Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

The Epistemic View of Science: For and Against the Method

An important channel through which the contemporary Islamic world, especially in the last three decades of the 20th century, has come to terms with modern science is philosophy science as developed in the West. The impact of the deconstruction of the epistemological hegemony of 19th century positivism together with the critique of Newtonian physics and scientific objectivism and realism on the Islamic world has been stupendous and caused a torrential release of intellectual energy among students and intellectuals. Needless to say, the influx of ideas associated with such names as Kuhn,Feyerabend and Popper and their current students continues almost unabated in spite of the fact that the post-antirealist thinking on science seems to have come to a serious stalemate. Being on the receiving end of this debate, many Muslim students and intellectuals are still experimenting with these ideas with little effort, as we shall see shortly, to extrapolate their full implications. Before doing that, however, a few words of clarification on the scope of contemporary philosophy of science are in order.

The primary concern of the contemporary philosophy of science is to establish the validity, or lack thereof, of the truth claims of modern natural sciences. The theory-observation dichotomy, fact-value distinction, experimentation, objectivity, scientific community, history and sociology of science, and a host of other problems stand out, inter alia, as the most important issues of the field, which leaves no aspect of the scientific enterprise untouched. What concerns us here, however, is the emphasis of the philosophy of science on epistemology to the point of excluding any ontological or metaphysical arguments. The majority of contemporary philosophers of science, including such celebrated vanguards as Kuhn, Popper andFeyerabend , construe science primarily as an epistemic structure that claims to explain the order of physical reality within the exclusive framework of scientific methods. Scientific realism, anti-realism, instrumentalism, empiricismare all,needles to say, anchored in different notions of knowledge with profound implications for the natural as well as the human sciences. Given its exclusive concern with epistemic claims involved, contemporary philosophy of science can be stated as the epistemology of science. In this regard, the epistemic view of science is surely a respected member of modern philosophy for which any concept other than the knowing subject and its paraphernalia is simply a non-starter for a proper understanding of the world.

Thinking out the question of being in terms of how it is known, to use a Heideggerian language, is the leitmotif of modern philosophy, including its prima facie foes, rationalism and empiricism.[25] Whether we consider the knowing subject as a rationalist, empiricist, structuralist or deconstructionist, the anthropocentric ethos runs through the veins of how we perceive the world around us, how we interact with it, and how we position ourselves vis-à-vis the other human beings with whom we share the intentional as well as the physical space of our life-world. Here the eternal paradox of all subjectivist epistemologies is brought into clarity: to put the subject before the world, of which he is a part, is to claim the square inside the circle to be larger than the circle. Said differently, to ground the intelligibility of the world in the discursive constructions of the knowing subject is to see the world, or rather anything outside the subject, as essentially devoid of intrinsic meaning and intelligibility.[26] The Muslim critique of modern science based on the premises of modern epistemology has usually lost sight of this crucial fact as we see in the otherwise commendable literature produced by IsmailFaruqi and his protégé International Institute of Islamic Thought (mentioned hereafter as IIIT).

There is no denying the fact that Kuhn's radical anti-realism or Popper's concept of verisimilitude cannot be interpreted as lending support to the epistemic hegemony of modern science. On the contrary, they are meant to destroy it once and for all. The anti-realist component of their positions, however, reinforces the anthropocentric imagery: it is the knowing subject who is willing to deny science its self-proclaimed objectivity and appeal to credibility.[27] It is this aspect of contemporary philosophy of science, I believe, that has been totally mistaken and ignored by its adherents in the Islamic world. Today we can hardly come across a book or article written in English, Arabic, Turkish or Bahasa Malaysia that does not have recourse to Foucault, Kuhn,Feyerabend or Lyotard to denounce the philosophical underpinnings of modern science.[28] From the academic papers of Muslim graduate students to the writings of the so-called 'ijmalis ' led by Ziauddin Sardar, the names of numerous philosophers of science sweep through the literature with indigenous additions from the Islamic point of view. To put it mildly, this has led to the overemphasis of epistemology and methodology among many Muslim thinkers and young scholars while questions of ontology and metaphysics have been either left out or taken for granted. The concept of Islamic science, in this point of view, is centered around a loosely defined epistemology, or rather set of discrete ideas grouped under Islamic epistemology whose content is yet to be determined. In many ways, the idea of Islamizing natural and social sciences has been equated, by and large, with producing a different structure of knowledge and methodology within what we might call the epistemologist fallacy of modern philosophy. The crucial issue has thus remained untouched: to reduce the notion of Islamic science to considerations of epistemology and methodology, which are without doubt indispensable in their own right, is to seek out a space for the Islamic point of view within, and not outside, the framework of modern philosophy.

