The artist and analytic Kant scholar Adrian Piper has been aptly described as “one of the most important and influential cultural figures of our time. The award-winning work of installation and participatory performance art, Probable Trust Registry: Rules of the Game #1-3, implicitly poses philosophical questions of interest to contractarian philosophy and its critique, including whether through an art installation one can execute a genuine, morally binding commitment to be honest, authentic, and respectful of oneself. Especially for audiences who closely identify with her experiences, Piper’s artwork, like that of other important artists, has powerfully catalytic ethical potential. Motivated by admiration for the artist and a perceived conflictual relationship between women of color and conventional discourses of moral solidarity, I offer three different ways to understand Piper’s Probable Trust Registry. I suggest that Piper’s thought-provoking artwork, which implicitly nods at John Rawls and Charles Mills, can be interpreted as asking its audiences to agree to selections from a menu of rules that, in the alternative, embrace universal moral imperatives, predict future moral integrity, or vow moral integrity.
{"title":"Vowing Moral Integrity","authors":"Anita L. Allen","doi":"10.31820/ejap.19.1.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31820/ejap.19.1.1","url":null,"abstract":"The artist and analytic Kant scholar Adrian Piper has been aptly described as “one of the most important and influential cultural figures of our time. The award-winning work of installation and participatory performance art, Probable Trust Registry: Rules of the Game #1-3, implicitly poses philosophical questions of interest to contractarian philosophy and its critique, including whether through an art installation one can execute a genuine, morally binding commitment to be honest, authentic, and respectful of oneself. Especially for audiences who closely identify with her experiences, Piper’s artwork, like that of other important artists, has powerfully catalytic ethical potential. Motivated by admiration for the artist and a perceived conflictual relationship between women of color and conventional discourses of moral solidarity, I offer three different ways to understand Piper’s Probable Trust Registry. I suggest that Piper’s thought-provoking artwork, which implicitly nods at John Rawls and Charles Mills, can be interpreted as asking its audiences to agree to selections from a menu of rules that, in the alternative, embrace universal moral imperatives, predict future moral integrity, or vow moral integrity.","PeriodicalId":32823,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Analytic Philosophy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45334147","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We can ask whether there anything it is distinctively like to be female or male (a question about sex). And we can ask whether there anything it is distinctively like to be feminine or masculine (a question about gender). I think the answer to both these questions is “Obviously yes”. Why yes? And why obviously? Consciousness is gendered, and obviously gendered, because the political realities of what it is like to be masculine, and what it is like to be feminine, are distinctively different. Moreover, consciousness is sexed too, and obviously sexed, because the physical realities of what it is like to be male, and what it is like to be female, are distinctively different. And that is why the answer to our two questions is not just “Yes”, but “Obviously yes”.
{"title":"Is Consciousness Gendered?","authors":"S. Chappell","doi":"10.31820/ejap.19.1.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31820/ejap.19.1.7","url":null,"abstract":"We can ask whether there anything it is distinctively like to be female or male (a question about sex). And we can ask whether there anything it is distinctively like to be feminine or masculine (a question about gender). I think the answer to both these questions is “Obviously yes”. Why yes? And why obviously? Consciousness is gendered, and obviously gendered, because the political realities of what it is like to be masculine, and what it is like to be feminine, are distinctively different. Moreover, consciousness is sexed too, and obviously sexed, because the physical realities of what it is like to be male, and what it is like to be female, are distinctively different. And that is why the answer to our two questions is not just “Yes”, but “Obviously yes”.","PeriodicalId":32823,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Analytic Philosophy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43388216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Women are underrepresented in philosophy. And pregnancy is under-researched in philosophy. Can a connection be made between the two? I will argue that whilst the counterfactual of ‘had women historically been better represented in philosophy then pregnancy would have been too’ may be true, it is not necessarily the case that we can now, in the present day, expect (or desire) a correlation. In order to understand the gap between these two areas of underrepresentation, one need only adopt a non- essentialist understanding of women so as to recognise that not all women experience pregnancy or are interested in pregnancy (philosophically or otherwise). Nevertheless, given the historical silence(ing) of women in philosophy on the topic of pregnancy, it is important now to redress that imbalance by tackling both issues of underrepresentation simultaneously. To demonstrate further I refer to the difference between representational diversity and substantive diversity (which is related to the more commonly known distinction between descriptive representation and substantive representation). This will be the topic of the first section of the paper. Then, in the second and third sections of the paper I will explore the underrepresentation and misrepresentation of women in philosophy, regarding not only the lack of women numerically speaking but also how women, as a general ‘kind’, are (misogynistically) described in philosophy historically. I will then apply the same treatment to pregnancy in the fourth and fifth sections of the paper, exploring both its underrepresentation as a topic of philosophical endeavour and misrepresentation within society at large. The analysis contains a review of the literature, and cites statistical quantitative data and qualitative grounded interviews, to provide evidence for my claims. I will end by hypothesising about the relationship between these under- and mis- representations, and will provide musings on the future for women and pregnancy in philosophy.
