Philosophy in Pakistan

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Philosophy in Pakistan Author:
Publisher: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy
Category: Islamic Philosophy
ISBN: 1-56518-108-5

Philosophy in Pakistan
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Philosophy in Pakistan

Philosophy in Pakistan

Author:
Publisher: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy
ISBN: 1-56518-108-5
English

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Chapter XIV: The Knowledge of Other Minds

Abdul Hameed Kamali

Limitations of the Problem

Knowledge of other minds may be thought to be closely integrated with the fields of the cultural wissenschaften as determining and changing their formulation and structures. But this line of thought is mistaken, for no theory of the knowledge of other minds is able to articulate the axiomatics, modify the structure, or disturb the scheme of those sciences. Cultural, social, political, legal, economic and other orders of collective life never presuppose the mutual knowledge of minds in their makeup and configuration. As formal in character they are determined solely by their formal properties.

Every formal system is comprised of constant relations between the variables. The meanings, interpretations, constitutions of the variable terms do not participate in the meanings and essence of the formal systems. The logical constants and their rules of combination or operation constitute the meanings of the existence of the formal systems. For instance, such variable terms as ‘points’, ‘straight lines’, etc., are identified within geometric systems. Only the formal relations between them are studied by us. If we know the meanings of the points and straight lines, this in no way affects the constructions of geometric systems, for it does not form part of that system. Likewise, we are aware of the serial system of numbers; we do not know the meanings of one, two, three, etc., its variable terms but their mutual connections and the rules of their relatedness. This is so in mechanical, thermo-dynamic, electro-magnetic and chemical systems. Socio-cultural systems are not exceptions; they too consist in constant relations between variable terms.

The ‘meanings’, ‘inner processes’, and ‘interpretations’ of the variables are irrelevant to the existence of these systems. Only the socio-cultural relations and their rules of operations are constitutive of these orders of existence. Individuals are the variable terms in the socio-cultural systems, but their nature and meaning are excluded from the constitution and existence of these systems. Therefore, the theory of knowledge of other minds has no bearing on the cultural, social and economic systems.

Some may think that the world of socio-cultural reality might be independent of epistemology, but indispensable for the formulations of a general science of psychology. But this is not so. Psychology studies a closed system comprised of two sub-systems: (1) individual and (2) environment; it studies the mutal interaction between them. The object-matter of psychology is, thus, a formal system and the sub-systems are its terms. In studying this, psychology does not define the terms which are involved therein; the definitions and meanings of the terms are redundant for the existence of the system. Therefore, here again, the knowledge of other minds has no meaning even in psychic systems.

Neo-Platonic Form of the Problem

In our above elucidations we did not deny the existence of minds and individuals nor attempt to show that they do not exist. Our point is that there is no problem of the knowledge of other minds in social, cultural and psychic fields. If they exist, they are knowable. Many subjects of knowledge know other minds to some extent, and that there may be some beings who are acquainted with other minds adequately and completely without any remainder.

We are acquainted with trees, stars, and mountains; we are aware of other individuals; we know our friends, parents and teachers. But we are interrupted by the epistemologist, who raises the question: how do we know other minds? To be sure, these problems appear meaningful and significant to him and not to other persons including Moore and Ryle. What is the matter?

The epistemologist, whether a Kant or a Hegel, a Neurath or a Carnap, is the same neo-Platonist who believes (1) that the form of knowledge determines the mode of reality, (2) that what is not known by anybody does not exist, and so (3) knowledge somehow or other institutes the reality. In the meek form, the neo-Platonist is a logical positivist or a phenomenologist demanding the conditions of experiences; in the bold form, he is an idealist, asking about the categories of experience. He postulates any or all of the three above-mentioned propositions.

Indeed, the European idealistic tradition of thought is trying to secure a new lease of life in the guise of logical positivistic, instrumentalistic and psychologistic philosophies. Its basic belief-structure holds a logical priority of epistemology over ontology. Therefore, following this tradition, the epistemological question of the knowledge of the external world and of other minds is logically prior to the ontological problem of the existence of the external and the world of other minds. As it is the common and cardinal principle of phenomenological and idealistic philosophies that an idea consists in the steps of its constructions, the problem of other minds becomes for them the problem of the knowledge of other minds.

The inevitable direction of such formulations of the problem is towards the conclusion that other minds are logical constructions, as is the external world.

Bertrand Russell and Carnap are in alliance with Mannheim and Bradley as neo-Platonists for whom ‘to be’ means ‘to be known’. For Bradley and Croce, other minds are logical constructs of the objective spirit. To Russell and Carnap, they are logical constructs of the observer.

Just as the external world is a consequence of the constructive activity of the observer, other minds are the products of constructive activity. Carnap points out how, from the stuff of the private experience, the inter-subjective world is carved; how the logical construct of one’s own body and other bodies (selves) emerges in the field of experience.

But the essential characteristics of the ‘fact of knowledge’ are missing in constructionism. The pan-physicalistic and idealistic philosophies consider that construction and synthesis are the only functions of intellect. They altogether miss the cognitive or knowledge function of the mind. Therefore, the entire idealistic, pan-physicalistic alliance, although a good guide in combining, creating, and producing activities, is unhelpful in the demonstration of knowledge which is analytical. It seizes upon the components of the object, but never constructs it.

There are three possibilities in the knowledge of an object: (1) either it is completely known, or (2) it is incompletely known, or (3) it is unknown. None of these three facts effects the object, as knowledge is merely an awareness of the world, not its construction in the sense of being an adddition or change.

We are not interested in the modifications of other minds, but only in their knowledge. Our interest in influencing and reforming them does not enter into their being known by us. Neo-Platonic philosophies, in their failure to distinguish between knowledge and construction, always confuse the issue.

The laborious task of constructing the inter-subjective world of experience out of the stuff privately given by a subject of experience does not slightly enlighten us on the problem of knowledge. Similarly, the construction of other minds by the objective spirit does not throw light on the problem of the knowledge of other minds.

To Know vs to Create

The universal presupposition of the neo-Platonism enshrined in polylogism and logical positivism is that ‘To create an object implies to know the object.’ But knowledge and creation are two distinct words and one cannot be reduced to the other. Knowledge is a sui genre fact in the universe; similarly, constructivity is an unanalysable fact. Analysis or reduction of these facts in terms of any other fact is also impossible.

The Universal Ego in its creative act creates the object, and in its knowing act knows the object. He is the Creator and the Knower. To be knower, then, is one of His functions, and to be creator is another. The Hegelian philosophy in either Croce or Mannheim does not distinguish between these two. In describing the knowledge function, they introduce the modifications of reality, so that there is no knowledge without distortion even for the Universal Ego. Therefore, even God does not know other minds without modifying them.

In the pan-physicalistic version, the other mind is a logical construct out of elementary data. This goes beyond presentation and unifies them by fitting them into a ‘concept’ of mind. A constructive activity is either consistent or inconsistent but is never true or false. Yet the physicalists say that this construct is either true or false in the sense of corresponding or not to reality. This ‘novel’ feature of the construct is made plausible by the mind not only apprehending the presentation but moving beyond it in the world not of reality but of language. Logical constructs, like chairs and minds, are formulations in the system of language, propositional functions.

Whether language construct corresponds or not to the objective fact of reality is the problem. Whether there is a chair or a mind still remains a problem which only the future will answer. And the future does not decide it at one stroke, but simply changes the probability of a language construct on the truth-falsehood scale. Hence, although I have constructed something in the realm of language, I do not know whether it exists in the external world. In this way language philosophers do not enlighten us about the problem of knowledge.