IsmailFaruqi's work known under the rubric of Islamization of knowledge is a good example of how the idea of method or methodology ('manhaj ' and ‘manhajiyyah ’, the Arabic equivalents of method and methodology being the most popular words of the proponents of this view) can obscure deeper philosophical issues involved in the current discussions of science. Even thoughFaruqi's project was proposed to Islamize the existing forms of knowledge imported from the West, his focus was exclusively on the humanities, leaving scientific knowledge virtually untouched. This was in tandem with his conviction that the body of knowledge generated by modern natural sciences is neutral and as such requires no special attention. Thus,Faruqi's work, and that of IIIT after his death, concentrated on the social sciences and education.[29] This had two important consequences. First,Faruqi's important work on Islamization provided his followers with a framework in which knowledge (al-‘ ilm) came to be equated with social disciplines, thus ending up in a kind of sociologism. The prototype ofFaruqi's project is, we may say, the modern social scientist entrusted with the task of the traditional 'alim . Second, the exclusion of modern scientific knowledge from the scope of Islamization has led to the negligence, to say the least, of the secularizing effect of modern scientific worldview.[30] This leaves the Muslim social scientists, the ideal-type of the Islamization program, with no clue as to how to deal with the question of modern scientific knowledge. Furthermore, to take the philosophical foundations of modern natural sciences for granted is tantamount to reinforcing the dichotomy between the natural and human sciences, a dichotomy whose consequences continue to pose serious challenges to the validity of the forms of knowledge outside the domain of modern physical sciences.[31]

A similar position, with some important variations, is to be found in the works of Ziauddin Sardar and a number of closely associated scholars known as the “ijmalis ” and the “Aligarh School”.[32] Although theijmalis do not accept the appellation of being a 'merely Kuhnian', one can hardly fail to see the subtext of their discourse based on Kuhn,Feyerabend and others in their critique of modern Western science.[33] Sardar's definition of science shares much of the instrumentalist and anti-realist spirit of the Kuhnian science. For him, science is 'a basic problem-solving tool of any civilization. Without it, a civilization cannot maintain its political and social structure or meet the basic needs of its people and culture.'[34] Theijmali's socio-cultural point of view certainly points to an important component of scientific activity, viz., the social setting in which the sciences are cultivated and flourish. It is, however, to be noted that the relegation of physical sciences, or any scholarly activity for that matter, to social utility is bound to have serious consequences insofar as the philosophical legitimacy of sciences is concerned. As we see in the case of VanFraassen and Kuhn, the instrumentalist definition of science entails a strong leaning towards anti-realism, a position whose compatibility with the concept of Islamic science is yet to be accounted for.

Yet, there is another paradox involved here. The most common critique of modern science has been to present it as a culturally conditioned and historical endeavor with claims to universality and objectivity. Kuhn's philosophy of paradigm, which has become the most fashionable buzz word in the Islamic world,Feyerabend's defense of society against science, or VanFraassen's scientific instrumentalism are all profusely used to show the utter historicity and relativity of modern science. Since every scientific, and, by extension, human activity is embedded in a historical and cultural setting, we can no longer speak of sciences in isolation from their socio-historical conditions. This implies that no account of science, be it Western or Islamic, is possible without the history and, more importantly, sociology of science, whose task is to deconstruct the historical formation and genealogy of sciences. Furthermore, this approach has been applied to humanities as well,

with almost total disregard to its implications for what is proposed in its place, i.e., Islamic science and methodology.