{"title":"Being-from-Birth","authors":"Suki Finn","doi":"10.31820/ejap.19.1.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31820/ejap.19.1.6","url":null,"abstract":"Women are underrepresented in philosophy. And pregnancy is under-researched in philosophy. Can a connection be made between the two? I will argue that whilst the counterfactual of ‘had women historically been better represented in philosophy then pregnancy would have been too’ may be true, it is not necessarily the case that we can now, in the present day, expect (or desire) a correlation. In order to understand the gap between these two areas of underrepresentation, one need only adopt a non- essentialist understanding of women so as to recognise that not all women experience pregnancy or are interested in pregnancy (philosophically or otherwise). Nevertheless, given the historical silence(ing) of women in philosophy on the topic of pregnancy, it is important now to redress that imbalance by tackling both issues of underrepresentation simultaneously. To demonstrate further I refer to the difference between representational diversity and substantive diversity (which is related to the more commonly known distinction between descriptive representation and substantive representation). This will be the topic of the first section of the paper. Then, in the second and third sections of the paper I will explore the underrepresentation and misrepresentation of women in philosophy, regarding not only the lack of women numerically speaking but also how women, as a general ‘kind’, are (misogynistically) described in philosophy historically. I will then apply the same treatment to pregnancy in the fourth and fifth sections of the paper, exploring both its underrepresentation as a topic of philosophical endeavour and misrepresentation within society at large. The analysis contains a review of the literature, and cites statistical quantitative data and qualitative grounded interviews, to provide evidence for my claims. I will end by hypothesising about the relationship between these under- and mis- representations, and will provide musings on the future for women and pregnancy in philosophy.","PeriodicalId":32823,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Analytic Philosophy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43095629","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the present paper, the three most prominent formulations of the ontological argument will be analysed, namely the classical argument which renders existence a perfection, Norman Malcom’s modal version of the argument which labels not existence but necessary existence a perfection, and Alvin Plantinga’s modal version of the argument which appeals to the possible worlds semantics to prove the necessity of God’s existence. According to Kant’s objection, the ontological argument takes existence to be a predicate that adds up a further perfection to the concept of God and thereby entails either a reference problem between the actual object and its concept or infers God’s actual existence in a tautological way. Despite its impact, Kant’s objection to the argument has been criticised for his ambiguous employment of the notion of existence as well as for being irrelevant to the ontological argument and to the modal ontological argument by Plantinga. In the present study, I aim first to show that Kant’s objection is not only relevant to the classical version of the argument but also to the modal formulations of it as opposed to Plantinga’s claim. In doing so, I argue that it is not Kant’s use of the notion of existence that is ambiguous, but it is the classical and modal versions of the ontological argument which gain their apparent strength from their ambiguous employment of the notion of existence. Second purpose of the paper is to give an alternative analysis of the notion of existence based on Avicenna’s metaphysics and thereby to point towards an alternative ground for a possible reformulation of the ontological argument, which could avoid Kant’s objection.
