A preliminary attempt to compare the epistemological frameworks of the scientific traditions in the West and in Islam
Scientific activities are done with the assumption that the natural world is ordered through systematic laws that can be discovered by the human mind. Nature can be known in certainty apart from the perspective of the observer, and only then can science proceed. This dualistic vision of nature...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Eubios Ethics Institute
2010
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://irep.iium.edu.my/23687/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/23687/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/23687/1/The_Teaching_of_Ethics_at_KOE.pdf |
| Summary: | Scientific activities are done with the assumption
that the natural world is ordered through systematic
laws that can be discovered by the human mind.
Nature can be known in certainty apart from the
perspective of the observer, and only then can
science proceed. This dualistic vision of nature is
widely accepted by the Western philosophy of
science, but however, not without any objection. The
first half of this paper then would delineate of how Descartes, and how it then later emerged as an
epistemological problem and brought into a new
insight by Kant. Many other philosophers then,
especially the Romantics and the Existentialists such
as Goethe, Hegel, Heidegger and the depth
psychoanalyst Jung with his archetypal psychology
tried to give a more integrated epistemology than the
simple mathematical and dualistic vision that had
been proposed by Descartes. All these attempts
have a common belief that ultimately the relationship
of man with nature, epistemologically, is participatory,
instead of dualistic. We will delineate further as a
general overview, and by using Jungian archetypal
psychology as our base, of what does participatory
epistemology mean. On the other hand, in the
second half of the paper, we will focus on how
Islamic epistemology responds to this Descartes
dualistic vision and we will see of how Islamic
epistemology had already proposed a complex
resolution in order to overcome this dualistic vision
without overthrowing the basic hierarchy that
separates man and nature. Our main source of
reference is Professor Syed Muhammad Naquib al-
Attasʼs philosophy of science in Islam which we
believe is enough to fulfill the purpose of our paper. |
|---|