophy in the Enlightenment (Jonathan Israel has also commented on that) to a more orientalised and racialised notion of Arabic philosophy as medieval by the colonial period as an expression of colonialist epistemology. 

Chiara Adorisio looks at Strauss’ study of Maimonides and his Muslim interlocutors as a form of true rationalism in philosophy that neither gives up on religion or politics. Rüdiger Arnzen’s contribution is a highly useful typology of eight approaches to the study of the history of philosophy in the world of Islam that relates it to wider concerns in the study of the history of philosophy and intellectual history. He makes a strong case for a broader and theoretically more serious engagement with Arabic philosophy as part of the study of non-Western philosophies. The real conundrum is a perennial one: are students of Arabic philosophy primarily historian-philologists focusing on texts and contextualisation, philosophers excavating new ground or intercultural apologists fighting the prejudices of philosophy in the world of Islam. 

This is followed by Anke von Kügelgen’s interview to Adamson’s podcast. It is the one piece dedicated to a broad study of Arabic philosophy into the modern period not surprising given her own specialisation (and indeed she is the editor of volume four of the History of Philosophy in Islam from 1800 onwards, the Gundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie published by Schwabe Verlag). 






Not only does she discuss the reception of the classical traditions as well as Kant and Heidegger in the modern Muslim world (on which now there is quite a literature from Mohsen Jahangiri and Karim Mojtehedy to Roman Siedel, Urs Gösken and the Fardid crowd - and volumes published in Iran), she also touches on the history of the critique of philosophy. 

Damien Janos’ piece is the longest piece and theoretically sophisticated. It asks a very important question: to what extent does one find development of thought and position in the thinkers that we study and perhaps all too often we assume a holism of approach in their oeuvre. It is a contribution not just to the study of Arabic philosophy but in fact to how we study the history of philosophy. David Wirmer’s defense of the Straussian method of reading follows with an even longer article as well as an exemplification in his edition and translation of Ibn Bājja’s treatise On the Desiderative Faculty

The late Mauro Zonta’s brief over of Jewish Averroism follows and how it may be compared to Jewish Avicennism. He maps out a whole tradition and shows that Averroism in Jewish contexts still needs further work. One could certainly argue that many of the articles are responses and modifications of Gutas: Lizzini takes his work as her starting point and re-engages the values and approaches that we ascribe to the terms ‘Arabic’, ‘Islamic’, and ‘philosophy’; it is a useful recapitulation of the debate with the summary that she wishes to study philosophy in Islam and not philosophy of Islam (and indeed how in some circles the two are conflated). 

 

Part two considers the echoes and reception of ancient thought in Arabic philosophy. Ricardo Chiaradonna’s excavation of the existence-essence distinction in late antique thought and his critique of Hadot’s suggestion that one might find the notion of hyparxis and the activity of the One above substance in the anonymous commentary on the Parmenides is an excellent example of a clear and precise work of intellectual history. Might be useful to compare Michael Chase's recollection of Hadot here

The eminent Neoplatonism specialist Dominic O’Meara looks at the Arabic reception of the opposition of Alexandrian Aristotelianism to Athenian Neoplatonism and Karl Praechter’s historiographical model and the whole question of the transmission of late Neoplatonism to the Arabs. Part of this involves a critical take on Michel Tardieu's conjecture on the thinkers of Ḥarrān. Cristina Cerami looks at the reception of the Posterior Analytics on the organisation of the physics in Averroes; another excellent philologically careful study. David Twetten studies the ‘orthodoxy’ of the notion of the Aristotelian First Mover in the thought of Averroes alongside two modern specialists Sarah Broadie and Enrico Berti.

 

Part three comprises there chapters and considers an area of growing concern in recent times, namely, the connections between philosophy ‘proper’ and three areas of systematic theology (ʿilm al-kalām), mysticism, and law and legal theory. Again, with reference to Adamson, this would link to the ‘expansive’ sense of philosophy – looking for argumentation, analysis and explanation regardless of the generic self-label applied in the text. Hence, one can easily find serious philosophical analysis in works of kalām, in elements of Sufi metaphysics, in Qurʾanic and other scriptural exegesis, and especially in legal theory. Parallel to this is a new series published by de Gruyter on Philosophy in the Islamic World. Ulrich Rudolph’s short piece on the metaphysics of Jāmī (d. 1492) takes up the earlier work of Nicholas Heer and shows how especially the Precious Pearl (al-Durra al-fākhira) is such an important witness and indeed conduit for how later theologians, philosophers, and even Sufis made sense of metaphysics; at some point in the 18th and 19th centuries there is some evidence that it became a major school text across the Ottoman, post-Safavid and Mughal contexts. The reception of this text as a bridge between philosophy and these related areas deserves further consideration. 





Steffen Stelzer’s rather generic chapter studies how mystics viewed philosophers as inauthentic and insincere followers of the Prophet (and hence heretics). This is a rather disjointed piece and invokes Ibn ʿArabī and at times some modern Sufi polemics; but it fails to engage with the wider observation that in the later period there is a strong convergence of philosophy and mysticism, for example, in the thought of Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1636). However, he does raise an interesting question about the nature of authority and precedence in philosophy - at least from ancient times, philosophers have not been immune to polemics, rhetoric, and indeed appeal to authority. 