{"title":"The Relevance of Kant’s Objection to the Ontological Arguments and Avicenna’s Exploration of Existence as an Alternative Grounding","authors":"Ayşenur Ünügür Tabur","doi":"10.31820/ejap.18.2.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31820/ejap.18.2.6","url":null,"abstract":"In the present paper, the three most prominent formulations of the ontological argument will be analysed, namely the classical argument which renders existence a perfection, Norman Malcom’s modal version of the argument which labels not existence but necessary existence a perfection, and Alvin Plantinga’s modal version of the argument which appeals to the possible worlds semantics to prove the necessity of God’s existence. According to Kant’s objection, the ontological argument takes existence to be a predicate that adds up a further perfection to the concept of God and thereby entails either a reference problem between the actual object and its concept or infers God’s actual existence in a tautological way. Despite its impact, Kant’s objection to the argument has been criticised for his ambiguous employment of the notion of existence as well as for being irrelevant to the ontological argument and to the modal ontological argument by Plantinga. In the present study, I aim first to show that Kant’s objection is not only relevant to the classical version of the argument but also to the modal formulations of it as opposed to Plantinga’s claim. In doing so, I argue that it is not Kant’s use of the notion of existence that is ambiguous, but it is the classical and modal versions of the ontological argument which gain their apparent strength from their ambiguous employment of the notion of existence. Second purpose of the paper is to give an alternative analysis of the notion of existence based on Avicenna’s metaphysics and thereby to point towards an alternative ground for a possible reformulation of the ontological argument, which could avoid Kant’s objection.","PeriodicalId":32823,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Analytic Philosophy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42512050","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Western contemporary logic has been used to advance the field of Islamic philosophical theology, which historically utilised Aristotelian-Avicennian logic, on grounds of there being an inherent normativity in logic. This is in spite of the surrounding controversy on the status of logic in the Islamic theological tradition. The normative authority of logic means that it influences the content of what we ought to believe and how we ought to revise those beliefs. This paper seeks to demonstrate that, notwithstanding the incompatible differences between the two systems, the underlying feature of both Western contemporary logic and Aristotelian- Avicennian logic is logical normativity. It then argues that an inherent normativity of logic in the Islamic theological/philosophical tradition is unmotivated. Instead, it proposes to reinstate logic as anti-exceptional within the Islamic theological/philosophical tradition as a viable alternative.
{"title":"Torn Between the Contours of Logic","authors":"Abbas Ahsan, Marzuqa Karim","doi":"10.31820/ejap.18.2.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31820/ejap.18.2.11","url":null,"abstract":"Western contemporary logic has been used to advance the field of Islamic philosophical theology, which historically utilised Aristotelian-Avicennian logic, on grounds of there being an inherent normativity in logic. This is in spite of the surrounding controversy on the status of logic in the Islamic theological tradition. The normative authority of logic means that it influences the content of what we ought to believe and how we ought to revise those beliefs. This paper seeks to demonstrate that, notwithstanding the incompatible differences between the two systems, the underlying feature of both Western contemporary logic and Aristotelian- Avicennian logic is logical normativity. It then argues that an inherent normativity of logic in the Islamic theological/philosophical tradition is unmotivated. Instead, it proposes to reinstate logic as anti-exceptional within the Islamic theological/philosophical tradition as a viable alternative.","PeriodicalId":32823,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Analytic Philosophy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48130868","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper is a comparative study between Brower’s solution to the problem of divine simplicity and that of Abū Hāšim al-Ǧubbāī (d. 933). First, I argue that the theory of aḥwāl is a semantic theory rather than a metaphysical one. Then, I present a reconstruction of Abū Hāšim al-Ǧubbāī’s theory of aḥwāl, based on Brower’s truthmaker theory of predication. Then, I show how Abū Hāšim would reply to some of the objections that Saenz raised against Brower’s truthmaker theory of divine simplicity. Later on, I discuss Abū Hāšim’s explanation of the similarities between the properties that God and creatures share.
