Islamic Theology

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     Many think that the Islamic world is not a place for rationalistic metaphysics and that the rationalism came only from Arabic philosophy, and there has since been a shift into mysticism and a sole interest in Islamic law. However, there has been much work on the Qur’an concerning both the philosophical nature of the work (Falsafa) and issues concerning revelation and the nature of God (Kalam). There is also work that analyzes the ethics, rituals, and law of the Qur’an, and often relies on metaphysical issues (Fiqh). Many Islamic thinkers, Ibn Qudāma included, believe that rationalism cannot be substituted for the mystical illumination of the Qur’an. One of the main issues of Islam is the recognition of how to synthesize reason (‘aql) and revelation (naql). It is genreally thought that certain issues of metaphysics belong to reason, while issues of prophetic authority and other issues in metaphysics such as the features of the afterlife and the nature of Jinn belong to revelation. Personally, I believe much of the Qu’ran can turned into reason or transcendentalized, since for example the features of the afterlife such as Heaven and Hell, the extremity of these places, and so forth, can be seen as the optimal ways of inducing moral completeness in this life and be tied to other issues such as the existence of the soul and self, and the mathematical structures of the Qu’ran, which seem to be central to metaphysics. This is indeed the approach Indians use to transcendentalize their conceptions of the afterlife. However, the specific features might be left to revelation. Ghazālī initiated an approach that synthesized law, scripture, Sufism, and Kalam. There eventually was a decline in Falsafa in the 12th century due the works Avicenna and Ghazālī, and a shift into the negative theology of Kalam.

     I now give a brief introduction to the analysis of revelation and God in Kalam. The issue of the essence and attributes of God takes a central role in Kalam, with the two extremist positions being the anthropomorphists (mushabbiha) and the corporealists (mujassima). Anthropomorphism means that the qualities of God in the Qur’an are simply a fictitious representation of the true God, and coporealism means that God truly is a corporeal being. In between these positions, there are the positions of the Mu’tazilites, the Anabalites, and the Ash’arites. The Mu’talizites place an emphasis on transcendence while retaining some of the qualities and avoiding anthro-pomorphism, which leads them to believe that the Qu’ran is created. Various qualities are retained or refuted, for instance most Mu’taliza believe that power, omniscience, life, will, sight, and hearing, and speech are true qualities of God. Other qualities such as face and hands are anthropomorphic. The Anabalites believe that the qualities of God ultimately remain hidden and the words are there to be recited. In this sense they are against rationalistic speculation about the qualities of God, as this can lead to errors in your understanding of the Qur’an. These words are meant to be recited but not speculated about. The Ash’arites view places less of an emphasis on transcendence than the Mu’tazilites. The qualities of the Mu’tazilites as well as his actions are attributable to him. When it comes to face and hands, at times they take a neutral stance and regard them as neither corporeal or anthropomorphic, and at other times they ascribe face and hands to God and believe he will be seen in the afterlife.

     . . . Although the Qur’an is one revelation among many throughout history, it is probably an epistemological fact that all revelations are not equally valid. There are several factors that lead to believing the Qur’an was a revelation of importance. According to the Sunnis, the speech of the Qur’an seems to be of divine origin and is written in a particular style that suggests divine speech. From the people that observed Muhammad, there was obviously something extraordinary going on. Often, when he was getting a revelation, we would become stiff and shake his head and  sweat would drip from his forehead. Often he would enter a trance. As mentioned earlier, the Qur’anm was initially said to be created by the Mu’talizites, and later the role of Muhammad was downgraded and the rights were given to their God. . . . A person also should judge something revealed in the ways they would judge any metaphysical theory, such as whether it is internally consistent and whether it leads to proper ethical behavior. . .

