YouTube Video:
https://youtu.be/5k6WTbQHn34?si=E9NI-1ZgpmO9OwMh
Notes by ʿAqil Azme : 1) Taha’s first dissertation, on how philosophy is influenced by language: “Langage et philosophie: essai sur les structures linguistiques de l’ontologie” (Language and Philosophy: Essays on the Ontology of Language Structure, 1972). 2) ibn Rushd’s divergences from Aristotle has been noted by several researchers: Charles Genequand, who translated ibn Rushd’s commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, book Lām, notes in the introduction: “But even when ibn Rushd merely paraphrases Aristotle in his customary way, [...] he often evinces tendencies which are at variance with the fundamental tenets of Aristotelianism. Instances of this are again particularly numerous in the Metaphysics, where the poor quality of most translations often compels him to be more imaginative and causes him sometimes to wander very far from the original meaning of the text.” 3) The Ghazalian dictum of this world being the best possible world can be found in book four of his Iḥyā’, on the chapter on tawakkul, where he says: “laysa fī al-imkān aṣlan aḥsana minhu wa-lā atamma wa-lā akmala.” He also provides variations to this statement in his al-Imlā' and Kitāb al-Arbaʿīn, but the formulation in its famous rhyming form came later (and were employed by other scholars, such as al-Suyūṭī using it as a title of his work). 4) Taha’s discussion of ‘possible worlds’ (à la Kripke) through the lens of al-Ghazālī can be found at this article, “Tajdīd al-Naẓar fī Ishkāl al-Sababiyya ʿInda al-Ghazālī wa Naẓariyya al-ʿAwālim al-Mumkina”. 5) al-Ghazālī’s strong relationship with (Aristotelian) logic can be found comprehensively written about in ‘Azmi T. al-Sayyed Ahmed’s work, ‘al-Ghazali’s Views on Logic’. 6) al-Ghazālī’s assertion that these possible worlds would also adhere to Aristotelian logic can be found discussed in the article “Possible Worlds in the Tahafut al-Falasifa: Al-Ghazali on Creation and Contingency”. al-Ghazālī considers the formal rules of logic to be binding for the establishing of possibilities, as mentioned, “At every point, [...]. al-Ghazâlî's universe is internally coherent as according to the most conventional rules of Aristotelian predicate logic and its essentialist leanings.” 7) On the charge that al-Ghazālī “entered the womb of philosophy and never emerged”, this is a statement attributed to Qāḍī ibn al-ʿArabī, who said, “our Shaykh Abū Ḥāmid entered the womb of philosophy; then he wanted to extricate himself but could not." 8) A seminal work that must be read to understand the shift from the limitations of Aristotelian logic to modern logic is Frege’s Begriffsschrift. A more accessible work that explicitly draws out the problems with Aristotelian logic is Peter Geach’s work, Logic Matters, where he analyzes several issues such as the problem of multiple generality (e.g. how statements like “everyone admires someone” cannot be adequately captured by classical logic), relational predicates, identity, etc. 9) For an analysis of ibn Taymiyya’s thought on logic, refer to Dr. Hammou el-Neqqari’s work, “ibn Taymiyya al-Manṭiqī, aw, Manṭiq al-Radd ʿalā al-Manṭiqiyyīn’”. He also has a work comparing al-Ghazālī’s usage of logic in contrast with ibn Taymiyya, “al-Manhajiyya al-Uṣūliyya wa al-Manṭiq al-Yunānī”. 10) The usage of the word “ibdā’” to mean “creativity/ingenuity” (as a quality) was not widely used in the classical Arabic tradition, as it was used mostly to mean “the creation of something without any model or precedent”, as is used in the Qur’an to describe God as “al-Badī’”, or in the ḥadīth, to mean a “religious innovation” (bidʿa), as noted in most lexical dictionaries such as al-Murtaḍā al-Zabīdī’s Tāj al-ʿArūs. 11) The English rendition for Taha’s translation of the Cartesian cogito, “See(k) to find” is taken from Mohammed Hashas’ rendering, as noted in the English translation of Taha’s ‘Dialogues for the Future’.
12) The Ionic noun “sophiē”, which in the later Attic “sophia” is standardly translated as “wisdom”, but as Taha noted, the earliest pre-philosophical use denoted “skill”, which includes domains such as carpentry, navigation and charioteering. Homer uses “sophiē” to describe a master shipwright. Among the pre-Socratics, Heraclitus for example, says that “wisdom (sophiē) is to speak truth and consciously to act according to nature” (Fragment 112). For further reading, refer to Guthrie’s The Sophists, in A History of Greek Philosophy (Vol. 3). 13) The origin of the word “taṣawwuf” as being the Greek “sophia” is widely contested, and not a particularly strong or popular view. Among modern academics, R.A. Nicholson cites Nöldeke who “showed conclusively that the name was derived from sūf (wool)”, Schimmel in her excellent work ‘The Mystical Dimensions of Islam’ asserts the same, that “the derivation from Greek sophos, “wise,” is philologically impossible”. One strong point is that the Greek letter sigma regularly became sīn (س) in Arabic (in the same way that ‘falsafa’ is spelled), and not ṣād (ص). al-Attas also rejects its derivation from the Greek, as “long before Greek terms infiltrated into Arab minds, the term ṣūfī has already been in considerable use.” 14) Taha devotes a chapter in his work, al-’Amal al-Dīnī, to the limits of reason (ʿaql mujarrad). He categorizes these limits into three: logical (as exemplified by Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems), reality-based (in reality, the many different systems of logic end up contradicting one another dispute logic being believed to have a single nature and are thus common to all rational persons), and philosophical (reason is assumed to be dissociated from the material, but in reality, there is a complementarity between the formal sciences and physical sciences). 15) Greek influence on al-Ghazālī’s ethics as outlined in the Iḥyā' is apparent as he explicitly lists the 'ummahāt al-akhlāq wa usūluha’ (the mothers of ethics and its foundations) as the four Greek cardinal virtues: wisdom (ḥikma), courage (shajāʿa), temperance (ʿiffa), and justice (ʿadl). 16) On Taha’s assertion that all philosophers are believers, compare this to Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov: “Since man cannot live without miracles, he will provide himself with miracles of his own making. He will believe in witchcraft and sorcery, even though he may otherwise be a heretic, an atheist, and a rebel.” 17) For Heidegger’s influence from religion, refer to John Macquarrie’s work, Heidegger and Christianity. Of course, his later life is also famously marked by a turn towards mysticism, where one can read more in John D. Caputo’s work, The Mystical Element in Heidegger’s Thought. 18) Heidegger’s Gelassenheit is a concept often translated as ‘Letting-be’, which he borrowed from Meister Eckhart. Refer to the above work for a chapter dedicated to this parallelism. 19) Taha’s explanation of the parallels between Kant and religion can be found in his work, Su’āl al-Akhlāq, where he argues that major concepts in Kantian ethics are borrowed from religion with a ‘rational’ garb cloaked above them. For further reading, refer to my online article, ‘Taha Abderrahmane’s Critique of Kantian Ethics’ on Substack. 20) The Cartesian turn towards ‘domination’ of the world can be found in his Discourses on the Methods, where he says that the purpose of his physics is “to arrive at knowledge that is very useful in life [...] to put these things to all the uses to which they are appropriate, and thus render ourselves as it were masters and possessors of nature.” 21) On Divine Commands being human choices, refer to al-Attas’ discussion of the word “ikhtiyār” (choice) in his Prolegomena: “ikhtiyār is an act, huriyya is a condition. The act that is meant in ikhtiyār is that of making a choice, not between many alternatives but between two alternatives: the good or the bad. Because ikhtiyār is bound in meaning with khayr, meaning ‘good’, being derived from the same root khāra (khayara), the choice that is meant in ikhtiyār is the choice of what is good, better, or best between the two alternatives. This point is most important as it is aligned to the philosophical question of freedom. A choice of what if bad of two alternatives is therefore not a choice that can be called ikhtiyār, in fact it is not a choice, rather it is an act of injustice (zulm) done to oneself.” 22) On the tyranny of the image as a new ethics of seeing, Susan Sontag’s work, On Photography, is a fascinating exploration of this topic. As she says in it, “Needing to have reality confirmed and experience enhanced by photographs is an aesthetic consumerism to which everyone is now addicted. Industrial societies turn their citizens into image-junkies; it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution.” 23) Even in the English language, the language used for thinking is closely related to sight. An idea (from the Greek idein, “to see”) or an insight (in + sight) or a perspective (from Latin per + specere, “to look through”) is “clear”, from the Latin clārus (shining, bright), or “obscure” (from Latin obscurus, dark, covered), etc etc. 24) The Sacred Law being closely tied to hearing is evident in the Qur’ān, where the word “sami’nā wa-ata’nā” (“we hear and we obey”) is used for the people who have submitted to it. 25) On the current age being an age of “inversion of values”, refer also to René Guénon’s discussion of “inversion” being one of the main characteristics of the modern age, in his work, The Crisis of the Modern World. And God and His Emissary ﷺ knows best.
Essay
Abderrahmane Taha: A Sublime Life of Tajdīd: Traversing Tradition: Jan 24,2023
Amazon Book:
Dialogues for the Future
Taha Abderrahmane (Author)
Abdellah El Boubekri (translator)
Dialogues for the Future provides a sneak peek at the long philosophic and intellectual journey of the renowned Arab scholar Taha Abderrahmane. This English translation allows English-speaking readers to engage with the open canvas of dialogue Taha has resiliently initiated.
Professor Taha Abderrahmane : Philosophers of the Arabs
Islamonweb:Reclaiming Ethics: Taha Abdurrahman and the Islamic Critique of Western Modernity
Muhammed Mishab : Jul 27, 2025
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