Ziad Bou Akl completes this section with a study of the nature of divine volition in Averroes’ refutation of al-Ghazālī, specifically in the first discussion on whether God could choose a particular instant t at which to create (and the problem of indifference) and relates it to the famous medieval problem of Buridan’s ass, further taking the debate up to Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī. Certainly, the latter thinker is perhaps one of the most influential philosophers of the middle period and his al-Maṭālib al-ʿāliya that is studied here still deserves further recognition and engagement. 

 

The fourth part on the reception of Arabic philosophy considers four studies on Latin and early modern thought. Massimiliano Lenzi analyses Aquinas’ reception of both the Latin Aristotle and Averroes on the causes and essence of nature in Physics II. Roland Hissette takes up the translations of the middle commentaries of Averroes on logic, particularly on the Isagoge by the 13th century translator Wilhelmus de Luna. It constitutes a valuable study in Arabic-Latin translation and how terms draw upon both Averroes and Boethius. Jean-Baptiste Brenet’s own contribution is a fascinating study in Averroism in Descartes’ Utrecht debate of 1641 with Henrik de Roy on the nature of the human (especially the particular hylemorphic nature). It demonstrates an element of Descartes as not the first of the moderns but rather someone working within the universe of Aristotelianism and Averroism. A broader study is needed to consider further elements of Averroism and Avicennism in his thought. Remke Kruk’s contribution looks at the reception of Ibn Ṭufayl’s Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān in Dutch and its transmission to Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and other narratives; philosophy does have an influence further into literature and culture. Specialists have known for some time about Pococke’s Latin translation and its influence on Defoe (most exemplary in the study of Mahmoud Baroud that was originally an Exeter PhD, even if there is no direct textual transmission or evidence). 





However, there does seem to be evidence in a Dutch work published in 1752, De Walchersche Robinson of a relationship with the Arabic text. Kruk shows how literary and even philosophical influence can be present even in the face of antipathy to the religious context of Islam. 

 

The fifth and final part is a series of studies on particular texts and traditions and includes seven chapters. Philippe Vallat’s long article continues his rebuttal of Straussian readings of al-Fārābī in his contribution (explained in more detail in his book); for him, philosophy remains superior to religion and has a stronger claim to soteriology. 




He does affirm an esoteric reading but in a different sense to Leo Strauss (his main criticism is levelled at Charles Butterworth), and he repeats his reading of al-Fārābī as an anti-Qurʾanic and even anti-Islamic thinker. Certainly, it is fair to say that al-Fārābī’s conception of philosophy is far removed from the holistic commitments of Mullā Ṣadrā and Mīr Dāmād (and perhaps even Avicenna). For Vallat, the political theological concern for esotericism in al-Fārābī is only one of four possible functions. 

Meryem Sebti’s excellent edition and study of the Risāla fīʾl-kalām ʿalā al-nafs al-nāṭiqa places it within the pseudo-epigraphical works of Avicenna and suggests that it was written by an ishrāqī author in the later period (and her evidence certainly seems quite conclusive). Given the abundance of pseudo-epigraphica in Arabic and Islamic philosophy (often attributed to Avicenna, Ibn ʿArabī, Mullā Ṣadrā and so forth), this is a careful philological and philosophical model of how to establish an incorrect attribution. Yamina Adouhane studies the modal and causal distinction between the possible and the necessary in Avicenna and their reception in al-Ghazālī and Averroes. Significantly she points to the distinction between the notion of being necessary in itself and being without a cause. Jules Janssens takes up a wider task looking at the importance of Avicenna studies, the need for historical work and translation, of appropriate historical analysis, of not smoothing out the problems and tensions within Avicenna, of avoiding anachronistic readings. If one accepts that Avicenna is one of the greatest philosophers in history and a thinker with influence in the study of the sciences and medicine as well, he deserves a serious engagement not just in the world of Islam but beyond. This is very much an argument for the study of Avicenna within the history of global philosophy. Matteo di Giovanni considers an important polemical issue taken up historically but also in recent Arab intellectual history: how Islamic is Averroes’ philosophy?  The question speaks directly to this debate on Arabic versus Islamic philosophy. It provides evidence for the contestation of Islam and indeed philosophy in Averroes’ time. The final contribution by Fouad Ben Ahmed looks at Ibn Ṭumlūs’ logic and medicine and acts as a brief introduction to his editions and book published with Brill; it provides an account of an important student of Averroes and his tradition. In a sense the recovery of Ibn Ṭumlūs tells us something about the imagining of an Arab Averroist tradition. 




 

This is little doubt that this is a valuable collection of interventions, summaries and particular studies which tells us much about the field in its European manifestation: lots of Gutas, Avicenna, and Averroes. While there are hints that the editors and the volume want to go beyond that, the absences are notable: no real Suhrawardī (and this is a classic problem of distaste for Corbin and Nasr leading to the neglect of one of the more creative thinkers in the post-Avicennian period), no Mīr Dāmād (who is seriously neglected), no Mullā Ṣadrā, no Ottoman or Indian thinkers, no ethics. Of course, with any such volume, it is always churlish to expect it to conform to one’s own understanding of the field – and it is unreasonable for any volume not least one that emerged from a relatively small conference to be exhaustive. But then it is also the role of the reviewer to point students in the direction of other works: while a number of contributors warn against false leads and even fake friends and news (not least the works of Jackson and Campanini – I for one strongly disagree with that ascription of Jambet, which is a very serious philosophical engagement but as ever philosophical taste semper est disputandum), some indications of excellent recent work in Safavid and Qajar philosophy, the Oxford Handbook, studies of Ottoman philosophy and so forth are still important to make. 





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