     That being said, I have developed a number of arguments that would more appropriately be entitled Falsafa than Kalam. Firstly, I believe Hegel’s argument where he gives the precise relationship between how the physical world interacts with the absolute spirit can be generalized to account for the Islamic God. As the argument as to how this God creates natural disasters would need this argument to translate how this God’s actions interacts with the physical world. Additionally, I believe the Qur’an mentions a fictional ontological viewpoint in which the God’s the individuals worship are subjective creations and they are told not to worship them. This can be generalized to account for a generalized fictional ontological viewpoint. Thirdly, I believe Hegel’s argument can be extended to include the two structures of the Qur’an with both self-reference and unresolvable contradiction as the two fundamental structures of the Universe with one self-referential pole placed in the Unitred States and one self-referential pole placed in the Middle-East. We must remember, however, that this is simply metaphyisi9cs and none of this is provable. It must be remembered that most Muslims view their God as transcendent and not immanent, but there is certainly an immanent component. These results rely on the interplay of German idealism and the Qur’an.

William Atkinson: The Law of Attraction

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     In William Atkinson’s book The Law of Attraction, he describes a thought vibration emanating from the mind that interacts with the physical world that can be compared to ripples in a lake or a magnetic field. The thought vibrations leave the mind and enter the world in all directions. These vibrations attract those with similar vibrations. For instance if we think high and positive thoughts, we attract those with high and positive thoughts and if we think negative thoughts, we attract those with negative thoughts. Many more people are tuned into negative vibrations than positive vibrations. The vibrations add an additional component to things than what we would experience under normal or materialistic circumstances. Many psychic phenomenon are also handleable using this method. Atkinson and other occultists believe that these vibrations will eventually be able to be picked up through empirical methods, and these have been discovered since then as mentioned below.

     I define idealism to mean a system of philosophy that results in a direct interaction between the subject and the physical world. One can also factor in a direct correspondence between a universal mind and the physical world, which would be considered an objective idealism. In this case the law of the attraction would be labeled an idealism. The traditional definition of idealism is that the world is contained within the mind or a universal mind. In this case the law of attraction would appropriately be named a dualism/idealism, as I believe the world considered exterior from the mind in this case. The law of attraction should be regarded as developing a new version of karma. All of the different karmas take different starting points and lead to variations in effect.

     The rest of the book is mostly applied ethics. The key to this system is that a person has the ability to shift their mind from a negative vibration to a positive vibration through an act of will. There are two types of effort: active effort and passive effort. A passive effort is the result of the traveling along the same path it is used to. This can be corrected with an active effort, which is the result of a thought-impulse or motion-impulse. And this sends forth vibrations into the world. All thought impulses continue to vibrate along passive lines until corrected. It is only when one asserts the “I” that he begins on his path to self-mastery. This can be progressed through the saying of affirmations which is repeating to yourself over and over again what you want. Every person has a strong will and they just need to make use of it. Atkinson believes dualistically that one can regain brain cells through proper mental training. One should not think negatively, since one who thinks negative thoughts expects the negative thing, and according to the law of attraction, it is the same as if he actually desired it. He should turn those negative thoughts into positive thoughts and according to the law of attraction, this will occur. He should repeat the affirmations I can and I will. When you live on the I can and I will plane, you will see the vibrations manifesting themselves into action. One should start small and take little steps to get rid of this negativity. Negative thoughts include worry and fear and positive thoughts include courage and interest. In order obtain what you want you should visualize it. It is best to not focus on many things, and to focus on one thing.

     Atkinson’s theory of will is almost identical to Johann Fichte’s except flowered in American language and less rigorous. Atkinson was relying on American papers to expound this theory and Atkinsons influence probably comes directly from these papers and Indian religion. Atkinson’s theory of karma is different than Fichte’s and this will be discussed in a future post. Fichte is a subjective idealist and Atkinson is not, their ethics are different, and there are numerous other differences. Atkinson would also probably be considered more of a process philosopher although their processual elements to Fichte. Although their Foundations are similar, there systems of thought are drastically different. Atkinson’s thought develops in a different way than Fichte’s. Atkinson writes on topics such as concentration, success, and psychic phenomenon, while Fichte develops a lot in politics, morals, and epistemological analysis.

