Multiple Epistemological Critique Of Iqbal; Towards A New Epistemological Paradigm

Multiple Epistemological Critique Of Iqbal; Towards A New Epistemological Paradigm Epistemology is the defining frame of any philosophical system. Any philosophical issue ranging from metaphysical to the problems of sociopolitical significance can be said to have a seminal dependence on the kind of epistemological outlook that the system might have developed. Articulating the same point in a different way, we may be allowed to say that the epistemic devices in a speculative system in a way constrain the respective ontological consideration. This key characteristic of epistemology can be described in relation to any serious philosopher, say for example, Hume, in whose case, the radical and consistently empirical epistemological position that he has developed, had led him to repudiate the principle of causality as there was no direct reference to any of the empirical experience. In other words, it may be noted that it is his own epistemological frame of reference that made him a sceptical philosopher. It is also evident in Kant's whole project of 'Critique of Pure Reason' which is basically an epistemological endeavour clearing the ground for showing possibility/impossibility of metaphysical thinking. I contend that it is based on this chief characteristic of epistemology that Iqbal is making what can be coined as a 'multiple epistemological critique', though he never uses the term identifying his critical project. His critical venture includes the epistemological foundations of Greek philosophers like Socrates, Plato and Democritus. It also includes philosophical figures of Muslim world like that of Al Farabi and Ibnu Sina. His critical approach towards one of the most influential Muslim theologian-mystic, Al Ghazali is also vividly expressed when he deals with Gazali's version of philosophical scepticism. It also includes Mu'athazili and Muthakallimi systems of rational speculation. And most importantly it also incorporates some of the latest findings and contributions of western scholars like Bergson and William James. His critique of Greek tradition of philosophical speculation in general and Socrates and Plato in particular can be found in Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, which is one of his rigorous philosophical contributions. “As we all know, Greek philosophy has been a great cultural force in the

history of Islam. Yet a careful study of the Qur'an and the various schools of scholastic theology that arose under the inspiration of Greek thought discloses the remarkable fact that while Greek philosophy very much broadened the outlook of Muslim thinkers, it, on the whole, obscured their vision of the Qur'an” (Reconstruction. p. 3) Instead of clarifying the veiled meanings of human existence with regard to the conflicting schizophrenic existence of nature of constant flux and principles of universality, Iqbal alleges that Greek thought has obscured their vision with their insistence on mere speculative thinking and also by turning a blind eye towards the significance of the empirical in the spiritual progression of humanity. His criticism assumes more concrete form when he picks out Socrates particularly. “Socrates concentrated his attention on the human world alone. To him the proper study was of man and not the world of plants, insects and stars. How unlike the spirit of the Qur'an, which sees in the humble bee a recipient of divine inspiration and constantly calls upon the reader to observe the perpetual change of the winds, the alternation of day and night, the clouds, the starry heavens and the planets swimming through the infinite space” (ibid. 3) Plato also couldn't escape his trenchant criticism. He continues: “As a true disciple of Socrates, Plato despised sense-perception which, in his view, yielded mere opinion and no real knowledge.” It is true that Plato was one of the pivotal figures in the whole tradition of western philosophy. Whitehead's reference of plato in his famous saying 'The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato'. (Alfred Whitehead, Process and Reality) can prove the amount of significance that he had on western philosophical thinking. But he was, Iqbal argues that, so obsessed with the ideals that he forgot the empirical world around him. Aristotle's seemingly sarcastic criticism that in order to solve the existing problem of (John Berner,

Aristotle's criticisms of Plato) material empirical world, Plato had to create some more problems by supposing a world of Ideas, shows that Plato’s idealism had a sweeping influence on whole edifice of his philosophical systems. Platonian anti empirical attitude was the main problem of concern for Iqbal. Iqbal levelled a strong criticism against the typical Muslim philosophers of classical age of Islamic thought, mainly Al Farabi and Ibnu Sina who were the torch bearers of Greek knowledge in the Islamic world. “This is what the earlier Muslim students of the Qur'an completely missed under the spell of classical speculation. They read the Qur'an in the light of Greek thought. It took them over two hundred years to perceive-though not quite clearly- that the spirit of the Qur'an was essentially anti-classical, and the result of this perception was a kind of intellectual revolt, the full significance of which has not been realized even upto the present day” (Reconstruction. 3). Here medieval Arab thinkers have been accused of being trapped by the Platonic

system

and

the

Neoplatonic

project

under

the

guise

of

Aristotelianism. Al Farabi's cosmological system which presents principles of being as the First Cause, the Secondary Causes, the Active Intellect, Soul, Form and Matter and the Emenationist project of hierarchical descent from the First Cause to final intellect which supervise the sub lunar world. David C. Reisman has rightly pointed out the external influence of