The difficulty again lies in the concept that mind is constructive and never cognitive. Whenever the language philosopher is forced to admit the cognitive function of mind, he reduces it to the constructive function and attempts to solve the problem of knowledge in those terms. Professor Qadir is beset with the same difficulty when he says that our knowledge of all other things is inductive and probable. Induction is a name of the constructive function at the symbolic level; it is a movement towards a general construct synthesising the particulars. Induction is a process of creative activity, but knowledge is never a creativity. Creation and construction, induction and synthesis belong to the sphere of practical activity. We never know other things by induction or by logical construction.

Knowledge is a fact distinct from the inductive generalising acts. It means analysis as opposed to induction. Our knowledge of other minds and of the furniture of the universe, therefore, is not a case of induction but of analysis. Our doings, orderings, systematisations and action-patterns follow the principles of construction and induction, while knowledge is the grasp of an object in its constitution, an apprehension of a presentation in its components.

Knowledge is not a doing, indeed all sorts of activity are besides the fact of knowledge. The sentence "I know X" is a distortion of language as it suggests that knowledge is an activity; perhaps all neo-Platonic philosophies have taken their start from this deceptive formulation of language. Therefore, "X knows Y" must be reconstructed as "Y is known to X", so that the colour of doing may be removed. The reformulation of a knowledge situation in the structure of language represents it as a relational system, in which there are two terms in the non-symmetrical relation of "is known to." Let us denote this relation by R. It is a dyadic, non-symmetrical , non-transitive relation.

Like all systems, the knowledge system requires the existence of its constituents only and nothing else: (1) the two terms and (2) the relation R. No further elements and no other systems of reality are involved in the existence of knowledge systems. Consequently, "X is hankering after Y." "Y is in need of X", "X is the neighbour of Y", etc., may be facts, but their factuality does not influence nor does it determine the systems: ‘Rxy’, or ‘Ryx’, or both. Knowledge systems are among the possible systems of the universe. They are not modified by any other system nor do they modify other systems in their compresence with them.

Constituents of Knowledge

The only meaningful question is: what is apprehended of the object? This investigation becomes an inquiry into the constituents of the object. Instead of describing how knowledge is possible, the epistemologist admits the actuality of knowledge and starts the analysis of the object.

Some philosophers assert that there is a limit set on the knowledge of everything. In the case of other mind, they say, it is the body of the mind which is apprehended and not the mind; they think that we know the body in which a mind is incarnated and never know the mind. Obviously, this argument is a proposal as to the use of the words: the known is called a body, and the unknown is called a mind. It is just possible that someone is self-conscious and is also conscious of all others. Then the entire universe including oneself is a body (or bodies). It is also possible that some entity is neither self-conscious nor conscious of others; then the entire universe is a mind (or many minds). To the extent to which I know myself I am a body; and to extent to which I do not know myself I am a mind. I am mind in the body or rather mind and body.

But, these philosophers point out that they are not forwarding a proposal of reform of linguistic conventions, but are hitting at a fact in reality, namely, that what is unknowable is the fact that there are also other subjects of experience. We know organic movements, factual expressions, and muscular coordinations, but do not know that other persons have knowledge; we cannot know that they are conscious beings.

This argument, so far as it goes, presupposes a ‘ghost-in-the-machine’ model of the living beings that is confounded by its failure to see the ‘ghost’, the driver of the machine. But if one notices the ‘ghost’ in the machine, and no one apprehends the ‘mind’ in the body, then no one can assert or think that the Ghost is in the machine and the mind is in the body.

The fact is that the ghost is the machine and the body is the mind; mind and body are two names of the same entity. If the ‘same entity’ is the object of knowledge, it is a body; and if it is subject of knowledge, it is mind. Again, the distinction between body and mind is merely verbal and symbolic. These words are merely indications of the position a term holds in the knowledge system.

Yet, there is a problem: is it possible to know that some entity (other than the writer or the speaker) knows other objects? Philosophers, like Ayer, say that it is impossible; knowledge is private to subject and inaccessible to others. Professor Qadir would, at once, agree with Professor Ayer. I gaze at Mr. X, but do not know the depth and expanse of his knowledge; therefore, I cannot know that Mr. X is a knower, or has consciousness, etc.

This entire approach, in my opinion, is a cynical misdirection of energies; for the problem is not to know X, but to know what X knows. Surely, by ‘Rix’ I cannot know ‘Rxa’, ‘Rxb’, Rxm’ [(I, = the speaker); (a, b, m = objects of knowledge)]. I must direct my attention to all the knowledge-systems in which X is the subject term instead of dissipating myself in looking at X in isolation.

‘X’ and ‘Rxa’ do not mean the same thing. The neo-Platonists conceive that ‘Rxa’ is a part of ‘X’, which is an ontological mistake in which the part of a system contains the whole as its part. This mistake continues in all their traditions, even in the contemporary empiricism, and compels them to apprehend ‘X’ on the occasions when they have to grasp ‘Rxa’. My problem to know X’s knowledge really means I must (1) not only know X, but (2) all the objects which are known to X, and then I must behold (3) the relational systems the objects make with X.

Since human beings are fond of symbolisations, they name the entities, and remember them by their names or symbols. Our inquiry would then amount to be an inquiry into the existence of knowledge systems composed of X and various symbols.

No one can look into the individuals so as to discover the treasuries of knowledge inside them. Knowledge is not contained in mind. It is mind which is contained as a term in the system of knowledge. Along this line we can dispose of many problems as to the knowledge of other minds.

Bifurcation vs Process

Common people and the Neo-Platonists are so much saturated in the dualistic terminology of mind and matter, ghost and machine, internal and external, that in describing plain facts of life they create puzzles. For instance, the ordinary fact that I am happy means to them that happiness is inside me, and my face and body are simply an agency of its expression. They employ the ‘cause-agency’ and ‘end-means’ formulae in understanding themselves, other beings, and perhaps the entire universe.

Although the Muslim tradition of thought used the classification of the ‘seen’ and the ‘unseen’ before the impact of neo-Platonism, yet it never employed the categories of ‘mind and matter’, ‘soul and agency’, etc. For most of the sufis and thinkers of the time the dualism of materiality and spirituality never existed, and so the ordinary facts of sadness, happiness, frustration, etc., could not be conceived as internal states.

But, in the historical development since then, language cast in neo-Platonic frameworks has so transformed the habits of thought and so much penetrated the traditions of our society that every man, as if by nature, is guided to accept them as inner facts, accessible to the possessor and inaccessible to the outsider. We must try to deliver ourselves from these models of language construction which induce us to adopt those norms of understanding at the cost of all others.

The class character of the traditional models of thought is the bifurcation of a continuous process into two halves; one of them becomes the reality, and the other appearance (expression). Professor Dev’s ungraded poles of truth and falsehood, of reality and maya, are the climax of this tendency. The consequence of this bifurcation is a list of causes and motives in the field of mind which are said to be independent of the vehicles and means in which they are expressed. This ideology is beneath the subjectivistic, hedonistic and emotivistic ethics of our times; it is the esoteric structure of polylogism and historism; again, it is the bedrock of the ideal of the privacy of the content of experience which is basic to logical positivism.

The result is that happiness, frustrations, ambitions, pains, headaches, loves, hates, conflicts, cooperations, etc., are supposed to inhere within individuals. As internal states, they are unknown to others. The epistemologists ask: how do we know the motives of other persons, since ex hypothesi they are unknowable? After raising this question in despair, he replies that the reality is unknown, only the gateway to appearance is open to us. Therefore, nothing but induction, speculation and guessing is our business. Only in the hereafter will we know whether our guesses were true.