     Here I discuss whether the law of attraction should be considered physics or metaphysics. Many consider the law of attraction physics, and many consider it metaphysics, and I opt to consider it metaphysics. There seems to be a large amount of scientific evidence supporting the law of attraction. Examples would be the alpha waves recorded emanating from the brain and the discovery that meditating near a puddle of water causes it to change shape. I don’t know whether the scientists have recorded the alpha waves emanating from the brain and actually changing the electrochemical makeup of another person’s brain. Such evidence seems to be a large amount of support for this theory. However, once the metaphysical distinction is made between the mind and the brain and that it is recognized that it is in fact a metaphysical hypothesis that the mind is a complete product of the individual’s brain, this theory becomes just as unprovable as any other. There are in fact versions of idealism that regard the brain simply as sense data in the mind or that would regard the alpha waves emanating from the mind as nonexistent since they are not experienced immediately under normal circumstances. Further there is an ambiguity in the law of attraction that says exactly how these thought vibrations interact with things at long distances since it cannot be known whether the analogy between ripples in a lake or a magnetic field holds, and I do not believe this has been recorded in scientific experiments. So if they are taking the electromagnetic data and deducing from that things that are not recorded from the data such as a long distance or instantaneous interaction, they are doing metaphysics. In general, if the source of what you are recording is physical but what you deduce from that information is metaphysical, it immediately reduces to metaphysics.. And indeed I believe most of the quantum mechanics that is being done right now is like this as well and is essentially metaphysical. Indeed, there are realistic interpretations of quantum mechanics as well as idealistic that will never be resolved. This has been seen before (throwing metaphysics on top of physics) in philosophy, and Schelling’s organic idealism comes to mind. So ultimately I reduce this system to another metaphysical theory, and a solid one.

The Idealistic Materialism of the Jainas

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     Jainism is the Indian religious movement initiated in the 500s BC by Var-dhamāna, around the same time as Buddhism started. The Jainas develop a theory of knowledge, a psychology, a logic, a metaphysics, and an ethics. The Jainas believe five kinds of knowledge. (1) Mati is ordinary cognition obtained through sense perception. (2) Sruti is knowledge obtained through symbols or words, (3) Avadhi is direct knowledge of things even at a distance, that is knowledge by clairvoyance, (4) Manahparyāya is telepathic knowledge of others minds, and (5) Kevala is perfect knowledge which comprehends all substances and their qualities. So the Jainas believe in many psychic types of knowledge. Perception is divided into several stages. (1) Vyanjanavãgraha, where the sense data acts on the peripheral ends the sense organs and brings the object to the subject, (2) Arthavagraha, where consciousness is excited and sensation felt, (3) Iha, where the mind desires to know the details of the object, (4) Avaya, the recognition of the object as this and not that, and (5) Dharana, where the sensations reveal the qualities of things. This is an a priori deduction of perception in which perception is mediated, much along the lines of Kant’s deduction in the 1700s. However, this system posits an external object and the mind does not modify the object in any way. Knowledge is of two forms: (1) pramana, or knowledge of a thing as it is in itself, and (2) naya, or knowledge of a thing in its relation. Nayas are divided in many ways. For example, naigamanaya is the end of a course of activity which is present throughout such as a person cooking food when he has a pot over a fire with food in it. There are many other ways that the Jainas divide knowledge such as the Saptabangi which are the seven different ways that judgments are affirmed and negated without contradiction.

     The Jainas divide the world into two elements: Jīva and ajīva, the soul and the non-soul respectively. The ajīva is touched tasted and smelt, is devoid of consciousness, and is experienced, and the jīva is not perceived, contains con-sciousness, and has the experience. The body contains both the soul and the nonsoul and the soul lies superimposed with the body and expands and con-tracts according to the development of the body. Everything is material except souls and space. Matter consists of a plurality of atoms, which have no points, are infinitesimal, eternal, and ultimate, cannot be created or destroyed, and possess weight. Unlike the atom of physics, these atoms have taste, color, smell, and contact. The heavier belong to matter and move downwards and the lighter belong to soul and move upwards. There are a plurality of different atoms which attach to form the elements. Karma exists as an imperceptible type of atom that underlies the cosmos, and fills all cosmic space. Thus karma for the Jains is of material nature. The atoms penetrate the body and attach to the jīva, and retard the soul. When a result of a karmic action takes place, these atoms discharge from the body. There are an infinite number of jīva in the cosmos and are the (1) bound souls, the (2) freed souls, and the (3) liberated souls. The bound souls are bound to existence and live a material life, the freed souls are freed of matter, and the liberated souls will not become em-bodied and live elsewhere in the cosmos Through effort, the jīva can shed the matter and become a pure soul. This ideal can only be realized through the shedding of karma and corresponds to the Ātman in the Upanishads and the absolute ego in Fichte. Otherwise the soul is always connrected to matter. One should note that Jainism is really an idealism, that is it makes no reference to the atom of science and regards matter as negative.

