Philosophy-RAG-demo/transcriptions/HoP 152 - Richard Taylor on Averroes.txt

 Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, brought to you with the support of King's College London and the Leverhulme Trust, online at www.historyoffilosophy.net. Today's episode will be an interview about Averroes with Richard C. Taylor, who is a professor of philosophy at Marquette University. Hi, Richard. Hi, Peter. So, thanks for coming on to talk about Averroes. We're going to focus on the extent to which his philosophy is consistent with the Islamic religion and whether he himself thought there might be tensions between philosophy and Islam. Perhaps you could start by addressing his use in a work that I've already talked about in an earlier episode, the so-called decisive treatise. He actually uses a phrase, truth does not contradict truth. And I was thinking maybe we could start by having you say something about that. That's an interesting way to start, I have to say, but I want to start earlier with the title because I don't like the title decisive treatise. I think right from the beginning, it causes a kind of misunderstanding of what the treatise is about. So I take it more literally following a Tunisian scholar named Al-Ghanoushi, and he renders it as the distinction of discourse. And so I think it's a treatise that distinguishes different kinds of discourse in various ways, a discourse that's appropriate for the masses, a kind of rhetorical discourse, a discourse that is dialectical in nature, where it assumes certain things and principles of religion, and then a further discourse which is philosophical. As I see it, the philosophical discourse in the treatise, which is explicitly a legal treatise, the philosophical discourse is a subtext underneath the religious treatise. So the Arabic title is Fasil al-Makal, and so you're saying Fasil means distinction and makal is just something you would say. So it's a distinction between different ways of speaking. That's right, different sorts of discourse. And this is following the view of Al-Farabi to some extent, the book of religion and other works, but he always has his own way of doing this. What's important in this then, you raise the question of this text about the truth does not contradict truth. And as you know, I discovered this hidden away, but in fact, it's a quotation from Aristotle's prior analytics, which is completely unsuitable to have in a religious treatise that is based on principles of religion. And this has remained hidden from all the translators and commentators up till year 2000. Until you. Well, yeah, I found it, but it became an interpretive key for me in understanding, because now what I will say is, this is a treatise on distinction of discourse. But the question is whether the three discourses can intersect. But isn't there also a question about whether different discourses can get at the truth? I mean, relating what you just said about distinction of discourse to the quotation, truth does not contradict truth. Is the idea that the truth that you establish through demonstration in philosophy cannot contradict the truth that you establish in dialectic or rhetoric? Is that the point? No, the point is in fact the reverse. So there is a level of understanding and a discourse of the rhetorical kind, and there is a discourse that is suitable for religion. But those discourses cannot contradict the truth. And so philosophy, in his own account, philosophy must ultimately be what decides the truth with regard to discourse. So he will later say that when it comes to matters of religion where there is different understandings of a certain scriptural passage, then ultimately the decision on the meaning of that passage will have to be determined through scientific consideration of what the truth is. And this is clear right at the beginning of the treatise where he talks about we must use the appropriate kind of kiyas, which in the religious context means religious analogy. So the prophet acted in a certain way, described in one of the hadiths or something, or he acted in a certain way, and then we should analogically apply it today on how we should act. So for example, the prohibition on wine today should analogically be also a prohibition on cocaine and other drugs and that sort of thing because they distort the mind and the ability of the mind to be open to the presence of God. So that's the religious principle. But the term kiyas, as Ivaro is equivocates on, is the term kiyas means syllogism. Then he goes on to say that in religious matters we should use the most appropriate and perfect kind of kiyas. And he says the most perfect kind of kiyas is borhan, which is philosophical demonstration. So the ultimate criterion in all of this will be philosophical. And he makes it quite clear even in the decisive treatise that the criterion is philosophical. So to come back to the point then, it isn't that these three discourses cannot intersect, but when a judgment is available through a philosophical discourse, then scriptural understandings must be reinterpreted in accordance with the truth that is available per se in the philosophical science of demonstration, a truth which in rhetoric, in rhetorical context or this religious context, the truth is hit upon only parotchitense, not per se. This is back to Aristotle's notion that demonstration itself is scientific understanding. Well, let's take a look then at some of the actual topics where you might think there's a tension then between philosophy and religion. And let's start with an obvious place to start. The Quran describes