If this is right, then there is no solid support for mutual confidence, no sure guarantee behind the system of credit and no process of justice, for it is not secure in its principles of evidence. No one is prepared to accept the dangerous conclusions of this line of thought. People must reject it not because it is dangerous, but because it rests on the slippery grounds of the bifurcation of the reality into cause-effect, motive-expression, appearance-reality groups.

Of the life of mind some particular process is happiness, another specific process is depression, still another is wonder, and there are many more. But a process is an ordered series ¾ a set of events -- such that it is uni-directional; it has a first element and its duration is determined by its (number of) recurrence. If it halts at any of its points, it is no more. The observer of the self (of which it is a process) breaks it down into (1) the motive segment, (2) action segment and (3) goal. This attempt to cut down and label the various pieces of a process represents the horrible power of a certain habit of mind inherited by us from the past. It is a convention in the same sense in which there are other customs and traditions of a group of people, transmitted from generation to generation. Its sole justification is that it is there.

By grafting this convention of classifications onto the facts of life, we make the problem of the knowledge of other minds unanswerable.

This convention, embedded with certain definitions, declares the mind unknowable. The definitions are: (1) the motive segment is isolable from and is independent of the action and goal segments, (2) the motive segment is one which is interior and the rest of the process is exterior, (3) the motive segment is that part which is unknowable, (4) it is the essence of Mind. All of these definitions given with the convention of classification would mean that if there is an E-group of the life of mind which is known, then it is an exterior fact; consequently, it is not a motive, and so does not form part of the essence of mind. Thus mind is made unknowable by the very definitions. The unknowable is the motive which is the essence of mind. If we adopt this scheme of the taxonomic concepts, we would be doomed not to talk about the knowledge of other minds, which existence would always appear as a guess.

The processes of life, in spite of their conventional segmentations, are public facts. They are open to inspection; there is no exterior and no interior. They can be apprehended in their totality and as such are called states, every one of which has a volume or dimension in which many tiny events or elements are densely populated. Our vision of a cluster, garden or gathering does not depend upon counting every single item, although in principle that is just possible, rather we take a view of it and know what exists. Similarly, a spectator takes a snapshot of the state of affairs without noting each of its items, and knows that it is there. People, living in a community, are aware of the various constellations of the facts of life.

They are public facts open to inspection by any mind. Sometimes, the constellation of happiness enters in my life. Sometimes, it occurs to X, and sometimes to Y, and so on. We human beings have a direct awareness of the different constellations of the facts of human life: they happen to anyone who belongs to our society, and we at once recognise them when they occur, as we recognise the colours, the chairs, and other entities if they are present. This means that the fact of cognition is the same; the apprehension is not different, only its objects differ. We often seize upon the objects completely in a field of cognition; we comprehend them in their unity without waiting for individual verification or the future that may betake it.

The Role of the Total Configuration

The apprehension of the total configuration of a state enables a man to mark off some of its portions as a motive. This is a mere selection and there is no real problem. But, not satisfied with this, he declares it to be more real and substantial and relegates all other parts to the status of subordinate and shadowy existents. The motive sector is elevated to the status of ‘really’ real and is labelled as the ‘original meaning’; the rest of the configuration of the state is reduced to its vehicle of expression. The argument is that meanings may be expressed in various languages, styles, and words and are independent of their expressions. The reality is independent of its manifestation; it may change its expressive form and invent new modes of its expression. The motive segment is the real meaning of the totality of a state. The state itself is symbol. This idea has its genesis in the symbol-making and name-giving function of the intellectual life. In the context of symbolisation, it is true that what is symbolised is independent of the symbolism. The facts may be reproduced in multifarious symbolic transformations. But these truths are generalised by us to cover the fields for which they are not meant. As a result we try to grasp the world history as an expression of some immanent meaning. We may be easily deceived to conceive that the legs of a chair are the symbolic expressions of the chair, whereas they are only parts of the chair. We generalise that some parts of an event are the reality of the event and other parts are the symbols of that reality, that the motive segment is the real and all other segments are its expressions. So the same motive may redirect itself in various possible action patterns and conditions of life, which are nothing but its symbolic expressions.

The reduction of some component set of a configuration to the level of symbolism, and the elevation of some other part to the level of the ‘reality’ and the ‘essence’, by the very nature of its model of schematisation, rule out the knowledge of other minds. What is known is symbolic. We are led to believe that ‘self-contentment’ can express itself in the symbols of richness and palatial buildings, and again can express itself in the symbols of wretchedness and slum housing. Our belief in the symbolic nature of the presented events and the known facts heavily presses us to guess whether the man sitting before us is self-content or not.

There is no escape from the unknowability of other minds in face of the unrestricted application of the ‘reality-symbolism’ or the ‘meaning-expression’ models of approach. This model of organisation of the facts of mental life permeates all the sceptic and inductive formulations of the problem of the knowledge of other minds.

We must get rid of this convention of systematising models, and then see other minds. Let us see, for example, a man of a slum area in stringent financial condition, yet with a smiling face. What we observe is a form of life which is instituted in (1) the slum residence, (2) stringent finance and (3) the smiling face. All these three factors are component of an integral form of life. We may call it self-contentment, if we like. Now we observe another man living in a spacious building abounding in riches; his face also shines with a smile. This is also a composite form of life instituted in (1) the spacious building, (2) generous income and (3) a beaming face. There is nothing invisible which is expressed in this form. Let us not hasten to call it self-contentment, because, if this word stands for the former experience, it cannot also stand for this latter form of life. Both the forms have only one component in common and it is the shining smile; all other factors are different. We have to invent words and terms to denote distinct and mutually irreducible integrated styles of existence.

All the factors peculiar to a form contribute to the existence of the form. If some of the components are dissociated from it, and combined with some other elements, then a new form emerges. A dissociation of some components disintegrates the form of which they are parts. The study of a mind is a study of the emerging, developing, continuing, and disintegrating forms of its existence. The knowledge of other minds consists in the awareness of the elements found in its field, their associations and combinations, their dissociations and reorganisations. To every possible combination of the elements, we must give a specific name. The model of chemistry is to be used in the knowledge of other minds. We must use and develop a symbolism, over and above ordinary language, which must represent the facts of life with consistency and without confusion as has been done in physics and chemistry on the pattern of algebra.

Some of the elements of a specific form attract attention; they are ‘preferred’ by the self or the observer. But this fact of being linked by the mind does not place them in a privileged position; their selection does not assign them a different ontological status. They are designated as motives, but their being predicated with cathexis does not give rise to other elements which they combine. They do not determine the formations of life; they are not motives. It is just possible that I may prefer the oxygen component of a compound, but this does not mean that other components of the compound are caused and generated by the oxygen element. It also does not mean that the principle of compounding is governed by the oxygen parameter of the compound-form. The compound, its principle of formation, and the elements of its being, exist independently of my preference. Similarly, the being of a form of life, its essentialisation, and its structural law are independent of my preference of some of its parts, whether it happens in my life or in some other life. Therefore, those elements, charged with cathexis, are not the movers of the formations of life; they do not constitute the essence of formal existence, they are not the principles of dynamism in the flow of life.

To be cathected is a fact, but this does not import an ontological character to the cathected elements. The ontology of the formations of life is not rendered meaningful by discovering them. Therefore, in the knowledge of other minds, we must observe the forms, their constitutions, and their elements. Cathections, values, etc., are facts but do not make the group of meaning at the level of formal existence of mind. The form itself is meaning and its elements are the elements of meanings.