    Jainism is a complicated religion and this is the ethics of the ascetic. The karma is shed by following the five paths, which are (1) innocence (2) charity, (3) honorable conduct such as not stealing (4) chastity in word thought and deed and (5) renunciation of all worldly interests. There are many practical ways of shedding the karma such as giving to the poor, shelter to Monks, etc. The Jainas promote simplicity, humility, and patience. Sins include anger, ad-mireability of ones own ability, distortion of the truth, desires to be rich, dis-honesty, unchastity. The person should be indifferent to pleasure and pain. So this is a very strict ethics and the chief doctrine is abstinence from everything. This is often seen as a stricter system than Buddhism in Which goodness is seen in patience and pleasure is seen as negative. A person is permitted to commit suicide if the strictures on abstinence is to great. Women are looked opon as objects of temptation. The freed soul for the Jains has pure conscious-ness, understanding, freedom, and bliss. It is difficult to know what the liber-ated soul is like. They exist outside of space and time, have consciousness, has no qualities, and is without birth or death. The materialistic strain of the Jainas causes them to place a greater emphasis on outer deeds and a lesser emphasis on meditation.

McTaggart: The Nature of Existence

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. . .

. . . Thus an substance A can be shown to exist if there is a one-to-one corre-spondence with each term of such an infinite series such that if A has parts B and C (where the number of parts could finite or infinite), there is a sufficient description of B such that the sufficient description of B determines the suffi-cient description the part of B corresponding to C. For simplicity, we write B ! C for that part of B that corresponds to C and B ! C ! D for that part of B which corresponds to C which corresponds to D and so forth. A is called the primary whole, B, C, and D the primary parts, and B ! C, B ! D, C ! D, etc. the secondary parts. If the condition above is satisfied, it follows that the sufficient descrip-tions of the primary parts will determine the sufficient descriptions of the parts within A through an infinite series.  For in B we will have B ! B and B ! C and in C we will have C ! B and C ! C, and these four parts of A will have parts corresponding to them in B and C. In B there will be B ! B ! B, B ! B ! C,  B ! C ! B, and B ! C ! C and in C we will have C ! B ! B, C ! B ! C, C ! C ! B, and C ! C ! C, and these eight parts of A will have parts correspondent in B and C, and so on without end. We now give definitions of these terms. A relation between a part B and a part C is a relation of determining correspondence if the sufficient description of C, (1) intrinsically determines the part of B in question, B ! C, and (2) intrinsically determines each of the parts of B ! C, and so on to infini-ty. The differentiating group of a primary part B consists of those primary parts and secondary parts to which B corresponds.

     Matter is defined by McTaggart to be that which contains the primary qualities, i.e. size, shape, position, impenetrability. McTaggart now asks what the primary parts of matter are and sees whether these divided into parts of parts to infinity by determining correspondence. The primary parts cannot be composed of nonspatial qualities alone since no such correspondence can determine sufficient descriptions of secondary parts. For example if you describe one primary part sufficiently as red and one primary part sufficiently as blue, then there would no way to compare the red and blue parts using these qualities alone. Let us then attempt to account for a piece of matter A in terms of its spatial qualities and nonspatial qualities. Matter cannot be made up of a set of indivisible points since these points would themselves be pieces of matter which would not be infinitely divisible. Thus we must divide space into a collection of divisible areas. There are two ways to distinguish spatial part from others. The first way is to describe qualities of that part which are not shared by any part in spatial contact with that part such as by saying that it is red and everything in contact with it is blue. The second is list a set of parts of that part such as listing the counties of England on a map, which leads to the same conception as the first way. Thus the nonspatial qualities of the spatial parts must be determined by determining correspondence since there would to be (an infinite number of coincidences between the determination of spatial  qualities and the determination of nonspatial qualities), and this was shown in the first paragraph to lead to a unresolvable infinite regress. But this is impossible since . . .

