PHILOSOPHY

  Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society

 

II. PHILOSOPHY

All Philosophy may be broadly classified into four schools, namely: one, Formal Rationalism; two, Empiricism; three, Criticism; and four,  Empirical Rationalism. Of these four, two and three do not deserve consideration in the background of our present problem and that for very definite reasons. No. two, namely, Empiricism, holds that the only source of obtaining knowledge is sense-experience. It means that the empirical philosopher cannot even aim at trying to understand the whole of Reality, because in their very nature the human senses are very limited in their scope and also liable to error, as we have already seen in the section on Science. Indeed, the only natural and logical consequence of Empiricism is Scepticism, namely, that we cannot know Reality. In other words, the philosophy of the Empiricist school itself asserts the incompetence and the failure of philosophical endeavour to answer the ultimate questions. As regards no. three, namely Criticism, it says that both Reason and Senses are sources of knowledge but that both are very limited sources. Hence, the knowledge of the world which we can get through them can only be very limited in its scope as well as character. In other words, according to this school of Philosophy, philosophical effort can succeed only in knowing a part of Reality. This, in its turn, means that comprehensive and sure knowledge, which is the necessary condition for solving the ultimate questions successfully, cannot be obtained from Philosophy. Thus there remain only two schools of Philosophy, namely, Formal Rationalism and Empirical Rationalism where the belief is found that Philosophy can discover the Ultimate Truth, which alone, therefore, deserve our consideration in connection with the present discussion. Let us examine the validity of their claim. 

 

Formal Rationalism holds that human Reason, unaided by anything else, is capable of knowing the ultimate facts of life and the world.    

Empirical Rationalism holds that Reason and Sense Experience should combine to enable human beings to find out the Ultimate Truth and that, through this combination of the sources of knowledge, Philosophy can solve the ultimate problems and guide humanity in that behalf.

Formal Rationalism depends wholly on Logic. Its method is to choose a hypothesis as the starting point of its investigation and on that hypothesis to build up a whole world of philosophical thought by using the instrument of Logic.

Empirical Rationalism may be better named as “Philosophy of Science”. Its method is to collect and arrange the facts discovered by Science and to endeavour, by using the instrument of Reason, to form an integrated picture of the world as a whole and thereby to answer the ultimate questions.

 

If we evaluate Formal Rationalism, we find that, on the face of it, it is incapable of giving us any sure and accurate knowledge of the ultimate problems. This is so, because its starting point is always a hypothesis, which is nothing more than a supposed idea or at best an observation based on common sense, and it has always been chosen by every philosopher arbitrarily. Now, every hypothesis, especially in the realm of abstract thought, is, in the very nature of the case, unverifiable. In other words, it is uncertain. And if it is uncertain, the thought structure built upon it and the conclusions arrived at must also be uncertain. That is, the knowledge of ultimate problems given by Formal Rationalism cannot be sure and accurate. 

 

As regards Empirical Rationalism, its starting point consists in the scientific facts, namely, sensorial observation, and its method is to reason out the ultimate problems on their basis. But, as we have already seen in the discussion of the Scientific Method, scientific facts are at best workable hypotheses or working material on the scale of observation or the system of reference with which they are connected. Hence, for ultimate problems, they have neither finality, nor perfect accuracy, nor absolute certainty. This means that if the starting point and the working material of Empirical Rationalism lack accuracy, certainty and finality, the conclusions arrived at will also suffer from the same shortcomings. In other words, a solution of the ultimate problems on the basis of sure knowledge is impossible even for the Empirical Rationalist school of Philosophy. 

 