Knowledge by Assimilation

The elements of the mental field are combined vertically and horizontally. The relations of simultaneity and succession, peculiar to the mental order, prevail between them. If we observe an element in our apprehension of the other mind, we look into its relation with other simultaneous elements, and also look into its relations with other preceding elements. This is knowledge of the spatio-temporality of the mental existence.

In the knowledge of other minds we are in cognitive contact with a spatio-temporal reality, which constitutes the life of mind. We know minds as they are in their spatio-temporal organisations. This spatio-temporal context, like every other context, contains its filling ‘contents’ which are peculiar to it. They have the same common level and type of existence; the elements in a context share the same type and level of existence which cannot belong to other contexts. For instance, chemistry possesses the elements which cannot be extrapolated to other fields of being; the elements like oxygen, hydrogen, iron, etc., share the same type and level of existence which is enjoyed by any other element to be discovered in the chemical context.

So in a specific context of mental life, its elementary data are at par with one another; their typology is the same. The muscular sets, changes of the faces, the poses of the organs, the housing conditions and so on are the data (elements) at the same plane of existence with the same typology of being.

All these elements or data are combined with one another in spatio-temporal configurations. In the observation of other minds we grasp the spatio-temporal coordinates composed of these elements of the same sort and level. We catch hold of these elements in their successive and simultaneous arrangements and describe that ‘X is anxious’, ‘Y is furious’, ‘Z is disappointed’. There is no connotation of these forms -- anxiety and fury and disappointment, etc. (crude symbolism as they are) -- which require elements of some other level and kind of Being. We do not go ‘inside’ the elements. We merely observe their relations, horizontal and vertical, with other elements. We remain at the level of presentations and comprehend their spatio-temporal coordinations and arrangements whenever we observe other persons.

After the observation, we twist our objects and, instead of representing what we have seen, we introduce our own constructs and describe the facts of observation. The consequence is that the descriptions do not have one-to-one relations with the field of observation. The descriptions are projections of the observer into the field under inspection. This sort of activity is preached by historicism. It is said that in the knowledge of other minds the observer ‘internalises’ the presentations, which process issues in identification in which the observer lives through the internalised data of other minds. The observer makes them data of his own self, and reads his internal processes, thereby knowing what these data mean. He projects these readings on the face of the other person and understands what he is likely to be.

This is called the principle of ‘Understanding’, according to which the assimilation of the known in the knower is the principle of knowledge of other minds. It constitutes the philosophy of historicism. Collingwood, Sorokin, MacIver, and Znaniecke in their explications of the epistemology of mind propound that no one knows the other person without the process of identification, and in identification we thrust ourselves into the contents of the life of other persons. Thus, the knowledge of other minds is nothing but an image of our own self. We observe the contents and fill them with the meanings supplied to us from our own inner resources. Therefore the historical works do not reproduce the ancient civilisations; they mirror the historian’s, they portray their own subjective spirits. In knowing other men, I know myself.

This theory of knowledge supported by many great social scientists, anthropologists and philosophers of culture of today is challenged by Fakhruddin Razi, Hazamudin Behrawi and Sadruddin Sherazi. The unity of the knower and the known in the fact of knowledge is also rejected by Shah Waliullah for it means that a noble man cannot know the ignoble and that God cannot know the criminal without assimilating him into His being. This subjectivistic theory really rules out knowledge of other minds; it means that I know rather my states of consciousness.

The knowledge-by-identification theory provides the so-called ‘meaningful components’ of the facts of life. Accordingly, if there is an element X after which appears Z, the transition from X to Z is made possible by some Y which is its meaningful causal component. The variables X and Z require an intervening variable of ‘causal-meaningful’ lines. This schemata is behind the physicalistic philosophy also when applied to the knowledge of other minds. The physicalists admit that their reductionism does not define their states of mind but provides simply the physical signs (components) of the mental situations with which they are related to a certain degree of probability. This reductionism must again return to the method of imaginative reconstruction in order to pour meaning into the physical signs of the mental life. Therefore, this pan-physicalistic movement is the same idealism of knowledge-by-identification sort.

Knowledge and Content

The theory of the knowledge of other minds advocated here is plain. It does not seek any intervening variables and does not demand identification. It asserts rather that we know other minds without internalisation of the data apprehended. We observe them and note their spatio-temporality, their relationships with other data or par with them in their typology and level of being.

We observe ourselves and others in the same objective manner. This is real knowledge and the knowledge of mind does not need any special sort of categorisation as distinct from the knowledge of such other things as stones and trees. We stop to know other persons and ourselves as soon as we start to pour in some mentally constructed variables from the situations of our lives or of other lives, with the result that there remains no correspondence between what there is and what we imagine.

However, the formations we observe are reducible without remainder to the elements found in the spatio-temporal continua of the life of mind. Some formations of life include such elements as (1) limbs, (2) office, (3) factory organisation; others include (1) the sky and stars, (2) landscape, and (3) and the cultivated land; still others are comprised of (1) church organisations, (2) rituals and (3) township. Thus, the context of mind in some of its formations is congruent with the entire universe; in others is installed in its rural or urban setting; in some others is narrowed down to a breathing centre. There is no particular and rigid limit to its context. We simply see the face and want to know what there is in all formations. In this misapplication of our energies we observe only a tiny element of the big formations of the mind and report to others that mind is invisible.

Consciousness of some objects terminates at the grasp of the simple unanalysable elements given in its nature. They are presented as ultimate given data which do not admit of further analysis; in their nature they are mutually irreducible because mutually distinct. Therefore they are unanalysable in terms of the order of their existence. They are not simply distinct from each other, but are predicated with possibility and as such are identical with each other; they share the existence or "is-ness" peculiar to all of them. In other words, there is an existence of which the simple distinctions are possible differentiations, which collected together form a complex. Thus every complex (formation or event) belongs to the context of a specific existence wherein it occupies the fourth order of existence. To be precise, every Is-ness in its contextualisation formulates the following categories or orders of itself:

The universal category of existence.

The category of possibility.

The category of the simple distinctions.

The combinations of the simple distinctions, which in this order, are called elements.

Cognitive comprehension always remains within a context and penetrates up to its third order only. It notices the distinctions and knows their mutual differentiations, yet they do not move further analytically. It cognises the order of existence without analysis; and apprehends it as unanalysed given datum universally pervading all the orders formed in its context. It is the final definitive essence of everything, but itself does not admit of definition. We are simply acquainted with it. Our acquaintance with the simple elements of a context presupposes a direct acquaintance with its universal existence and with the possibilities that constitute the essence of these elements. Thus, awareness with the homogeneous mass, defining and articulating the entire field delineated in its context, is an a priori condition of its recognitions in its heterogeneous distinctions. The knowledge of distinctions presupposes the knowledge of the reality of which they are distinctions.

Consequently, the knowledge of a formation involves the earlier cognition of its possibility and existence that constitutes its essential givenness. For example, we must know the bare existence of chemical interaction in order to know the chemical formations like carbon dioxide and calcium chloride, etc. Similarly, we must be aware of the category of ‘mechanical displacement’ in order to apprehend the motions of the motor-cars, the flights of rockets, etc. Without the direct knowledge of the existence of ‘exchange’, we cannot grasp such complex phenomena as price fluctuations, interest rates, employment levels, etc.