At this point, philosophy of science becomes identical with sociology of science, and any appeal to universal validity and objectivity by physical sciences is rejected on the basis of their utter historicity, contingency, ideology, cultural bias, and so on. Even though these terms are used as household terms by many Muslims writing and thinking on modern science, they rarely appear in their defense of Islamic science, which is proposed as an alternative to the Western conceptions of science. If science, as the advocates of this view seem to imply, is culture-specific with no right to universal applicability, then this has to be true for all scientific activity whether it takes place in the 11th century Samarqand or the 20th century Sweden. This is in fact what is so clearly intended and stated by all the major expositors of the philosophy of science. If it is the modern secular science that is culturally and historically constructed, then Islamic science, as understood by this group of scholars, has to explain how and why it is entitled to universal validity and applicability. It will simply be short of logical consistency to say that Kuhn's language of paradigms is an adequate tool to explain the history of Western but not Islamic science.

What I have called here the epistemic view of science, which has taken the form of an extremely common tendency rather than a single school of thought, has certainly raised the consciousness of the Islamic world about modern science, and contributed to the ongoing discussion of the possibility of having a scientific study of nature based on an Islamic ethos. We can, however, hardly fail to see the contradictions in this point of view especially when it is most vulnerable to the temptations of modern epistemology. The emphasis put on epistemology to the point of excluding ontology and metaphysics has grave consequences for any notion of science, and it is for this reason that we do not see any serious study of philosophy, metaphysics or cosmology among the followers of this point of view.Furthermore there is a deliberate resistance to these disciplines in spite of the fact traditional Islamic philosophy and metaphysics had functioned as a gateway between scientific knowledge and religious faith. At any rate, it remains to be seen if the adherents of the epistemic view of science will be able to overcome the subjectivist fallacy of modern philosophy, i.e., building an epistemology without articulating an adequate metaphysics and ontology.

The Sacred versus the Secular: The Metaphysics of Science

The last major position on science of which we can give here only a brief summary is marked off from the other two positions by its emphasis on metaphysics and the philosophical critique of modern science. Represented chiefly, inter alia, by such thinkers as Rene Guenon,Seyyed Hossein Nasr,Naquib al-Attas , Osman Bakar, MahdiGolshani andAlparslan Acikgenc , the metaphysical view of science considers every scientific activity operating within a framework of metaphysics whose principles are derived from the immutable teachings of the Divine revelation. In contrast to philosophy and sociology of science, metaphysics of science provides sciences with a sacred concept of nature and cosmology within which to function.[35] At this point, the sacred view of nature taught by religions and ancient traditions takes on a prime importance in the formation and operation of physical sciences, and all of the traditional sciences, regardless of the historical and geographic setting they were cultivated in, were based on such principles which had enabled them to produce highly advanced sciences and techniques while maintaining the sacredness of nature and the cosmos. The traditional natural sciences, Nasr and others argue, derived not only their work-ethics and methodology but also metaphysical and ontological raisond'etre from the principles of Divine revelation because they were rooted in a conception of knowledge according to which the knowledge of the world acquired by man and the sacred knowledge revealed by God were seen as a single unity. As a result, the epistemological crisis of the natural and human sciences that we try to overcome today did not arise for the traditional scientist who did not have to sacrifice his religious beliefs in order to carry out a scientific experiment, andvise versa.