An eminent scientific thinker of modern times admits this truth in the following words: “Many people wrongly think that logical mechanisms are ‘standard’ and that logical reasoning, and all the more so mathematical reasoning, are inevitably ‘true’. This is not always the case. We must beware of the process of human thought because, in the first place, the starting point is often a sensorial observation (therefore of doubtful value) or an observation based on common sense. Now common sense cannot be trusted. It is common sense that leads us to think that the earth is flat; that two plumb lines are parallel (they are both directed toward the centre of the earth and consequently form an angle); that motion in a straight line exists, which is absolutely false as we have to take into consideration not only the motion of the earth around its axis and around the sun, and that of the entire orbit of the earth, but also the motion of the whole solar system toward the constellation Hercules, etc. As a result, a bullet or an aeroplane, which seems to move in a straight line with respect to the earth, for a certain length of time, in reality follows a trajectory more closely resembling a kind of corkscrew with respect to a vaster system of reference, the nearest stars for instance. Common sense tells us that the edge of a razor blade is a continuous straight line, but if we examine it under a microscope it resembles a wavy line drawn by a child. Common sense tells us that a piece of steel is solid; X-rays show us that it is porus, and the modern theories of matter teach us that it is in reality made up of trillions of animated, miniature universes having extraordinarily rapid movements and no contact with each other.

“If, therefore, the starting point, the premises of a reasoning is false, the conclusion will necessarily, logically, be false.

 

“As we have no other means of knowing and describing nature but those given us by our senses and our faculties—i.e., by our brain cells—we must be extremely cautious and never forget the relativity of the picture which we construct—a relativity with respect to the recording instrument, man.” (Lecomte du Nouy: Human Destiny, pp.5, 6).

 

The competence of Science and Philosophy in unraveling the mysteries of the ultimate problems can be examined through another argument also. As stated in the foregoing, the ultimate problems refer to three main heads, namely: Man, Universe and God. Let us take here the case of Man himself. Can Science or Philosophy, or both combined, provide us true and accurate knowledge of the ultimate problems which refer to Man? If we consider this question cool mindedly and dispassionately, we find that neither the origin nor the constitution nor the functioning of man can be reasonably conceived to exist in a vacuum. 

 

The individual human being is a part of the human race. The human race, in its turn, is part of a larger whole, namely, the animal world. The animal world, in its turn, is part of a larger whole, namely, the organic world (which includes plant life). The organic world, in its turn, is part of a larger whole, namely, the Earth, (which includes both the organic world and the inorganic world). The Earth, in its turn, is part of a larger whole, namely, our solar system. Our solar system, in its turn, is immediately part of a galaxy of unknown number of solar systems and ultimately a part of the entire Universe which is unknown to us as a whole thing and which, according to Modern Science, should be termed as virtually infinite both in Space and Time, and is, therefore, incapable of being grasped in knowledge by our finite powers of perception and reasoning, both logical and mathematical. Thus, the human individual is ultimately part and parcel of a universe which, in its origin, constitution and purpose, is unknowable as a whole thing.

 

Now, if we wish to obtain true, accurate and comprehensive knowledge of the fundamental laws which govern the existence of the human individual, we find that just as the human individual does not exist in a vacuum the laws also which govern his existence do not exist in a vacuum. For, the system of laws which governs the existence of the human individual is part of a larger and higher whole, namely, the system of laws which governs humanity as an entity. This larger and higher system of laws is, in its turn, part of another system which is higher and larger than it; and this series goes on—the levels of laws rise higher and higher, tier after tier, until we reach the level where we are confronted with the laws which govern the entire universe as an entity and fundamentally.

 

We are now heading towards the conclusion. To know the nature and destiny of the part we must know the nature and destiny of the whole. Hence, to know the nature and destiny of the human individual we must know the nature and destiny of the whole of which it is a part. As we have already seen, immediately, it is part of the human race. But the human race itself is not the final whole. Rather, it is a part of a larger whole, and that larger whole is part of a still larger whole, until, if we were to stop even at physical concepts only, we reach the final whole which is known as the Physical Universe. This means that unless we know the nature and destiny of the universe, we cannot know the nature and destiny of anything which forms part of it, including the human individual.

 

All the above discussions lead us positively to the conclusion that neither Science nor Philosophy can ever be capable of giving accurate answers to our ultimate questions on the basis of sure knowledge. And those answers which they have been giving, or might give in future, have been, and shall always be, at best approximations in the nature of partial truths and, in most instances, what the following verse of the Holy Qur’an calls “conjectures”:                                 

“But they have no knowledge thereof. They follow nothing but conjecture; and conjecture avails nothing against Truth.” (53:28).

The question now is: If Science and Philosophy fail in guiding us on ultimate problems, is that the end of the road, or is there a way out? The answer is: Yes, there is a way—the way of Religion. 

Source

to be continued . . . . .