本文是比较研究布劳尔的解决神圣的简单性问题,并提出了abyHāšim al-Ǧubbāī (d. 933)。首先,我认为aḥwāl理论是一个语义理论,而不是一个形而上学的理论。在此基础上,基于布劳尔的预测造真者理论,对abyHāšim al-Ǧubbāī的aḥwāl理论进行了重构。然后,我将展示abui Hāšim将如何回应Saenz对布劳尔的神圣简单性真理制造者理论提出的一些反对意见。稍后,我将讨论abui Hāšim对上帝和受造物的相似属性的解释。
{"title":"Aḥwāl, Divine Simplicity, and Truthmakers","authors":"Behnam Zolghadr","doi":"10.31820/ejap.18.2.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31820/ejap.18.2.7","url":null,"abstract":"This paper is a comparative study between Brower’s solution to the problem of divine simplicity and that of Abū Hāšim al-Ǧubbāī (d. 933). First, I argue that the theory of aḥwāl is a semantic theory rather than a metaphysical one. Then, I present a reconstruction of Abū Hāšim al-Ǧubbāī’s theory of aḥwāl, based on Brower’s truthmaker theory of predication. Then, I show how Abū Hāšim would reply to some of the objections that Saenz raised against Brower’s truthmaker theory of divine simplicity. Later on, I discuss Abū Hāšim’s explanation of the similarities between the properties that God and creatures share.","PeriodicalId":32823,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Analytic Philosophy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45116412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Based on a question posed by global philosophy of religion project regarding the absence of literal attribution of omnibenevolence to God in the Qur’ān, this paper aims to examine how to understand perfect goodness in Islam. I will first discuss the concept of perfect goodness and suggest that perfect goodness is not an independent attribute on its own and it is predicated on other moral attributes of God without which the concept of perfect goodness could hardly be understood. I will examine perfect goodness by a specific emphasis on the attribute of justice as one of the conditions to be satisfied by a perfectly morally good being. In so doing, I will appeal to the distinctions made among great-making properties by Daniel Hill, and Al-Ghazālī’s definition of justice by applying them to God’s moral attributes. I will argue that justice has a crucial role in maximality-optimality balance between great-making properties and it seems quite difficult, if not impossible, to conceive of goodness without justice. Having said that, I will claim that the conceptual frame I suggest sheds light on why omnibenevolence is not literally attributed to God in the Qur’ān. Then, I will briefly show how the divine attributes mentioned in the Qur’ān and the discussions about divine names and attributes in the Islamic tradition supports the understanding of perfect goodness I defend. Consequently, I will try to show that far from indicating that the Islamic concept of God doesn’t involve perfect goodness, the Qur’ān establishes the proper meaning of perfect goodness by focusing on its constitutive attributes, and thus provides us with a sound conception of it.
{"title":"Is God Perfectly Good In Islam","authors":"Seyma Yazici","doi":"10.31820/ejap.18.2.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31820/ejap.18.2.10","url":null,"abstract":"Based on a question posed by global philosophy of religion project regarding the absence of literal attribution of omnibenevolence to God in the Qur’ān, this paper aims to examine how to understand perfect goodness in Islam. I will first discuss the concept of perfect goodness and suggest that perfect goodness is not an independent attribute on its own and it is predicated on other moral attributes of God without which the concept of perfect goodness could hardly be understood. I will examine perfect goodness by a specific emphasis on the attribute of justice as one of the conditions to be satisfied by a perfectly morally good being. In so doing, I will appeal to the distinctions made among great-making properties by Daniel Hill, and Al-Ghazālī’s definition of justice by applying them to God’s moral attributes. I will argue that justice has a crucial role in maximality-optimality balance between great-making properties and it seems quite difficult, if not impossible, to conceive of goodness without justice. Having said that, I will claim that the conceptual frame I suggest sheds light on why omnibenevolence is not literally attributed to God in the Qur’ān. Then, I will briefly show how the divine attributes mentioned in the Qur’ān and the discussions about divine names and attributes in the Islamic tradition supports the understanding of perfect goodness I defend. Consequently, I will try to show that far from indicating that the Islamic concept of God doesn’t involve perfect goodness, the Qur’ān establishes the proper meaning of perfect goodness by focusing on its constitutive attributes, and thus provides us with a sound conception of it.","PeriodicalId":32823,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Analytic Philosophy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47678434","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this article, I will examine Aristotle’s protreptic argument for the necessity of philosophy as it was deployed by Al-Kindi. I will show how a Muslim critic of philosophy, primarily one who is aligned with the theological outlook of Ibn Hanbal, can reasonably reject the protreptic argument as Al-Kindi presents it. The argument can, however, be reworked in a way to circumvent common criticisms of it presented by Hanbalī-style opponents of philosophy. Indeed, I will argue that, once the argument is properly clarified with reference to what constitutes ‘philosophy’, its soundness is incontrovertible. In closing, I will briefly discuss why Muslim critics of philosophy need not see the protreptic argument as threatening, as the inevitability of philosophy does not necessitate a commitment to all sorts of philosophical positions, however problematic these may be for Islamic doctrine.