The traditional metaphysics envisages reality as a multi-layered structure with different levels and degrees of meaning. The polarity between the Principle and Its manifestation, which is translated into the language of theology as God and His creation, gives rise to a hierarchic view of the universe because manifestation already implies a domain of reality lower than its sustaining origin. Moreover, since reality is what it is due to the Divine nature, it cannot be seen as a play-thing or the product of a series of fortuitous events. On the contrary, the cosmos, as the traditional scientists firmly believed, is teleological throughout, displaying a remarkable order andpurpossiveness . Nature, depicted by modern science as a ceaseless flow of change and contingency, never fails to restore itself into an abode of permanence and continuity with the preservation of species and self-generation.[36] Seen under this light, nature, which is the subject matter of physical sciences, cannot be reduced to any one of these levels. With reductionism out, the traditional metaphysics of science uses a language built upon such key terms as hierarchy, telos, interconnectedness, isomorphism, unity and complexity. These qualities are built into the very structure and methodology of traditional sciences of nature, which can be taken to be one of the demarcation lines between the sacred and modern secular views of science.[37] It is therefore impossible, the proponents of this view would insist, to create or resuscitate the traditional Islamic sciences of nature without first articulating its metaphysical framework. Any attempt to graft Islamic ethics and epistemology to the metaphysically blind outlook of modern science is bound to be a failure.

The philosophical underpinnings of Islamic science, as defined by Nasr,Attas , and others are derived from the metaphysical principles of Islam. Just as the Islamic revelation determines the social and artistic life of the Muslim civilization, it also gives direction to its understanding of the natural environment and its scientific study.[38] The doctrine of tawhid, the most essential tenet of Islamic religion, affirms the unity of the Divine Principle, and it is projected into the domain of natural sciences as the essential unity and interrelatedness of the natural order. A science can thus be defined as Islamic,Acikgenc states, to the extent to which it conforms to and reflects the cardinal principles of the Islamic worldview.[39] In a similar way, Nasr insists that 'the aim of all the Islamic sciences -- and more generally speaking, of all the medieval and ancient cosmological sciences --is to show the unity and interrelatedness of all that exists, so that, in contemplating the unity of the cosmos, man may be led to the unity of the Divine Principle, of which the unity of Nature is the image.'[40] Thus the Islamic sciences of nature function in a two-fold way. First, they look at nature as a single unity with all of its parts interconnected to each other. Second, they are meant to lead both the scientist and the layman to the contemplation of Nature as the sacred artifact of the Divine. For Nasr, the sacred cosmology of the Sufis, which is grounded in metaphysics and inspiration rather than physical sciences per se, is related to the second function of the sciences of nature, and maintains its validity even today for it is based on the symbolic significance of the cosmos. This brings us to the other important feature of the Islamic sciences of nature, i.e., their intellectual function.

Nasr uses the word 'intellect' in its traditional sense, viz., as related to contemplation. The modern connotation of the words intellect and intellectual as logical analysis or discursive thinking is the result of the emptying of their metaphysical and mystical content. Having rejected the usage of the word 'intellect' as abstract analysis or sentimentality, Nasr seeks to regain its medieval and traditional usage.

'"Intellect" and "intellectual" are so closely identified today with the analytical function of the mind that they hardly bear any longer any relation to the contemplative. The attitude these words imply toward Nature is the one that Goethe was to deplore as late as the early nineteenth century -- that attitude that resolves, conquers, and dominates by force of concepts. It is, in short, essentially abstract, while contemplative knowledge is at bottom concrete. We shall thus have to say, by way of establishing the old distinction, that thegnostic's relation to Nature is 'intellective', which is neither abstract, nor analytical, nor merely sentimental.'[41]

Defined as such, the Islamic sciences of nature do not lend themselves to being a means of gaining power and domination over nature. Their contemplative aspect, rooted in the Quranic teachings of nature as well as in traditional cosmologies, ties them to metaphysics on the one hand, and to art on the other.