God as a merciful and wise creator of the universe. And certainly, Averroes agrees that there is a God and that God is the cause of the universe. What difference does it make to his reading of the Quran that he brings a philosophical conception of God as a cause? Well, given the account we just had, that there's a certain priority of truth to philosophy because truth cannot contradict truth but bears witness to itself in every way. So we can't have multiple levels and multiple kinds of truth. We can have ways of discussing things, modes of discourse, but ultimately, if we want to judge something with regard to truth, we have to use the best science available. Now, in the case of God, the best science available will be the philosophical science is understanding the true nature of God, which do not work with analogies and metaphors as much as religion does. It does not have as its end the bringing about of certain beliefs in people to motivate their actions in a certain way, but rather the end of philosophy is truth. Practical philosophy can be about action, but even then it's in a sense truth in action and moral virtue so that he can integrate that. So in the case of God, one has to understand then what is the nature of God as first cause and the kind of causality that God has. And in a verro is metaphysics, and if we're going to stay with this notion that philosophy is the primacy of truth, in a verro is metaphysics, God cannot be an efficient cause. That is, he can't be a maker directly. And so instead of verro is himself following, while he can say the world is caused by God and that God is merciful and many other things, these images give the sense of a God who can intervene at any time in the world and do things outside the regular norm of actions. And that's not what a verro is about. Rather, God is a final cause for things. That is, God is a goal and an end and a perfection toward which all reality strives and tries to perfect itself because God is the primary instance of being. And so everything strives to actualize itself as much as it can within the limits of its nature. That striving itself is caused by God as the perfect end or goal that everything strives toward. Therefore, God is the cause of the universe. But he doesn't make it happen the way that I might make a ball roll across a table by pushing the ball. That's right, and you can pray to God as much as you like, but you don't change God's mind, so to speak. And this gets into some difficulties about the issue of whether as a final cause, what does it mean to say God hears your prayers? In fact, something I already mentioned is that the Qur'an certainly could not be clearer that God is merciful and benevolent. So how, given this conception of God, could a verro is say that God exercises providence or mercy over us? I think it's a great mercy that God has given us a beautiful day today, and the sky is clear and it won't be raining. And we have this earth that we live on and can breathe and have the excellent lives that we do. We can do podcasts and have all kinds of communication. And so clearly God is merciful and benevolent to allow us to have these opportunities. So his mercy and benevolence is exercised more in the way that he sets the world up in general rather than taking care that each individual event turns out the right way? Would that be fair? I think that's a good way to say it, except it's wrong right from the beginning, because you said God sets it up. Oh right, so what you mean is that God's being the goal or final cause of everything yields a universe that is well ordered. Yes, and this is for veros as philosopher. While he will have a different mode of discourse speaking as a religious judge in that context, because there he's working with the religious language and meanings for people, but philosophically then this is creation, the ontological dependence of all reality, where God by this final causality draws things from potentiality into actuality. And the very being of things is their actualized being, and that is as all things strive toward the perfection that is God. So while the language may be the language of efficient causality or pushing and pulling, in fact it's more the model that God draws things toward him, as God is the ultimate object of love and fulfillment for all beings. Right, and of course he believes that the world is eternal as well, so this is an eternal process which is just constantly going on. It also involves though that God is then in some way eternally present to each and every being in the universe drawing it toward God. One thing that I'm curious about on this view is to go back to the contrast I was drawing between the universal and the particular. I mean I've already covered a long time ago the view of Alexander of Aphrodisias, who is one of the Veros's main sources, and Alexander thought that the divine providence exercised over the universe really only extends down to the level of general order and species for example. So providence will ensure that there are giraffes, but won't ensure that each individual giraffe has anything particular happen to it. And I'm wondering whether the final causation that's exercised by God on a Veros's view would extend to things like ensuring that we're having this conversation right now, or does it only ensure that for example there are humans, there are sunny days, maybe even that there are podcasts, but not that you and I are sitting here right now having this podcast conversation. So your question boils down to whether there is, we'd say philosophy then, whether there is