{"title":"The Philosophy of Antiphilosophy in Islam","authors":"Imran Aijaz","doi":"10.31820/ejap.18.2.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31820/ejap.18.2.4","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I will examine Aristotle’s protreptic argument for the necessity of philosophy as it was deployed by Al-Kindi. I will show how a Muslim critic of philosophy, primarily one who is aligned with the theological outlook of Ibn Hanbal, can reasonably reject the protreptic argument as Al-Kindi presents it. The argument can, however, be reworked in a way to circumvent common criticisms of it presented by Hanbalī-style opponents of philosophy. Indeed, I will argue that, once the argument is properly clarified with reference to what constitutes ‘philosophy’, its soundness is incontrovertible. In closing, I will briefly discuss why Muslim critics of philosophy need not see the protreptic argument as threatening, as the inevitability of philosophy does not necessitate a commitment to all sorts of philosophical positions, however problematic these may be for Islamic doctrine.","PeriodicalId":32823,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Analytic Philosophy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47124682","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper responds to the modal collapse argument against divine simplicity or classical theism offered by neo-classical or complex theists. The modal collapse argument claims that if God is both absolutely simple and absolutely necessary, then God’s act of creation is absolutely necessary, and therefore, the existence of the created world is also absolutely necessary. This means that God and His creation collapse into a single modal category of absolute necessity without any contingent beings. My response is grounded in the Islamic Neoplatonic philosophy of Ibn Sina and the Ismaili tradition. I offer four arguments that allow a Muslim Neoplatonist to absorb a modal collapse in a possible worlds modality while negating modal collapse within an Avicennian modality: First, the modal collapse objection is based on a possible worlds framework whose concept of necessity is overly broad; this framework fails to distinguish between God as ontologically necessary in Himself, created being as dependently necessary through another, and mere logical necessity, all of which are recognized by Ibn Sina and Islamic thinkers. Second, modal collapse arguments only demonstrate that creation is necessary through another but fails to prove that creation has ontological necessity or aseity––which only pertains to God; thus, no consequential modal collapse ensues when one’s modality recognizes creation as a “dependent necessary being” despite being modally necessary. Third, Islamic philosophers have a non- libertarian concept of God’s will and freedom that is immune to modal collapse objections. Finally, I argue that all classical and neo-classical theists must embrace a modally necessary creation because libertarian models of God’s will entail uncaused and brutely contingent effects.