By the same token, the function of philosophy cannot be confined to being a mere interpreter of the data produced by natural sciences. In sharp contrast to the Kantian notion of philosophy, which has turned philosophy into a handmaid of Newtonian physics, Nasr assigns to philosophy an important role in establishing a harmonious relation between the givens of religion and the demands of scientific investigation. In the post-Kantian period, philosophy was gradually reduced to a second-order analysis of the first-order facts of physical sciences, and this has assigned to philosophical pursuit a completely different task. In contrast to this new mission, Nasr insists on the traditional meaning and function of philosophy. On the one hand, philosophy is related to the life-world in which we live, including the physical environment, and as such it cannot remain indifferent to a veritable understanding of the universe and the cosmos. On the other hand, it is closely related to metaphysics and wisdom, and as such it cannot be reduced to a branch of physical sciences. In fact, this is how the relationship between philosophy and science was established in classical classifications of knowledge, both in the West and the Islamic world. The scientist and the philosopher were united in one and the same person as we see in the case of an Aristotle or Ibn Sina, and this suggests that the scope of philosophical thinking could not be relegated to quantitative analysis of natural sciences. Thus, in Nasr's concept of science, philosophy, in addition to metaphysics and aesthetics, plays a crucial role that cannot be substituted for by any other science.[42] Moreover, the sciences of nature always function within a definite framework of ontology and cosmology, which is articulated primarily and essentially by philosophy in the traditional sense of the term. This is why philosophy is an integral part of Nasr's metaphysical concept of science.

The metaphysical view of traditional civilizations concerning nature and its scientific study has been lost in modern science whose philosophical foundations go back to the historical rupture of the Western thought with its traditional teachings. The rise of modern science, Nasr and others would insist, was not simply due to some ground-breaking advancements in scientific methods of measurement and calculation.[43] On the contrary, it was the result of a fundamental change in man's outlook concerning the universe.[44] This outlook is predicated upon a number of premises, among which the following five are of particular significance. The first is the secular view of the universe, which allows no space for the Divine in the order of nature. The second is the mechanistic world-picture presented by modern science, which construes the cosmos as a self-subsistent machine and/or pre-ordained clock. The third is the epistemological hegemony of rationalism and empiricism over the current conceptions of nature. The fourth is the Cartesian bifurcation, based on Descartes' categorical distinction between res cogitans and res extensa, which can also be read as the ontological alienation of the knowing subject from his/her object of knowledge. The fifth and the final premise of modern scientific worldview, which can be seen as the end-result of the preceding points, is the exploitation of the natural environment as a source of global power and domination.[45] This is coupled with the hubris of modern science which does not accept any notion of truth and knowledge other than what is verifiable within the context of its highly specialized, technical, and hence restricted means of verification.

The metaphysical view of science, which points to an interesting shift from the philosophy to the metaphysics of science, takes aim at the intellectual foundations of modern science and, unlike the other two views of science, proposes a well-defined philosophy of nature and cosmology based on the principles of traditional Islamic sciences. Its critique of modern science is not confined to ethical considerations or methodological amendments as it claims to restore the religious view of the universe. In this regard, the metaphysical view of science, as formulated by Nasr and others, is part of the larger project of deconstructing the modernist worldview, of which science is considered to be only an offshoot.

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Conclusion

The three views of science presented here testify to the vibrancy of the ongoing debate on science in the present world of Islam. Needless to say, there are many aspects to this debate, and many borderline cases andcriss -crossings have to be admitted as part of the continuous struggle of the Muslim world to come to terms with the problem of science both in its traditional-Islamic and modern Western senses. It is nevertheless certain that the growing awareness of the Islamic world concerning its scientific tradition on the one hand, and the ways in which it tries to cope with the challenges of modern Western science on the other, are among the momentous events of the history of contemporary Islam. It remains to be seen what kind of interaction will play out between the three positions analyzed above. Be that as it may, the future course of science debate in the Islamic world is more than likely to be shaped by these positions with all of their ambitions and promises.