particular providence. God wanted us as individuals to get together for this podcast. And for that, that would contradict his following of Alexander of Aphrodisias on the cosmos, and he does follow Alexander quite precisely on this. I want to push something else a little bit more. He does mention something about the preservation of species and that he's quite explicit. God's providence does not act with regard to individuals, but it does work at the level of species. But I think that can be easily misunderstood because it isn't as though God knows species. Because he says elsewhere, several times it makes it very clear that God does not have knowledge of particulars or universals. And because if God would know particulars, he would have to have senses and he would be posterior to the particulars, that is, the things that have to exist there, and then God would come to know. He'd find out about them by looking and seeing, as it were. And even universals, you'd have to look at particulars to form the universal concept. But if he doesn't know particulars and he doesn't know universals, it doesn't sound like there's anything left. Well, I want to be careful, though, about the mention of species from Alexander that you made a moment ago. And that is, it seemed to imply then we'd expect Iverus to say, well, then God can know species. But we just said God can't know universals or particulars. And God also is a unity, so he can't have a plurality of species in his mind. So I don't think for Iverus, God can even know kinds. In fact, Iverus is extremely explicit on this, that God only knows the most perfect entity in the universe himself. And he knows that perfectly and completely. But Iverus will go on to say in virtue of knowing himself as the perfect cause of all things in the universe, that he knows all things in the universe. Because to know is to know the cause. That's Aristotle. So actually, there's one particular that he knows, namely himself, because he's particular. Well, he's a unique entity. In particular, I want to be careful about the language sometimes, because in Arabic, a particular is al-Mushar al-Lahy, a thing that you can point to. And, well... You can try to point to God. You can try, but I don't know where you'd point because he's immaterial. Well, what about humans then? So we've already talked a little bit about the way God's providence does or doesn't affect humans in Iverus's view. I guess one issue that arises here in the context of thinking about providence is prophecy. Obviously, there's nothing more fundamental to Islam than the doctrine that Muhammad was a prophet of God. And that certainly looks like a case where God has selected an individual to bear his message to the rest of mankind. Does Iverus have any way of accounting for that on this doctrine of providence that you just described? Well, we have to go back to the distinction of discourses and the different kinds of discourses. So there is this sense of the general discourse for humanity and to make the moral guidance for human beings available to all human beings. And this is what happens in the case of Scripture. And so that's at the level of rhetoric, and that is also at the dialectical level, where they presume the existence of God and prophets, etc., and those prophets are guides in some way. But the question comes up as to how it is that God could pick out a particular person in a providential way to be, for example, how to pick out Muhammad as the prophet. And Iverus gets into this discussion, interestingly enough, in his comments on the Parvanaturalia, a short collection of works by Aristotle that was lumped together as a single work in the Arabic tradition that concerns matters of sensation, dreams, memory. The Arabic Parvanaturalia was a weird thing. It follows Aristotle up to the point of dreams, and then when it gets into dreams, it draws on Plotinus and Neoplatonism and becomes rather bizarre. So Aristotle himself says that he considers the possibility about dreams providing truth, and in the end he says, nah, it doesn't really. But in the Arabic version, it says, yes, yes. Yes, in fact, in dreams we are freed from sense perception, and we can really connect with the ancient intellect and receive from on high. Well, Iverus is commenting on this, and he's not sure what to do with this. And he says something really quite strange. He says, well, how is it possible if God is an intellect and the other things are intellects through which we come to have this prophecy, if they're intellects, their knowledge is universal? Well, if their knowledge is universal, then how do they pick out particulars in the world to give providence? That is, it would seem if they're pure intellects and their knowledge is universal in some way, then how do they find a determined particular in the world? And this is our problem back with Providence and Alexander, in a way, how to choose someone. So how did God choose Muhammad? And Iverus in this part of Naftar Aliya commentary says there are two key questions, and one is an epistemology question, and then there's this question. The epistemology question, he gives an interesting answer. This one, just forgot to answer it. Oops. So the point would be if God is pure intellect and self-thinking thought, as he says in his philosophical accounts, and he does say in some works that if you want my real understanding, look at my philosophical accounts, not my dialectical accounts. So in this case, then, it seems to be very problematic as to what prophecy is for Iverus. It's almost like he has no way of accounting for this in