     McTaggart’s system is therefore appropriately titled a spiritualism in which all that exists is spirit (show that spirit, unlike matter and sensa has parts within parts to infinity determined by determining correspondence). Spirit is defined to be the substance having as quality the content all of which is one or more selves. McTaggart views it as unprovable that we perceive other selves directly but takes it as a positive claim in his system.  For very often we perceive ourselves without being aware of it and this argument generalizes to other selves. The sensorial perceptions of others are simply indirect manifestations of a direct perception. . . . Let A be a group of selves and suppose B and C are parts of A such that XYZ is a sufficient description of C and UVW of a sufficient description of B. Define a relation B ! C by letting B ! C mean “the perception of the only self that is XYZ by the only self that is UVW.” We show that this is a relation of determining correspondence. Then the sufficient description of C intrinsically determines B ! C since XYZ will include the fact that B perceives C. . . . .Thus the primary parts in this system are selves and the secondary parts are their perceptions of each other. The selves in any individual self’s differentiating group are only those selves that that self perceives directly, and it is possible that will be all the selves in the universe. These selves are perceived directly by each other by way of double mediation and only apparently perceived indirectly.

     These selves are bound by love. McTaggart defines love as an intense pas-sion or liking, and McTaggart sees love as the key emotion. Love should not be associated with a pleasure, as love often arises without any such pleasure. That conclusion according to McTaggart ultimately rests on the incorrect hy-pothesis of psychological hedonism. Love is thus simply a bond between selves of a union of an intense strength. This is supported by three character-istics of love. Love is not always proportional to the dignity of the qualities which determine it. We are very often unable to find any quality that the beloved substance has. And love often does not cease when it is found that the be-loved does not have the quality that it originally was believed to have. This does not, however, mean that love is completely independent of the qualities that the beloved substance has and the qualities help in creating and destroy-ing the unity. But the more intense the consciousness of unity, the greater the love. This does not, however, mean that if one self loves another, then that self necessarily loves the original self back. But in absolute reality every self will love every other self. It is possible that B should love C and C should love D but does not love B. In which case B will perceive C ! D and will create an emotion of complacency toward C ! D. Similarly, B ! C ! D ! E will create an em-otion of complacency of B toward E. When a self loves another, this may be accompanied by feelings that they should be different or even that they should not exist. But there is always the desire that they should be there.

. . .