By the earlier direct acquaintance with the existence of a context, we do not mean temporal precedence, but simply logical priority. From this discussion it follows that the knowledge of the formations, states, and articulations of mind involves the earlier knowledge of the existence of mind. We are able to cognise the facts of mind because we directly know it as a given datum, an unanalysable existence. ‘Chemical interaction’, ‘mechanical displacement’ and ‘electromagnetism’ are unanalysable facts in their respective fields in which we study their formations, intricate developments and transformations. Since we directly know ‘sociation’, we know the realities that develop in its fields like cooperation, competitions, institutions, cultural patterns, etc., and finally the social system. There is no such question, ‘How do we know’? but only ‘What do we know’?

Knowledge and Context

Every entity is a member of some context defined in terms of the specific existence that constitutes it. Stripped of the context, the entity is meaningless and connotes nothing; its name is simply a meaningless utterance.

Pan-physicalistic movement is an adventure into this sort of meaninglessness. It tries to reduce all entities, happenings and formations, stripped of their contexts, to terms of the language of physics (Hempel). Its programme is to reduce any context so that it must be presentable in sentences which contain only physicalistic terms. As this programme is not promising to many physicalists they are satisfied to discover the essential (and unique) physicalistic parts of the situation that may serve its sign -- test conditions. Since the sense impressions are stuff in some particular contexts, they cannot be carried over to become the sign situations of other contexts without themselves becoming meaningless. Therefore complete or partial reduction, in its essential nature, is meaningless.

If a physicalist is asked to signify the monetary phenomena, his reductive technique would compel him to reduce it to the ‘metal with the marks’ and the ‘paper and the printed impressions’ which name the units of the money. The printed paper and the marked metal in the pecuniary world are simply symbols of the money and not its signs, in the same way in which our proper names are symbols of our beings and not parts of ourselves. In this manner, the physicalist is doomed to utter failure. The context of ‘credit’ defines the money as a medium of exchange. We know credit, therefore we know money; but credit has no physical signs as part of its existence. If we reduce it to printed paper, the entire mass of regular monetary transactions would be reduced to a heap of disconnected pieces of paper mysteriously moving from hand to hand in geophysical space.

Similarly, the ‘exchange of goods’ does not admit of the physicalistic reduction, neither is the existence of sociation reducible to protocols containing physical terms. Physicalists are not able to grasp these realities, fortunately they are human beings first and never fail in the community of minds. Those physicalists who have contributed to the advancement of the cultural sciences, like Dodd and Lundberg, had first recognised the irreducible character of the contexts of their study and then proceeded forward.

Exchange, credit, sociation, etc., are simple distinctions within the context of mind, which in turn formulate their own respective contexts. If the physicalist is not able to reduce these distinctions defined in the context of mind to the propositions of physics, he has no chance to reduce the ultimate mental existence to physicalistic protocols. Such simple relations as ‘and’, ‘if then’, ‘smaller than’, ‘greater than’, etc., do not have physical signs as part of their nature, but they are known to us.

An entity is a relation if it is dyadic or polyadic in its character. Love, hate, cooperation, competition, rivalry, etc., are relations. They are not like colours or like sounds; yet they are known. They are relations which obtain between events, facts and any stuff which is appropriate to them. Their presence in a field organises the field in its respective configurations. Therefore, we are able to recognise the love configuration in such diverse things as poetry, religious experience, mother-child relations, etc. Similarly, we recognise the competitive situation because we are aware of the relation of competition which organises the whole content of the situation in its relational manifold. Likewise, we cognise the power of politics, because we know the relation of power.

The reduction of these configurations to physicalistic terms is quite impossible. Perhaps, it may be said that a particular set of the face is the sign of benevolence which therefore is reducible to this sign. But for this to be recognised as a ‘sign’ of benevolence presupposes our knowledge of ‘benevolence’. Moreover, the ‘sign’ is also an arrangement of the elements in which the peculiar relations appropriate to benevolence must prevail.

Love, competition, pride, hatred, etc., are visible not because the ‘physical’ elements are part of their reality, but because they are directly known and recognised by us in every configuration. Moreover, bright smiles, facial expressions, shapes of the human body, etc., are not things of the physical field, but of the mental field independent of their discovery in the physical context. Physics or the language of physics does not recognise patches of colours; it only knows the refraction of the rays. The chairs and tables which decorate our dwellings are not matter for chemestry or physics with its electromagnetic whirlpools, but are artefaces of human culture and as such they exist only in the human context. We have Ellura, Ajanta and Taj Mahal; chemistry has cilicates, corbonates and calcium compounds; we have fevers; physics has thermal change.

Thus, the audio-visual fields open to a knower are besides the contexts of physics and chemistry and belong to their own contexts. But the language symbolising the entities of their context is carried over to the physical and chemical fields in violation of the rules of language construction. Physicalists worship these law-breaking customs. These contexts -- the audio-visual fields -- are continuous with the mental contexts. They possess their own ‘simple’ distinctive beings (for instance the various coloursin the visual field) independent of the elements of chemistry and the "simples" of physics. These "simples" are arranged in various ways in the context of the life of mind. One particular manifold of their systematisation is competition and another is cooperation. It is by virtue of their relational manifold that we know what they signify. In themselves they signify nothing; only as a part of a relational order are they significant.

Signs, Cultures and Knowledge of Other Minds

Sign is a role played by some parts of a whole when an observer is present. Their sign function is essentially communicative. Every arrangement of a spiritual formation contains its own temporality so that the data which appear earlier are signs of that which follows. If, a priori, we know the entire formation then we are able to know what is signified. A competitive form of existence undergoes various turns of its formation; and at a single moment the observer notes only the parts which then appear. They signify what is gone, and also what is to come. A soft mind, who knows nothing about the form of competition, cannot read the significance; for him the data are meaningless and the mind is not known. Therefore, we develop the formal sciences of human fields and the human scientists who know human formations are called upon to tell us what a particular event means.

A mind at a particular instant of its being is an order of signs which constitutes its entire life at that particular instant. Consequently, although we know other minds, we know them in their different moments of life, and never in their entire formations. The difficulty is not only in knowing others, but also in knowing ourselves; we do not know what we will do tomorrow.

To remove this difficulty and to be able to predict future behaviour, we develop and follow the ethos and norms of formations. We evolve various sorts of mores and standards of the patterns of activities; we give ourselves various conventions and rules of formation. We know them in advance and comply with them, and therefore we know what each of us is doing. We know the formative conventions of a performance, and if in the context of some other mind it is taking place, our knowledge enables us to predict what will happen next. We make routines and schedules, time-tables and programmes, introduce them among ourselves, and know what is going to be tomorrow.

The totality of the conventions, norms, rules, customs and schedulings guaranteed by the coercive forces of various sorts, is called the culture. It provides a comprehensive mapping of the behaviour field of the entire society, fixing the roles of the individuals and their respective movements. We move in its field via the routes and trajectories fixed for us. All of us know the culture at least up to the primary and some of the secondary relations; consequently, if we know the place and position of some other person, we are able to know his roles, determinations and formations.

In the principle of culture we are lifted above the knowledge. Mind or self is the maker, inventor and contriver, and as such operates above the cognitive principle. From that position, he gives to himself laws of operations, rules of formations, styles, manners and the programmes of his life; then he knows what he would do. In mutual communion minds do the same, and communicate with each other through the medium of the rules, constitutions and modes of their own making.

There remains the ultimate question: what is communicated to us in the knowledge of other minds independent of all its constructions and inventions, formulations and determinations? A bare existence, unanalysable and indivisible, is known to us in the knowledge of other minds. To know a mind in its complete purity without any of its distinctions and articulations is as much good as to know any other mind. It is direct acquaintance with this existence, indistinct and unspecified, that is presupposed in every context of its recognition. Its knowledge, as Professor M. Aslam remarks, may be a miracle as is every other knowledge.