Farabian

cosmological system out of which Al Farabi made a organic structure of his own. “Al Farabi's cosmology integrates an Aristotelian metaphysics of causation with a highly developed version of Plotinian Emenationism situated within a planetary order taken over from Ptolemaic astronomy” (David Reisman, Al Farabi, Cambridge companion to Arabic Philosophy). Since the Platonic and Neo-Platonic elements were predominantly powerful in Farabian system, the alleged problem of metaphysical obscurantism repeats here also. Ibnu Sina was not an exception in this case. Though he had rejected some key aspects of Neo-Platonic epistemology, he integrated Emenationist cosmology

which is predominantly Neo-platonic. Though with a degree of difference, Al Farabi and Ibnu Sina come under the serious epistemological criticism raised by Iqbal. At another level, the supposed tension between reason and revelation which already occupied the scene since the inception of new religious denominations especially the Jewish and Christian ones assumes a consequential position in the epistemological foundation of Al Farabi and Ibnu Sina. Both of them believed in the essential unity of the rationality and revelatory knowledge. This was not an uncritically necessary position of indispensability of both the sources of knowledge, but an essential part of a full-fledged system of knowledge or rather what can be said to be an epistemological unity of reason and revelation. In other words the ontological source of both the knowledge would be the same, namely the Active Intelligence (Al Aql Fa'al). It can be described as follows. According to Al Farabi, every human being has a rational capacity to receive the intuition from the Active Intellect. This inherent ability of every human mind is called 'Potential Intellect'. After receiving the transcendental light from the Active Intellect, Potential Intellect can abstract from the sensibles and it becomes later actually existents. And the Active Intellect in it's characteristic of being self-conscious is called as Acquired Intellect (Aql Musthafad). Acquired Intellect is a blissful stage of immortality and attainment of the perfect knowledge of pure forms. The essential identity and the phenomenal non-identity are well expressed in his two most seminal works. Pressing on the essential identity he says; “Both comprise the same subjects and both give an account of the ultimate principles of the beings. For both supply knowledge about the first principles and cause of the beings, and both give an account of the ultimate end for the sake of which man is made- supreme happiness”. (Al Farabi, Thahseel al Sa'adah). He also talks about the phenomenal non-identity in his Madinah al Fazilah, by ascribing both types a certain way of expression. “In everything of which philosophy gives an account based on intellectual perception or conception, religion gives an account based on imagination. In

everything

demonstrated by

philosophy,

religion employs persuasion.

Philosophy gives an account of the ultimate principles as they are perceived by intellect. Religion sets forth their image by means of similitude of them taken from corporeal principle and imitates them by thier likeness among political office”(Al Farabi, Madinah al Fazilah). While trying to establish continuity between rational knowledge and prophetic revelation, he regards philosophical activity as the basis of prophetic discourse. He also goes on to emphasize that philosophical activity is higher and

supreme

with

regard

to

the

prophetic

revelation,

not

only

epistemologically higher but also temporally precedent. It is in the light of the abovementioned conception that we must understand the Farabian idea of Failasuf al Kamil (the perfect philosopher). The whole point of explaining the epistemic structures propounded by these important Muslim philosophers was, apart from invoking Iqbal's critique of them, to make sense of their understanding of the relation between rational knowledge and what is called as prophetic experience in relation to Iqbal's conception of rationality and intuition or religious experience. My contention is that Al Farabi's understanding of potentialities of reason and Ibnu Sina's daring expansion of the rational faculity of human intellect have something in common with Iqbal's formualtion of the idea of infinite intellectual capabilities of human ego.

Having said this much, the point of convergence and

divergence of Farabian or Avicennian way with Iqbalian understanding can be, i think, discussed when we explain Iqbal's positive project of Islamic epistemology. Coming to an important figure of the history of Islamic theology, Al Gazali, who is to be considered as the most influential thinker in the whole Islamic world, Iqbal didn't spare even him, rather raised serious criticisms not really regarding the outright rejection of what was practiced as philosophy at that point of time by the Muslim philosophers, but on closing possibilities of rational power of man and drawing a line of cleavage between reason and intuition. He begins by describing Al Ghazali having a phenomenal importance in Muslim world like that of Kant in the western world. “It cannot be denied that Ghazali's mission was almost apostolic like that of