Vasubandhu and the Denial of External Objects

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     Vasubandhu, the first century CE Indian philosopher was the creator of Yogacara Buddhism, one of the two main schools of Mahayana Buddhism. Yogacara means the practice of yoga, however what many people don’t know is that Vasubandhu denied the existence of external objects, his way of making sense of the doctrine of emptiness attributed to Mahayana Buddhism. This argument was in response to the representationalist account of Buddhism in which there is an external object and that object is represented in the mind. The same process occurred in Western philosophy in the 1700 England with Locke and Berkeley completely independently of the Indians. His argument is that the world consists of nothing but impressions like the case of someone seeing unreal fibers on the moon who has bad eyes. The person with bad eyes, sees unreal fibers on the moon when there is nothing there. He argues that all of our impressions are like the fibers on the moon for the person with bad eyes, i.e. they seem to represent something in the external world when there is nothing there. The defense is that there are things about experience that suggest external objects creating our representations such as the empirical reality of experience and the intersubjective notion of objects. Empirical reality of experience involves multiple things such as when a person enters a room that he has been to before, the objects are in the same location that he left them and when a person drops an object, it always falls to the ground. Things also tend to have a vivacity that they don’t have in dreams. The intersubjective status of objects says that when you see an object in a room, for instance, the other people see the same object that you see. Vasubandhu uses karma as a reply to this objection. The initial step in the argument is that when people go to Hell (The Buddhists regarded Heaven and Hell as temporary states, in addition to reincarnation and nirvana), there are demons there that  torture people and the demons karma does not place them in a lower place due to the torturing. Therefore, the demons must not be real entities like the rest of the world, and in fact they are projections of the people’s karma. Thus they can be seen as a massive hallucination of the people’s karma. The argument is that the world is also a cumulative hallucination due to the populations collective karma. For instance, dogs are color blind and have increased smell, and this is a consequence of their karma, and the same goes for humans. They collectively experience what is central to their karma. Now the question is, why accept this argument over the standard interpretation that there is external objects? Vasubandhu invokes the principle of lightness. This says that you should go with the theory that has the fewest assumptions and positing an external object adds assumptions beyond positing no external object. Vasubandhu introduces his own hypothesis of karma. However, we can appeal to this example without resorting to karma. For example, there is a famous play, where the woman who has just had her husband killed feels there is blood on her hands and washes them, when the audience member sees that there is really nothing there. So there must be some causal laws connecting past desires and current events. Perhaps these causal laws have a role to play in our experience.

Bibliography

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Websites

Gornahoor.net

Wikipedia.org
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 

Books

Siderits, Mark. Buddhism as Philosophy: an Introduction. New York, New York: Routledge, 2016.

Radhakrishnan, S. Indian Philosophy Vol 1. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2008. o.p 1923.

McTaggart, John & McTaggart, Ellis. The Nature of Existence Vol. 1 & 2.  Forgotten Books

Atkinson, William. Thought Vibration: The Law of Attraction in the Thought World. Chicago, Illinois: Seed of Life Publishing, 1908.

Ed. Tim Winter. The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology. Cambridge, United Kingdom: 2008.

Berkeley, George. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Nature. Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company, 1982.

Dicker, Georges. Berkeley’s Idealism: A Critical Examination. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Royce, Josiah. The World and the Individual. Vol 1 & 2. Forgotten Books, 1905

Auxier, Randall. Time Will and Purpose: Living Ideas from the Philosophy of Josiah Royce, Chicago Illinois: Open Court, 2013.

Atkinson, William, William Walter Atkinson: Volume 1, Best Books Publishing, 2017.

Goddard, Neville. The Power of Awareness, Pacific Publishing Studio, 2010.

Teeter, Emily. Religion and Ritual in Ancient Egypt, New York New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Chatterjee, Satishchsndra & Datta, Dhirendramohan. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy. New Delhi: Rupa, 2007.

Chittick, William. Ibn al-Arabi’s Metaphysics of Imagination: The Sufi Path of Knowledge, New York New York: State University of New York Press, 1989. 

Evola, Julius. The Path of Cinnabar, Arktos Media, 2009, op. 1963.

Guénon, René. The Essential René Guénon, Bloomington Indiana: Sophia Perennis, 2009.

Umasvati, trans. Nathmal Tatia. That Which Is, United States of America: Yale University Press, 2011.

Dundas, Paul. The Jains, Oxon United Kingdom: Routledge, 1992.

ref. Vrahimis Andreas. Encounters Between Analytic and Continental Philosophy, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY, 2013.

British and Continental Idealism

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McTaggart: The Nature of Existence, Royce: The World and the Individual 2; Julius Evola’s Magical Idealism; Defense of Evola’s Oscillatory Relationship; An Interview With Salvador Dali; Defense against Beiser’s Transcendent Interpretation of Schelling; Subjective Idealism: Argument for the Reality of Hallucination; First Experiences in Pixelated Subjective Idealism Bibliography: McTaggart, John & McTaggart, Ellis. The Nature of Existence Vol. 1 & 2.  Forgotten Books; Royce, Josiah. The World and the Individual. Vol 1 & 2. Forgotten Books, 1905; Auxier, Randall. Time Will and Purpose: Living Ideas from the Philosophy of Josiah Royce, Chicago Illinois: Open Court, 2013.