Chapter VII: Iqbal on the Material and Spiritual Future of Humanity

Javid Iqbal

Iqbal’s world view is based on his deep concern with the future of humanity as well as of religion. On the future of humanity his thoughts are scattered in his poetic works and some of his prose writings. But on the future of religion he has elaborated his ideas in the last chapter of his book: The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, entitled "Is Religion Possible?"

Broadly speaking, religion is required for the moral uplift of humans: if there had been no humans, there would have been no need for religion. Therefore humanity and religion complement each other and it is proper to assess Iqbal’s views on the future of humanity before considering his ideas on the future of religion.

Let us begin by defining two relevant terms: (a) development, and (b) the modern person. In the modern context, development means increase in the per capita income of a nation state; this purely materialistic concept of development is generally considered a Western innovation. The meaning of "the modern person" reflects changes in the mentality and way of life of the Western as a result of the dissemination of materialism and the evolution of Western Europe from a developing to a developed society. The modern person or man is sometimes called industrial man, technical man, mass man, one-sided man, angry man, lonely man, etc. One believes in the supremacy of the science and technology of which one is a product; one relies on reason and feverish activity; one is secular, proud, selfish, and amoral; one seeks happiness only through multiplying material comforts and wealth. According to Iqbal, the modern person is so much overshadowed by the results of intellectual achievements that one has ceased to live soulfully, i.e., from within.

Many liberal thinkers and poets of the West have criticised the modern man. There is a very interesting passage in Iqbal’sReconstruction Lectures in which he shows his disillusionment with both the Western and the Eastern person.

In the domain of thought he is living in open conflict with himself, and in the domain of economic and political life he is living in open conflict with others. He finds himself unable to control his ruthless egoism and his infinite gold-hunger which is gradually killing all higher striving in him and bringing him nothing but life-weariness. Absorbed in the ‘fact’, that is to say, the optically present source of sensation, he is entirely cut off from the unplumbed depths in his own being.

About Eastern person, he laments:

The conditions of things in the East are no better. The technique of medieval mysticism by which religious life, in its higher manifestations, developed itself both in the East and in the West has now practically failed.... Far from reintegrating the forces of the average man’s inner life, and thus preparing him for participation in the march of history, it has taught him a false renunciation and made him perfectly contented with his ignorance and spiritual thraldom (Reconstruction, pp. 148-149).

Generally speaking, the modern person is the Western and is found in materially prosperous countries, technically called I. D. Cs (Industrially -Developed Countries) as oppose to U. D. Cs (Under-Developed Countries).

The Development of Materialism and the Emergence of the Modern Person

What took place in Europe which eventually led to the development of materialism and the emergence of this modern person? European society in the Middle Ages was feudal. The average person lived as a serf, totally dominated by cruel feudal lords and a static Church. The hold of the Church was primarily based on Ptolemy’s cosmology, according to which the earth was the centre of the universe and everything, including the sun, revolved round it. On the basis of this cosmology, the position adopted by the church was that man was under the direct gaze of God. Thus the Church, being the vicar of God and with the support of the feudal lords, acquired enormous power over the ignorant, superstitious and frightened masses who were exploited for centuries.

However, certain events and movements in Europe changed that state of affairs. These were: the Reformation, which released man’s faith from the hold of a dominating and static Church; the Renaissance, which liberated the human mind, which in its quest for knowledge gradually learned to depend on reason, sense-perception and scientific thinking; and the shattering of Ptolemaic cosmology by Copernican astronomy, according to which the earth could no longer be considered the centre of the cosmos: as one celestial body among many revolving around the sun it was but an insignificant speck.

Hence, human beings were not under the constant gaze of God, indeed Darwin’s theory followed that they had descended from apes, biologically evolving from animals. Iqbal feels that this formulation of evolution in Europe (unlike the one advanced Islam which evoked Rumi’s tremendous enthusiasm for the biological future of man) led to the belief that there existed no scientific basis for the idea that the present rich human endowment would ever be materially exceeded. For Iqbal "This is how the modern man’s secret despair hides itself behind the screen of scientific technology" (Reconstruction, pp. 148).

However Iqbal realised that all these events collectively made people conscious that they had to depend solely on themselves, which led to their awakening. People gained confidence through the philosophies of criticism and naturalism, and felt that their future lay exclusively in their control over the forces of nature. Thereafter the industrial revolution changed the face of Europe, and with the French Revolution came the concepts of liberty, equality and fraternity. It was in fact this awakening which led to the rise and growth of materialism, and to the disappearance of religion from the collective life of the people.

After learning how to produce energy through coal and steam, cheap energy and labour were used for running factories and mills. Europe manufactured more goods then ever before seen in the history of humankind. The sale of these goods required markets, the search for which and, in turn, for more raw materials led to colonialism and imperialism. As a market society was created in Europe, the standard of life of the average person improved and emphasis upon freedom of trade curtailed the autocratic powers of monarchs, supplanting them by capitalist democracies on the basis of territorial nationalism.

In Europe these events engendered the formation of a new mentality and a new freedom; the new person who emerged in this process demanded absolute freedom without any kind of control which actually amounted to tyranny and meant ruthless trampling over the rights of others.

Therefore, the modern person with all its dedication to and respect for, human rights maintained double standards as, broadly speaking, human society was divided into the exploiters and the exploited. The competition and jealousy among the exploiter-robber nations of Europe eventually led to the first World War, on the one hand, and the establishment of atheistic socialism or communism in Russia, on the other. The struggle for supremacy over the others continued and resulted in the second World War.

But no lesson was learned by man from these two wars of mass destruction of human life and property. The race for the manufacture and production of fatal arms did not stop. According to the figures provided by Dr. Hans Blix, by 1985 there existed 50,000 nuclear devices with an explosive yield of 1000 Hiroshima bombs -- the equivalent of four tons of TNT each human being in the world.

The I. D. Cs sustain their prosperous position through the production and use of energy. While the population of the I. D. Cs is 27 percent of the population of the world it consumes 80 percent of the world’s energy produce. The population of the U. S. A. is only 6 percent of the world population but it consumes 36 percent of the energy, whereas the U. D. Cs constitute 73 percent of the world population and use only 20 percent of the world’s energy.

The U. D. Cs aspire to become like the I. D. Cs, and have before them the model of the West, but the I. D. Cs maintain their economic and technological hegemony by imposing and economic system based on loans. If the U. D. Cs increase the prices of raw material, the I. D. Cs increase the prices of technology or finished products. This results in a global inflation which is not as destructive for the I. D. Cs as for the poor U. D. Cs. Thus the material prosperity of modern man is founded upon and maintained on this discrimination between people. Nevertheless, despite the oil crisis, global inflation, and a population explosion in the U. D. Cs, the movement there for economic freedom and technological participation gains in momentum.

Meanwhile a depressing picture of the future is presented in the annual reports of the Club of Rome. According to these reports by approximately the middle of the 21st century the world’s food resources may be completely exhausted. Hunger is likely to strike first in certain parts of Africa and thereafter in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, etc. If the growth rate of the population remains the same as it is at present, this situation is likely to arise in the first quarter of the 21st century. The reports also state that the conventional means of energy may be completely exhausted before the end of the 21st century.

In the light of these reports, some liberal thinkers of the West are recommending that the political leaders of the I. D. Cs review their definition of development. According to some of them the utopias of the early 20th century i.e., communism and capitalism, as economic orders, both have failed to get rid of under-development on a global scale, and at present there is no economic system which can generate the human will and courage to improve living conditions. The eminent Marxist philosophers, Herbert Marcuse and Maximilion Robel, were extremely critical of the Soviet policy of concentrating on breaking the Western industrial and technological supremacy instead of using the Soviet revolution for the economic betterment of humankind. Such a policy could have forestalled the eventual breakdown of the Soviet economy.

At present, world politics are not development-oriented but power -oriented. As power is dependent on economic stability, then the emergence and continuance of a unipolar power cannot perdure in an ivory tower, when 73 percent of the population of the world is afflicted with global inflation, population explosion and underdevelopment. Liberal thinkers see the world today on the edge of a global economic crisis which can lead to the total destruction of mankind. Consequently, they suggest the establishment of a new international economic order based on ethics and morality.

Such artificial discriminations as blacks and whites, capitalists and communists, developed and underdeveloped, etc., have been harmful for the natural advancement of humanity. Tofler suggests that the U. N. should establish an international body composed of economic experts belonging to both I. D. Cs as well as U. D. Cs, to control the threatened global economic crisis and to keep an eye on the negative trends of world economy. In order to save humanity from future economic crises, it is necessary to think in terms of the unity of human beings rather than of nations. The world’s population should be planned according to its resources and that these resources, which should be fully exploited. All are underdeveloped in the sense that for economic survival they depend on one another. Therefore the future survival of humankind is possible only if it is matured by the bitter past experiences and learns to respect fellow men. (Future Shock/The Ecco Spasm Report).

It is interesting to note that the views now stated by such liberal thinkers regarding the future of humanity are more or less the same as those expressed by Iqbal in his writings more than 50 years ago. Iqbal rejected territorial nationalism as a basis for human unity even when he was a student in Europe. In the Allahabad Address (1930) which contained his suggestion of the formation of a Muslim state in the north-west of the Indian subcontinent, he had stated:

Luther... did not realise that in the peculiar conditions which obtained in Europe, his revolt (against the Church organisation) would eventually mean the complete displacement of the universal ethics of Jesus by the growth of a plurality of national and hence narrower systems of ethics. Thus the upshot of the intellectual movement initiated by.... Rousseau and Luther was the break up of the one into a mutually ill-adjusted many, (and) the transformation of a human into a national outlook.... The result is a set of mutually ill-adjusted states dominated by interests not human but national. And these mutually ill-adjusted states after trampling over the morals and convictions of Christianity, are today feeling the need for a federated Europe, i.e., the need of a unity which the Christian Church organisation originally gave them, but which, instead of reconstructing it in the light of Christ’s mission of human brotherhood, they considered fit to destroy under the inspiration of Luther (Speeches and Statements, ed. by A. R. Tariq, pp. 4-6).

In a poem titled "Mecca and Geneva" included in his Zarb-i-Kalim, he points out that in this age nations seem to be mixing freely with one another, although the principle of unity remains hidden from the discerning eye. This is so because the aim of Western diplomacy is to divide humanity into nations, whereas the mission of Islam is to unify human beings into one fraternity. In this regard Mecca sent a message to the city of Geneva: Are you content to be a seat of the League of Nations or would you prefer to be the centre of United Humanity?

In a statement recorded a couple of months before his death in 1938, Iqbal pointed out:

The modern age prides itself on its progress in knowledge and its matchless scientific developments. No doubt, the pride is justified.... But inspite of all these developments, the tyranny of imperialism struts abroad, covering its face in the masks of (capitalist) democracy, (territorial) nationalism, communism, fascism and heaven knows what else besides. Under these masks, in every corner of the earth, the spirit of freedom and the dignity of man are being trampled underfoot in a way which not even the darkest period of human history presents a parallel. The so-called statesmen to whom government had entrusted leadership have proved demons of bloodshed, tyranny and oppression. The rulers whose duty it was to promote higher humanity, to prevent man’s oppression of man and to elevate the moral and intellectual level of mankind, have in their hunger for dominion..., shed the blood of millions and reduced millions to servitude simply in order to pander to the greed and avarice of their own particular groups. After subjugating... weaker peoples... they sowed (the seeds of) divisions among them that they should shed one another’s blood and go to sleep under the opiate of serfdom, so that the leech of imperialism might go on sucking their blood without interruption.... The governments which are not themselves engaged in this drama of fire and blood are sucking the blood of the weaker peoples economically. It is as if the day of doom had come upon the earth, in which each man looks after the safety of his own skin, and in which no voice of human sympathy is audible.... The world’s thinkers are stricken dumb. Is this going to be the end of all this progress and evolution of human civilisation?... Remember, man can be maintained on this earth only by honouring mankind, and this world will remain a battleground of ferocious beasts of prey unless and until the educational (and moral) forces of the whole world are directed to inculcate in man respect for humankind.... National unity too is not a very durable force. Only one unity is dependable and that unity is the brotherhood of man, which is above race, nationality, colour or language.... So long as men do not demonstrate by their actions that they believe that the whole world is the family of God, so long as distinctions of race, colour and geographical nationalities are not wiped out completely, they will never be able to lead happy and contented lives, and the beautiful ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity will never materialise. (Speeches and Statements, ed. by A. R. Tariq, pp. 226-228)

The Future of Religion

It has been pointed out that, broadly speaking, religion is required for the moral uplift of man. However, a counter argument may be advanced that questioning why morality or ethics, being a branch of philosophy, should it be founded on religion. This line of questioning leads naturally to the discussion of the difference between philosophy and religion.

According to Iqbal, philosophy is an independent inquiry based on reason for the comprehension of reality in the broader or higher sense, religion also is a search for reality, but its foundations are laid on experience which is not at the normal level, were one to claim that the normal level of experience is the only one that yields knowledge then religion need not attract anyone’s attention. But, Iqbal argues, the universe as normally perceived is only an intellectual construct, and there are other levels of human experience capable of being systematised by other orders of time and space in which concept and analysis does not play the same part as normal experience. For this reason the knowledge gained by religious experience, essentially personal and incommunicable. However, Iqbal maintains, this does not imply that the pursuit in if religion has been futile.

The modern person is secular in the sense of being indifferent toward religion. The reason is that according to their evaluation religion is not in conflict with science, but science has precedence as its findings are rationally demonstrable religion is reduced to mere superstition providing solace in stages of ignorance, but has no authentic relevance in the present and future. Iqbal does not agree with this conclusion. In his view reality has outer as well as inner dimensions; science is concerned with the external behaviour of reality, whereas the domain of religion is to discover the meanings of reality in reference to its inner nature. In this respect both scientific and religious processes run parallel to each other: "A careful study of the nature and purpose of these really complementary processes shows that both of them are directed to purification of experience in their respective spheres" (Reconstruction, p. 155).

Iqbal divides religious life into three periods. In the first religious life appears as a form of discipline voluntarily accepted by an individual or a group of people as unconditional commands, without any rational understanding of the ultimate purpose of those commands. Only in this sense is religion based on dogma, ritual or some kind of priesthood. In the second period revelation is reconciled with reason and its discipline is accompanied by a rational understanding of its discipline and of the ultimate source of authority. At this stage religion may claim to be sole possessor of the Truth and may become exclusive or engender hatred against other religions, as well as within one religion itself when one mode of interpretation comes into conflict with another. In the third period religion becomes a matter of personal assimilation of life and power. Iqbal calls this third stage of religious life higher religion.

It is, then, in the sense of this last phase in the development of religious life that I use the word religion.... Religion in this sense is known by the unfortunate name of mysticism, which is supposed to be a life-denying, fact-avoiding attitude of mind directly opposed to the radically empirical outlook of our times. Yet higher religion, which is only a search for a larger life, is essentially experience and recognised the necessity of experience as its foundation long before science learnt to do so (Reconstruction, p. 143-144).

In this context of higher religion, where God is the centre of all religions and the Truth is absolute, why is there a diversity or relativity of religions? The answer of Martin Lings is that God has sent different religions suited to the needs, requirements and characteristics of the different groups of humanity in different temporal cycles. But if these groups of men, in the course of human history, have persecuted one another on account of religious differences, then Providence cannot be held responsible. However, despite winning converts through persuasion or slaughter of human beings in the name of religion, many religions which have fought or competed with one another in past history have survived and now dominate different parts of the world. It is necessary, therefore, irrespective of the position adopted by the partisan religious authorities, that we must carefully examine what, according to Iqbal, higher religion teaches about the nature of God.

Modern Western civilisation has dealt with the problem of religion through encouraging the development of two types of secularism. One is based on indifference towards religion; this attitude is adopted by modern man in capitalist democracies. The other type is based on the suppression of religion; for a number of years this policy has been followed by the socialist countries. But experience tells us that indifference towards religion automatically leads to the demand for that variety of "freedom" which Albert Camus calls "tyranny" or "waywardness." On the other hand, recent developments in the U. S. S. R. and the other socialist countries indicate that atheism cannot be successfully imposed on a people from outside, and that whenever such an attempt is made, it is bound to fail. Thus it is evident that the existing types of secularism have not been able to resolve the problem.

It is perhaps in this background that Iqbal rejected the methodologies of territorial nationalism, capitalism, atheistic socialism, as well as religious conservatism, as drawing upon the psychological forces of hate, suspicion and resentment which tend to impoverish the soul of man, closing up his hidden sources of spiritual energy.

Surely the present moment is one of great crisis in the history of modern culture. The modern world stands in need of biological renewal. And religion, which in its higher manifestation is neither dogma, nor priesthood, nor ritual, can alone ethically prepare modern man for the burden of the great responsibility which the advancement of modern science necessarily involves, and restore to him that attitude of faith which makes him capable of winning a personality here and retaining it hereafter. It is only by rising to a fresh vision of his origin and future, his whence and whither, that man will eventually triumph over a society motivated by an inhuman competition, and a civilisation which has lost its spiritual unity by its inner conflict of religious and political values. (Reconstruction, p. 149).

From the above analysis it appears that the solution of the problem lies in the adoption of the policy, not of indifference or suppression, but of respect for all religions. Every religion in the narrower sense consists of dogma, ritual and some form of priesthood. This aspect of religion is exclusive or relative to the people who adhere to it, and only in this sense is the international community is multi-religious. Unfortunately some of the religious communities in the world today are passing through a phase of conservatism or fundamentalism which has let loose the forces of hatred and resentment. Whatever may be the reasons for this affliction, let us hope that the phase is temporary and shall pass away. However according to Iqbal, each great religion at the higher level contains the absolute Truth. Therefore it is necessary for every religious community to discover and project the higher level of its religion. It is at this level that religion can restore to humanity its spiritual unity and ethically prepare one to respect one’s fellow-men.

Iqbal does not consider Islam as a religion in the ancient sense of the word. For him, "It is an attitude -- an attitude, that is to say, of Freedom, and even of defiance to the Universe. It is really a protest against the entire outlook of the ancient world. Briefly, it is the discovery of Man (Stray Reflections. p. 193).

Iqbal deduces the principles of higher religion from the verses of the Qur‘an and bases his political idealism on them. Two examples may be useful.

In Sura XXII, verse 40 it is stated: "If God had not raised a group (i.e., Muslims) to ward off the others from aggression, the churches, synagogues, oratories and mosques, where God is worshipped most, would have been destroyed."

Broadening the interpretation of this verse so as to include all religious minorities in a Muslim state, he proclaims in theAllahabad Address:

A community which is inspired by the feeling of ill-will towards other communities, is low and ignoble. I entertain the highest respect for the customs, laws, religious and social institutions of other communities. Nay, it is my duty, according to the teachings of the Qur‘an, even to defend their places of worship, if need be (Speeches and Statements, ed. by A. R. Tariq, p. 10).

For Iqbal "Tauhid" (The Unity of God), as a working idea, stands for equality, solidarity and the freedom of man. Therefore from the Islamic standpoint, the state is essentially an effort to transform these ideal principles into spacial and temporal (Reconstruction, pp. 122-123). He not only sees the republican form of government as consistent with the spirit of Islam, but is convinced that the ultimate object of Islam is the establishment of a "spiritual democracy."

There are specific verses on which Iqbal could have relied? Let us examine the relevant verses.

(a) In Sura XL verse 78 while addressing the Holy Prophet, God says: "Verily We have sent messengers before thee. About some of them have We told thee, and about some have We not told thee."

The self-evident meaning of the verse is that God has sent not only those prophets whose names are known to the Semitic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), but others bearing the tidings of numerous other modes of religion of Truth.

(b) The second relevant piece in this connection is Sura V verse 69 in which it is stated: "Verily the Faithful (Muslims) and the Jews and the Sabians and the Christians, whoso believeth in God and the Last Day and doeth good deeds, no fear shall come upon them, neither shall they grieve." As for the expression "Sabians" there is no general agreement as to which religion this is. However, as indicated in the verse, that category of religions is based on a central idea of God and accountability, which emphasise doing good deeds. Thus according to the Qur‘an, everyone who believes in God and eventual accountability and who does good deeds need not fear as no grief shall come upon them.

(c) The third is Sura V verse 48 in which God, addressing human beings, declares:

For each of you We have appointed a law and a way. And if God had willed He would have made you one (religious) community. But (He hath willed it otherwise) that He may put you to the test in what He has given you. So vie with one another in good works. Unto God will ye be brought back, and He will inform you about that wherein ye differed.

If God had sent only one religion to a world of widely differing aptitudes, it would not have been a fair test for all. Therefore He has sent many different religions and in this Qur‘anic verse He expects human beings to enter into rivalry with one another only in doing good deeds and nothing else. It was in the light of such verses of the Qur‘an that Iqbal desired that the Muslims of today evolve and establish a "spiritual democracy." He maintains:

Humanity needs three things today -- a spiritual interpretation of the universe, spiritual emancipation of the individual, and basic principles of a universal import directing the evolution of human society on a spiritual basis. Modern Europe has, no doubt, built idealistic systems on these lines, but experience shows that truth revealed through pure reason is incapable of bringing that fire of living conviction which personal revelation alone can bring. This is the reason why pure thought has so little influenced men, while religion has always elevated individuals and transformed whole societies.... With him (i.e., the Muslim) the spiritual basis of life is a matter of conviction for which even the least enlightened man among us can easily lay down his life; and in view of the basic idea of Islam that there can be no further revelation binding on man, we ought to be spiritually one of the most emancipated peoples on earth. Early Muslims emerging out of the spiritual slavery of pre-Islamic Asia were not in a position to realise the true significance of this basic idea. Let the Muslim of today appreciate his position, reconstruct his social life in the light of ultimate principles, and evolve, out of the hitherto partially revealed purpose of Islam, that spiritual democracy which is the ultimate aim of Islam. (Reconstruction, p. 142).

The conclusion is that if for the survival of humanity it is necessary to respect his fellow-humans, in the same way it is necessary for one to learn to respect religions other than one’s own. Only through the adoption of this moral and spiritual approach, borrowing Iqbal’s phrase, may one rise to a fresh vision of one’s future.

Part II: Classical Islamic Philosophy and Metaphysics


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