Kant in Germany of the eighteenth century... His Critique of Pure Reason revealed the limitations of the human reason and reduced the whole work of rationalists to a heap of ruins... Ghazali's philosophical scepticism which, however, went a little too far, virtually did the same kind of work in the world of Islam in breaking the back of that proud but shallow rationalism which moved in the same direction as pre-Kantian rationalism in Germany”. (Reconstruction. 4) This doesn't mean that both were on a same philosophical board, rather some very conspicuous differences can be found out from their respective schools of thought. While Kant rejected the possibility of knowledge of God or any metaphysical entity for that matter, making it outside the purview of the Synthetic a priori Principles, Ghazali came with a different solution of mystical or intuitive experience as an epistemological device totally divorced from the rational capacity. He thought that human rational power has a different and limited domain, and the thought is too finite to know the infinite existence of God. Iqbal explicated Ghazalian dilemma in his own words. “There is one important difference between Ghazali and Kant. Kant consistently with his principles couldn't affirm the possibility of the knowledge of God. Ghazali, finding no hope in analytic thought, moved to mystic experience, and there he an independent content for religion. In this way, he succeeded in securing for religion the right to exist independently of science and metaphysics. But the revelation of the total infinite in mystic experience convinced him of the finitude and inconclusiveness of thought and drove him to draw a line of cleavage between thought and intuition”(ibid.4). When Ghazali proposes a clear cut line of difference between thought and mystical experience, Iqbal maintains that both are organically related and thought can't be inconclusive. For him Ghazalian epistemological formulation was based on a misunderstanding of the conception of intellectual movement in Islam. His positive aspect of how rationality should be understood as conclusive and constitutive of infinite possibilities may be dealt with in later part of this essay. Ibnu Rushd, the author of Thahafath al Thahafath ( The incoherence of the incoherence) which was written as a critique of Ghazli's Thahafath al Falasifa

(The incoherence of the philosophers), was also criticized by Iqbal. Here also Iqbal's main problem was related to the obscurantist outlook of the world and God which was already there in the systems of his predecessors. “Ghazali's chief opponent, Ibnu Rushd, who defended Greek philosophy against the rebels, was led, through Aristotle, to what is known as the doctrine of immortality of the Active Intellect.., which to my mind, is entirely opposed to the view that the Qur'an takes of the value and destiny of the human ego. Thus Ibnu Rushd lost sight of a great and fruitful idea in Islam and unwittingly helped the growth of that enervating philosophy of life which obscures man's vision of himself, his God, and his world.” (Reconstruction. 5) Mu'athazilah and Asha'arism have been mentioned passingly by Iqbal, in the first chapter of Reconstruction. “The more constructive among the Ash'arite thinkers were no doubt on the right path and anticipated some of the most modern forms Idealism.” (ibid.5) Though he had a great prospective towards some of the argumentations of Ash'arism, he was at a loss to find out that the main task of Ash'ari theologians was simple to defend the orthodox theological positions with the sophisticated dialectical devices of Greek logic. Regarding Mu'athzilah he adds the fact that they were conceiving religion solely as a body of some doctrines and neglecting the vitality which was inherent in it. They coudn't develop a non-conceptual mode of apprehending the reality and the religion was seen as the system of logical concepts. By formulating a critical stance or raising trenchant critical voices towards almost all epistemological practices of the past, he was not engaging in a purely negative way. He is trying to develop a revolutionary kind of epistemological ground. This can be mostly found out in his Reconstruction, and some passing comments and explanations occurred in his Persian and Urdu poetries, though scholars like Khundmiri admits that there is some essential tension between poetic works of Iqbal and the rigorous philosophical writings.This methodical tension can be understood with respect to the recipient's rational and aesthetic capacity. Regarding the positive aspect of his epistemological project, he is made a revolutionary integration of three sources of knowledge namely, the empirical, the rational and the intuitive. He

made a great emphasis on the value of empirical knowledge which was hitherto, in a sense, neglected in the history of Islamic thought. His claim was legitimately butressed by the Qur’anic verses, and was incessantly cited for the same. In order to clearly understand his epistemological system we must have some basic ideas of metaphysical structure that he formulated. For him the world consists of ontologically exclusive and independent egos. Liebnizian monads may be cited in this respect. So the act of knowledge is basically the relation between the egos, one being the subject and the other one being the object. Though the subject/object relation is ontologically relative, there are different grades of subjectivities. So the egos would be having a different kind of sense of freedom in every grades of their being. Causality would be workable in one level of reality only and it is in the exterior level of ego that causality is produced. Given the fact that he has extensively quoted from the Qur'an to make sense of the Qur'anic spirit which was already identified as anti-classical, the organic relationship of the three sources of knowledge would be easily discerned. He notes: “But the point to note is the general empirical attitude of the Qur'an which engendered in it's followers a feeling of reverence for the actual and ultimately made them the founders of modern science” (ibid. 5) It is not very clear that that he is referring to in the foregoing passage. If it was the Arabic scientists, then why he didn't make an emphatic attention to them and derive the potential epistemological implications of their system and incorporate it with his own project of that kind is not known. So, the empirical attitude which can be developed from the Qur'an is called as the Qur'anic Empiricism. But this term must not be confused with Lockean or Humean sense of the term, but rather as part of organic whole consisting of also the ratioanal and intuitive aspect of human mind. This organic conception of epistemological parts can also be traced in the below given statement. “The naturalism of the Qur'anis only a recognition of the fact that man is related to nature, and this relation, in view of its possibility as a means of controlling her forces, must be expoited not in the interest of unrighteous