{"title":"Divine Simplicity and The Myth of Modal Collapse","authors":"Khalil Andani","doi":"10.31820/ejap.18.2.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31820/ejap.18.2.8","url":null,"abstract":"This paper responds to the modal collapse argument against divine simplicity or classical theism offered by neo-classical or complex theists. The modal collapse argument claims that if God is both absolutely simple and absolutely necessary, then God’s act of creation is absolutely necessary, and therefore, the existence of the created world is also absolutely necessary. This means that God and His creation collapse into a single modal category of absolute necessity without any contingent beings. My response is grounded in the Islamic Neoplatonic philosophy of Ibn Sina and the Ismaili tradition. I offer four arguments that allow a Muslim Neoplatonist to absorb a modal collapse in a possible worlds modality while negating modal collapse within an Avicennian modality: First, the modal collapse objection is based on a possible worlds framework whose concept of necessity is overly broad; this framework fails to distinguish between God as ontologically necessary in Himself, created being as dependently necessary through another, and mere logical necessity, all of which are recognized by Ibn Sina and Islamic thinkers. Second, modal collapse arguments only demonstrate that creation is necessary through another but fails to prove that creation has ontological necessity or aseity––which only pertains to God; thus, no consequential modal collapse ensues when one’s modality recognizes creation as a “dependent necessary being” despite being modally necessary. Third, Islamic philosophers have a non- libertarian concept of God’s will and freedom that is immune to modal collapse objections. Finally, I argue that all classical and neo-classical theists must embrace a modally necessary creation because libertarian models of God’s will entail uncaused and brutely contingent effects.","PeriodicalId":32823,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Analytic Philosophy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43953773","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this paper, I attempt to develop what I call an ‘Analytic, Fārābian’ conception of Orientalism. The motivation for this conception is that it helps us with the task––identified by Wael B. Hallaq––of going beyond ‘rudimentary political slogans’ attached to the theory of Orientalism and instead to identifying Orientalism’s underlying ‘psycho-epistemic pathology’ (Hallaq 2018, 4). In order to do this properly, according to Hallaq, we need to find a methodological alternative to that which makes Orientalist discourse possible. Hallaq identifies the underlying problem as a commitment to secular humanism, and the solution its abandonment. However, I think the problem is a deeper one, which can roughly be stated as follows: how can we accept the pervasiveness of ideological influence without abandoning the idea that our theories aim (and to some extent succeed) at representing objective reality—such that we can say that Orientalism is a real phenomenon, and not merely something we happen to believe is a phenomenon. Conceiving Orientalism from within a Fārābian epistemology and using analytic tools to understand it (which I argue constitutes a unique and distinctive kind of fallibilism) makes head-way here where other conceptions fail
在本文中,我试图发展一种我称之为“分析的Fārābian”的东方主义概念。这一概念的动机是,它有助于我们完成Wael B. Hallaq所确定的任务,即超越附加在东方主义理论上的“基本政治口号”,而是识别东方主义潜在的“心理-认识论病理学”(Hallaq 2018, 4)。根据Hallaq的说法,为了正确地做到这一点,我们需要找到一种方法论替代,以使东方主义话语成为可能。哈拉克认为,潜在的问题是对世俗人文主义的承诺,以及放弃世俗人文主义的解决方案。然而,我认为问题是一个更深层次的问题,大致可以这样表述:我们如何在接受意识形态影响的普遍性的同时,又不放弃我们的理论旨在(并在某种程度上成功地)表现客观现实的观点——这样我们才能说东方主义是一种真实的现象,而不仅仅是我们碰巧相信的一种现象。从Fārābian认识论中构思东方主义,并使用分析工具来理解它(我认为这构成了一种独特而独特的可错性),在其他概念失败的地方取得了进展
{"title":"Towards an Analytic, Fārābian Conception of Orientalism","authors":"A. Booth","doi":"10.31820/ejap.18.2.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.31820/ejap.18.2.3","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, I attempt to develop what I call an ‘Analytic, Fārābian’ conception of Orientalism. The motivation for this conception is that it helps us with the task––identified by Wael B. Hallaq––of going beyond ‘rudimentary political slogans’ attached to the theory of Orientalism and instead to identifying Orientalism’s underlying ‘psycho-epistemic pathology’ (Hallaq 2018, 4). In order to do this properly, according to Hallaq, we need to find a methodological alternative to that which makes Orientalist discourse possible. Hallaq identifies the underlying problem as a commitment to secular humanism, and the solution its abandonment. However, I think the problem is a deeper one, which can roughly be stated as follows: how can we accept the pervasiveness of ideological influence without abandoning the idea that our theories aim (and to some extent succeed) at representing objective reality—such that we can say that Orientalism is a real phenomenon, and not merely something we happen to believe is a phenomenon. Conceiving Orientalism from within a Fārābian epistemology and using analytic tools to understand it (which I argue constitutes a unique and distinctive kind of fallibilism) makes head-way here where other conceptions fail","PeriodicalId":32823,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Analytic Philosophy","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44534516","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}