his philosophical system, but he doesn't want to come out and say that he has no way of accounting for it. Well, I think he doesn't have a way of accounting for it, yes, in his philosophical system. I think that's appropriate. But of course, when he is acting as a religious judge, then in dialectical fashion, he assumes the existence of it, he assumes the truth of the Scriptures, and deals in that context with responses in that way. But philosophically, he doesn't have a way to account for it. Now, he could do something bizarre and say that he had cognitive dissonance, and he thought this, as well as something completely contradictory to what we see him say in his philosophy. That would be the famous twofold truth doctrine that's sometimes ascribed to Iverus in literature. Right. But wait, we already took care of that, because truth does not contradict truth, and the ultimate judge with regard to truth is going to be philosophy. So it seems that he's developing—we see this in some of the other things we've already talked about—he's developing a very idiosyncratic conception of Islam. Because again, recall that God is not the efficient cause, but God is the Creator by drawing all things to himself. So the common language of God does this, God does that in the world, for him is a way of speaking that's appropriate for the non-philosophical. But properly speaking, the philosophical economy is built on Aristotle, where God is a final cause. Something you mentioned just a minute ago is the universality of the intellect. And that brings us on to what is probably Iverus's most famous philosophical doctrine, the unity of the intellect, which I actually talked about last time. So we don't need to go into the full details, but I wanted to at least ask you about what bearing this might have on his conception of Islam. And I thought maybe the point to focus on would be personal immortality, because it looks like, according to this doctrine, what's eternal about humans is not our ability to see or have a body or even our imagination, for example, but only this universal intellect which is shared by all mankind. And if it's only one intellect that's shared by all mankind, then it looks like at best, when you die and when I die, we'll only live on by being one and the same intellect. So is that a fair accusation? Is there any way that Iverus could say that I do live on after my death in a way that makes me different from you living on after your death? I think we need to discuss, first of all, what mode of discourse we want to use in answering that question with regard to some kind of afterlife for human beings. Certainly in the mode of discourse that we find in one of his theological work, the Kashaw Munash, in there we see him clearly stating that there is an afterlife for human beings and also is serving many of the religious doctrines. But again, we're back to the question of whether we should use that mode of discourse or we want to use the philosophical mode of discourse. In these podcasts, it seems that you want to talk about philosophy, so we'll use the philosophical mode of discourse for Iverus. And in the philosophical mode of discourse, then, human particular individuals think and they come to reason and they carry out various activities. But the intellect, according to Iverus, is something separate that human beings share from time to time, and they're not always in perfect connection with. And so, because he, among other reasons, he holds that in order for there to be the possibility of intersubjective discourse and a shared science, there has to be one thesaurus or collection of intelligibles or intelligible ideas. Not you have your horse, I have my horse. And so, since we have one shared intellect in that fashion, then we each come to know these intelligibles in our own way and connect with a separate intellect. It's a sort of Platonic doctrine in a way, but that Platonic doctrine in the history of philosophy keeps popping back up about this commonality and how it is that we could have a shared discourse. But as individuals, I work hard to understand Iverus and philosophy, and you do as well in your areas as well, to understand philosophy. And that's through individual personal effort and choices we make to stay home and read this book instead of going to the movies every Saturday night or whatever things we do. And so, through our own hard work, we come to develop our intellects and our connections and understandings of universals and our connections with a separate intellect. That way, this then means that we, once we have this, we have some universal knowledge, then we can make moral decisions. Because Aristotle talks about the practical syllogism, where we have a universal, a particular, and make a particular judgment as to how to act. And so, in our moral actions, although Thomas Aquinas later criticizes Iverus for this idea of separate intellect and says it's impossible for people to be moral, Iverus has no problem with this at all. Human beings make individual personal moral actions and responsibilities. My connection here then to your question is, okay, given that, is there any afterlife for individuals? And in his long commentary on the deionema, there's no discussion of personal immortality. In fact, the arguments indicate that there's no space for it. The same is true for his middle commentary on deionema, the short commentary on the deionema. And it seems that in these major philosophical works, there's no provision made for personal immortality. Sometimes the phraseology is used of monocychism, or we all share one soul. The phraseology is wrong. We each have our own soul, but we share one collection of intelligible ideas, which makes this, again, science, shared science and intersubjective discourse possible. The idea here then is that since, as Aristotle tells us, the soul is the form of the body, when the body dies, the soul will die, but the intellect will live on. And since there's only one intellect, in fact, he does, basically, he just bites the bullet in the end and would have to admit that there is no personal immortality. That's so an immortality where I am different from you. It seems to be the conclusion. You said earlier that Iverus has what you call the idiosyncratic view of Islam. And certainly, from everything you said about the decisive treatise or distinction of discourse, it's clear that he wants to say that philosophy is in a position to determine the truth about these matters. So, for example, providence, personal immortality, the way in which God causally relates to the world, all the things we've talked about, and some other things as well. The thing that I wonder, though, is, I mean, it's one thing to say, well, the Quran is kind of unclear on this point, when it talks, for example, about God sitting upon a throne. Should we imagine that God actually looks like a person and sits on something that looks like a chair literally? Well, arguably not, and many Muslims had wanted to distance themselves from that literal way of understanding God. But I think it's one thing to say something like that, and another to say, well, philosophy teaches us, for example, that no individual person can be picked out as a prophet by the divine. I mean, there's really no way, it seems to me, to square even the existence of Islam as a religion with that philosophical position. Or, again, it's one thing to say that philosophy tells us the sense in which we'll live on after death, but it's another thing to say that philosophy teaches us that we won't live on after our death at all. I mean, it seems like now philosophy is just saying P, where religion is asserting not P. So, is that a fair objection to make to a Veruess? Well, I think if we're really going to be fair, we have to understand that he's a human being, and he's found a way of understanding things, a certain methodology to work with, and it's Aristotelian philosophical thought. And he thinks that this really, in its idealized form, really shows the structure of the universe, all reality, the nature of human beings, the nature of God. But nevertheless, he's not a perfect human being, he's not a perfect philosopher, there is no such thing, but he has a methodology. And it doesn't mean that he always applies the methodology perfectly, since no one ever does anything perfect anyway. And so he has these ideas, he applies them as much as possible, and takes them, I think, really to the limits of the classical rationalist tradition in Islamic thought, and really following on Al-Farabi. And he takes it in directions that Asan does not go, but more follows the Farabian line, and pushes the limit as far as possible. So that reference we had earlier about truth does not contradict truth in the prior analytics of Aristotle. In his commentary on that, Averroes is absolutely enthusiastic about the possibility of all human discourse being put into syllogisms, and then being judged on the basis of Aristotelian syllogistic thought. And that's an ideal, that's something that's never going to be fully realized. Well, he also pushes this whole understanding of metaphysics and religion to its ultimate limit according to this kind of methodology. Is this methodology the best kind? Well, there's a lot more philosophy than just Aristotle in the world today. So he really pushes it, and there's a short passage in his commentary on the metaphysics where he just pushes it to the ultimate end. And he says that there is a Sharia, or a religious law, or religious guidance, or even just religion, that is specific to the philosophers. And he said, this is the Sharia which grasps God in the most perfect way, and God's creation the most perfect and full way, and gives us the greatest insight. And he says, this is the science of metaphysics, and it is the most perfect kind of worship that we can give to God. And I think in all this he believes he has a model to understand reality, and he just sticks to it all the way. And it means that ultimately if God is an immaterial reality, then we need to go beyond the material. We need to use the science of metaphysics as much as possible to have an insight into the real nature of God. And I think he's quite sincere when he says, this is the most perfect kind of worship. But I don't want to get into the idea that he does not go to the mosque or something of that sort. We have every indication that in fact he went to the mosque, he went with his family to the mosque. There's no, we don't want to bring into this a kind of modern or enlightenment conception of someone rejecting religion in some way. Religion is extremely important for the fulfillment of human beings and formation of character, and even the development of the philosopher. Well, speaking of pushing things to the limit and gaining insight into God, I will next week be turning to the very different philosophical tradition and asking whether it is a philosophical tradition in some sense of Islamic mysticism. Now I'll thank Richard very much for coming on the podcast. Oh, you're certainly welcome. It's been fun. And please join me next time for Imn-Aravi and Mysticism on the history of philosophy without any gaps.