desire for domination, but in the nobler interest of a free upward movement of spiritual life. In the interests of securing a complete vision of Reality, therefore, sense-perception must be supplemented by the perception of what Qur'an describes as Fu'ad or Qalb in the verse 'and gave you hearing and seeing an heart (32:7-9)” (ibid. 12) This is the Intuition which is the third source of knowledge for Iqbal. Now Iqbal has ingeniously worked out the possibility of what can be called as source of religious experience. Ghazali had also talked about the mystical experience, but unlike him Iqbal is propounding it, not unconnected with human rationality. Talking about intuition he says that “it is a mode of dealing with reality in which sensation, in the physiological sense of the word, doesn't play any part. Yet the vista of experience thus opened is as real and concrete as any other experiece.” Regarding the ontological structure of intuition, Iqbal's main contention is that it has a cognitive content like any other empirical perception, which is also closely related but not exactly same as the arguments of Al Farabi and Ibnu Sina, especially when Farabi says “it is not impossible that when a man's imaginational power reaches extreme perfection so that he receives in his waking life from the Active Intelligence a knowledge of present and future facts or the symbols of immaterial intelligibles”... (Al Farabi, Al Madina al Fazilah) It is in this connection that he cites Bergson and criticizes his postion regarding intellect. According to Bergson, intellect is not a truth knowing faculty at all; it is a practical faculty which enables us to act efficiently in the constant flux of nature. So Iqbal is forming a critical position regarding the Bergsonian dualistic understanding of intellect and intution and he contends that the difference is not of kind, but of degree. Iqbal has noted down the characteristics of mystical experience which include it's immediacy, the unanlyzable wholeness of mystic experience and its intimate association with a Unique Other self transcending the private personality of the subject of experience. Iqbal's main concern was to reformulate religious thought or the Islamic one for that matter, basing on a rigorous rational foundation. That is i think, what

is behind the whole project of critiquing the existing epistemological paradigms and creating a new vision of capable of far reaching spiritual and material benefits. This is precisely what he explains: “Thus the facts of experience justify the inference that the ultimate nature of Reality is spiritual, and must be conceived as an ego. But the aspiration of religion soars higher than that of philosophy. Philosophy is an itellectual view of things, and as such, doesn't care to go beyond a concept which can reduce all the rich variety of experience to a system. It sees Reality from a distance. Religion seeks a closer contact with Reality. The one is theory and other is living other is experience...” (Reconstruction.49)

References. 1. Iqbal, Muhammed ,Reconstruction of religious thought in Islam, Adam publishers and distributors, New Delhi. 2. Iqbal, Muhammed, Javid nama 3. Nasr, Hossein, Islamic philosophy; from its origin to the present, State University NewYork press. 4. Al Farabi, Al Madinah al Fazilah 5. Al Farabi, Thahsil al Sa'adah, Dairath al Ma'arif, Hyderabad 6. Watt, Montgomery, The Formative Period of Islamic Thought, one world, Oxford 7. Khundmiri, Alam, The meaning of Reason-Al Farabi and Ibnu Sina, (Secularism, Islam and moderinty ) 8. Khundmiri, Alam, Iqbal on Human Knowledge, (Secularism, Islam and moderinty ) 9. Khundmiri, Alam, Iqbal and the existentialist thinkers (Secularism, Islam and moderinty ) 10. Reisman, David, AL Farabi (cambridge companion to arabic philosophy) 11. Wisnovsky, Robert, Avicenna and the Avicennian tradition (cambridge companion to arabic philosophy) 12. Umair, Muhammed, The intellectual knowledge expounded by Allam Iqbal (operation pakisthan)

13. Plato, Republic, penguin books 14. Whitehead,Alfred, The Process and Reality 15. Bergson, Creative evolution 16. Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason,