Comparative Study of Shared Views of Muslim and Non-Muslim Scholars on Philosophy and Education

We live in a world where everything is always about me: my religion, my house, my phone..etc., forgetting on many occasions that there is a world beyond our own petty existence.
In this context, the content of this book is a refreshing reminder that everything is not always about me but about us. Us, who believe, regardless of birth place, descend, religion or gender, that there is a God, a higher power that we all strive to know and to Whom we will all return in the end.
We, as a whole, can always find things that unite us despite all out differences. This applies to how we think about philosophy and education.

Miscellaneous information:

Comparative Study of Shared Views of Muslim and Non-Muslim Scholars on Philosophy and Education
 
 Author: Dr. Hamid Reza Alavi 
 Publisher: Ansariyan Publications First Edition 2009 -1388 - 1430
 Sadr Press
 Quantity: 2000
 Number of Pages: 256
 Size: 148X210 mm
 ISBN: 978-964-219-066-9

Preface

Throughout the history, there have been some philosophers and thinkers who have generously given the product of their philosophical thinking to the society. These works have initiated and inspired behavior of many people living in the society because in general, a person’s philosophical foundation can influence their behavioral and educational bases.

Although there have been many books and writings regarding the thoughts of such philosophers, the writings in which the viewpoints of the philosophers of different schools and religions have been compared are rarely seen. With such a comparison, that emphasizes the shared aspects of philosophical theories, it might be possible to generate philosophical theories that are comprehensive and global in their impact. This is the main aim of this book.

Philosophy, in the present book, has been considered as a discipline, which consists of branches such as - ontology, epistemology, and axiology. Anthropology has been considered as the subset of ontology.

Each chapter, of the book has a short introduction about the personality and biography of the two (or four) philosophers investigated in that chapter. Then their views about the branches of philosophy or their philosophical viewpoints have been explained. A conclusion about the comparison of their views has been reached at the end of each chapter. Finally the book is concluded with a general summary and conclusion.

The philosophers studied and compared in this book are as follows: Tusi and Aristotle, Ghazali and Aquinas, Ibn Miskawayh and Aquinas, Farabi and Spinoza, Avicenna- Ibn Sina and Edwards and Rumi, Saadi, Rousseau, and Dewey. Thus in all, the viewpoints of 14 philosophers and thinkers have been explained and compared in this book.

It should be noted that the chapters about Farabi, Ibn Miskawayh and a part about the ethics of Ibn Sina have been selected from Persian books titled: Theories of Muslim scientists about Education and its Principles - volumes 1 and 2, which have been written by Howzeh-University Co-operation Center and M. Beheshti, M. Abujafari and A. N. Faqihi respectively. These were then translated into English by the author of the present book (Dr H. R. Alavi).

Chapter 1: Comparative Study of Tusi and Aristotle’s Shared Views on Philosophy

Introduction

Khajeh Naseeroddeen Tusi was one of the great scholars of mathematics, astrology and wisdom in Iran in the seventh century of the Hejira. He was also one of the ministers of that time and a great jurisprudent of Shiite Islam. Khajeh wrote numerous books regarding different sciences (Moin, 1992). Khajeh Naseer Tusi had also compiled very valuable works in ethics and education (Beheshti, Abujafari and Faqihi 2000, P. 113).

Khajeh Tusi was born in Tus or in Jahrud of Qom, in 597 A.H. He died in Baghdad, in 672 A.H. (Modarresi, 2000). Khajeh spent his childhood with those who, according to him, were pious, religious, and aware of some sciences, occupations and crafts. His father was an experienced person, and always encouraged him to learn different techniques and sciences. He encouraged him to listen to the speech of those who practiced their religion with consciousness.

Naseeroddin emigrated from Tus to Neishapur and travelled to some other cities to complete his education. Two of his important activities were the establishing of the very great observatory of Maragheh, and a great library in Maragheh, which had 400 thousand books. He planned to allow thinkers to continuously extend their research and keep the great heritage of Islam alive.

Tusi himself wrote about 274 books. Most of his writings concerned philosophy, theosophy, mathematics, astrology, and ethics. His writings could be classified under the following ten titles: mathematics, ethics, interpretation, religious jurisprudence, history, geography, medicine, logics, theosophy, and philosophy (Beheshti, Abujafari and Faqihi, 2000, p. 113 -121).

In spite of the fact that Khajeh Naseer Tusi was making an effort to promote his own religion and belief (Shiite, Islam), he was very kind to other religious groups of Islam. He respected the scholars of each class or religion and refrained from rigid religious intolerance and dogmatism. This was the reason why some Christian orientalists, some Sunni scholars and all of Shiite scientists have highly esteemed his spiritual greatness, religiosity, humility and good manners (Modarresi, 2000).

Ontology

Tusi

Tusi believed that the First Origin was not possible in existence. This origin could not be more than one. He also asserted that a wise person would not engage much in the bodily pleasures (Modarresi, 2000, p. 171-172).

Anthropology

Tusi’s works and writings revealed the following views about the characteristics of a human being (Behesht, Abujafari and Faqihi 2000, p. 122-129):

The superiority of human being

According to Tusi human being was superior in creation to inanimate objects, plants and animals because they possessed a soul with intellect, reason and free will besides their other characteristics.

The truth of human being

Tusi believed that a human being consisted of body and a soul. This soul was free of material form. The body and soul both interacted with each other.

The faculties of the soul

In spite of its unity, the soul with intellect consisted of diverse animal, animal-like and human faculties. It possessed mobility and perceptive faculties. Man’s perceptive functions were carried out through external senses such as sight, hearing, smelling, taste, and touch as well as through inner senses such as common sense, imagination, estimate and memory. While the mobility of a man remained a function of his muscles, it was the soul that made him move toward the behavior for which he was motivated.

Free will and authority

These two were considered to be innate characteristics of a human being. Only the humankind could achieve perfection and happiness through their intention, deeds and behaviors. In this way, man could move towards perfection and attain status higher than that of angels.

It was in the light of free will that a man comprehended something and then found himself inclined or averse to it. Thus knowledge and enthusiasm formed the basis and foundation of human free will.

The problem of determinism could also be solved with this principle as humans behaved according to their authority and freewill. If they did not want, they would not engage with those behaviors. On the other hand, it was God who had wanted to give such authority and freewill to humans due to which they could freely engage with or not with a behavior.

Rationality

The most outstanding privilege that mankind had, was their rationality. Humans not only possessed sensory and intellectual perception to recognize and solve their conceptual and affirmation of unknown things and extend their awareness, they also had knowledge of the present and non-present.

Tusi introduced rationality, knowledge and awareness as the greatest bounty that God had bestowed upon His bondmen, after their existence itself.

Being sociable

Tusi believed that no one could satisfy his or her needs alone without assistance and cooperation from others. On the other hand, cooperation of individuals was needed in order to achieve perfection and better enjoyment of different bounties from God

Complimentary and evolutionary movement

Man’s soul had different potential powers, and in trying to achieve perfection, he should nurture his abilities to reach closer in nearness to God. Man could make his freewill a function of the Divine freewill, and achieve the position of being contented first and subsequently attain positions of trust, submission and finally that of infinite knowledge and power and being eternal where there would be no veil between God and him.

Achieving the Position of nearness to God

One of the characteristics of human beings was the fact that they could reach a position of nearness to God. This position had different ranks and human beings were able to attain this position in various degrees. Therefore, although man had been expelled from Paradise, he could again, through servitude and submission to God, ascend and return to his first and original abode. To achieve this, he had to purify himself in the field of knowledge and action.

Tusi maintained that human soul was simply an essence, which could be perceived through intellect and could affect the sensory body. That essence itself was not the body. It was neither physical, nor sensory for any of the senses. Intellect of the soul remained unaffected even after destruction of one’s body. Death could not destroy the soul, and it could never be destroyed. Man’s body was like an instrument for the soul (Adamson 1998, p. 94-102).

Aristotle

Aristotle was convinced that the characteristic, which determined a thing’s nature, was what determined its successful operation, that is, its ability to achieve what was good for itself (as is implicit in his ethical writings).

A species became the one it was in its present form through its goals and by being organized in a way so as to achieve them. Some goals were extrinsic; for example, the goal of an axe being to cut wood explained the arrangement of the metal on the axe. Likewise, the teleological goal of man was to live a life of a given kind (e.g. of rational activity), and the rest of his nature was designed to achieve this intrinsic goal. The distinctive goal of each biological kind was what determined its respective essence (Honderich, 2005, p. 56).

Aristotle believed in the fact that it was the Pure One who was the cause of all things and was unlike any of them (Adamson, 2008). According to Aristotle, things could be a cause of one another, causing each other reciprocally, as hard workout produced fitness and vice versa. Aristotle further marked out two modes of causation: proper (prior) causation and accidental (chance) causation. All causes, proper and incidental, could be spoken of as potential or as actual, particular or generic (Wikipedia, 2008).

Epistemology

Tusi

Tusi considered sensory perception as the first step towards cognition. Knowledge from imagination arose from the perception of material objects with all its characteristics whether that object was present or absent. Estimated knowledge was said to be from perception of non-sensory partial meanings of a situation, such as man’s fear of darkness. Intellectual knowledge was considered to be the real cognition as it was a perception of intellect. An object was thus perceived as a whole by including aspects that were the properties of matter and abstract from it.

Knowledge of intuition was deemed higher than knowledge of intellect. This kind of knowledge brought humans to a position from where they could observe the realities of the Universe. Undoubtedly the knowledge of a person, who saw fire from nearby and observed its light, was greater than that of one who knew about fire from a distance only through seeing its smoke.

Divine knowledge was the effusion of knowledge from exalted God Himself. It was received without direct instruction or thinking. Tusi was not convinced that the human intellect alone could answer the ultimate metaphysical questions (ibid). From his early life al-Tusi had believed that the rationale of intellect needed to be sustained by a non-rational (or super-rational) guarantor. His move to Twelver Shiism, with its doctrine of a hidden Imam, indicated growing strength of his convictions about the ability of the intellect (Cooper, 1998).

Aristotle

Aristotle believed that human understanding was analogous to a sensation. Intellect was a sense in itself (Genest, 1998). Aristotle’s remarks on how we came to know about the starting point of a matter, was somewhat baffling. What was clear however was that while he considered sensory perception to be a crucial ingredient in the process of coming to know, sensory perception by itself did not constitute knowledge. This was because sensory perception was able to show us only particular aspect of an object.

Real knowledge by definition pertained to the universal characteristics of things. One thus needed to be able to grasp the universal characteristics that presented itself in a material form, which imparted the sensory information. Aristotle showed no lack of confidence in the ability of human beings to do this reliably. However, this was no surprise.

It was clear that he conceived the world to be ordered in a way that made it comprehensible. And, human beings had the capacities necessary to achieve this understanding more notably through their rationality. However, he stressed, particularly in his ethical work, that one could not expect to achieve complete precision in all subjects (Irwin and Fine, 2008).

Aristotle’s philosophy was aimed at the Universal. Aristotle found the Universal in the particular aspect of things. He called it to be the essence of a thing. For Aristotle, philosophical method implied advancing from the study of particular phenomena to knowledge of essences. Aristotle’s method was both inductive and deductive (Wikipedia, 2008).

Axiology

Tusi

Ethics

Tusi explained the foundation of his ethics on the bases of anthropology and epistemology. Some of the most important points that he proposed in this field were as follows (Beheshti, Abujafari and Faqihi, 2000, p.134-141):

A disposition was a firm faculty of a person’s soul. It was due to this disposition that their behavior was carried out easily. This disposition of man lay behind their nature and habits. Tusi believed that humans could save their souls from becoming base and from darkness. By doing so, they could achieve the highest ranks of perfection and reach closer to God.

Tusi considered ethics in two sections: keeping up of virtues and values, and treatment of diseases of the soul. Tusi believed that a man’s morality was changeable, although changing of some dispositions might be difficult. He asserted that people by nature were susceptible to virtues, happiness and wickedness. The human nature tended towards virtues or vices that had been placed in man’s nature.

Besides this, the natures of people were different. Some natures that tended towards happiness and virtues had greater readiness to accept virtues and goodness. However, some turned to vices as they had greater readiness for these. Importantly, each person was capable of changing his or her morals, habits and faculties.

According to Tusi moral education should be carried out depending on the stage of natural development of mankind. Moreover, while every person should be engaged in their own soul’s refinement, their faculties had to be guided through correct moral plans that were consistent with the development of their natural abilities.

Cognition of pleasure and pain played a major role in causing man to turn toward virtues and to keep away from vices, in Tusi’s view. He maintained that pleasures and pains were of two kinds: sensory and intellectual. Man comprehended sensory pleasures through his external and superficial senses, such as the pleasure of eating, drinking and sleeping. However, intellectual pleasures are not comprehended by the external senses.

Sensory pleasures were often experienced together with pain; these along with other pleasures were fleeting in nature. For this reason, even if someone were aware of their deficiencies, they would undoubtedly overlook them to pursue easily accessible intellectual and sensory pleasures. However, even though the ultimate aim of human being was to achieve happiness through purification and perfection of the soul, this happiness could not be obtained through any of the sensory pleasures.

Real happiness was understood to be pure pleasure free from pains and difficulties. It was based on wisdom, courage, chastity and justice. The one who attained real happiness would never grieve and nor could be annoyed due to decay of superficial pleasures and bounties. The real happiness was a constant, durable and unchangeable fact and was not affected by life’s difficulties and adversities.

Tusi maintained that different kinds of virtues were all based on wisdom, courage, chastity, and justice. Therefore, no one became worthy of praise unless he or she had gained one or all of these virtues (Zadeh, 1998, p.127).

Tusi was of the opinion that a human being was higher in spiritual ranking and virtue to other creatures. A person could reach the highest spiritual position, or could descend to lowest ranks in life. Man’s perfection and virtue were ensured through thinking, reason and wanting. His own hands held the keys to happiness, wickedness, development or deficiency.

If a person tended to be on the straight path, sciences, knowledge, manners and virtues, he would finally attain nearness to God. However if he moved toward corruption and worldly lusts, he would merely become deficient day by day and finally be destroyed. Therefore it was really necessary for all human beings to have a divine guide to show and lead them to their real goal for which they had been created (Zadeh, 1998, p.103-112).

A happy and virtuous person was one who used his aptitudes and powers to attain the virtue for which he had been created (ibid, p. 116).

Aristotle

In ethical theory, Aristotle used human nature to determine good life. While everyone considered a good life to be about happiness, people did not agree upon what that happiness consisted of. According to Aristotle, the answer depended on the understanding about who the human beings were essentially with regards to their distinctive function.

A distinctive human life was lived in accordance with reason. Consequently a good life for human beings was a life of reason lived ‘with excellence’ (or ‘with virtue’). Happiness or the good life involved functioning well in life.

Aristotle seemed to waver between declaring the good life to be a life dominated by a single activity namely contemplation of the results of (theoretical) reasoning or a life inclusive of many different activities (Mautner, 2005, p. 46). He suggested that well-being consisted of activity towards excellence such as intellectual contemplation and virtuous actions that stemmed from a virtuous character.

Virtuous action was what a person with practical wisdom would choose; and the practically wise were those who deliberated successfully towards well-being. This might be termed the Aristotelian circle because the key terms, (well-being, virtue,and practical wisdom) appear to be interrelated. Aristotle developed a theory of virtue, which aimed to explain the fact that what was good seemed to be so to the virtuous.

Man, if he was to achieve well-being as a human being, needed friendship and other directed virtues (such as courage, generosity, and justice). On occasions, Aristotle seemed to find his account of the good life to be based on a background assumption about the human nature. At other places, he based his account of human nature on what was good for the human beings to achieve. He remarked that the virtuous saw that which was good. In another place he wrote that what was good was so because it appeared to be good to the virtuous (Honderich, 2005, p 55).

Aristotle distinguished between moral excellence and intellectual excellence - one was attained through habits and the other through learning. Moral excellence was the acquired rational capacity to choose the way between extremes, for example, courage is the tendency to act with right amount of boldness to avoid cowardly fear on one hand and foolish overconfidence on the other (Mautner 2005, p. 46).

Aristotle taught that virtue had to do with the proper function of a thing. An eye was a good eye only in so much as to how well it could see because the proper function of eye was sight. Aristotle reasoned that a person must have a function that was not common to anything or anyone else, and that this function must be an activity of their soul. Aristotle identified the best activity of the soul as eudemonia - a happiness or joy that pervaded good life.

Aristotle thought that to achieve good life, one must live a balanced life and avoid any excess. This balance varied for different persons and situations. It existed as a golden mean between two vices - one was excess and the other was deficiency (Wikipedia, 2008).

Conclusion

Tusi believed that a ‘First origin’ was not possible for existence as origin could not be more than one. Aristotle believed that the ‘Pure one’ was the cause for all things and was not like any of the other existing things.

Tusi also believed in superiority of human beings in comparison to other creatures. Human beings possessed soul with intellect, reason and free will. Man consisted of both - a body and the soul, the soul being free from material form. Human soul was simply an essence. The soul with its intellect remained as such after the destruction of body.

According to Aristotle the teleological goal of man was to live life of a given kind (e.g. of rational activity). The ability to think for this purpose had been given to mankind. Human beings were superior to other creatures in this ability. They also had a spirit, in addition to the body. It was this spirit that gave them their main characteristic.

Tusi asserted that a man’s perception was carried out through his external and internal senses. Knowledge or episteme could be sensory, imaginary, estimated, intellectual, intuitional, divine and revealed. In this regard Aristotle asserted that sense perception was the crucial ingredient in the process of coming to know, but that sensory perception by itself did not constitute knowledge.

Tusi maintained that a moral disposition existed, which imparted nature and habits to a man. Human beings could save their souls from inferiority and darkness, achieving highest of ranks in perfection by reaching closer to God through directing their soul towards the good and virtues.

Pleasures and pains were of two kinds: sensory and intellectual. Intellectual pleasures could not be comprehended by the external senses. The ultimate aim of a human being was to gain happiness through purification and perfection of the soul. This happiness was achieved through sensory pleasures.

Real happiness was a pure pleasure free from pains and difficulties and was based on wisdom, courage, chastity and justice. All the other kinds of virtues were based on these fundamental attributes or characteristics.

It was necessary for all human beings to have a divine guide to show and lead them to the real goal for which they had been created. According to Aristotle, happiness and the good life consisted of functioning well in life. A distinguished human life was lived in accordance with reason. A person with practical wisdom would choose virtuous actions for his life.

Moral excellence and intellectual excellence were acquired through habit formation and learning respectively. Moral excellence was an acquired rational capacity to choose a balance between two extremes. To achieve the good life, one must live a balanced life and avoid excess.

References

Adamson P (2008), The Theory of Aristotle. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://www.science.uva.nl/~seop/entries/theology-aristotle/ [15]

Beheshti M., Abujafari M. and Faqihi, A.N. (2000). Theories of Muslem Scientists in Education and Its principles; volume. 2, supervised by: Ali Reza Arafi. Qom and Tehran: Research Center of Howzeh and Univesity and Samt

Moddaresi (Zanjani) M. (2000). Biography and Philosophical Opinions of Khwajah Nasir Tusi (2nd ed), Tehran: Amir Kabir

Cooper J. (1998). Al-Tusi,Khwajah Nasir (1201-74). In Routledge Encyclopedia Of Philosophy. London and New York: Routledge

Genest J. (1998). Aristotelien Epistemology and Its Arabic Developments. http://www.grante.demon,co.uk/arsm/jg/arist- [16] epist.html

Honderich, T. (2005). The Oxford companion to Philosophy. Second edition. UK: Oxford university press.

Irwin, T. and Fine, G. (2008). Aristotle, posterior Analysis, In Aristotle: Selections. http://science.jrank.org/pages/9174/Epistemology-Ancient- [17] Aristotle.html

Khwajah Nasir Tusi. (1998).Selected Parts of Akhlaq-e- Naseri.Introduction selection and explanation of works by: Shahram Rajab Zadeh. Tehran: Qadyani

Mautner, T. (2005). Dictionary of philosophy. (2nd ed). London: Penguin Reference

Moddaresi (Zanjani),M. (2000).Biography and Philosophical Opinions of Khwajah Nasir Tusi. (2nd ed). Tehran:Amir Kabir

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (2008). Aristotle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle [18]

Chapter 2: Comparative Study of Ghazali and Augustine’s Shared Views on Philosophy

Introduction

Abu Hamid Muhammad Ghazali (Ghazali or al-Ghazali; Al-Gazel in Latin texts) of Persia, was one of the most influential and greatest Islamic theologian (Audi 2001, p. 21; Blackburn 2005, p. 151; Honderich 2005, p. 339; Nakamura 1998, Macdonald 1953, p.111), philosopher (Audi 2001, p. 21; Mautner 2005, p. 14; Nofal 1993, p. 519), jurist (Audi 2001, p. 21; Nakamura, 1998) and mystic (Audi 2001, p. 21) or mystical thinker (Nakamura, 1998).

Ghazali’s academic thinking had largely been neglected by scholars so far, at least in comparison to the attention that his works on philosophy received (Rahman 1977; Mumisa, 2005), political views (Binder 1955; Laoust, 1970; Hillenbrand 1988), mysticism (Smith, 1944) and religious views (Frank, 1994). His monumental work for revival of religious sciences and his autobiographical account - Deliverance from Error – had often been compared to Augustine’s confessions. It supported the triumph of revelation over reason (Honderich, p. 339).

Ghazali studied various branches of the traditional Islamic religious sciences in his hometown of Tus, Gurgan and Nishapur in the northern part of Iran. He was also involved in Sufi practices from an early age. Being recognized by Nizam al-Mulk, the Vizir of the Seljuq Sultans, he was appointed Head of the Nizamiyyah College in Baghdad in 484 AH (1091 AD).

As the Intellectual head of the Islamic community, Ghazali lectured on Islamic jurisprudence at the College. He also refuted heresies while responding to questions from all segments of the community. Four years later, however, al-Ghazali fell into a serious spiritual crisis and finally left Baghdad, renouncing his career and the world.

After wandering in Syria and Palestine for about two years and finishing the pilgrimage to Mecca, he returned to Tus, where he got engaged in writing, Sufi practices and teaching his disciples until his death. He also resumed teaching for a few years at the Nizamiyyah College in Nishapur during this time.

The eventful life of Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali (or al-Gazali) could be divided into three major periods. The first was a period of learning - initially in his hometown of Tus in Persia, then in Gurgan and finally in Nishapur. After the death of his teacher, Imam al-Haramayn al-Juwayni, Ghazali moved to the court of Nizam al-Mulk, the powerful Vizier of the Seljuq Sultans, who eventually appointed him the Head of the Nizamiyyah College at Baghdad in 484 AH (1091AD).

The second period of al-Ghazali’s life was his brilliant career as the highest-ranking orthodox-doctor of the Islamic community in Baghdad (484 AH; 1091- 95 AD). This period was short but significant. During this time, he was busy refuting heresies and responding to questions from all segments of the community besides lecturing on Islamic jurisprudence at the College. In the political confusion that followed the assassination of Nizam al-Mulk and the subsequent violent death of Sultan Malik Shah, al-Ghazali himself fell into a serious spiritual crisis and finally left Baghdad, renouncing his career and the world.

This event marked the beginning of the third period of his life, that of retirement 484 -505 AH (1091-1111 AD). It included a short period of teaching at the Nizamiyyah College in Nishapur. After leaving Baghdad, he wandered as a Sufi in Syria and Palestine before returning to Tus, where he engaged in writing, Sufi practices and teaching his disciples until his death (Nakamura, 1998).

Aurelius Augustinus (Augustine, 354-430 AD) was one of the greatest and most influential of Christian philosophers (Pojman, 2003, p. 407; concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2000, p. 63; Blackburn, p. 28; Honderich, 2005, p. 66; Audi, 2001, p. 60; Matthews, 1998), Theologian (Blackburn, p. 28; Audi, 2001, p. 60; Matthews, 1998), a source of Christian thought (Audi, 2001, p. 60; Matthews, 1998) and a seminal influence permeating every branch and every period of Western Christian ethics (Macqarre and Childress, p. 46). He was perhaps the most influential philosopher between Aristotle and Aquinas (Pojman, 2003, p. 407).

For well over eight centuries after his death, in fact, until the ascendancy of Thomas Aquinas at the end of the thirteenth century, Aurelius was also the single most influential Christian Philosopher (Matthews 1998; concise Routledge Encyclopedia of philosophy 2000, p. 63).

Aurelius’ enormous influence on the doctrines of Western Christianity, were owed much to his skill and perseverance as a philosopher. In the history of philosophy itself, he was a secondary figure, partly because he did not have the taste or leisure to acquire more than a scrappy knowledge of the 800-year old tradition that preceded him.

As a young student at Carthage he developed an ambition, according to his Confessions (397- 400 AD), to lead a philosophical life, which pursued truth. The opportunity to fulfill this ambition came when at the age of thirty-one; he resumed his childhood Christianity at Milan (386 AD) and gave up his career as a schoolmaster.

Aurelius had spent a winter at Cassiciacum by the north Italian lakes with some friends, discussing philosophy, composing dialogues on skepticism, the happy life and soul’s immortality. When he returned from there to his birthplace -Tagaste in Numidia (Souk -Ahras, Algeria) in 388 AD, he set up a community of young disciples and wrote on the problem of evil, order, prosody, language and learning. However, that life came to an end soon when the Catholic congregation at Hippo on the Numidian coast prevailed on him in 391AD, to become their Presbyter and later a Bishop.

From that time onwards, he was never free from pastoral business. He did not stop writing. His written output - nearly all of which survived, was bulkier than from any other author of ancient times. His subject matter however, became mainly polemical, against the schismatic and heretic. Even his masterpieces - The Confession and City of God (413 - 426 AD), had a pastoral purpose. The first was a public meditation on his slow journey towards Catholic Christianity, and the second was an attack (which was to have important historical effect) on the pretentious claim of pagans about having a valuable and independent culture.

At the end of his life he catalogued and reviewed ninety-three of his works, excluding the numerous sermons and letters, in his collection - Retractions in 426-427 AD (Honderich 2005, p. 66).

Apart from a few years spent in Italy around the 380 AD, he lived his life chiefly in three places: Tagaste, Hippo, and Carthage. His trips elsewhere in North Africa were few and limited. Although his words traveled widely, his geographical limitations were important to remember, not in the least because they kept him mainly in the more urbanized and coastal north of Africa, away from the high plains and the frontier, away from the districts where a rough form of life and perhaps a more native form of religion held sway (O' Donnell 2006, p. 8).

Ghazali and Augustine were chosen to be compared for this book considering important points about their way of life, kind of personality, thinking process, scope of influence, type of expertise and many other factors. On the other hand although the two were both a theologian and a philosopher, their philosophy was investigated and compared because of being strongly influenced by their theology. The interactive effect of theology and philosophy meant that their philosophy could be considered with an emphasis on some important aspects of their theology.

Philosophy could be considered as a discipline, a method, an activity and an essence. For the purpose of this research, philosophy was being considered as a discipline, which consisted of the branches ontology, epistemology and axiology. Anthropology was a subject of ontology. Thus a comparative study of Ghazali and Augustine in these fields was carried out with the aim of discovering the similarities more than their differences. Extraction of their similarities was expected to constitute a shared model of Islamic-Christian philosophy, which could be applied by all Muslims and Christians of the world.

Ontology

Ghazali

Ghazali considered ‘existence’ to be a subject of theosophical science and the greatest sought after truth. He believed that ‘existence of being’ really existed. The doubt that Ghazali presented in this regard was an attempt to destroy uncertainty and ignorance. It was not to deny knowing.

Ghazali paid attention to the nature of existence. He wanted to know what existence was. He considered existence as a simple and indivisible concept, and not a combined nature of several things. Existence for him was of one the most obvious concepts upon which the cognition of all things was based. Therefore, he deemed it unnecessary to define existence.

For Ghazali, referring to anything in existence was in fact a reference to God. Existence could be of high and low ranks, all of which remained a manifestation of the single Truth. Existence was deemed to be restricted only to God and His Actions.

Ghazali believed in existential unity. Existence was a beam of the Divine Beauty and, all that things belonged to Him. All things existed because of Him. Nothing had a reality without Him; and the existence of all things was a beam of Light reflecting His Being or Existence.

According to Ghazali, there was nothing in the state of being save God and His Face. Therefore, the real being or existence was peculiar to God, and all things other than Him were a manifestation of His Face.

Whithersoever you turn; there is the Face of God; God is All-Embracing; All- Knowing (Baqarah: 115)

Lasting existence was deemed to be of only for one, and that was God

O which of your Lord's bounties will you deny? All that dwells upon the earth is perishing. Yet still abides the Face of thy Lord, Majestic Splendid. (Al-Rahman. 25 - 27)

Ghazali’s view and attitude towards existence was monistic. In such a view, existence or reality of being was one basic Reality or Unity. In the light of this view, the difference between different particles of being was focused on a spiritual and meta-material Unity. This opened the way to illuminate the relation of the beings and the Creator.

This view also gave a general meaning to the beings and the particles that formed it, within a spiritual frame. It saw man, as a part of a harmonious whole, not as a remote particle separate from the whole. Man was seen as a being in the world and as interested in leading himself towards the aim of his existence, which was the same as the origin of the world - that is - God. And, he aimed to do so in harmony with that meaningful whole (Rafiei 2002, p. 28-36).

Ghazali considered cognition of God to be the supreme knowledge. He believed that this kind of cognition was the very knowledge that the Prophet of Islam had ordered to be acquired even if necessary through long and troublesome journeys.

Ghazali, like most Muslim scholars, admitted that one should not try to understand the Essence of God because His Essence was such that it was impossible to put forward any question about it. Man’s intellect stood to be quite astonished by comprehension of His quiddity. He maintained that God was beyond our imagination and controversies.

Instead, Ghazali spoke about God’s essence, attributes and actions. He explained such topics as proof of God and His Being (existence and nature, seeing God, God’s essence, attributes actions and names, etc – Rafiei 2002, p.37). Since believing in God was a natural predisposition, Ghazali had deemed that it was unnecessary to prove God, although he did sometimes spoke about proving God.

Ghazali considered proving existence of God from epistemological point of view and he found out that one could not understand presence or non-presence of God through experience. Therefore, he put forward some reasons for proving God and tried to prove him through establishing the fact that this world needed a Creator. He said that there could be no phenomenon unless there was a Creator. And, since the world itself was a phenomenon, then it could not be without the need of having a Creator.

Another way that Ghazali chose to prove God was a posteriori argument. With this approach, it was possible to understand through observation of the creatures that there was a Creator of the world. This was the reason why Ghazali invited people to undertake external and spiritual journey.

Ghazali spoke of the epistemological benefits of the familiarity with the Creation’s secrets. He called the phenomenal world, as a mirror for the unseen world and claimed that one could see in it the manifestations of the Essence, its attributes and actions of the Exalted Truth (Rafiei 2002, p. 37-38).

Ghazali thus proved the existence of God (the Creator) from the existence of the world. An atomistic ontology was presupposed here, and yet there were also philosophical arguments to refute the criticism of other philosophers.

As for God’s attributes however, Ghazali regarded them as ‘something’ different from, yet adding to God’s essence and His acts. According to Ghazali, God had attributes such as knowledge, life, will, hearing, seeing and speech. These were included in God’s essence and were coeternal with it.

Concerning the relationship between God’s essence and His attributes - both were said to be ‘not identical, but not different’. The creation of the world and subsequent changes had been produced through God’s eternal knowledge, but this did not necessarily mean a change in God’s attributes in line with the changes in the empirical world (Nakamura 1998).

The essence of God

No person knew about God’s essence and it was impossible that anyone could know His essence. God has said in the Quran:

…they comprehend Him not in knowledge (Taha: 110).

This was why the Prophet of Islam asked people to contemplate about the creation of God. Ghazali believed that one could understand some of the attributes of God to an extent through similitude and examples giving due attention to the attributes in the essence of human spirit (Rafiei 2002, p. 39-40)

From Ghazali’s viewpoint, God had some attributes. The negatives in His essence were that He had no partner, no need, no corporeal substance, no dimensions to measure and no change, etc.
The positive attributes in His Essence were - life, knowledge, power, etc. His attributes of action meant that God had created all things, all things were in accordance to His will and providential scheme, etc. (Rafiei 2002, p. 41-43).

Ghazali asserted that humans could see God in the hereafter. The more a man’s cognition of God was, the better and more they would be able to see Him. In his mystical approach, Ghazali spoke of love, affection and pleasure of vision of God in this world, which could be made possible through purification from carnal desires (Rafiei 2002, p. 45-47).

Ghazali admitted that the world was real, and a trifling ray of God’s infinite power. Some of the most important topics that he discussed about the world could be summarized as follows: (Rafiei 2002, p. 47-53):

In Ghazali’s viewpoint, God was the axis of existence and all things were dependent upon His will. Ghazali referred to God as the Writer of the Book of existence. God was the cause of all existence and existence is the effect. Ghazali was of the opinion that it was the knowledge of God that necessitated the creation of creatures. The world had been thus created for this knowledge.

The ‘time’ and the ‘world’ had been created along with each other, because in Ghazali’s view, ‘time’ had a beginning and an end like the world.

The world belonged to God, it remained with God, and it existed for God. Ghazali believed that God’s creation of the world had been decided in the eternal past, and therefore it did not imply a change in God because time itself was God’s creation.

If God had complete knowledge of a person from birth to death, there would be no change in God’s eternal knowledge, even though the person’s life changed from moment to moment (Nakamura 1998).

For Ghazali, the world as a whole proceeded not by eternal or logical necessity, but from the will of God (Audi 2001, p.21).

Ghazali considered the world as the supreme possible world. In a posteriori argument, he emphasized the wonders of creation, and tried to lead the reader to believe that the world was the best system by reminding them of the creative and dedicated marvels of God’s creation.

In a priori demonstration Ghazali tried to prove that the world had the best system, through proving that its Creator was the best. He tried to show that it was impossible that such a Creator (God) did not have the best action (the world itself) by emphasizing on some of God’s attributes such as power, wisdom, knowledge and justice. He said that this world was the most perfect and best possible world (Nakamura 1998).

Augustine

For Augustine, knowing God included knowing that God exceeded our powers of comprehension and the powers of description. As he put this point in a sermon – “If you have been able to comprehend it, then is it God you contemplate?” (Matthews 2006, p. 183).

According to Augustine, the recognition that God was a true Being was accompanied by awareness that beings other than God were distinct from God and depended on God for their existence. Thus, their existence was contingent and dependent.

Augustine held that the universe was fundamentally comprised only of existing realities, that is, of natures or substances that had an existence. If one looked for something strictly contrary to God, they would find absolutely nothing, for only non-being was contrary to being. Therefore there could be no nature contrary to God (MacDonald 2006, p. 83). All existing things other than God depended on God for their being (ibid, p.84). God was the only Creator. Created things could not bring other things into existence out of nothing (Knuuttila 2006, p. 103).

Augustine’s God was not only the cause of things but also the cause of our knowing them. God illuminated truths as the sun illuminated all visible things. It was not the senses that supplied knowledge, because objects perceived by them were mutable (Honderich 2005, p. 66). Knowledge was obtained through enlightenment from God - the only teacher who could do more than provide an occasion for learning (ibid, p. 67).

Instead of supposing that what we know could be abstracted from sensory particulars that imparted such knowledge, Augustine insisted that our mind was so constituted that it could see ‘intelligible realities’ directly from an inner illumination (Matthews 1998).

Augustine’s talk of illumination was, in part, simply the deployment of an apt and traditional metaphor - that of light. He often used this metaphor in discussions about cognition, saying that whoever apprehended what was transmitted in the sciences and admitted without any hesitation that this was absolutely true, must believe that it could not be apprehended as it were, of its own accord, if it was not illuminated by another sun. Augustine concluded that no ‘outward’ teacher could teach what anything really was by asking or telling us something about it. At most, the ‘outward’ teacher could admonish or remind us to look ‘within’.

Augustine did present an argument for the existence of God and believed that God was not distinct from His attributes (Matthews 1998). Augustine believed that God was both within and beyond the creation. The created world in its beauty cried out: “He made us!” (Mcvoy 2006, p. 255-256).

Augustine was also of the opinion that God created the world out of nothing (ex nihilo) (Mautner 2005, p. 56). He maintained that the true God was the author of things (Honderich 2005, p. 66). Augustine’s assumption was that nothing existed, except that it existed because God existed. Moreover, because everything changeable had a beginning and the heavens and the earth were certainly changeable as God had created them (Matthews 1998).

According to Augustine, God was Absolute Being and Absolute Good; the created being depended upon Him both for its own existence and for its goodness. That God was our happiness then, was not determined by an arbitrary ‘change of taste’ on the part of human beings, but on the ontological fact that God was good in Himself while we are good only when dependent upon Him (Macquarrie & Childress 2001, p. 46).

Augustine asserted that God Himself being without any beginning must be outside time: “His years do not pass but, stand simultaneously” (Honderich 2005, p. 67). According to Augustine, God created movement in the universe (Knuuttila 2006, p. 103). Time depended upon movement, and since God was unmoving, there was no time before creation (ibid, p. 106).

Anthropology

Ghazali

Ghazali believed that man was the supreme among all creatures. From his viewpoint there was no way to know a person except through the cognition of his soul.

Some of scholars have considered Ghazali as the founder of Islamic psychology. According to Ghazali, it was the spirit of human being that caused his superiority over other creatures. It was in the light of his spirit that man became the superior to all other creatures and was God’s vicegerent on the earth. It was by virtue of this spirit that man had accepted human dignity and could be adorned with the beauty of knowledge. It was due to this spirit that a human being became similar to God with regards to their essence, attributes and actions.

Man’s spirit was quite different from his body. The body would be destroyed but the soul would remain eternal because its substance was abstract and divine. Ghazali mentioned two aims for a man’s soul - worldly and otherworldly. The desired worldly aim of the soul was acquisition of knowledge and freedom, finally attaining pure monoism, comprehension and witnessing of the oneness of existence.

If a soul achieved a real absorption into monoism or reached pure monoism, it would see nothing save God and would understand that there was nothing else in the universe but God. There was only one that was existent and that was God. In such a state, soul would see nothing else in the world but absolute beauty, absolute virtue, and absolute goodness, and would see itself consistent and united with this beauty, virtue and goodness.

Ghazali considered the vision of God in the hereafter as the desired otherworldly aim. This aim had different ranks, which were dependent on the knowledge of the soul towards God - which was called ‘faith’. In other words, anyone who achieved the utmost happiness and monoism in this world would also attain the ultimate aim of seeing of God in the hereafter. That which the soul would plant in this world, it would harvest that in the hereafter.

In addition to having a vision of God, the soul would also enjoy the bounties of the hereafter, the kind and measure of which would be a function of soul’s knowledge, intentions and actions in this world.

The undesired aims for the soul in this world were - paganism, disbelief, ignorance, egoism, ambition and oppression. The undesired aim of the soul in the hereafter was deprivation from vision of God and being unable to benefit from God’s bounties and being afflicted in the hell’s doom, the kind and measure of which would be determined by the state of the worldly life of the soul (Rafiei 2002, p. 54-69).

According to Ghazali, whosoever did not know his soul could only recognize the superficial and external surface of the religion, and he was in fact alien to the reality of the religion. Ghazali emphasized that one could not know God without the cognition of their soul. This soul remained the divine aspect of mankind. Although it was not primordial, it was everlasting. It was essential, single, simple, and abstract. Body served as an instrument for the soul. And, it was up to human beings to achieve the perfection of their soul.

Ghazali believed that this perfection could only be attained in the light of the religion, and people could only achieve happiness and perfection by following the religion. In other words, following the religion was considered to be happiness, and happiness and perfection were dependent on surrendering to it (Rafiei 2002, p. 236-238).

According to Ghazali, human beings consisted of body and soul, but their essence was the soul. The human soul being a spiritual substance was totally different from the body. It was something divine, which made it possible for the human being to have knowledge of God. According to Ghazali, the body was a vehicle or an instrument for the soul (Nakamura 1998 & Skellie 1938, p. 31) on its way to the hereafter, and had various faculties to maintain the bodily activities. When virtues of temperance, courage, wisdom and intellect were moderate, harmonious and well balanced, then happiness and justice were found.

In reality, however, there was an excess or deficiency in each faculty, and so various vicious characteristics were found. The fundamental cause for all this was a love of the world. The purpose of religious exercises was to rectify these evil traits of the soul through bodily exercises by utilizing the inner relationship between the soul and the body (Nakamura 1998).

Ghazali called death ‘the small resurrection’ which accepted soul in the state that it is after death (Nakamura, 1998). Ghazali believed that thereafter it was in the light of the heart of man that he was been given the great honor and was considered qualified to draw near to God (Skellie 1938, p. 25).

Ghazali admitted that the powers of human volition acted as God’s power. Human power and action were both created by God and therefore, human action was actually a creation of God. Yet, it was also human acquisition of God’s will, which was reflected in human volition. Thus Ghazali tried to harmonize God’s and our own responsibility for our actions (Nakamura 1998).

Ghazali emphasized the contingency of everything and God’s complete freedom of decision. He inclined towards a neo-platonic mysticism (Mautner 2005). Ghazali said that while God could place any obligations that He wished upon us, it was also incumbent on Him to do what was best for us and to give rewards and punishments according to our obedience or disobedience. However, He was absolutely free and was under no obligation at all, so this was unimaginable for God (Nakamura, 1998).

Augustine

Augustine desired to know God and the soul. Later he expressed the same desire in his prayer – “God ever the same, may I know you, and may I know myself” (Teske 2006, p. 116).
He simply wanted to know his own soul. Augustine’s search for self-knowledge continued through many of his other writings. He decided that the admonition to “know self” was to be understood as an admonition not to turn away from oneself but to live according to one’s nature under God’s will (Matthews 2006, p. 1777).

Augustine also spoke of a divine soul. He asserted that the soul was divine. He later described a life devoted to reason as living in accordance with the divine aspect of the soul (Taske 2006, p 117-118).

Augustine said that soul was superior in its nature to the world, since it was the source of life for the body. Augustine tried to identify the presence of God within the soul by means of self-knowledge. The better one knew himself, the more one appreciated God’s transcendence of His creation.

God had left a distinctive mark of His presence at the deepest point of human self-consciousness, which corresponded to His transcendence. It was expressed as the joy that soul felt in the truth, which was completely ineradicable from the human mind and memory (McEvoy 2006, p. 256). Augustine believed that although souls were incorporeal, soul was also a part of nature or a substance. And, until the general resurrection, the souls of the dead would ‘live’ without bodies (Honderich 2005, p. 67).

Augustine claimed that the will was ‘in our power’. Since it was in our control, it was free for us. He asserted that that God, through His Knowledge, was the cause of all that He foreknew, including a free choice of the will.

Since Augustine defined ‘will’ as a movement of the soul, under no compulsion, toward getting or not losing something. It thus followed that human will was free from compulsion. Augustine maintained that the grace of God could work on the human will without destroying its freedom (Matthews 1998). Moreover, among the things that God foreknew the things that we would to do out of our own free choice (ibid).

Augustine maintained that although we were free agents our freedom operated within major constraints imposed by original sin and the possibility of our reaching towards our supernatural destiny, let alone attaining it, depended upon God’s aid (Mautner 2005, p. 56).

Augustine said that one must not think that free choice had been removed because (the Apostle) said, “It is God who works in you both to will and to do, of (His) good will.” Because if this were so, he would not have said above, “Work out your own salvation in fear and trembling.” For when it was commanded that they work, their free will was being invoked (Stump 2006, p. 134).

Augustine affirmed the reality of the ‘Fall’, and of the original sin as the inherited moral disease that we all bear. It was only curable by God’s grace. This teaching confirmed the predestination of the elect, for grace would always be a gift rather than earned (Blakburn 2005, p. 29).

According to Augustine, men were not able to ‘fulfill the divine commands’ without God’s aid, nor even to ‘will and believe’ aright without God’s ‘acting’. To those who received them these benefits came as grace, unmerited, and God’s will in bringing them ‘could not be resisted’. Yet it seems that what could not be resisted was not received free and in one mode. Augustine at last confessed that though ‘I tried hard to maintain the free decision of human will, the grace of God was victorious’ (Honderich 2005, p. 67). Augustine thus admitted the inability of human will to do morally good actions without the grace of God (Audi 2001, p. 61).

Epistemology

Ghazali

Ghazali believed that human beings could acquire knowledge in two general ways. Firstly, it was through instruction. This was carried out with the help of a teacher or senses and intellect, through which the sensory world, that he also called phenomenal world, became known. This way of learning was possible for the general public.

Secondly, it could occur by Divine instruction whereby the knowledge was acquired directly, without the mediation of other people. From Ghazali’s viewpoint of, this kind of knowledge could be obtained through two ways - schooling and instruction from outside along with learning through inner thinking.

Ghazali considered inner thinking as part of external instruction and schooling. He added that instruction was learning of one person from another, and thinking was the use of the soul’s knowledge from the general soul. He believed that the instructional effect of the general soul was much more powerful than learning of a person from another person (like himself).

Ghazali divided Divine instruction into two kinds - inspired and revealed. He believed that a revelation was particular to God’s prophets who had attained the perfection of soul through purification and refinement so as to directly acquire knowledge from God. He considered inspiration (instinctus insitus as a kind of revelation, which was reserved for the souls that had somewhat approached the prophets of God from the point of view soul’s purification.

Revelation was the direct, immediate and explicit instruction of super naturalistic subjects. Inspiration (instincuts insitus) was their figurative instruction. Revelation was called prophetic knowledge, and inspiration was called inner knowledge (Rafiei 2002, p. 70-71).

Ghazali believed that knowledge caused nearness of student to God. But for him, morality was higher in worth than knowledge, and all the reprehensible properties of scholars were due to lack of refinement of the soul and from not learning the religious wisdom. Instruction and learning without soul’s purification was the cause of corruption.

Ghazali not only believed in the precedence of self-purification to instruction, but also he deemed it impossible for one to acquire a real knowledge unless it was in the light of a purified soul. He referred to this fact that the real knowledge and sin could not be gathered in one person. Whosoever knew even the introduction of real knowledge would surely come to know that sin was like mortal deadly poison and thus he or she would avoid committing sins. If it was sometimes seen that some people spoke of real knowledge while having blameworthy dispositions, they were not scholars in actual fact (Rafiei 2002, p 152-152).

Ghazali called reason (intellect) the balance of God upon the earth. Reason for him, was like a mirror that showed all virtues and vices, and all goodness was due to rational thought. Whosoever had intellect, it would lead him to knowledge, and whosoever had knowledge and did not have intellect or reason, all their work was upended.

Anyone who had complete reason and knowledge was a messenger, or a wise person, or an Imam. Ghazali believed that the virtue, goodness, esteem and order of the two worlds of people were due to reason. It was in the light of reason that man became God’s vicegerent. Reason served as man’s divine eye through which a human could comprehend the mysteries and philosophy of the affairs, because reason was a sample of the light of the Great God, and it was His manifestation among mankind.

In spite of all of these, the reason or intellect by itself had some veils, which decreased its efficiency. Therefore, a man could not reach happiness by reason alone. This was so because there were some things that were necessary for human happiness but reason could not find them. While Ghazali deemed it possible to comprehend truth and to find out the episteme, he believed that only very few people could reach such a status through reason. In his view, it might not be even possible for one person in an era to attain such level of reason and intellect to be able to achieve truth and a true cognition or episteme in the light of reason alone. The remedy lay in appealing to religion.

Ghazali was of the opinion that the reason could not be guided right unless it was through religion, and religion could only be interpreted right in the light of reason. Reason was like eye, and religion was like light - eye was unable to do anything without light, and light had no benefit without the eye. Therefore, religion could be seen as external reason and reason as internal religion for human being. These two were the helpers for each other. These two could in fact be considered as one single thing.

Thus according to Ghazali, religion and God’s grace should be there to help human beings so that reason could bring them to happiness. Failing this, it might be that one doubted even in prima. Ghazali himself was involved in such an epistemological crisis in a part of his life, and according to him, it was only due to the help of a spiritual light, which God shone onto his heart that he was saved.

Ghazali admitted that reason, as other natural powers of humans, could be nurtured, and introduced through instruction, learning, teaching, and thinking about the best ways of nurturing reason. Ghazali believed that thinking caused an increase in affection for God, for one’s heart loved someone in whose greatness they believed in. And, the appreciation of Glory and Greatness of God was obtained through cognition of His Attributes and Deeds. Thinking caused cognition, and cognition caused knowledge, and reverence caused affection.

Ghazali invited people to external and spiritual journey for the subject of thinking. He invited people and students towards self-cognition. (Rafiei 2002, p. 201-204). Ghazali said that thinking had two results - particular or direct and general or indirect.

The particular and direct outcome of thinking was creation of transformation and development in one’s cognitive respect. The general and indirect result of thinking was the creation of transformation and development in one’s cognitive, affective and behavioral aspect. In other words, it was true that thinking originally and directly affected individuals’ cognitive domain, but since this domain influenced the affective aspect, and the affective aspect had impact on the people’s behavioral domain, then with transformation and development of the cognitive domain, man's affective and behavioral domains of personality were transformed.

Cognition of the correct method of thinking was the product of Divine light, which shone naturally in the hearts of people such as prophets, or it might be a result of instruction, repetition and practice. One could reach God through thinking about God's creation and creatures (Rafiei 2002, p. 290-291).

Ghazali valued the insight given by mystical comprehension of things over and above that achieved through logic or reason (Blackburn 2005, p.152). He believed that there was no way to certain knowledge or the conviction of revelatory truth except through Sufism. This implied that the traditional form of Islamic faith was in a very critical state during the lifetime of Ghazali (Nakamura 1998).

The noblest kind of knowledge was considered to be the knowledge of God, His attributes and His deeds. Through this came man's perfection, and in his perfection lay his happiness and worthiness to live close to the Divine Majesty and His perfection.

Knowledge was said to be the end to which man had been destined for and it was the special characteristic for which he had been created (Skellie 1938, p 31). Ghazali approved seeing of God as a kind of knowledge, which was beyond corporeality. In fact, later he gave a deep mystical and philosophical meaning to the vision of God. God remained a personal and an absolute reality beyond human reason (Nakamura, 1998). Ghazali said that he owed his deliverance, not to a concatenation of proofs and arguments, but to the light, which God caused to penetrate into his heart (Ghazali 1909, p. 18).

Augustine

Augustine is said to have ‘active’ theory about sense of perception. The term ‘active’ in this context involved the idea that during a vision the eyes emitted rays, which touched the object that was being visualized.

More generally it was Augustine's contention that, while physical sense organs underwent a change during perception, perception was not something carried out by the soul. It was something that the body underwent per se and it was not hidden from the soul. The soul only took note of what body underwent as the body perceived it. The soul experienced it through the body - which messenger, as it were, was used by the soul to transform itself towards the very thing that was brought to its attention from outside.

Augustine asserted that there were three kinds of vision - physical, spiritual and intellectual. What Augustine stated as the physical vision was in fact a sensory perception of the body; spiritual vision was the stimulation of mental imagery, whether in memory or imagination; and intellectual vision was the non-imaginal perception of universal objects, structures and truths.

This work included Augustine's most serious attempt to account for errors in the sensory perception. It also included one of his most beautiful descriptions of mystical vision, and in fact this work later took on great significance in the middle ages, for the discussion of mysticism (Matthews 1998).

According to Augustine, we could learn from nature because it showed or presented experience to our bodily senses. Nature - this sun and the light pervading and clothing all things that were present, the moon and the other stars, the lands and the seas, and the countless things begotten in them - showed and displayed aspects of itself to those paying attention to it (Quinn 1998, p. 82).

When discussing the relationship of faith and reason, Augustine characteristically insisted that faith must precede understanding. For understanding was the reward of faith; therefore he ordered not to seek to understand in order to believe, but believe so that you would understand.

Augustine divided the things to be believed into three classes. The first ranged over the temporal dealings of human beings. These were things that were ‘always believed and never understood’. In second group were those which were ‘understood as soon as they were believed’ – these are based upon human reasoning. It was the third group, which concerned divine dealings that were believed first and understood afterwards (Matthews 1998).

Augustine held that while reason established existence of God, it could not, unlike the scriptural revelations, disclose the historical truths of creation, fall, incarnation and redemption, knowledge of which was necessary for salvation; and nor, unlike spiritual prayer, could it bring the seeker into beatific union with God. For this to happen, there had to be grace and faith (Mautner 2005, p. 56).

Augustine asserted that no one other than God could show or present to anyone intelligible things, which could only be perceived by the mind. According to Augustine when we dealt with things perceived by the mind, using intellect and reason, we were speaking about things that were being looked upon immediately in the inner light of truth, in virtue of which the so-called inner man was illuminated and rejoiced, taught by things made manifest within by themselves when God disclosed them. God taught us about intelligible things by showing or presenting them directly to our minds (Quinn 1998, p. 82-83).

Augustine normally held that in this life we could know a certain amount about God by reason alone, but this would not be enough for happiness and salvation. Our consequent need for faith or true belief, in matters of religion could be compared with our need for and reliance on the belief in other areas of our lives (Rist 2006, p. 26). Faith, necessarily associated with hope, was required as a prerequisite to understanding (ibid, p.32).

According to Augustine we were too weak to discover the truth by reason alone and for this reason need the authority of the sacred books (Matthews, 2006, p. 183). Augustine told us that it is the light of God, by which the mind was able to discern the objects of intellectual vision (Matthews 2006, p. 180). Christ the inner teacher dwelt within. Augustine insisted that the ‘intelligible realities’, which presumably included what we thought of as a priori truths, could not be learned or even confirmed through sensory experiences (ibid).

Perhaps Augustine’s idea of Divine illumination was meant to invoke supernatural aid in dealing with the problem of ambiguity (Matthews 2006, p. 181). Augustine maintained that introspection or inwardness was the way of discovering the created hierarchies by which to ascend to God (Audi 2001, p. 61).

Axiology

Ghazali

Ethics was one of the most important discussions that Ghazali put forward in his writings. He spoke of three ethical approaches in his moral instructions, i.e. his moral instructions were based on these three approaches - philosophical, theological or religious and mystical.

As for the philosophical ethics, Ghazali referred to cardinal moral virtues, i.e. eminence, wisdom, courage and chastity. He considered each virtue as the moderation of the two extremes. Regarding theological or religious ethics, Ghazali did not consider moral virtues as restricted to the mentioned virtues. He also believed in confined virtues (based on the religion) and Divine-aided virtues.

Ghazali admitted that it was impossible to acquire virtues without the Divine grace. Therefore confined and Divine-aided virtues were both necessary for human happiness and obtaining the content of God.

In religious ethics, obeying the commandments produced virtue (eminence) and not obeying them led to vice. Ghazali distinguished between the morality of general public and the elite where mystical ethics was concerned,. He was of the opinion that the virtues of the elite was not focused only on happiness in the hereafter, rather it was directed at obtaining God’s content, nearness to Him and His Vision.

Ghazali believed that four things were involved in a morality of good or bad - good or bad behavior, recognition of good from bad, ability to do good or bad, constant and soul-related state which had attitude to do good or bad work and invited man towards them, making those easy for him.

Ghazali said that the thing, which was considered as morality and directed behaviour was the fourth state. In other words, behaviour is moral when it becomes a part of one’s personality and character. Then it can be considered as one’s (second) nature.

Ghazali considered soul’s purification as the superior of practical sciences, because if this refinement was carried out and one reached moderation in behavior, such moderation would influence his behavior in family and society. He argued that how it could be possible - if soul refinement had not prepared a person and he could not administer his own soul - that he would be able to administer his family or his society?

According to Ghazali, when power of thinking was purified, as it deserved to be, wisdom was prepared in its light. The result of such wisdom would be the fact that one could recognize truth from falsehood in their beliefs, and would understand right from wrong in their speech, and would distinguish beauty from ugliness in their behavior (Rafiei, 2002, p. 245).
According to Ghazali, the totality of man's happiness therein lay in making the meeting with God, his aim. The abode of the world in the hereafter was to be considered his final dwelling place, the present world was his temporary stopping place, the body was his vehicle, and its members were his servants (Skellie 1938, p. 33).

The greatest joy for Ghazali was seeing God in the intellectual or spiritual sense of the beatific vision. In comparison with this, sensuous pleasures were nothing. The beatific vision of God by the elite after the quickening of the bodies, or the great resurrection, has been an intellectual view in opinion of the philosophers. The mystical experience of the Sufi was a foretaste of the real vision of God in the hereafter (Nakamura, 1998).

According to Ghazali, the doors of mercy were opened for some people, who were bestowed generously by reason of goodness and generosity of God who did not begrudge it for anyone. However it appeared only in those hearts that were exposed to the gifts of God. This exposing of one’s self to these gifts was done through cleansing and purifying the heart from evil and from turbidity, which came from a blameworthy character (Skellie 1938, p. 29-30).

Ghazali was of the opinion that whosoever spent his energy in pursuing the bodily pleasures and ate like animals did was brought down to the depths deserving of brutes (Skellie 1938, p. 32).

Augustine

According to Augustine, God was the highest good. Ontological ranking and value ranking therefore coincided - the Highest Being was the highest good. Moreover, just as all agreed, it was God that they had to place above all other things. So the happiness that everyone sought was the highest good (Macdonald 2006, p. 79).

Augustine reminded his readers that anything good in human person, including any goodness in the will, was a gift from God. In his view, human beings were unable to form a good volition unless God produced it in them or cooperated in producing it (Stump 2006, p. 131).

Augustine asserted that moral virtues such as continence could not be acquired without divine assistance. God spoke to us through discourses contained in oral sermons and written scriptures (Quinn 1998, p. 91).

Augustine maintained that a good conduct was motivated mainly by an individual’s desire for reward, whether now or in heaven. In such cases the regard for self, overshadowed the regard for the other. Self-love predominated clearly over love of God and neighbor (Kent 2006, p. 215).

Augustine argued that the universe was good on the whole, and that evil was only a privation or absence of that which was good. In the case of moral evil, this resulted out of free will (Blackburn 2005, p. 28). According to this view, any evil was not a thing, a substance or a property, but rather it was an absence of what should be there, or a privation. His idea obviated the need to look for a creative source of evil. It also offered a way to reconcile the human condition, and that of the world more generally, with the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good creator (‘All things that existed therefore, seeing that the Creator of all of them was supremely good, were themselves good... but their good may be diminished’ – Mautner 2005, p. 56).

According to Augustine, God made everything, and all that He made was good. The attribute of evil arose from a tendency of things to decay: ‘for a thing to be evil meant for it to fall away from the state of its own being and tend towards a state in which it was not’.

The ordinary course of nature was the regular and planned unfolding of causal or ‘seminal’ reasons, which dated from the creation when God ‘completed’ his work (Honderich, 2005, p. 66). Augustine defined evil as the ‘absence of good.’ Since existence was good (as it had been created by God), evil was the negative element of existence, a privation of existence (Pojman, 2003, p. 407).

Evil was not a reality but a mere privation and so, in a way, it did not exist. Yet the fear of something nonexistent itself will be evil (Matthews, 1998). Only good things come from the supremely good God. Hence, evil must be not be in nature but a privation in or corruption of an existing nature.

The Universe could not fundamentally be comprised of opposing natures - good and evil. Cosmological monism being true, evil could not exist in nature or a substance. It could not have been created by God, and could not have been originated from a divine power independent of God (Macdonald 2006, p. 84).

Augustine shared with ancient philosophers the conception of ethics into an inquiry into the supreme good - that which we sought for its own sake, never for the sake of some further end and that which made us happy. He also shared the conviction that all human beings by nature wanted to be happy. He agreed that happiness was a condition of objective well-being, not merely a pleasure a person might gain by satisfying whatever desires they happened to have, irrespective of it being a delusion or self-destructive in nature.

He argued that happiness was possible only in the afterlife, as happiness was a gift of God’s grace, so, too was virtue - a free gift, which could not be earned through one’s own natural resources or independent merits. Augustine contended that all virtues were rooted in self as a God-given charity (Kent 2006, p. 232). With God’s grace, the greatest sinner might be converted to be a virtuous one (ibid, p. 234). Augustine believed that if happiness were given only in accordance with the human merit, grace would not remain grace (ibid, p. 235).

Happiness was one of Augustine’s lifelong themes. His two most consistently recurring ideas were that – one, all human beings without exception had a desire to be happy and second, his overriding conviction was that no thing and no person could fulfill their own desire for happiness. No experience or any object of desire, even when attained, could make one completely and reliably happy. This could not be attained even through attainment of the highest ideal open to humankind, such as the search for wisdom and their love of it (McEvoy 2006, p. 255).

Augustine believed that two quasi-ideas - happiness and truth - gave coherence to our entire mental and affective life. This happened in ways that we were not fully conscious of and which did not lay within our powers to alter. Everything we thought, desired or did was structured by these two primal instincts and was their expression. These came together, when we found ‘joy in the truth’ (McEvoy 2006, p. 256).

Augustine maintained that the true God was at once the author of things, the illuminator of truth, and the giver of happiness (Honderich 2005, p. 66). He asserted that all human actions arose from a quest for happiness. God alone could make human beings happy, and happiness could not be reached by solitary individuals on their own or living under the conditions of their earthly existence. The way to happiness lay through faith in the mediator and obedience to his commands (Macquarrie & Childress, 2001, p. 46).

For Augustine, happiness consisted what could be achieved in the afterlife for virtue that was present in this life. Virtue itself was a gift of God. It was founded on love, and not on the wisdom that was prized by philosophers (Kent 2006, p. 205).

Augustine thought that we all do and we ought to pursue happiness, which he equated with seeking the experience of joy. As he saw it, all humans aspired to be happy. He remarked that if people were asked whether they would like to be happy, each would at once respond without the least hesitation, that they would choose to be so.

For Augustine, the happy life consisted of joy grounded in and caused by God. Still he was well aware that to find happiness, they did not want to find God as their source of joy. Rather a happy life was joy based on the truth. This joy was grounded in God, He being the Truth itself.

Augustine believed that the human heart remained restless until it rested in God (Quinn, 1998, p. 86-87). According to Augustine, friendship was depicted as a source of intense happiness. He thought that happiness should lie in loving friends with a sense of mortality that alone could allow the precious value of every present moment to be savoured in its entirety.

Such happiness could not be had without a faith in God’s providential love and eternal life (McEvoy, 2006, p. 257). Augustine believed that the motivation of any act or attitude was love (most commonly dilectio), which is a metaphysical dynamism at the heart of all cosmic movement.

Whether love was right or wrong, could be distinguished by the appropriateness of the object that was loved. In Augustine’s interpretation of New Testatment (NT) ethics, a virtue was conformity of love as all-embracing category in ethics, which corresponded with the unprecedented centrality assigned to Matt. 22:39 and parallel Gal. 5:14; and Rom.13:9.

Love must always be subjected to norms, as it followed the cognitive recognition of the structure of reality. It is not possible that any object of love would be without a value, since it was always possible to recognize the created goodness, even in the midst of its corruption (Maquarrie & Childress 2001, p. 47).

According to Augustine then, there was one virtue and the whole of virtue was to love what you saw and the greatest happiness was to have what you love (Matthews, 1998). Augustine believed that virtue required loving others, as they deserved to be loved, according to their intrinsic worth; instead of being in proportion to how well they happened to serve our own interest or satisfy our own desires.

A virtuous person will therefore never regard others as merely the means to her own needs. Augustine explained that we must love our neighbor as a human being, for his intrinsic worth, and not for some pleasure or advantage that we hoped to derive from him. We must love people because they belonged to God, not because they belonged to us. To love somebody should be not because he was your son rather because he was a human being, made in the image of and belonging to God. This was so because God alone was to be loved for His own sake, i.e. to be ‘enjoyed’ and all human beings were to be loved for the sake of God, i.e. to be ‘used’ (Kent 2006, p. 214).

Augustine said: “A short and true definition of virtue was due ordering of love”. Aquinas and he could demonstrate how one could go from self-love to the love for others, from selfish love of the others to selfless love for them, from covetousness to benevolence, and from benevolence to charity, in summary, from ‘eros’ to ‘philia’ and then, sometimes, at least as little, as a distant possibility, from ‘philia’ to ‘agape’.

Augustine said that where there was humility, there was also charity. This was because humility led to love. In Augustine’s famous phrase, he said - “I was not in love as yet, yet I loved to love”. Whenever the feeling of love failed to triumph or blossom, this could suffice in any case for love to remain valid as a model or commandment (Comte-Sponville, 2003).

Discussing virtue and vice Augustine contrasted those things that were desirable in themselves with those that were desirable for the sake of something else. He said that things of the first type were to be enjoyed whereas those of the second sort were to be used. Vice was waiting to use what was to be enjoyed or wanting to enjoy what was to be used (Matthews, 1998).

In the discussion of teaching by preaching, Augustine considered the problem of how to address those who knew what ought to be done yet did not do it. For him an important part of moral education involved persuading people to do what they ought to do. However, merely instructing them about what they ought to do was not always sufficient to persuade them to do it.

When there was resistance to doing what ought to be done, teaching in the grand style was aimed at moving an adverse mind towards conversion. But conversion could not be achieved without divine assistance. Since an attempt at persuasion would succeed only if God assisted it. Therefore, anyone who engaged in moral teaching needed to pray that God placed a good speech in his mouth (Quinn 1998, p. 86).

Conclusion

It can be concluded from this article that there were many similarities between the views that Ghazali and Augustine held on philosophy. Considering Ghazali as a representative of Islam, and Augustine as a representative of Christianity it could be claimed that these similarities could somehow be attributed as common to both Islamic and Christian philosophy. Thus, a shared model of Islamic and Christian philosophical ideas could be expected so that both Muslim and Christian philosophers all over the world could utilize it.

Some of the important shared views of Ghazali and Augustine on ontology, anthropology, epistemology and axiology that have been extracted and summarized have been put forward in this article as follows:

The world was not restricted to matter. Non-material things existed too. On this premise, therefore, God existed as well.

God was beyond man's comprehension and man could not know His Essence and nor could he define or describe Him in words.

God’s essence and attributes were not separate from each other but were one. No phenomena could exist without a Creator, i.e. God. God had created the world. The world was real, God being the cause and the existence was His effect. The world itself was a manifestation of God and a higher and unseen world, the universe being a goal-centered system.

Human being was a combination of body and spirit. This spirit would not be destroyed after death. There would be resurrection and hereafter for all human beings.

Human beings had a divine eternal and a non-material soul. Whosoever did not know his soul would not know God and himself and would attain only a superficial knowledge of the religion.

Man had been created to be similar to God in his attributes. He possessed from his origins - a very good personality and the best of properties. He could remain good and achieve the highest positions by the grace of God. His virtues were dependent on God’s aid.

Man had been purposefully created to reach God and acquire a nearness to God by achieving his vision. They had free will, authority and freedom. This was so because God wanted to create human beings with these characteristics. Therefore, man's freedom and will were not against the authority of God.

Man’s senses played an introductory role in the process of perception and understanding. These senses prepared for cognition to be introduced to the mind. One’s soul or spirit played a very great and important role in the cognition. Man’s intellect by itself was not sufficient for this.

Faith along with reason or intellect could cause man to have a perfect perception. Faith came before reason in this process. Reason alone was unable to understand particular details of creation and religion, and therefore it was not enough to bring the humans to salvation, happiness and the goals for which human beings had been created.

God’s guidance, grace and aid, revelation, religion, Divine scriptures, faith, reason and senses were all of necessary elements necessary for man’s salvation and happiness. Values and virtues obtained in the light of God’s aid and grace were needed for man to be truly happy. Obeying God’s commandments produced virtue and disobedience toward His commandments led to vice.

The real learned did not only focus on happiness in the hereafter, rather they attempted to obtain God’s content, nearness and vision in this life itself. Man’s greatest happiness lay in the spiritual and intellectual meeting with God. Other sensory pleasures were worthless as compared with the greatness of such happiness. In spite of enjoying high ranks of happiness in this world, the good human beings would get real happiness in the hereafter too.

Happiness could not be obtained through the worldly things; rather it could only be achieved in the light of faith and through obeying God's commandments. It was based on truth i.e. God. Man's rest also lay in this fact. Therefore, it was up to all of human beings to seek such happiness and rest.

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Chapter 3: Comparative Study of Ibn Miskawayh and Aquinas’s Shared Views on Philosophy

Introduction

According to Druart (2006, p. 116 -117), even though some presentation of philosophy had been made in Islam, there was much pioneering work yet to be done. Important texts still needed to be critically analysed, besides the analyses of arguments and works of interpretation.

It could be said that at least a deeper understanding of philosophy in medieval Islam, including a more nuanced awareness of the debate around the very existence of falsafa in Islamic culture. This could serve to improve our insight into the nature and role (and perhaps the limitations) of philosophy in general.

Among Muslims, this tradition continued with Ibn Miskawayh (d. 1030 AD). His teaching on the reformation of character reversed the traditional order. It began with a systematic presentation of ethics that was much influenced by the Nicomachean Ethics, and ended by prescribing medicine for the soul.

Ibn Miskawayh, in first part of his treatise, laid down a foundation involving a study of the faculties of the soul and reflections on the good, happiness, virtues and vices. He surveyed the good and happiness in greater detail after discussing human character, its perfection and its means. He focused the fourth part of his treatise on justice and dealt with love and friendship in the fifth. Finally, medicine for the soul was provided, with references to Galen and al-Kindi.

Miskawayh analysed different diseases of the soul, such as anger, fear of death, and sadness. He determined their causes and suggested appropriate treatment. His Treatise on Happiness relied heavily on al-Farabi’s - Reminder and belonged entirely to the “medicine of the soul” genre (Druart 2006, p 116).

St Thomas Aquinas (c.1225-74 AD) was born in the castle of Roccasecca in the Kingdom of Naples in southern Italy, into a family of the Counts of Aquino. He was brought up in the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino. He was sent to complete his studies at the university of the time at the age of fourteen, where a full rang of Aristotelian doctrine was studied. This influenced him and he joined the Dominican order when he reached rang of twenty.

Aquinas studied in Paris, and then Cologne, under Albert the Great, and returned to Paris in 1251-52 AD He subsequently resided at Orvieto, Rome, Viterbo, Paris again, and Naples, constantly writing and engaging during the daytime. His work included numerous translations and commentaries on Aristotle, theological writing, and the two major texts for which he is best known, the Summa Contra Gentiles - “Against the errors of the infidels” - a textbook for missionaries, and the Summa Theologiae, which he began in 1266 AD. It was universally acknowledged to be the crowning achievement of medieval systematic theology (Blackburn 2005, p. 20).

For Aquinas the theological virtue of having God as one’s ultimate end and objective was prior to all other virtues whether natural or acquired. Since the ultimate end must be present in the intellect before it was presented to the will. Since the ultimate end was presented to the will through hope and charity (the other lower theological virtues), in this respect faith was prior to hope and charity.

Hope was the theological virtue through which we trusted that with divine assistance we would attain the infinite good – the eternal enjoyment of God (ST II-IIae, qu.17aa.1-2). In the order of generation, hope was prior to charity; but in the order of perfection charity was prior both to hope and faith.

While neither faith nor hope would remain in those who attained the eternal vision of God to come to them in life itself, charity would endure in these blessed ones. This was a virtue or habitual form that was infused into one’s soul by God and it inclined us to love Him for His own sake. If charity was more excellent than faith or hope (ST II-IIae, qu. 23, a. 6), it was so because through charity the acts of all other virtues were directed towards God - their ultimate end (qu.23, a.8; Audi, 2001, p. 40).

Building upon Aristotle's teaching, particularly the Nicomachean Ethics III and VI, Aquinas gave a detailed analysis of human actions, focusing upon their voluntary nature, intention, choice, and deliberation. He argued that these features had to be present if an act was out of human volition, and not merely like sneezing or twitching – acts, which might be truly said to happen to us rather than being something we did, and which could happen equally to an animal too.

Human acts were said to be out of volition when they were performed because of a reason, our reason being the value that we attached to something which was the desired end in relation to our act. Aquinas argued that beyond all the subsidiary ends that which we might aim at, there was an ultimate end - happiness, which we would not reject.

Although we might act in such a way as to put obstacles in the way of our achieving it through ignorance or incompetence, the fundamental practical principle - ‘Eschew evil and do good’ was in-built into all of us in such a way that no person could be ignorant of it. This practical principle and others following from it form, a full and detailed system of natural law in the Summa Theologiae, which has had major impact on modern discussions in the philosophy of law (Honderich, 2005, p. 48).

Ibn Miskawayh's views on Ethics

Ethics was considered to be a technique and method which when applied to one’s soul, some dispositions could be created in a way that only good deeds would be issued form that soul. Ethics was seen as the noblest of sciences. The nobility of each science was dependent upon its subject, and the subject of ethics was human spirit, that was the noblest of things and subjects that had been created.

Man could purify himself to perfection in the light of obstacles placed in his way through spiritual struggle with his carnal desires. He could thus save himself from real loss, i.e. loss of his own self. In the light of moral teachings a human being could refrain from evil and atrocity, and achieve virtue and happiness to an extent that he or she became the companion of the pure ones and angels, and could receive Divine bounty (Ibn Miskawayh, 1992, p. 27 & 166).

Natural and ordinary Ethics

A deep disposition was a soul-related state that caused a person to act without thinking and speculation (Ibn Miskawayh, 1370 AH, p. 119). Miskawayh divided this disposition into two kinds. Natural disposition sprung from a man’s nature and temper. Some people could become naturally angry or excited over a minor event. These people were naturally coward, excitable and tough.

The second kind of disposition was ordinary. It was created in the soul because of the habit of repetition. This might in the beginning require effort by thinking consciously about it and one may encounter difficulty. However, it gradually became a deeply established disposition through repetition (Ibn Miskawayh 1992, p. 51).

Miskawayh believed that one’s morality changed due to education and admonishment. This change was sometimes rapid and sometimes slow. To consider morality to be unchangeable was contrary to reason and nature of conscience. If we believed in such a thing, then we would have to deny our ability to educate our children and youth and regard all the strategies related to education in societies, as useless. And finally, in this situation we would need to know the faculty of discrimination in human being as useless and ineffective (ibid).

Man’s original nature

Ibn Miskawayh (1992, p. 53) accepted Aristotle’s theory that every disposition was changeable, and non-changeability was temperamental. Therefore, no disposition was temperamental. Even a temperamental bad person could appeal to virtue because of education. Admonishment and education could transform and change all of human's dispositions. However, such a change and changeability was rapid in some people and slow in others.

Virtues and vices

Human soul had three different faculties. The faculty related to distinguishing and thinking about the truth of affairs, was called intellect (rational faculty), and its physical was the brain. The second faculty was related to anger, fear, fearlessness and hegemonism etc. It was called irascible faculty, and its instrument in one’s body was the heart. The third faculty which was related to lust, and one’s desire for food, shelter, marriage and other sensory pleasures was called appetite, and its instrument in the body was liver.

Each of these faculties could become powerful or weak in accordance with temper, habit and education. If the trend of the intellectual faculty was moderate and it was directed toward reaching correct sciences, the virtue of knowledge would emerge and as a result of it – wisdom – would be created.

If the trend of the basic appetites remained moderate and surrendered to the intellect, it would not be involved with its carnal desires. Thus, the virtue of chastity would be created. If the trend of irascible faculty was seemly and merited, and if it was accompanied with the following of intellect the virtue of – courage - would be created. The product and a result of having these three virtues was a fourth virtue called – justice. It was an outcome of perfection in having all the other virtues (Ibn Miskawayh, 1992, p. 37-38).

Pleasure and its kinds

Human beings experienced particular pleasure and pains to satisfy their physical needs. The pleasure resulted from a removal of pain. Man removed his thirst or hunger through drinking water and eating food and such a removal created a pleasure for him. Therefore, pleasure in human beings was like taking drugs for treatment of pain. So, one should pay attention to their merited quantity and quality; immoderation with them could lead man to other pains, diseases and finally death (Ibn Miskawayh 1992, p. 61-64).

Some of man’s pleasures were sensory which sprang from appetites and irascible faculties and man shared them with animals. Such pleasures were accidental and transitory. Excessive engagement with them could sometimes lead to pain. Since these kinds of pleasures were consistent with man’s nature, they were more desirable for people. Pleasures such as eating, sleeping, marriage, vengefulness, chairmanship, etc. were among such sensory pleasures (ibid, p. 96).

Another kind of pleasure peculiar to mankind was intellectual (rational). These kinds of pleasures were innate, durable, and their repetition did not annoy man, rather the pleasure experienced was deeper. Such pleasures were contrary to man’s natural desires. Being attentive to them and wanting them required patience, practice, obeying religious commandments, and following the guidance of good people including parents.

In spite of such high requirements, the intellectual (rational) pleasures were the highest and noblest of pleasures. Many men welcomed pain, and showed forbearance against sensory pleasures on their way to attain such pleasures (ibid, p. 96 & 100-102).

Happiness and its kinds

In general, it could be said that the happiness of each creature was in achieving the particular goal for which it has been created. Ibn Miskawayh, in reply to the question - what brings happiness to man, put forward three different theories.

First was theory of sensory pleasure, which had been attributed to Epicureans. It stated that the ultimate aim of human being was to reach sensory pleasures. According to this theory, the desirable virtue and the great happiness were sensory pleasures, and all faculties of man had been created for such pleasures, even intellect, memory and imagination, had been created for comprehension and identification of these pleasures, and their better attainment.

Ibn Miskawayh had attributed this theory to ignorant people and considered it invalid. He said that this opinion was adjusted to man’s nature, most of people followed it, and its followers considered even worships, prayers and paradise as a useful transaction which was necessary for further pleasures.

Miskawayh asserted that sensory pleasures were usually mixed with pains, and they were nothing else save temporary removal of pains. Achieving them was neither considered as happiness nor as a virtue for mankind because the angels and other beings nearest to God kept clear of such pleasures. Such base human pleasures were shared with animals and many animals enjoyed such pleasures in the same way as human beings (Ibn Miskawayh, 1992, p. 60-61).

The second theory of happiness of spirit had several advocates like the wise before Aristotle such as Pythagoras, Hippocrates and Plato. They deemed man's happiness in the perfection of his soul (spirit), and considered the accomplishment of the virtues such as wisdom, courage, chastity and justice in the soul as a harbinger of happiness even though the body was imperfect and afflicted with disease. These scholars did not consider poverty, impotence, weakness and other similar issues that were harmful to the human soul for achieving happiness (ibid, p. 86-87).

Miskawayh denied this theory for it only paid attention to one aspect of man’s personality, i.e. his soul, and neglected its other aspect, i.e. the body.

The third theory of happiness of spirit and body had Aristotle as one of its advocates. This theory believed that man’s happiness lay in the perfection of his spirit and body. They, contrary to the second group, maintained that the attainment of happiness was also possible in this world.

The followers of this theory considered things such as health of body, moderation of temper and senses, wealth, good reputation, success in affairs, correctness of beliefs, moral virtues, and behavior of merit as part of happiness. They believed that the ultimate happiness was obtained through the accomplishment of all of perfections related to spirit and body (ibid, p. 85-86).

Ibn Miskawayh confirmed this third theory and considered it on the basis of a comprehensive view of human being and his existential dimensions (Beheshti, Abujaafari & Faqihi, 2000, p. 57-59).

Thomas Aquinas's Views on Ethics

Increasingly it had been recognized that ethics of virtue was central to Aquinas’ moral thought and his consideration of the characteristic capacities and achievements of human nature (McEvoy 2006, p. 262). Aquinas saw ethics as having two principal topics - first, the ultimate goal of human existence, and second, how that goal was to be won or lost (Kretzmann & Stump,1998).

God and Happiness

Aquinas maintained that happiness did not lie in riches, honors, fame, glory, power, bodily endowment, pleasures, any endowment of soul, or any created good. For Aquinas, however, the essential respect in which God constituted our blessedness was in direct vision of the Divine nature. Happy was he who had whatever he desired, and desired nothing amiss. Happiness was the attainment of the last end. The essence of happiness consisted in an act of the intellect; happiness is joy in truth (McEvoy 2006, p. 263-264).

Aquinas argued that often the unrecognized, genuine and ultimate end for which human beings existed (their ‘object’) was God - perfect goodness personified and perfect happiness. The ultimate end for which they existed (their ‘use’ of that object) was the enjoyment of the end for which they existed. That enjoyment could be fully achieved only in the beatific vision, which Aquinas conceived of as an activity. Since the beatific vision involved the contemplation of the ultimate (first) cause of everything, it was, whatever else it might be, also the - perfection of all knowledge and understanding (Kretzmann & Stump, 1998).

Aquinas argued that a human being necessarily (though not always consciously) sought everything it sought for its own ultimate end - happiness (Kretzmann & Stump, 1998). The happiness, which was the final end, was of course not just a matter of an exercise of the virtues. It could be attained only through a development of all powers. So far as the attainment of happiness in worldly term was concerned, the actualization of our highest powers depended on and presupposed the actualization of our lower powers (MacIntyre 1998, p. 100).

Aquinas maintained that the ultimate end of human beings, their perfected happiness, could not be any finite or created good, since no finite or created good could finally and completely satisfy human desire. Only God could be that good, the God whose existence and goodness became known through philosophical inquiry (MacIntyre 1998, p. 101).

Aquinas maintained that for the conditional sort of happiness that one could hope for during earthly life (where health of body and soul, and some degree of possessions were relevant conditions) friends were indeed necessary, since we needed to love (McEvoy 2006, p. 264).

Aquinas also emphasized the misery and unhappiness of earthly life, as many before him had done. However, he chose to value and recommend those experiences and achievements through these, which were related in a positive way to perfect happiness. He wisely regarded the happiness as attainable in this life as being imperfect at best, but clearly held that this was happiness in an analogical and not merely an equivocal sense (McEvoy 2006, p. 264).

According to Aquinas, beatitude, or the final end was to hold the beatific vision of God. Thomas, Aquinas endeavored to relate happiness to moral and speculative virtues. He argued that beatitude did not lay in bodily or material goods such as pleasure or wealth, but rather that the highest happiness, attainable by human beings lay in the contemplation of truth (McEvoy, 2006, p. 262).

Aquinas recognized intellectual virtues that, like the moral virtues, could be acquired with human effort. On the other hand, the supreme theological virtues of faith, hope and charity could not be acquired, rather these had to be directly ‘infused’ by God (Kretzmann & Stump, 1998).

Aquinas believed that God indeed was good and that this conclusion could be argued for (Davies 2003, p. 139). For Aquinas, ‘God is good’ could mean nothing more than that God was desirable. Goodness was visible in its many forms in what God had creatively brought forth. He also thought that the Cause was reflected in its effect. He thought that the Cause expressed itself in them. The effect visible in the Creation was a reflection of what their Causes would look like in action. On this basis, he concluded that God was good, as the source of things, which are good in their various ways, and desirable, since ‘good’ implied them being ‘desirable’.

Thus Aquinas meant that God was good since the goodness of creatures preexisted in Him as their cause (ibid, P.145). For Aquinas, nothing could exist without somehow being good. In this sense, he thought that everything real was good, even though it might not be as good as it could be (ibid, p. 148).

According to Aquinas, faith was a virtue infused through reason that made us accept God’s authority on what He had revealed to us (Audi 2001, p. 40). He held that there was one final end for human beings towards which they were directed through their innate nature as rational animals. It was for the sake of this travel that all was done and by itself, it was a means for reaching a state with no further end.

Good acts were those that directed us towards the achievement of that end. They were a movement towards perfection, so that by performing them we became the kind of human beings who were able to achieve that end (MacIntyre 1998, p. 99).

What made an action morally bad was that it moved the agent not toward, but away from, the agent's ultimate goal. Such a deviation was patently irrational. Aquinas’ analysis of moral evil of human action identified it as fundamentally irrational, since irrationality was an obstacle to the actualization of human being’s specific potentialities – the one’s that made distinction of the human species rational.

In this, as in every other respect, Aquinas ethics was reason-centered (Kretzmann & Stump, 1998). According to Aquinas, the good of the human being as individuals acting in isolation could not be achieved overall for two reasons. First, we needed the aid and friendship of others at each stage in our lives, if we were to become able to perform the tasks for that stage. And second, the achievement of the good of each individual was inseparable from the achievement of the common good that was shared with those other individuals with whom he or she cooperated in making and sustaining a common life (MacIntyre 1998, p. 100).

Moderation and four cardinal virtues

According to Aquinas, the four ‘Cardinal Virtues’ could be understood as habits, and were as follows: habit of good governance generally was prudence; reason’s restraint of self- serving concupiscence was temperance; reason’s preserving despite self-serving ‘irascible’ passions such as fear was courage; reason’s governance of one’s relations with other despite one’s tendencies toward selfishness was justice.

Aquinas normative ethics was based not on rules but on virtues; it was concerned with dispositions first and only then with actions (Kretzmann & Stump,1998). He demonstrated that of the four cardinal virtues, prudence was the one that must govern the others. Without prudence, he said that temperance, courage, and justice could tell us neither what should be done nor how it should be done - thus, they would be blind or indeterminate virtues (Comte-Sponville, 2003).

Aquinas kept an important place for the Aristotelian virtues, such as fortitude and temperance (Mautner 2005, p. 39). Whether a particular individual judged and acted so as to achieve his or her good was whether and how far that individual had acquired the virtues of character. Temperance disciplined and educated the bodily appetites, courage ordered our passions in response to threats of harm or danger, and justice disposed the will rightly in relation to others by giving to each their due.

Prudence was the exercise of practical intelligence in relationship to the particulars of any given situation. Aquinas understood a range of other virtues as parts or aspects of these four cardinal virtues. The endurance involved in the exercise of patience was an aspect of courage. Untruthfulness was a failure in justice, since we owde truth to each other in our utterances (MacIntyre 1998, p. 99).

What was indispensable to the acquisition of these virtues was performance of right kinds of habit. It was only through practice that the virtues could be acquired and changed into stable and fixed dispositions (MacIntyre 1998, p. 100).

The problem of evil

For Aquinas, the evil that was suffered was no illusion. It was perfectly real in the sense that we could truly say things like this person was blind. Yet Aquinas also thought that to say such things was not to refer to something that existed in its own right. There were, he held, no such things as blindness - there were only people who could not see.

Something was bad because what we expected or wanted to be there was not there. Aquinas said that evil could not signify a certain way of existing or a certain from of a nature. Therefore, we signified a certain absence of good by the term ‘evil’. And he took this to imply that God could not have created evil for suffering. God could not have produced evil because when He made something to be there, it was good rather than nothing (Davies 2003, p.155-156).

Conclusion

It could thus be concluded from this article that Ibn Miskawayh and Aquinas had many similar and shared views on ethics. Human dispositions were changeable, and they could change through some environmental influence, particularly with repetition and habit formation.

The ultimate goal of ethics was consistent with the ultimate goal of human being’s creation, i.e. reaching God who was the perfect goodness. Man’s real happiness was ensured when he reached this goal. Those attributes which led human beings to achieve God for human happiness to become manifest were considered to be virtues. Likewise, those attributes that kept humans from achieving this goal were considered to be vices. Thus, only virtues could bring happiness to human beings.

Although worldly things created some sensory and superficial pleasures, these could never lead human beings to happiness. Man’s happiness resulted from actualization of all of his powers or faculties.

Happiness being a comprehensive state included human body and spirit, this world and the hereafter. In spite of this fact that the highest rank of happiness remained possible only in the hereafter, a high level of happiness could be possible in this world itself.

References

Audi, R. (2001). The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. 2nd edition. UK: Cambridge university press.

Beheshti, M. ; Abujaafari, M. and Faqihi A.N. (2000). Theories of Muslem Scientists in Education and Its Principles, Vol. 2, Supervised by A. R. Aarafi. Qom and Tehran: Howzeh and University Researching House, and Samt.

Comte-Sponvill, A. (2003). Great Virtues. Translated into English by Catherine Temerson. U.K: Vintage

Davies, B. (2003). Aquinas. London and New York: Continuum Druast, T.A. (2006). Philosophy in Islam. In A.S. McGrade (education). The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Philosophy (p. 97-120). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Honderich, T. (2005). The Oxford companion to Philosophy. Second edition. UK: Oxford university press.

Ibn Miskawayh, A. (1370 AH). Al-Havamel Va al- Shavamel. Cairo: Institute of compilation, publication and translation.

Ibn Miskawayh, A. (1992). Tahzib al-akhlaq va Tahrir al-araq (Purification of morality and refinement of souls). Qom: Bidar

Kretzmann, N. and Stump, E. (1998). Aquinas, Thomas. In Routledge Encyclopedia of philosophy, London and New York: Routledge

MacIntyre, A. (1998). Aquinas’s Critique of Education: Aganst His own Age, Against Ours. In A. O. Rorty (Education; Philosophers on Education, Hisorical Perspectives (p. 95-108), London and New York: Routledge

McEvoy, J. (2006). Ultimate Goods: Happiness, Friendship, and Bliss. In A.S. McGrade (education.). The Cambridge Campanion to Madieval philosophy (p. 254-275). Cambridge:
Cambridge university Press

Chapter 4: Comparative Study of Farabi and Spinoza's Shared Views on Philosophy

Introduction

Abu Nasr Farabi, also known as the ‘Second Teacher’, was a great Muslim philosopher. He was born in Farab in 874 AD and died in 950 AD. He learned logic in Baghdad and Harran. In a short period of time, he mastered all popular sciences of his time and was considered an eminent figure.

Farabi was one of the prominent critics of Aristotle’s philosophy and had a major role in the dissemination of Greek thought among Muslims. He was called ‘Second Teacher’ because, after Aristotle, no philosopher had been known to have similar awareness of different branches of science.

Farabi described diverse aspects of logic for Muslims. He completed and instructed what all his predecessors had left out (Sharif 1986, p. 124). Farabi’s thoughts were inspired by different sources. He was especially influenced by the religion of Islam, specifically Shiite thought besides the Platonic, Aristotlean and Neo-Platonic wisdom. His views changed, evolved and became firmly established by involving a systematic and goal-centered system (ibid & Davari Ardakani 1995, p. 45) that had heavily influenced posterity.

Ibn Sina, who considers himself student of Farabi, was an outstanding philosopher. One of the characteristics of Farabi and many other Muslim philosophers was that they believed in harmony between religion and philosophy. According to these philosophers, the product of intellectual thinking in philosophy was similar to what God’s prophets achieved. Therefore, no conflict could exist between their thoughts because the origin of philosophers and prophets was one and the same.

Baruch Spinoza (1632-77 AD) was a Dutch metaphysician, epistemologist, psychologist, moral philosopher, political theorist, and philosopher of religion, generally regarded as one of the most important figures of seventeenth-century rationalism born and educated in the Jewish community of Amsterdam. He forsook his given name ‘Baruch’ in favor of the Latin ‘Benedict’ at the age of twenty-two.

Between 1652 AD and 1656 AD, he studied the philosophy of Descartes in the school of Francis Van den Enden. As he developed unorthodox views of the divine nature and ceased to be fully observant of Jewish practice, the Jewish community excommunicated him in 1656 AD.

He spent his entire life in Holland. After leaving Amsterdam in 1660 AD, he resided successively in Rijnsburg, Voorburg and Hague. He declined a professorship at the University of Heidelberg partly on the grounds that it might interfere with his intellectual freedom. His premature death at the age of forty-four was due to consumption (Audi 2001, p. 870).

Ontology

Farabi

Farabi believed that all of particles in this world were created by an Eternal existence. The most important characteristic of this Existence was absolute unity, which made the unity of the world possible. That supreme existence was the ultimate cause of life. In this system, all of the particles of the Universe were struggling for perfection (i.e. attainment of a higher rank).

Spinoza

Spinoza’s ontology consisted of substances, their attributes, and their modes (Audi, 2001, p. 871). Spinoza’s monism extends to mind and matter: each had a different characteristic, or a way of rationality, which led to appreciating the essence of the same one eternal Reality.

Spinoza believed that it was the intellect rather than the senses that disclosed the essential nature of things. A complete and adequate idea of God showed that He primarily had two attributes. He could be conceived under the heading of a material extension, or under that of a thought. In other words God, or Reality could be conceived in either of these two commensurable ways, which in turn disclosed an attribute or an aspect of His essence.

A problem encountered in interpreting Spinoza had been that God supposedly possessed infinitely many more attributes. By understanding our aim for increasing our knowledge about God or the Universe we discovered the way in which a closed system, which was self-sufficient and completely unified was made for. In this system everything that occurred was necessary, and nothing could be other than as it was (Blackburn 2005, p. 348).

Spinoza ascribed to nature, most of the characteristics that Western theologians ascribed to God. Spinozistic nature was infinite, eternal, necessary, existing, the object of an ontological argument, the first cause of all things, all-knowing, and the being whose contemplation produced blessedness, intellectual love, and participation in a kind of immortal or eternal life.

Spinoza’s claim to affirm the existence of God was therefore no move towards evasion. However, he emphatically denied that God was a person or acte for a purpose; that anything could be good or evil from the divine perspective; or that there was a personal immortality involving memory (Audi 2001, p. 874).

According to Spinoza, except for God, no substance could be or be conceived. It followed from an analysis of the concept of substance that whatever was not it; it must be a modification of a substance thereof. Spinoza concluded that, whatever was, was in God, and nothing could be or be conceived without God’.

Together these views expressed Spinoza’s substance-monism, which could be defined as a complex thesis that there was only one substance in the universe; that this substance is to be identified with God; and that all things, were a modification of this one substance; in some sense it was an extension of God (Allison 1998).

According to Spinoza a substance was not merely infinite among its own kind. That is, it became ‘absolutely infinite’ ultimately through any other thing of the same kind. For Spinoza, that which was all-inclusive or possessing all-reality was meant to have infinite attributes. The more reality or essence of being a thing had, the more attributes belonged to it.

A being that possessed all reality, that is - God - could be described as possessing infinite attributes. God alone was the substance that possessed all the attributes, which existed. Therefore, there were none left for any other conceivable substance.

Combining this with the proposition that two substances could not share an attribute, it followed that there could be no substance apart from God (ibid). In fact, identification of God with nature immediately led to a distinction between two aspects of nature: active or generating nature and passive or generated nature.

The former referred to God as bring conceived through Himself, that is, substance with infinite attributes. The latter referred to a modal system conceived through these attributes (which included, but was not identical to a total of particular things). Consequently, the task was to explain the connection between these two aspects of nature - a task that would be the Spinozistic analogue to the traditional problem of explaining the relationship between God and creation (ibid).

According to Spinoza, God was infinite being. God was infinite substance, consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expressed God’s eternal and infinite essence (I, prop. XI). Spinoza argued that God necessarily existed, because God’s essence was existence. God’s essence was perfect, and therefore God’s perfection implied that God must exist. God’s existence and the perfection itself were the same (I, prop, XX). Each attribute, which expressed God’s essence, also expressed God’s perfection.

Spinoza argued that God being the infinite substance, no attribute that expressed the essence of the substance could deny God (I, prop. XIV). Every being had its essence in God. Nothing could come into being or exist without God. For Spinoza, God was the essential cause for all things.

All things by nature proceeded from necessity. God predetermined all things, and for anything that existed some effect had to follow (Scott, 2001). Spinoza believed that God as a being was absolutely infinite, that is, a substance that possessed infinity of attributes, and each one expressed an eternal and infinite essence (1996, p. 1)

Spinoza asserted that God, or a substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expressed its eternal and infinite essence, existed by necessity (1996, p.7). Spinoza maintained that God was the efficient cause, not only for the existence of things, but also for their essence (1996, p. 18).

According to Spinoza, a thing that had been determined to produce an effect had been necessarily determined in this way by God. And one, which had not been determined by God could not possibly determine itself to produce an effect (1996, p. 19).

According to Spinoza since a perfect substance existed, which possessed all attributes, and since there could not be more than one substance possessing the same attribute, it followed that this perfect substance was the only substance, since there were no attributes left for any other substance. Thus, except God, no substance could exist by itself or be conceived (Honderich 2005, p. 890).

For Spinoza perfection was the same as reality (TI, def. VI). The more perfect a thing was, the more real it was. Inasmuch as God was perfect, God was also real. God was infinitely perfect and infinitely real (Scott, 2001).

Spinoza maintained that there was only one substance. His metaphysics was thus a form of substance-based monism. This one substance was God, which Spinoza defined as an infinite being i.e. a substance consisting of infinite number of attributes, of which each was expressed as an eternal and infinite essence (Audi 2001, p. 871).

Spinoza believed that everything else that existed was in God (Nadler, 2005). His argument was that if God was the only substance, and whatever existed, was either a substance or in the attribute of a substance, then everything else must be in God. Nadler (2005) cited this by stating - ‘Whatever is - is there in God; nothing can be or be conceived without God’ (IP 15).

Since only one substance - God - existed the individual things present in the world could not be distinguished from one another by any difference in substance. Rather, among the internal qualitative modifications and differentiations of each divine attribute, there were patterns that had tendency to endure; these constituted the individual things (Audi 2001, p. 872).

Spinoza believed that all was one - nature equaled to God. In other words, he believed that a substance could not be produced from anything else and as such therefore, it would be its own cause, that is, its essence would necessarily involve its existence, or its existence would appertain to its nature (Spinoza, 1673).

Spinoza said that we were part of nature as a whole whose order we follow. The pantheist philosopher Spinoza realized two profound things. Firstly, all that existed was One (God, Nature) and secondly that the movement was fundamental to existence. He described reality (what existed) in terms of one substance.

He began by describing what could be known about God. According to Spinoza, God was an infinite being. God necessarily existed, argued Spinoza, because God’s essence was existence. God’s essence was perfect, and therefore God’s perfection implied that God must exist. God’s essence and existence were the same (I, prop. XX). Every attribute that expressed God’s essence also expressed God’s existence (Scott, 2001).

Anthropology

Farabi

From Farabi’s viewpoint, man was a combination of an abstract spirit or soul and a material body. Farabi also believed that man’s spirit was superior to his body (Farabi 1405 A.H. b, p. 24).

Man’s body and soul interacted with each other (Farabi 1991, p. 136). The body was an instrument for soul’s deeds and the soul carried out acts of virtue and vice. Therefore, health or illness of the soul was dependent upon the deeds that it committed. The health or illness of the body depended on the degree of its ability to satisfy the soul’s needs.

The health of the soul was maintained by its virtue and goodness, and illness occurred in the soul when it partook in vices and sins. Action was attributed to the soul, while the body was only an instrument for the soul. A body was healthy when it and its parts were able to allow the soul to do its deeds, good or bad, in the most perfect form (Farabi 1405 A.H. b, p. 23). A body was ill when it could not help the soul execute its deeds. The health of the body was ensured through moderation, and its illness was caused by deviation from moderation (ibid, p. 24).

Farabi believed that humans were superior creatures for whom and it was for their service that the other creatures had been created and not vice versa (Farabi 1887, p. 68). The goal of a human being was to reach perfection similar to other created things. Mankind’s perfection was happiness in particular, and each human being would attain a special level of happiness (Farabi 1401 AH, p. 81).

Happiness being the ultimate virtue was desirable in itself (Farabi 1991, p. 106). Happiness was the most preferred and ultimate aim that a human being could achieve. It was not an intermediate instrument chosen to attain other aims (Farabi 1987 a, pp. 178 - 180). People differed in the way they perceived happiness. However once it had been recognized, it became the aim of a person’s actions (Farabi 1991, p. 106 - 107). If another measure other than happiness itself were mistakenly perceived to be a purpose for life, then the actions taken to reach that goal would be a waste.

A person who aimed for achieving happiness had a tendency to endeavor for perfection. He strove to be free of material things (ibid, p. 135). Upon reaching such a state, he or she would not be destroyed when the body was destroyed.

Even when this person remained in the material body, there was no need for material things (ibid, p. 135). Physical and external things were no longer required for survival. A person had to ascend through different ranks to reach this position. Farabi believed that intellect was an absolute requirement for attaining happiness (Fakhri 1993, p. 141).

Freedom and Authority

According to Farabi's viewpoint, particular actions could bring a person to ultimate perfection (Farabi 1991, p. 105). Pursuing the actions that were geared towards achieving perfection, made the human soul powerful. This strength prepared the soul for attainment of happiness and perfection, eliminating the requirement of material things (Farabi 1887, p. 81).

The actions that caused a person to achieve perfection arose from man’s own authority and freewill. It was through authority that a person could choose to do good or bad work, resulting in either reward or punishment in the afterlife, respectively (Farabi 1991, p. 105). Therefore, the attainment of perfection became possible because humans had authority over their own actions.

A question arose here regarding the differences between humans. If all humans’ original natures were unique, and some are originally gifted in certain subjects, while others excelled in other topics, what was the meaning of reward, retribution, and authority?

There were two major elements to this question. The first element involved the learned individual differences that existed between human beings, and the second involved hereditary, natural differences among them.

Individual differences in people can be divided into two groups. Some of these characteristics occurred naturally, while others were acquired. For example, Farabi discussed differences in body and temperament, as well as variations in aptitude for learning certain sciences or industries. Some people were prepared for learning some kinds of sciences, and others had aptitude for learning other kinds. There were also differences in the quantity, speed, and rate of learning.

Existence of such differences in human beings did not determine or govern their fates. Education and other external factors could dominate natural aptitudes and even alter a person’s actions. For example, it is possible that an active intellect could create different aptitudes in two different people.

Further, the individual nature of human beings could result in different abilities for learning. However, these factors could not force a person to work or learn (Farabi, 1987 b, p. 76). Thus, differences among human beings that were secondary, such as in environment or education could affect factors such as social circumstances, social class, happiness, and interpretation of happiness (ibid, p. 77; Farabi 1991, p. 140 - 141).

Spinoza

Spinoza regarded a human being as a finite mode of God, existing simultaneously in God as a mode of thought and as a mode of extension of one substance (Audi 2001, p. 871). Spinoza maintained that the body and the mind constituted a single individual expressed in the attributes of thoughts and extension of form. Since the fundamental modifications of the single individual was expressed in the attributes, thoughts, ideas and other modifications, such as desires and volitions were presupposed to be an idea of their object.

As the attributes of extension in physical or material form was that which extended itself, altogether, it constituted the single thing (Allison, 1998). Spinoza determined the means through which and the extent to which human beings, as finite forms of existence, were capable of attaining freedom. Freedom here was understood as the capacity to act rather than be governed by the passions (Allison, 1998).

Spinoza defined a thing as free when its actions were determined by its nature alone. Only God - whose actions were determined entirely by the necessity of His own nature, and for whom nothing was external - was completely free in this sense. Nevertheless, human beings could achieve a relative freedom.

Hence, Spinoza’s philosophy was a compatibility that concerned itself with the relation between freedom and determinism. ‘Freedom of will’ in any sense implied a lack of causal determination (Audi 2001, p. 871).
`
Human liberation consisted in movement through from the second to the third type of knowledge. Only at that level do we cease to be victims of emotions, which we do not properly understand and cannot control. The third type of knowledge ultimately yielded the ‘intellectual love of God’- Spinoza’s version of salvation (Honderich 2005, p. 891).

In such a rigid and deterministic world there might seem to be no room for human free will. However, Spinoza found its place by abstracting from the dimension of time. Freedom became the capacity to see the world under the heading of eternity, and without bondage to emotions and desires. These themselves were the result of ignorance of the causes whereby we had been determined.

Activity and agency were the result of adequate cognition. In other words, it ceased to be true that one was individually in control of them. In so far as in the thoughts went, the course of events was displayed as it turned out (Blackburn 2005, p. 349). For Spinoza, the will could not be separated from the intellect.

There was no such thing as free will, because the human mind was determined in willing by a cause other than itself. God’s will, which had no cause other than itself, revealed itself by necessity rather than by freedom. Thus, Spinoza explained that their will could only be a necessary cause of action, and not a free cause of action (I, prop, XXXII- cited in Scott, 2001). Spinoza said that the will could not be called a free cause, but only a necessary one (Curley 1996, p. 21).

Epistemology

Farabi

According to Farabi, things that sound-minded people were aware of were called the ‘known sciences’. These sciences were so infallible that even a person who had vocally denied them could not deny them in their mind. Evidence that was contrary to this did not exist.

This knowledge was instinctively produced for each person from the time of his or her birth. Sometimes human beings did not pay attention to thoughts in their minds unless there were words to explain the meaning of those thoughts. Awareness of these things could be compendious and knowledge would expand through hearing of words that explained those thoughts (Farabi 1987, p. 81 - 82).

Shared primary contemplative matters among human beings were divided into three groups: first, practical skills, second, judgments of practical intellect and third, judgments of speculative intellect. The primitive or original types of practical intellect were the origin of propositions that define whether an action was good or bad. Primitive judgments of speculative intellect were the origin of propositions regarding knowledge about other creatures (Farabi 1991, p. 103)

Based on these three primitive rational ideas, speculative intellect was concerned with episteme or knowledge. Speculative intellect was the faculty through which certain knowledge about general and necessary preliminaries was naturally obtained. These preliminaries are the foundations of other sciences (Farabi, 1405 AH a, p. 50 - 51).

Episteme or knowledge, in its general and broad sense, was divided into three categories - sensory, imaginary, and intellectual (rational). Since real knowledge was that which was always true and certain, only intellectual (rational) knowledge was considered to be real knowledge. Therefore, attaining rational knowledge increased the rank of a soul, and of those souls who comprehended. The rational ideas existed eternally even after their material bodies had been destroyed (Farabi 1991, p. 142 - 145).

Spinoza

The epistemological teaching of ‘ethics’ of Spinoza culminated in the distinction between three kinds of knowledge. The first was an experientially determined knowledge, which could be based either on the perception of particular things or signs, which for Spinoza included both sensory and memory images. The second was knowledge through reason, which was based on common notions and idea about the common properties of things.
Since the former mode of knowledge involved inadequate ideas and the latter adequate ones, this was just the contrast one would expect. At this point, however, Spinoza unexpectedly introduced a third kind of knowledge, termed’ intuitive knowledge’. This supposedly proceeded from an adequate idea about the adequate knowledge of the essence of things (Allison, 1998).

Spinoza distinguished three kinds of knowledge. The first or the most basic kind was called opinion or imagination. It included or terminated in random experiences and hearsay or knowledge from mere signs. It thus depended on the confused and mutilated deliverances of the senses, and its inadequate.

He called the second kind of knowledge reason. It depended upon ‘common notions’ – in other words, upon characteristics of things that were common to all and were equally present in the part and in the whole. It was based on adequate knowledge of these characteristics as opposed to the essence of things.

The third kind of knowledge, which he called intuitive knowledge, proceeded from the
knowledge of the essence or attributes of God. It was derived from knowledge of essence of things, and hence proceeded in the proper order, from causes to effects. The third kind was preferable, however, as it involved not only a certain knowledge about something that it is so, but also on knowledge of ‘how’ and’ ‘why’ it is so (Audi 2001, p. 871, 872).

From Spinoza’s viewpoint, man’s activities were three, and for each one there was a corresponding moral perfection. With sensible cognition man was governed by positions, with rational cognition man enjoyed tranquility and contemplation on the unity of the world and with intuition, man enjoyed the intellectual love of God (Radical Academy, 2003).

The better we were able to control our emotions, the better we would understand God. For Spinoza the more active the mind, the more adequately it came to know God. The more passive the mind was, the less adequately it knew God. The more active the mind is, the more it was able to avoid emotions, which were evil. The more passive the mind was, the more it accepted emotions, which were evil.

Spinoza, believed that evil was a lack of good and that falsehood was a lack of truth. Error and falsehood arose from inadequate knowledge of God (Scott, 2001). According to Spinoza, all
ideas, insofar as they were related to God, were true. Error or falsehood arose because not every idea possessed by the human intellect was related by intellect to God, that is, it was not always viewed as a determinate member of the total system of ideas. In other words, error or falsehood was a function of incomplete comprehension, or of partial truth being taken as complete truth (Allison, 1998).

Axiology

Farabi

Virtue

Whether something was virtuous or not determined the perfection of the essence and action of that thing (Farabi 1987 a, p. 24). The virtues of a human being caused him or her to do good deeds. Vices resulted in bad deeds (Farabi 1405 AH b, p. 24). The relationship between virtue and happiness is created through good deeds. Good deeds, which sprang from virtues, brought happiness to human beings.

This mutual relationship between deed and virtue was cyclical (Farabi, 1991, p. 106). In other words, as good deeds sprang from virtues, virtues were also created from good deeds (Farabi 1405 AH b, p. 30). Good deeds that were carried out before the development of virtues and good disposition were attributed to the natural power of authority in humans. Those deeds that are carried out after the development of virtues were created through a good disposition
(Farabi 1987 a, p. 193).

Farabi divided virtues into four groups - speculative, intellectual, temperament and practical acts. According to Farabi, these virtues produced happiness for human beings during life as well as in the afterlife.

Speculative virtues were those that accrued based on constant and unchangeable things. Intellectual virtues developed when a person tried to identify a way to accomplish something that was more useful and more desirable based on volitional rational ideas. When the aim of the goal was good, intellectual virtue was created, but if the aim of the goal was bad, the intellectual virtue will not be generated (Farabi 1401 A.H., p. 69 - 70).

The virtue of temperament involved effects on the soul through lust, pleasure, refreshment, anger, fear, enthusiasm, zeal, and mercy. Practical crafts were concerned with physical actions such as socializing, appearance, and spiritual singing.

If the possessor of intellectual virtue had not intended to perform action consistent with his realisation, no temperament or practical virtue would be created in him or her. Thus, the temperament and practical virtue of each person became a function of his or her intellectual virtue. There was a possibility of the actualization of temperament and practical virtues in a person only to the extent that the person had the ability to identify good aims and how to attain them.

A person having the capacity to recognize the lasting value in others was superior in temperament and practical virtues than the person who only identified a fleeting value of others (ibid, p. 71 - 72). When a person achieved the highest virtue and maintained its use, he or she would inevitably use all the other virtues. A person who possessed the highest virtue is completely prepared for having all virtues (ibid, p. 72).

Actualizing all four virtues caused a person to reach a rank higher than rest of the mankind. Such a person was called a divine individual. Contrary to this, a predatory soul would be one, which has actualized all vices. A divine person could be considered a real angel, while a predatory person got expelled from the society (Farabi, 1405 A.H. b, p. 33).

Farabi said that a person should cultivate virtues to attain happiness. In other words, he or she should obtain all virtues, or soul-related attributes, in order to make it possible to reach their happiness through cognition and action. These soul-related attributes were good disposition and a strong mind. A good disposition was achieved by expelling negative soul-related influences. Strength of mind was gained through positive cognition and by maintaining harmony with reality.

Happiness was stated to be the highest goal that human beings could hope to reach. Happiness could be divided into real and imaginary. Acquisitions such as knowledge, wealth, esteem, and physical pleasures constituted imaginary happiness, when considered as the highest aim. Real happiness was that which, after being attained left no other goal worthy of trying to achieve (Farabi 1987, p. 80).

Ethics and Morality

Farabi believed that morality of a person could be changed. He was of the opinion that morality - good or bad - was learned and was not hereditary. A person could obtain a particular disposition through learning and experiences, and if a special disposition is gained, it can be changed through free will (ibid, p. 190 - 191).

Farabi suggested that the long and continuous repetition of an action consistent with each disposition caused its occurence in a human’s soul. If these actions would be consistent with virtues, they would cultivate virtues, and if they were consistent with vices, they would create vices (Farabi 1405, A.H. b, p. 30)

Good or bad dispositions created in human beings were not equal from a changeability point of view. Some of these were removed through the repetition of contradictory deeds and the creation of new habits. Others were only weakened. Some of them might not be removed. Yet, a person could avoid doing actions related to that habit through patience (ibid, p. 33 - 34).

Farabi considered a good deed to be the moderate deed (Farabi 1987 a, p. 194). A good deed was the average of two extremes - both of which were considered vices. One was doing in excess and the other involved falling short (Farabi 1405, A.H. b, p. 36). The meaning of moderate differed in depending on the time and surrounding conditions. Therefore, it was necessary to evaluate deeds and dispositions in accordance with their subject, action, and location so that a moderate deed and moderate disposition could be created in accordance with the circumstance (ibid, p. 37 - 39 and Farabi 1987, p. 198).

Farabi believed that deeds were moderate when they are most efficient in bringing about humans happiness. Moderate consumption of food was the most suitable for maintaining a healthy body (Farabi 1987 a, p. 197 - 198). According to Farabi, moderate actions were the most reliable way for human beings to achieve happiness. Anyone who could develop the power to forsake the pleasure of engaging in bad actions had obtained the ability to choose moderately had approached good morality (Farabi 1405 A.H. b, p. 32).

Pleasures were divided into two groups - sensory and comprehensible. Sensory pleasures were perceived through superficial senses and comprehensible pleasures involved faculties of chairmanship and knowledge. Human beings usually remained in pursuit of sensory pleasures and believed that these kinds of pleasures could result in perfection. This was so because material pleasures were able to satisfy personal and social needs. For example, eating was a pleasure that satisfied a personal need and reproduction satisfied a social need for surviving in the world.

Sensory pleasures had two characteristics that increased human attention towards them. First, they were easily understood. Secondly, they were easy to achieve. These two characteristics prevented human beings from many virtues and moved them away from what led them to happiness. When doing a good deed caused a person to lose a sensory pleasure, a tendency to forsake that deed could develop (ibid, p. 31 - 32).

Sensory and comprehensible pain and pleasures could be immediate or delayed. A person needed to assess whether the pain or pleasure produced by an action would be its immediate or delayed outcome. This would help the person determine whether an immediate pleasure could cause pain in the future.

Considering the future pain produced by a bad action would prevent a person from developing a tendency to act for immediate pleasure alone. The realization of worth of future pleasure produced by a good action would facilitate forbearance of immediate pain. Therefore, the motivation for performing a bad action would be suppressed and the motivation for doing a good action would be strengthened.

Spinoza

Spinoza argued that knowledge of good and evil arose from an awareness of what caused pleasure and pain. The greatest good of the mind, and its greatest virtue, was to know God (IV, prop. XXVIII).

To act with virtue was to act according to reason (IV, prop XXXVI ). If we acted according to reason, then we would desire only that which was good. When acting in accordance with reason, we would try to promote what was good not only for ourselves but for others as well.

Freedom was said to be the ability to act rationally and to control the motions. Servitude was the inability to act rationally or to control the emotions. Spinoza admitted that all emotions might not necessarily conflict with reason. Emotions, which agreed with reason, might cause pleasure, while emotions, which did not agree with reason, could cause pain. Inability to control the emotions could cause pain.

Spinoza maintained that reason could control the emotions. Reason was virtue, and virtue was love toward God, The more we loved God, the more we were able to control emotions (V, prop. XLII, proff). Spinoza’s ethics proceeded from a premise similar to that of Hobbes - that men call ‘good’ whatever gives them pleasure - but they reached very different conclusions.

Human beings, indeed all of Nature, shared a common drive for self - preservation by this drive all individuals seek to maintain the power of their being, and in this sense virtue and power were one. Knowledge, virtue and power were one (The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 2005).

Spinoza argued that the ‘highest good’ was the knowledge of the connectedness that the mind had with the whole of Nature. Distinguished from this was the true good, which was defined as whatever that could be a means to attaining one’s highest good. (Miller, not dated, p. 157). According to Spinoza, if something ‘agreed’ with our nature, it was good. And, if it disagreed and was neither good nor bad – it was indifferent (Miller not dated, p. 151).

Spinoza was a relativist about value. He appeared to maintain that good and evil were relative in some ways (Miller not dated, p. 150). The notion that the usefulness of a good determined its value was so fundamental to Spinoza’s thought that he made them his official definition of good and bad.

Spinoza determined value in terms of use (Miller not dated, p. 152). Spinoza asserted that insofar as physical things - food, drink, theatre, green plants - were useful to the body; they are valuable and hence good (Miller, not dated, p. 157). Spinoza was of the opinion that, the good was identified with what was truly useful in this regard and the bad with what was truly harmful.

In spite of his amoralism, Spinoza did not equate virtue with the ability to survive or the good with what was in one’s self-interest that was narrowly conceived. What mattered was not mere living, but living well; and this meant being active - that is, being, to the fullest extent possible. This was an adequate cause for one’s existence. And since being an adequate cause was a function of adequate ideas, virtue was directly correlated with knowledge.

Knowledge, however, had a dual role in the Spinozistic scheme. It was the major weapon in the struggle against the passions, since it was through understanding our passions and their cause that we were able to gain some measure of control over them. But it was also itself constitutive of the good life, since our freedom was manifested essentially in exercise of reason.

Spinoza concluded that knowledge of God was mind’s greatest good; its greatest virtue was to know God (Allison, 1998). Spinoza insisted that the goods of the body were of secondary worth. Since the body’s maintenance itself was less important than that of the mind, they too are accorded lower status and not valued as true goods (Miller, not dated, p.157).

Spinoza said that he meant the same thing when stating ‘virtue’ and ‘power’ (pr. 7, III). Virtue, in so far as it was related to man, was man’s very essence or nature in so far as he had the power to bring about that which could be understood solely through the laws of his own nature (IVD 8). To the extent that we acted virtuously, we necessarily sought what we judged to be good and avoided what we judged to be evil.

However, given Spinoza’s understanding of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, this amounted to the pursuit of our own welfare. ‘The more every man endeavored and was able to seek his own advantage, that is, to preserve his own being, the more he was endowed with virtue’ (p. 20). Spinoza’s ethics was no narrow doctrine of self-interest, for the only things that contributed to our ‘real advantage’ (IVP 18 S) were those that actually increased our power, or determined for us to become more active.

Spinoza said to maintain absolute conformity that ‘pleasure’ was defined as the transition from a less perfect state to a state of greater perfection . He defined ‘pain’ as the (passive) transition from a state of greater perfection to a state of less perfection. Spinozistic ethics sought to show how a person acted when ‘guided by reason’. To behave in this way was to behave with virtue or power at the same time.

All actions that resulted from understanding - i.e. virtuous actions - could be attributed to strength of character. Such virtuous actions could further be divided into two classes. Those due to tenacity, or ‘the desire by which each one strove, solely from the dictate of reason, to preserve his being’; and those due to nobility, or ‘the desire by which each one strove solely from the dictate of reason, to aid other men and join them to him in friendship.’

Thus, the virtuous person did not merely pursue private interests, but sought to join himself with others in a political state. Nevertheless, the ultimate reason for doing so was conducive to one’s own welfare, and particularly to one’s pursuit of knowledge, which emphasized that it was a good that could be shared with loss. A free man who achieved an increasing participation in gaining knowledge during his lifetime, acquired a body of adequate knowledge that always had been eternal. So, at death, a large part of the free person’s mind would become identified with the eternal (Audi 2001, p. 872).

Spinoza argued that those who lived under the guidance of reason desired nothing for themselves that they did not also desire for others. This reflected his undoubtedly idealized portrayal of those devoted to a life guided by the mind. In so far as this devotion was pure (which it can never be completely), such individuals would not come into conflict because the good which they sought i.e. knowledge could be held in common (Allison, 1998).

Spinoza believed that maximizing our understanding of God (i.e. Nature) contributed most to our welfare. Not only was this most satisfying intrinsically, it also enabled us to minimize conflicts with others (Mautner 2005, p. 569).

Spinoza’s account of the specific virtues reflected his general principles. These virtues were identified with certain affects or emotional states and their value was regarded as a function of their capacity to promote an individual’s efforts. For this purpose the affects are divided into three classes - those that were intrinsically bad, and a large group that was good in moderation but bad if they became excessive. In identifying the virtues with affects that could never become excessive, Spinoza differed from Aristotle for whom virtues were regarded as a mean between two extremes (Allison, 1998).

Spinoza believed that love of God was crucial to mental health and blessedness. Moreover, since the ultimate positive thought was the love of God, this love served as the chief remedy against the passions. On the other hand, since the adequate knowledge of anything involved the love of God as its affective dimension, it could be said that the love-knowledge of God was to be considered as the supreme remedy against the passions (Allison, 1998).

Spinoza took up popular religion, the interpretation of scripture, and their bearing on the well-being of the state in his works (Audi, 2001, P.873). Spinoza intended to demonstrate the truth about God, nature and especially ourselves along with the highest principles of society, religion and the good life. From Spinoza’s viewpoint, our happiness and well-being lay not in a life enslaved to passions and to the transitory goods we ordinarily pursue; nor in the related attachment to the superstitions that pass as religion without any reflection; rather, it was present in a life of reason (Nadler, 2005).

Conclusion

Farabi believed that the world was like a single frame, with all its particles having been created by an eternal existence. The supreme existence, i.e. God, was the ultimate cause of every being or existence.

In the world, which was a system, all the particles of the universe were struggling for perfection, i.e. attainment of a higher rank. Farabi maintained that man was combination of an abstract spirit and a material body, and his spirit was much more superior than his body. The health or illness of the soul was dependent upon the deeds that it did. The health of the body was ensured in the light of moderation, and its illness was due to deviation from moderation.

According to Farabi, man had been created to reach perfection, and specific perfection for man was happiness. Happiness was absolute virtue. The actions, which sprang from man’s authority and freewill could cause man to attain perfection. It was through authority on self that man could perform good or bad acts.

Spinoza asserted that except God, no substance could be or be conceived by itself. His view was: ‘Whatever is - is in God, and nothing could be or be conceived without God.’ There was only one substance in the Universe. This substance was to be identified as God. This could be called substance-monism.

Spinoza argued for God’s necessary existence with God being an infinite being and infinite substance. God’s being and existence in nature were the same. All was one: Nature and God.

God was the efficient cause of not only the existence of all things, but also of their essence. A thing, which had been determined to produce an effect, had necessarily been determined in this way by God.

As for human being, Spinoza believed that human beings were finite forms. They were capable of attaining freedom, understood as their capacity to act rather than to be governed by their passions. Only God was completely free. Humans could only achieve a relative freedom. Spinoza maintained that the mind and the body constituted a single individual.

According to Farabi, since a real knowledge was that which was true and certain for all times, then only the intellectual (rational) knowledge, as compared with sensory and imaginary, could be considered as the real knowledge. Those souls that attained understanding of the contemplative matters (rational ideas) became eternal after destruction of material bodies.

Spinoza believed that it was the intellect rather than the senses that disclosed the essential nature of things. The first knowledge for Spinoza included both sensory and memory images. The second was knowledge through reason, and the third was intuitive knowledge.

The better we could control our emotions, the better we could understand God. The more active the mind was, the more it was able to avoid emotions, which were evil. Evil and falsehood arose from inadequate knowledge of God. Error or falsehood were a function of incomplete comprehension.

Farabi believed that the virtue of everything was that which caused the perfection of the essence and action of that thing. Good deeds brought humans to happiness. Virtues caused happiness to humans in this world and in the hereafter. Such happiness was the highest aim that man had been seeking. Real happiness was that which once attained, one would see no other aim as worthy of trying to achieve.

Farabi maintained that one could change their disposition in the light of free will. Farabi considered the good deed as the moderate deed. A good deed was the average (moderate) of two extremes. Those deeds that were moderate were the most efficient in bringing man to happiness.

According to Spinoza, the greatest good of the mind, and its greatest virtue, was to know God. To act with virtue, was to act according to reason. If we would act according to reason, then we would desire only that which was good. Reason was virtue, and virtue was love for God. Our happiness and well-being lay in a life of reason. On the other hand, Spinoza determined value in terms of use.

References

Davari Ardakani, R. (1995). Farabi. Tehran: Tarh - e - Nou

Fakhri, M. (1993). Development of Philosophy In Islamic World. Tehran: University Publication Center

Farabi, A. (1991). Ara-e-Ahlal-Madinah al-Fazelah (Ideas of the People of Utopia. (6th ed.). Beirut: Dar al-Mashreq

Farabi, A. (1401 A.H.). Tahsil al-saadah (Acquisition of Happiness). Beirut: Dar al-Andoles

Farabi, A. (1405 A.H.a). Al-Jam Bayn Ray Al-Hakimayn (compromising between two Wises’ ideas). (2nd ed).Tehran: Al-Zahra

Farabi, A. (1987 b). Al-Siyasah Al-Madaniyyah Al- Molaqqeb Be Mabade Al-Maujudat (Social Politics titled Origins of Creatures). Tehran: Al-Zahra

Farabi, A. (1987 a). Resalah Al-Tanbih Ala Sabil Al-Saadah (A Thesis on the Acquisition of Happiness). A Research by Sobhan Khalifat. Jordan: Faculty of Letters: Department of Philosophy of Jordan University

Farabi. A. (1405 A.H. b). Fosul Al-Montazeah. Tehran: Al- Zahra

Miller, J. (undated) Spinoza’s Axiology. Ontario: Queen’s University

Nadler, S. (2005). Baruch Spinoza. Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy
Scott, A. (2001). Spinoza’s Ethics
http://www [19].angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/Spinoza.html

Sharif. M. M. et al (1986). History of Philosophy in Islam. Tehran: University Publication Center

Spinoza, B. (1996). Ethics. Translated by Edwin Curley. London: Penguin Books

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. (2005). (6th ed). Columbia: Columbia University Press

Chapter 5: Comparative Study of Ibn Sina and Edwards’s Shared Views on Philosophy

Introduction

Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (980-1037 AD), the Persian (Iranian) philosopher and physician, has been regarded as the greatest of the medieval Islamic philosophers. He served as court physician for the Sultan of Bukhara.

Avicenna was deeply influenced by Aristotle, yet, maintained a Muslim faith. He was best known for his distinction between essence and existence, in which the essence of an existing thing had to be explained by their existing cause (s), whose reality was higher than the philosophical and theological perspective (Pojman, 2003).

Avicenna as a Persian philosopher, scientist and physician, was widely called ‘The Supreme Master’. He held an unsurpassed position in Islamic philosophy. His works, including the Canon of Medicine, that were cited throughout most Medieval Latin philosophical and medical texts, had been subject of more commentaries, explanations, and reviews than any other Islamic philosopher. They inspired generations of thinkers, including many Persian poets.

His philosophical work especially - Healing: Directives and Remarks and Deliverance - defined Islamic peripatetic philosophy, one of the three dominant schools of Islamic philosophy. His contribution to science and philosophy was extraordinary in scope. It was thought that he was the first logician to define temporal modalities in prepositions. He contributed to diagnosis and identification of many diseases, and the use of specific number of pulse beats in making diagnosis (Honderich, 2005).

His autobiography described him as an intuitive student of philosophy and other Greek Sciences, who could not see the point of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, until he read a tiny essay by al-Farabi (870-950 AD), which showed him what it meant to seek the nature of ‘Being’ as such. It was in metaphysics that Avicenna made his greatest contributions to philosophy, brilliantly synthesizing the rival approaches of the Aristotelian-Neo-Platonic tradition with the creationist monotheism of Islamic dialectical theology (Kalam).

Aristotle sought and found ‘Being’ in its fullest sense in that which was changeless in nature (above all, in the cosmos as a whole). Kalam understood ‘Being’ as the immediately given, allowing no inference beyond a single contingent datum to any necessary properties, correlatives, continuators, or successor. The result was a stringent atomist occasionalism resting ultimately on an early version of logical atomism.

Avicenna preserved Aristotlean naturalism alongside the idea from scriptures of the world that arguably states that any finite being which although could be a chance event in itself, was a necessary output of its cause. He adapted al-Farabi’s Neoplatonic emanationism to this schematization. He naturalized his own distinctive version of the kalam argument from contingency in philosophy, which stated that any being must be the necessary ‘Being’, and it was therefore simply the ultimate cause of all other things.
Avicenna found refuge at the court of one ‘Alaal-Dawla’, who bravely resisted the military pressures of Mahmud against his lands around Isfahan. He made the philosopher and savant his vizier. Avicenna completed his famous philosophic work the ‘Shifa’ (known in Latin as the Sufficientia) and his ‘Qanun fi Tibb’ - the Galenic Canon here. The latter remained in use as a medical textbook until finally it was brought down by the weight of criticisms during the Renaissance.

Avicenna’s philosophy was the central target of the polemic critique of the Muslim theologian al-Ghazali (1058 -1111 AD) in his ‘Incoherence of the Philosophers’, mainly on the ground that the philosopher’s retention of the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity of the world was inconsistent with his claim that God was the author of the world.

Al-Ghazali argued that Avicenna’s affirmations about causation being necessary and that God’s knowledge was universal made miracles impossible and divine governance too impersonal to deserve the name. Yet, Avicenna’s philosophic works (numbering over a hundred in Arabic and Persian) continued to exercise a major influence on Muslim and Jewish philosophers and (through Latin translations) on philosophers in the West (Audi, 2001).

One of his arguments concerning the nature of the soul postulated that if a fully grown man suddenly came into existence while remaining suspended in empty space, with eyes covered and limbs separated - this ‘flying man’ would have no sensation, but nevertheless he would be aware of his own being and his self. The argument anticipated the cogito of Descartes.

Avicenna believed that ‘Being’ was an accident of essence, and that contingent beings required a necessary cause to sustain their existence. Aquinas accepted this version of cosmological argument to explain existence. Neo-Platonism surfaced in Avicenna’s work in the theological context of considering concepts such as the kinds of intelligence (Blackburn, 2005)

Considering his knowledge regarding man and belief that man’s attributes and habits could be changed, Avicenna put forward some ideas about ethics. He stated some issues of ethics and morality in his philosophical and social discussions, through which he perhaps wanted to show that morality was a virtue, which should be considered in all such affairs and discussions.

Avicenna appointed religion as foundation for one of his theories. He emphasized that it was important to ensure every individual’s perfection and happiness in this world and in the hereafter through their moral education in society.

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758 AD) was an American philosopher and theologian (Audi 2001, p. 253 & Blackburn 2005, p. 110). He could be said to be the most eminent American philosopher of his time (Mautner 2005, p. 179) and perhaps the foremost of puritan theologians and philosophers (Honderich, 2005).

Edwards was considered by many to be the greatest philosopher-theologian yet to grace the American scene (Miller 1957; cited in Talbot 2004, p. 13). He deeply influenced congregational and Presbyterian theology in America for over a century (Audi 2001, p. 253).
He was also considered a Saint, Pastor, Polymath, Theologian, Metaphysician, Apologist, and Educator (Packer 2004, p. 82), who was characterized by his wide-ranging intellect, penetrating analysis, and philosophical power (Lachs & Talisse, 2008, P.215).

Edward’s influence on the development of American Christianity, theology and philosophy had been evidenced by his influence on contemporaries like Samuel Hopkins and Nathaniel Emmons, and controversies that arose between luminaries such as Edwards A. Park and Charles Hodge (Lachs & Talisse 2008, p. 215).

On the other hand, Edwards was also described as God-centered, God-focused, God-intoxicated and God-entranced. So indeed he was (Parker 2004, p. 86). Edwards was educated at Yale, preached in New York in 1729 AD, and assumed a congregational Pastorate in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he became a leader in the Great Awakening.

In 1750 AD, he was forced to leave this Parish because of a dispute with his parishioners over qualifications for communion. In 1751 AD he took charge of the congregation in Stockbridge, a frontier town sixty miles to the west. He was selected third president of Princeton in 1757 AD but died shortly after inauguration (Audi 2001, p. 253).

Ontology

Avicenna

Avicenna introduced God as the prime or ultimate cause of all things (Kemal, 1998). He maintained that God, the principle of all existence, was pure intellect, from whom other existing things such as minds, bodies and other objects all emanated. Therefore all that existed was necessarily related to God.

That necessity, once fully understood, was rational and allowed all that existed to be inferred from each other hand and ultimately from God (ibid). Avicenna believed that the highest point above the active intellect was - God, the pure intellect. God also remained the highest object of human knowledge. This was because the highest and purest intellect - God - was the source of all that existed in the world (ibid).

According to Avicenna, essence existed in supra-human intelligence and also in the human mind (ibid). Entire nexus of causes and effects needed to have a first cause, which existed necessarily for itself; this was God. Avicenna went on to explain how the world and its order emanated from God (ibid).

Edwards

Edwards believed that God was the complete cause of everything that occurred, including human volition itself. Edwards was also an occasionalist, idealist and mental phenomenalist. For him, God was the only real cause of events. Human volition and ‘natural causes’ were further ‘occasions’ through which God produced appropriate effects (Routledge concise Dictionary of Philosophy 2000, p. 233).

According to Edwards, the ‘vulgarly’ called causal relations were more constant conjunctions. True causes necessitated their effects. Since God alone would meet this condition, God remained the only true cause. He also was the only true substance. Physical objects were collections of ideas of color, shape, and other ‘corporeal’ qualities. As the only true cause and the only real substance, God was in general the ‘Being’ and the objects were His own effect (Audi 2001, p. 253).

Edwards argued from an unthinkable perspective the notion of absolute nothingness being the nature of existence of the eternal ‘Being’. This necessary Eternal, which began before time began, had to be infinite and omnipresent and it could not be solid. It could only be space, or God (Crittenden, 2005). Since absolute nothingness was impossible, a beginning was necessary. This beginning had to be identical with God (Mautner 2005, p. 179).

Edwards said that God’s understanding and power were infinite. God being infinite in power and knowledge must be self-sufficient and all-sufficient (Piper 2004, p. 23). The whole was of God, in God, to God, and God was the beginning, middle and end in this affair (Piper 2004, p. 23).

Nothing existed without Him creating it (ibid, P.24). As George Marsden observed, “The Key to Edwards’ thought was that everything was related because everything was related to God” (Nicholas 2004, p. 51-52). Edwards advocated for a God-centeredness that was achieved through a dependence on Him. It was worth nothing that Edwards emphasized God dependence over self-dependence as well. Edwards saw man as helpless, standing entirely empty-handed before God (Nicholas 2004, p. 52).

Edwards believed that father, mother, husband, wife, or children or the company of earthly friends - were nothing but shadows of God as the substance. These were but scattered beams, and God was the sun. These were but streams, and God was the ocean (Taylor 2004, p. 14).

Edwards asserted that the enjoyment of God was the only happiness, which could satisfy our souls. To go to heaven to fully to enjoy God was seen as being infinitely better than living in the most pleasant accommodation here (Taylor 2004, p. 14). Human happiness lay in union with God. The more the happiness experienced, the greater was the union. The union would become more and more strict and perfect as this happiness increased towards eternity, (Parker 2004, p. 94).

Nothing was separated from God through spatial or temporal distance. Furthermore, His activity was a necessary and fully sufficient condition for any spatio-temporal effect to occur. Finally, God’s will was necessary and effective. This will was the true cause. Nothing else met these conditions. Hence, God was the only real cause (Wainwright, 1998). As the only true substance and only true cause, God was the ‘Being in general - He remained the sum of all; everything was in Him and He was all’.

God was the ‘properly’ and ‘necessarily existing’, ‘intelligent willing agent’ like our souls, only it was without our imperfections, and was not some inconceivable, unintelligent, necessary agent’. Edwards believed that ‘degree of existence’ was a function of ‘greater capacity and power’. He identified God’s perfect activity with His out flowing love and Holy will. As God’s power and consciousness were unlimited, so too was His ‘Being’.

Edwards asserted that finite beings were totally dependent on God for their existence and attributes. Because He was the only true substance and cause, created beings were no more than God’s ‘images’ or ‘shadows’. God was the ‘Head’ of the system of beings, its ‘Chief’, an absolute sovereign whose being, power and perfection were so great ‘that the whole system of created beings was like light dust of the balance in comparison to Him’.

‘Being in general’ thus referred to a system of beings – related principally to God but to ‘particular beings’ as well in so far as they depended and reflected upon Him (Wainwright, 1998). According to Edwards, God’s goals for the creation was – to exercise God’s perfection to produce a proper effect, manifestation of His internal glory to create understanding, communication of the infinite fullness of God - the Creator, and creature’s high esteem, love for God, finding complacence and joy in God, proper exercise of will and expression of Him as themselves (Wainwright, 1998).

Anthropology

Avicenna

Avicenna considered man as a truth that consisted of body and soul with characteristics and properties such as intellect that bestowed a particular position for him in the universe, and distinguished him from other creatures.

Man’s soul was spiritual and abstract, in spite of possessing diverse faculties belonging to both plant and animal kingdom. Their reasoning and differences in nutrition, growth, reproduction, feeling, voluntary movement, intellect - had a single and unique truth, which was not annihilated when body was separated from the soul, rather the soul continued its eternal life (Howzeh-University Co-operation center 1998, p. 242).

From Avicenna’s point of view, the existence of the soul in body was not the existence of a accident in its subject. Rather, the soul could be realized without the body. However, the body could not continue its existence without the soul (ibid, p. 246). Thus, soul was an essence.

For Avicenna, the soul was incorporeal. This also implied that it was immortal. The decay and destruction of the body did not affect the soul. The body was not a cause for the soul in any of the four senses of cause. Both were substances - corporeal and incorporeal. Therefore, as substances they had to be independent of each other.

Destruction of the soul could not be caused by anything. While composite objects that existed were subject to destruction; by contrast, the soul as a simple incorporeal being was not subject to destruction (Kemal, 1998).

Edwards

According to Edwards the chief end of man was to glorify God and enjoy Him forever (Packer 2004, p. 92). Edwards’s purpose was to clearly to address a ‘prevailing’ concept of human freedom that was thought to be the foundation of moral accountability (Storms 2004, p. 201).

Choices could be entirely predestined by God and nevertheless the agent was not prevented from carrying them out, he was free. Indeed Edwards could reconcile freedom with not only Calvinism but with Newtonian science, which saw nature as entirely determined (Crittenden, 2005).

The faculties of will and intellect in man - being both passive - did not have the power of self-determination, which was specific to God (Mautner 2005, p. 179). Edwards believed that indeterminism was incompatible with our dependence on God and hence with His sovereignty. If our responses to God’s grace were contra-causally free, then our salvation partly depended on ourselves and God’s sovereignty was not absolute and universal (Wainwright, 1998).

Edwards maintained that physical objects were collections of sensible ‘ideas’ of colour, shape, solidity, and so on, and finite minds were collections of ‘thoughts’ or ‘perceptions’ (Routledge Concise Dictionary of philosophy 2000, p. 233).

Edwards agreed with the view often attributed to Locke that secondary qualities such as colour and taste did not exist in objects but in the mind. But Edwards held that primary qualities had a similar existence; solidity was just resistance, shape was the termination of resistance, and motion was the communication of resistance from space to space (Crittenden, 2005).

Epistemology

Avicenna

Avicenna divided perception into two kinds: sensory and intellectual. Sensory perception was a manifestation of forms that could be sensed by one’s senses and intellectual perception was a manifestation of forms that were intelligible through reason.

Sensory perception remained the first step of cognition (1998, p. 258 - 259; cited in Howzeh-University Co-operation Center, 1998). In regard to intellectual perception, Avicenna classified reason (intellect) into two categories - practical and speculative.

Practical reason was explained to be the faculty that originated physical movements towards practical deeds. Speculative reason was the faculty, which distinguished the general forms from abstract aspects of matter. If these forms were not intrinsically abstract, the reason (intellect) made them abstract and separated them from material concerns (ibid, p. 265-266).

According to Avicenna, knowledge began with abstraction. Sensory perception, being a property of mind, was derived from the object that was perceived. Sensory perception responded to the particular object with its given material form. As an event of mind, it perceived form of the object rather than the object itself. Perception of that particular object then occurred.

We must retain both the images obtained through senses and abstract particulars perceived by the intellect. Disintegration of parts of these percepts, their manipulation and re-alignment according to their form and other attributes were achieved through sensory organs and intellect. This response was to help analyze and classify form and abstract aspects of the perceived object.

However, this manipulation and correlation of attributes were distinct epistemological functions, and could not depend on the same psychological faculty. So, Avicenna distinguished faculties of manipulation and correlation as appropriate to those diverse epistemological functions.

Avicenna identified the faculty of retention as ‘representation’ and charged imagination with the task of reproducing and manipulating images. To conceptualize our experience and to order it according to its qualities, we must be able to revoke images of what we have experienced earlier, but is now absent. For this we needed sensation and representation at least, in addition, to order and classify the content of representation. We need to be able to discriminate, separate and recombine parts of images. Therefore we must possess both imagination and reason.

To think about a black surface we must be able to analyze its color, separate this quality from other, or its part in the image from other images, and classify it with other black things, thereby showing that the concept of black was applied to all such objects and their images. Imagination carried out this manipulation. It allowed us to produce images of objects we had not seen, out of the images of things that we had already experienced. There also thereby generated images for intelligible concepts and prophecies (Kemal, 1998).

Avicenna held that it was important to gain knowledge. Grouping of intelligible concepts determined the fate of rational soul in the hereafter, and therefore was crucial to human activity. When human intellect grasped these intelligible concepts, it came into contact with the - active intellect - a level of being that ultimately emanated from God and received a ‘divine effluence’ (ibid).

Axiology

Avicenna

Avicenna maintained that evil was usually an accidental result of things that would otherwise produce good. God produced more good than evil when he produced this sublunary world. That He would abandon an overwhelmingly good practice because of a ‘rare evil’ would be a privation of good.

God generated a world that contained good, evil and the agent - the soul, which acted in this world. The rewards and punishment it gained in its existence beyond this world was a result of its choices in this world. There could be both destiny and punishment because the world and its order was precisely what gave souls a choice between good and evil (Kemal, 1998).

Changeability of Morality

Moral dispositions, good or bad, were all acquired. One could acquire a disposition not yet obtained, or he could change his disposition through his free will and create its opposite in his soul (Abd al-Amir 1998, p. 373).

Avicenna (Ibn Sina 1404, AH) defined morality as ‘a permanent disposition through which, some deeds were easily done without any doubt by the man’s soul’. Avicenna, like previous thinkers, deemed ‘habit’ as the origin of creation of a disposition in the soul. He defined ‘habit’ was a frequent repetition of an action over a long period and in equal conditions (ibid).

Standard of Virtue, and Principle of Virtues and Vices

According to Avicenna (Ibn Sina 1404, AH), the standard of virtue and vice for one’s disposition was ‘moderation’. This word was applied to a disposition that was between two opposite dispositions, i.e. immoderation (the two extremes). Simply doing an action with due attention to moderation was not considered virtue or vice; rather, it had to become a permanent disposition in one’s soul. The permanent disposition of ‘moderation’ was necessary to exist in both with regards to animal-like faculties and the faculty of speech (rational faculty).

Avicenna believed that the principles of morality for virtues were - chastity, wisdom, courage, and justice. Chastity was moderation in faculties that triggered passion for pleasures such as marriage, food, and clothes. Courage was a moderation in irascible faculties such as fear, anger, grief, animosity, and jealousy. Wisdom was moderation in faculty for discernment, i.e. practical wisdom. Justice was the perfection in each of these three faculties and achieving moderation in them. Therefore, it can be said that a man’s faculties could be amorous, irascible, discernment, and they corresponded with three virtues: chastity, courage, and wisdom. A fourth virtue called ‘justice’ was a comprehensive faculty that included all the three virtues (ibid, p. 455).

The subdivisions of virtues were either types of these principles or combinations of them. For example, generosity, contentment, loyalty, ambitiousness, and humility were related to chastity and moderation in the appetitive faculty; endurance, patience, and grace are related to courage and moderation in irascible faculty; and prudence, truthfulness, modesty, and perspicacity were related to wisdom and moderation in the discernment faculty (ibid).

Pleasure and Pain

Pleasure was considered to be achieving what was perfect and virtuous for a person, and pain was achieving what was vice (Ibn Sina, 1403 AH). Mere achievement of a pleasurable thing could not be considered as pleasure or pain if the person experiencing it did not consider it to be perfection or vice. The standard of perfection and virtue was in the person himself and not in the related thing. This virtue (goodness) or vice (evil) was related to the person and differed from real virtue and vice.

Superiority of Inner Pleasures to Sensory Pleasures

According to Avicenna (Ibn Sina 1403 AH), human beings, and even some animals, desisted from sensory pleasures even if they were not intellectual, and this was the reason for the superiority of intrinsic pleasures over sensory pleasures.

Intellectual and Sensory Pleasures

Avicenna (Ibn Sina 1403 AH) asserted that an intellectual soul had its own particular perfection - the manifestation of the first truth in it so far as it was possible, followed by the manifestation of the certain ordered effects of the exalted God, i.e. all existence as it existed in that intellectual soul.

He mentioned two points regarding the comparison of the intellectual and sensory pleasures. Intellectual perception was much higher than sensory perception from a qualitative point of view. When quality was being considered in intellectual perception, the depth of the object being perceived was comprehended; while in sensory perception, only the surface and appearance of things were comprehended. The more powerful and pure the perception was, the stronger was the pleasure related to it.

When considering quantity, details perceived by intellect were infinite in contrast to data from sensory perception. There was a great difference between intellectual and sensory perception from the ‘percept’ point of view. Since the difference between pleasures from a quality point of view was related to the difference of the perception and percept, it was beyond just sensory perception of the percept. Intellectual perception remained the highest of perceptions.

Sensory pleasures and worldly chairmanships were not pure, perfect, and pain-free pleasures. All sensory pleasures were mixed with elements of adversities, deficiencies, pain and disasters, while the intellectual pleasures were pure from deficiencies and sorrows. According to Avicenna (Ibn Sina 1400 AH), these deficiencies and sorrows were as follows:

- Sensory pleasure was accomplished whenever annoyance was afflicted upon a man before that pleasure; for example, the pleasure of eating and drinking came after a painful desire from hunger or thirst.

- None of the sensory pleasures were pure; rather, they were accompanied pain and adversity.

- All sensory pleasures were fleeting and not durable for more than a moment.

- Involvement in sensory pleasures causes discontinuance of divine bounty because such a person was unable to receive spiritual bounty.

- Relinquishing sensory pleasures did not cause a defect in one’s humanity and did not bar one from other worldly happiness.

Suffering of the Soul from Ignorance

Each faculty was interested in reaching its inherent perfection and suffered from creation of the opposite of those perfections in itself. For example, the faculty of sight aspired for light and detested darkness.

Intelligence was a perfection of the soul’s intellect. Lack of enthusiasm and suffering from ignorance was related to us, not to the faculty of intellect. The reason for lack of enthusiasm in acquisition of ability to perceive with intellect was that the soul was involved in the sensory experience, which prevented it from paying attention to intellect. In such circumstance enthusiasm was unlikely to be created for the perception of intellect. As a result, no eagerness will be demonstrated to exercise this faculty.

The reason for lack of suffering due to ignorance, which was opposite in outcome as regards to exercise of intellect was that while it was always in some people's souls, it did not stimulate perception so that a man involved in other things would fail to comprehend it and would suffer from it (ibid).

After separation of the soul from body, the obstacles of comprehension and enthusiasm for attaining perfection were removed. It was when the soul paid attention to its separation from perfection, it suffered from being hindered from acquisition of happiness (Ibn Sina, 1404 AH).

Happiness

According to Avicenna (1953), some people thought that happiness was achieved through sensory pleasures and worldly chairmanships, but a real researcher knew that none of sensory pleasures were considered to be happiness because all of them were accompanied by different deficiencies and adversities.

Avicenna believed that real happiness was a thing that was desirable and had been chosen for its own privileges. It had been evident to him that a thing that was desirable or made other things desirable would be superior to any other thing that was sought for sake of other things (ibid, p. 260-261).

Happiness was the highest thing that a human being could search for. Guiding people to their happiness was also the highest kind of guidance because the superiority of guidance was dependent upon the kind of aims toward which they led (ibid). The great happiness was found in ‘nearness to the First Truth, i.e. God. Other desirable objects were worthless in its comparison. The divine interest to attain such happiness involved more than attaining bodily happiness (Ibn Sina, 1404 AH).

The Way of Acquisition of Happiness

Real happiness occurred when one achieved the perfection of the speculative and practical faculties. The one who observed moderation in the appetitive, irascible, and discernment faculties and as a result possessed the virtues of chastity, courage and wisdom (which are inclusive of other virtues) will be adorned with justice, which is the comprehensive faculty of these three virtues, and this was the perfection of practical faculty. The perfection of speculative faculty happened when the complete and perfect form and the intellectual system manifested in a human being and they transformed into a world of reason (ibid. p. 423, 455 &1985, p. 328).

Thus, the way to acquire happiness was to attain perfection in the two speculative and practical faculties. Avicenna (Ibn Sina1400 AH) recommended that all people should try to acquire real happiness.

Rank of those who have attained happiness

Happiness was attained from intellectual happiness, and since intellectual pleasure had different ranks from quality and quality points of view, happiness would also have different ranks. These ranks indicated that those who had attained happiness would not all have the same rank. Avicenna (Ibn Sina 1403 AH, p. 350, 354, 355) divided them into the following groups:

- Exonerated mystics: Avicenna referred to the perfection of the speculative faculty using the word ‘mystics’. He referred to the perfection of practical faculty, i.e. purification from physical or bodily interests, using the word ‘exonerated.’ He believed that this group had the highest pleasure and that happiness was not restricted to the hereafter; rather, they also possessed a high rank of pleasure and happiness in this world.

- Sound souls: this group relied on their innate nature. Truth (divine knowledge and
Sciences) had not been imprinted on their souls, nor they have been involved with beliefs against truth. They show enthusiasm and spiritual pleasure, and astonishment was created in them when hearing a divine word because of the harmony of their souls with the world of abstractions.

- The dumb: these were those souls that were free from both - perfection and the opposite of perfection. These souls might reach finally happiness.

Rank of the Atrocious

The soul might not achieve perfection due to two factors: deficiency of reason and the existence of affairs opposite to perfection in the soul (Ibn Sina, 1403 AH p. 350).

Avicenna called those souls that could not reach perfection due to deficiency or a ‘dumb’ attitude, and he believed that these souls will not be tormented because doom will be for a soul that had enthusiasm for raising performance and this enthusiasm occurred when they became aware of the perfections. The dumb ones were unable to acquire awareness of these perfections (ibid, p. 352). The second group included those ones who would be tormented because of lack of acquisition of the perfection towards which they had enthusiasm (ibid, p. 350).

Edwards

The beauty or splendor of God’s holiness was the principal theme of Edwards’ later works: End of creation and True virtue. The first argued that God’s creation was the external manifestation of His internal splendor. That splendor primarily consisted in His holiness and its most perfect external expression was the holiness of the saints, which mirrored and depended upon it.

True Virtue defined holiness as ‘true benevolence’ or the love of ‘being in general’. It distinguished it from such counterfeits as rational self-love, instincts like parental affection, pity, and natural conscience. Since beauty was defined as ‘agreement’ or ‘consent’ and since true benevolence alone was truly beautiful, natural beauty and the beauty of art were merely its image. Only those with truly benevolent hearts, however, could discern this beauty (Routledge Concise Dictionary of Philosophy, 2000, p. 233).

In ethical matters Edwards retained the view that any virtue people acquired was through a free gift of God, and that no unaided effort could improve the fallen condition of humanity (Blackburn, 2005, P.110).

According to Edwards, moral judgments were based on sentiment and not on reason - one perceived the beauty of heart, or a virtuous motive in a virtuous act through a sense of beauty. There were two kinds of beauty - there was benevolence or love of being in general, which was the only true, spiritual, or divine beauty. This was relished by a divine sense that was activated by God in only a few people whom He had elected for heaven.

The other kind of beauty consisted of harmony, proportion, and uniformity and in variety. This was a secondary, natural, inferior beauty perceived by a natural sense (Crittenden, 2005). Edwards puts forth the thesis that ‘as heaven was a world of love, so the way to heaven was the way of love’ (Nicholas 2004, p. 45).

Edwards admonished that our desires ‘must be taken off the pleasure of this world’. This was not deprivation. Edwards simply did not want our desires to be so small as to cause us to miss the true happiness and pleasure of what God had for us - both now and in the world to come. For him, sometimes happiness came at times of triumph. Sometimes it came to him on the anvil of suffering, conflict and hardship (Nicholas 2004, p. 53).

True virtue’s aim was the general good. Those who love the general good, however, also prized the disposition that promoted it. Truly benevolent people thus loved two things – ‘being’ and benevolence. But truly virtuous people not only valued benevolence because it promoted the being in general; they also relished it for its own sake. Hence, while virtue 'most essentially consist in benevolence but also a delight or ‘complacence’ in benevolence's intrinsic excellence or beauty.

It was God who was ‘infinitely the greatest being’ and ‘infinitely the most beautiful and excellent’. True virtue thus principally consisted ‘in a supreme love to God, both of benevolence and complacence’ (Wainwright, 1998). Only God's was perfect. Hence, God alone was (truly) beautiful without qualification.

The fitness of God's dispensations, the harmony of His providential design, and so on, also exhibited the highest degree of secondary beauty. God, therefore was infinitely the most beautiful and excellent. God was also the ‘foundation and fountain…of all beauty’. ‘All the beauty was to be found throughout the whole creation which is excellent. The reflection of the diffused beams of the Being who hath an infinite fullness of brightness and glory’ (Wainwright, 1998).

Conclusion

Avicenna believed that God was the prime or ultimate cause of all things. God was the source of all the existent things in the world. The world and its other forms emanated from God. He was the first cause, which was the nexus of causes and effects and existed necessarily for it.

In this regard, Jonathan Edwards believed that God was the complete and the only real and true cause of everything that existed. Nothing existed without His creating it. Finite beings were totally dependent on God for their existing and properties.

Avicenna maintained that God was the pure intellect to whom other existing things - even the highest and purest of intellect were all necessarily related. Edwards maintained that God was the only real substance. Everything was related to God. God was ‘Being in general’. He was ‘the sum of all being and there was no being without His Being. All things were in Him and He was all. The whole was of God, and in God, and to God, and God was the beginning, middle and end in this affair. God being infinite in power and knowledge, He had to be self-sufficient and all sufficient.

Avicenna asserted that man consisted of body and soul. Man’s soul was spiritual and abstract, and was incorporeal and immortal, and was not annihilated when separated from the body but it continued its eternal life. However, the body could not continue its existence without the soul.

Man was a truth that had such attributes such as intellect. He had the power of nutrition, growth, reproduction, feeling, and voluntary movement. Mankind had a free will with which he could decide. Edwards believed in this regard that indeterminism was incompatible with our dependence on God and hence with his sovereignty. Choices could be entirely predestined by God and yet the agent, who was not prevented from carrying them out, was free. The faculties of will and intellect in man were both passive.

Avicenna asserted that the first step of cognition was sensory perception. Knowledge was associated with abstraction. Sensory perception, being already in the mind, was from the object perceived. We had to retain the images given by sensation and also manipulate them by dissembling parts and then aligning them according to their form and other attributes. Therefore it could be concluded that a real world with its objects existed. Edwards said that physical objects were a collection of sensory ‘ideas’ of colour, shape, solidity, and so on, and finite minds were collections of ‘thoughts’ or ‘perceptions’.

Avicenna maintained that evil was the privation of good, therefore was not created by God. According to him, the standard of virtue or vice in one’s disposition was ‘moderation’. The principles of morality for virtues were: chastity, wisdom, courage, and justice.

Avicenna asserted that pleasure was achieving of what was perfection and virtue for a person, and pain was achieving what was vice. The standards of perfection and virtue were in the person and not in the related things. Inner or sensory pleasure was superior to sensory pleasures. Intellectual pleasures were higher in worth than sensory pleasures.

An intellectual soul had its own particular perfection: the manifestation of the first truth (God) in it so for as it was possible, followed by the manifestation of the certain ordered effects of the exalted God, i.e. all existence as it were. The great happiness was ‘nearness to God’.

Real happiness occurred when one achieved the perfection of the speculative and practical faculties. Edwards admonished that our desires must be taken off the pleasures of this world. This was not deprivation. He simply did not want our desires to be so small as to cause us to miss the true happiness.

It was God who was infinitely the greatest being and infinitely the most beautiful and excellent. True virtue thus principally was a supreme love for God, both of His benevolence and complacence. Only God’s benevolence was perfect. Hence, God alone was truly beautiful without qualification. God also was the foundation and fountain of all beauty.

References

Abd al-Amir Sh.Z. (1988). Al-Mazhab Al-Tarbovi Enda Ibn Sina [Ibn Sina on Education]. Beirut: World Corporation for Book.

Audi, R. (2001). The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. 2nd edition. U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

Blackburn, S. (2005). Oxford Dictionary of philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University press.

Crittenden, C. (2005). In T. Honderich (ed.).The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press

Honderich, T. (2005). The Oxford companion to philosophy. Second edition. UK: Oxford university press.

Howzeh- University Co-Operation Center (1998), Theories of Muslim Scientists in Education and Its Principles, Vol. 1, Tehran: Samt.

Ibn Sina, A. (1400 A.H.). Rasael [Treatises]. Qom: Bidar.

Ibn Sina, A. (1403 A.H.). Al-Esharat va al-Tanbihat. [Directives and Admonishments] (2nd Ed.). Tehran: Bureau of Book Publication.

Ibn Sina, A. (1404 A.H.). Al-Shfa, Tabieeyyat va Elahiyyat [Treatment, Physics and Theology.] Qom: Marashi Najaf’s Library.

Kemal, S. (1998). Ibn Sina, Abu Ali al-Husayn (980-1037). In Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London and New York: Routledge

Mautner, T. (2005). Dictionary of philosophy. (2nd ed.). London: Penguin Reference.

Nichols , S. J. (2004). Jonathan Edwards: His Life and Legacy. In J. Piper & J. Taylor (Eds.), The Legacy OF Jonathan Edwards (PP.35-54).Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books

Packer, J.I. (2004). The Glory of God and the Reviving of Religion: A Study in the Mind of Jonathan Edwards. In J. Piper & J. Taylor (Eds.), the Legacy of Jonathan Edwards (PP.81-
108). Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books

Piper, J. (2004). A God-Entranced Vision of All Things: Why We Need

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Talbot, M.R. (2004). Godly Emotions (Religious Affections). In J. Piper & J. Taylor (Eds.),A God Entranced Vision of All Things - The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards (p. 221-256).
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Taylor. J. (2004). Introduction. In J. Piper & J. Taylor (eds) The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards (p. 13-20). Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books

Wainwright , W .J. (2001). in R. Audi(ed). The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

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Whitney, D.S. (2004). Pursuing a Passion For God Through Spiritual Disciplines: Learning From Jonathan Edwards. In J. Piper & J. Taylor (Eds.), A God Entranced Vision of All Things The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards (p. 109-128). Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books.
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Chapter 6: Comparative Study of Rumi, Saadi, Rousseau, Dewey’s Shared Views on Moral Education

Introduction

Throughout history many books and articles have been written regarding philosophy and education from the point of view of Rousseau and Dewey, but rarely does one see any publication on the views of Muslim Iranian scholars such as Rumi. To have a comparative study of their points of view regarding moral education, is much more important than this. Such a comparison could reveal their shared theories and ideas, which could then useful in designing a model based on moral education that could be applied by both Muslims and Christians all through the world.

A Brief Biography of Rumi, Saadi, Rousseau, Dewey

Jalal al-Din Rumi (Rumi or Moulavi or Moulana), was author of a vast collection of Persian odes and lyrics. A translation of selection of these has been offered here.

Rumi was born in 1207 AD at Balkh, which now lies within the frontiers of Afghanistan, and died in 1273 A.D at Konya, in Turkey that lies in Asia. John Murray, in his account of Rumi’s - Fīhi mā fīhi - published in 1961 AD, said under the title Discourses of Rumi - “there is nothing I wish to add to what has been written here, except to highlight the curious circumstances, which attended Rumi’s transformation from a sober theologian and preacher into ecstatic dancer and enraptured poet.”

Rumi’s father, Bahā al-Dīn Valad, had attained eminence in religious circles in Khorasan before his undertook headlong flight to Saljūq Turkey when the Mongols invaded. He enjoyed royal patronage and popular esteem as preacher and teacher in Konya, where he died in 1230 AD Rumi completed his long formal education in 1244 AD He was already thirty-seven years of age and seemingly set in his ways as a conventional mullah, when a wandering dervish named Shams al-Din - a native of Tabriz apparently of artisan origin, suddenly arrived in the capital of Saljūq and attracted attention by the wildness of his demeanor (Arberry, 2002).

Saadi’s full name was Mosharraf-e-din bin Moslehedin-Abdullah, and he was born in Shiraz, a city in Iran, in 1184 AD and died there in 1291 AD He adopted the pen name of Saadi in honor of his patron, Abu-Bakr Saadi, a contemporary king of the Atabakan dynasty in Fars, a province of Iran. He lost his father at an early age and came under the protection of this Atabak Ruler upon his accession to throne in 1195 AD

Thereafter, Saadi’s life may be divided into three periods: The period of study, lasting until 1226 AD when he was sent to the famous Nezamieh College of Baghdad to study. There he was deeply influenced by the eminent Sufi Suhravardi, as well as Ibn-e-Jowzi, another great teacher, whose name has appearred in some of his poems. His period of travel began in 1226 AD and lasted till 1256 AD, during which he traveled widely to many parts of India, Yemen, Hejaz, Arabia, Syria, Abyssinia, North Africa and Asia Minor. He had several opportunities to mingle with people of those countries and gain rich experiences, which are reflected in all his works (Pazargadi, 2000). This was followed by a period of literary contributions.

Saadi of Shiraz, or Sheikh Moslehedin Abdullah Saadi Shirazi - poet, writer and distinguished thinker of the 13th century AD (7th century AH) was one of the few men of letters of Iran who had acquired fame not only in Persian-speaking regions, but was renowned well beyond Iran. He became well known and a recognized literary figure in the wider literary circles of the world.

Saadi was born in Shiraz. According to him, he was born in a household, all members of which were theologians steeped in religious learning. The first years of his childhood and early youth were spent in his own hometown where he got a grounding in the sciences and learning of his own times. He then moved on to Baghdad to continue his studies at the ‘Nizamieh’, which was the University of his day.

Saadi pursued and completed his studies in theology and literature over a period of twenty years, and then left on a long journey covering Iraq, Hejaz and North Africa and, according to some sources, India, Asia Minor and Azerbaijan as well. It was during the course of these travels that, he came across personalities such as Mowlana Jalaludin Mohammad Moulavi, the great poet of Balkh, Sheikh Safiyudin of Ardabil, Hamam Tabriz and Amir Khosro of Delhi, adding to his valuable experiences alongside travel (Hakimi, 2005).

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78 AD) was a Swiss-born French philosopher, essayist, novelist and musician, best known for his theories on social freedom and social rights, education, religion (Audi 2001, p. 800), and for his contributions to political philosophy (Honderich 2005, p. 823). He was also a philosopher of history and a central figure in the eighteenth century - Enlightenment - and its most formidable contemporary critic (Mautner 2005, p. 541), thus taking his place alongside Diderot, Voltaire and others as one of the emblematic figures of his time, for all that he came to violently differ in view from them (Dent, 1998)1.

Born in Geneva, Rousseau was largely self-educated and moved to France as a teenager. Throughout, for much of his life he moved between Paris and its provinces with several trips abroad (Audi 2001, p. 800). After the publication of the Social Contract and Emile in 1762 AD, Rousseau was persecuted for his blasphemous views about natural religion, and fled to Paris. He also renounced his citizenship of Geneva, where his books were burned.

After some extremely unsettled years, he was eventually permitted to resettle in France, on sufferance, and he returned to Paris in 1770 AD. Most of the writing in the last decade of his life was autobiographical in nature, including his outstanding Confessions as well as the prolix and uneven exercise in self-justification – ‘Dialogues de Rousseau juge de Jean-Jacques’. His body was transferred to the Pantheon in 1796 AD (Honderich 2005, p. 823-824).

John Dewey (1859-1952 AD) was an American philosopher, a social critic, a theorist of education (Audi 2001, p. 229), who had developed a systematic pragmatism addressing the central questions of epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics (Honderich 2005, p. 211). His extensive writings contended systematically with problems in metaphysics, epistemology, logic, aesthetics, ethics, social and political philosophy, education and philosophy, and philosophical anthropology (Gouinlock, 1998).

Dewey was born on 20th October 1859 AD, in Burlington, Vermont. He completed his school grade at twelve years of age. Thereafter, he chose the newly established track of preparatory college. He entered the University of Vermont at the age of sixteen Graduating from the University of Vermont in 1879. He taught high school for two years in Oil City, Pennsylvania (Lachs & Talisse 2008, p. 185). Then, he took a PhD at John Hopkins University, where C.S. Peirce, G. Stanley Hall, and George Sylvester Morris taught him.

In 1884 AD, he began teaching at the University of Chicago (Mautner 2005, p. 156) in Chicago. Dewey was instrumental in founding the famous laboratory school, and some of his most important writings on education grew out of his work in that experimental school (Audi
2001, p. 229). In 1904 AD, he moved to Columbia University, where he remained until he retired in 1930 (Mautner 2005, p. 156). However, he remained active in both philosophy and public affairs until his death in 1952.

Over his long career Dewey was a prolific speaker and writer, as evidenced by a literary output of forty books and over seven hundred articles (Audi 2005, p. 229). Dewey remained as an emeritus professor until 1939 AD, after which he traveled and lectured widely until his death at age of ninety-three (Lachs & Talisse, 2008, p. 186). In this period, he was mostly active in New York City, until his death in this city (Gouinlock, 1998).

A. Rumi's Views on Moral Education

Goals of Education

Moulavi said that the goal of man’s creation was ‘knowledge and guidance’. In another part of his ‘Masnavi’ he introduced ‘knowledge of the truth’ as the purpose of man’s creation. Therefore, Moulavi believed that knowledge should only be for God. The possessors of such knowledge were those who were affected by their knowledge and insight, and their intellect restrained them from doing any evil or committing sins.

Moulavi placed a particular emphasis on ‘intent’. He said that, for example, when a poet composed poetry with a special intent, his intent played the main role on his work. Therefore, all men benefitted from their deeds and sciences they learnt on the basis of their intent and goal. If these intents and goals were good, the results and benefits of their deeds and behaviors would be unimaginable and very good.

A man, who offered his prayer for God, would thus definitely be rewarded in this world and the hereafter. One could therefore, understand that each of the disciplines were a means and instrument that could lead man to God, truth, true peace and tranquility if his intent or goal was good and met God’s approval.

However, these disciplines could not by themselves, give sublimity to man. These were not consolatory. Sciences that were tools for submission, sublimity and transcendence were for leading man towards the goal of creation, and should not be taken as the final goal. Moulavi emphasized that all the branches of sciences and knowledge were for the sake of man.

Therefore, it could be said that those, who loved God, should really love Him, and their final desire should be for God alone. In this case, it was possible for us to speak of a loving worship with God as one of the most important goals of man’s creation. Thus, it was up to all the virtuous and wise scientists and scholars to not involve themselves in words, utterances and appearances. They should not forget the real goal behind the words and controversies.

Education had two main goals from Moulavi’s viewpoint - ultimate and intermediary. The following could be extracted from Moulavi’s poems and writings regarding the ‘ultimate aims’ (Beheshti, Abujafari and Faqihi 2000, p. 211-219).

Annihilation in God

This implied abiding in Him with absolute devotion and servitude to God. Moulavi believed that the ultimate and final perfection of human beings lay in disengagement from existence or being and in reaching an abiding state after annihilation. This was the meaning of living in proximity to God.

Annihilation in God meant becoming free from darkness, involvements, material and worldly attachments, and disillusionment with everything other than God. A man annihilated in God did not see and did not want any other save God (Beheshti, Abujafari and Faqihi 2000, p. 211-212).

Voluntary death

This particular kind of death meant that man died or isolated himself while living, from nature and material attachments. He was borne in divine world, fought against carnal desires, lived free from ambition, disgrace, position and eminence. In this way he destroyed all devilish temperaments and dispositions. He reached a position that killed the evil-prompting self, made him free. He was then reborn with divine and spiritual life and humanly admirable dispositions - this was the second birth of human being.

Intuition or knowledge by heart

In addition to the value of formal sciences, Moulavi believed that a seeking mystic or possessor of intuition through gnosis had really achieved the infinite Divine knowledge. He had undoubtedly been revealed some secrets of being, even a sea of sciences and facts that others were deprived of. This knowledge from intuition and inspiration was not only endless, but it was always in a state of being created and presented new sciences and discoveries for the wayfaring mystics at every moment.

Immediate receiving of God’s bounty or emanation

In the beginning, a mystic went through the way along with his or her educator or leader, but the highest position or rank was attained when he or she received the bounty and favor of God. In such a case, even the seeker became the channel of Divine bounty immediately.

As for intermediary goals, the following points could be extracted from Moulavi’s works.

Cultivation and guidance of intellect and thought

Moulavi deemed it necessary to cultivate and guide the intellect and thought towards spiritual experience and intuition. He considered it to be the goal of education. Moulavi said that the real knowledge was the intuitive knowledge that a man received immediately from God, and it was endless. The superficial sciences could not be considered real because of their limitations and instability. However, if people received these sciences correctly, followed them well, acted according to them, cultivated and guided their intellect and thought in their light, they would gradually achieve the real knowledge.

Solving the existential problems

From Moulavi’s point of view, the existential problems of human beings were behind the philosophy of creation. Imprisonment of the spirit in the body, fear of future, man’s attachment to lust, shackles of anger, fame, position etc, negligence of the real ‘ego’ and of the original home, defect in thinking and intellect, loneliness - were among other things on whose basis existential problems occurred. Solving these problems was the goal of the mystical education in Moulavi’s viewpoint.

Moulavi said that appealing to spiritualties, acquisition of the soul’s virtues, avoiding vices, and seeking help from those endowed with divine breath and spiritual soul could solve these difficulties. And finally, the basic solution of these problems was ‘love’. A lover always dwelled in happiness and exhilaration. He or she complained of nothing and no one. There was no short sightedness, meanness, malignancy, cynicism, arrogance, temptation, greed, self-interest, or grief over affairs of this world and the hereafter in the heart of a mystic.

Love satisfied the thirst of spirit, satiated the heart, and dissolved the lover in the Lord. The joy that he or she enjoyed was heartfelt because the right cause for enjoyment and happiness was internal, not external. No happiness was possible through possessions, position, fame, or prestige; rather, it was emitted from the inner being.

Moulavi (2000) believed that acquisition of knowledge should be for the sake of God. In other words, man’s intention from learning and the dissemination of knowledge should be the nearness to God (p. 1-2). The knowledge of such scholars was not superficial, because superficial sciences could lead to negligence (Rum: 7). It was intellect and reason that governed their lives (ibid, p.2). Even their religiosity was based on knowledge.

According to the Prophet of Islam ‘the best of you in faith, was the best of you in knowledge’ (Mohammadi Rey Shahri 1993, p. 121). So, the faith of such scholars was the best and firmest kind of faith. This was so because Imam Baquer had said that those who acquired knowledge, their knowledge would lead them to righteous deeds (ibid, p. 131).

Therefore, it could be concluded that human beings received benefit from the sciences they learnt according to the intentions they had. It was in the light of their good intentions that real tranquility was received and they were led to God and truth (ibid, p. 32). The Prophet of Islam said that if a person learnt science for hypocrisy and worldliness, God would remove blessing from his life and make the life troubled and difficult for him (Mohammadi Rey Shahri, 1993, p 479).

Individual Differences

Due to the viewpoint of Moulavi, it was important that the teacher considered individual differences between the students. The teacher must pay attention to the fact that their addressees and students were quite different in aptitudes, attitudes, interests, knowledge, etc., and therefore, the sayings and teachings of the teacher should be in accordance with these differences.

It was also up to the teacher to consider the spiritual capacity of his students. The word ‘reminding’ indicated that Moulavi believed that man had the best potential aptitudes within himself, and one of the responsibilities of the tutor and teacher was to nurture those aptitudes.
Moulavi believed that all teachers should really pay attention to the individual differences of their students, and speak to them according to their merits and powers of understanding.

Not every person deserved receiving wisdom and higher ranks of knowledge and insight (Rumi 2000, p. 50-51, 19-20, 34). The Prophet of Islam said that God’s prophets have been ordered to speak with people in accordance to the level of their understanding and intellect (Al- Hakimi 1991, p. 167).

Real Knowledge

Moulavi confirmed the knowledge of those who were not superficial in sciences and attained ‘certainty through their sense-perception’ as well as, higher ranks of knowledge (Jafari, 1994, vol.2, p.616). He complains of an imitational science, where a learner did not apply his or her intellect, and did not understand anything through thinking and reflection. They relied only on suspicion (2000, p. 357). Therefore, those, who were satisfied only with using their senses for cognition, knowledge thus obtained would be an obstacle for them. It will debar them from achieving all kinds of perfection (Jafari 1994, vol. 11, p. 375).

Imam Ali introduced the real science at the root of every good (Ghorar-al-Hekam). Moulavi introduced ‘ignorance’ as ‘disbelief’ and ‘knowledge’ as a factor, which removed such disbelief (Jafari 1994, vol. 7, p. 156). He also believed that knowledge had a particular luminosity. Therefore, it could be said that persons without knowledge were in the dark and without effectiveness (Moulavi, 2000). Therefore, Moulavi believed that it was knowledge that caused piety to be effective and fruitful (Jafari 1994, vol. 14, p. 50).

Moulavi emphasized informal education, in addition to formal education. According to Moulavi, the skies and the earth spoke with the one who understood. However, everyone comprehended the wise words of the universe according to their spiritual ability. Also, life could teach the highest lessons to human beings provided they took those lessons (Rumi 2000, p. 15, 19-20, 71).

According to Moulavi, it was up to people and students to reinforce the power of thinking and reflection in themselves so that they could understand the real and hidden aspect of every fact and achieve to understand very comprehensive and deep meanings of every thing (Rumi 2000, p. 8, 20, 38, 40, 49, 53, 60).

Moulavi was of the opinion that speeches, deeds and characteristics of teachers and educators could actually affect students (Rumi 2000, p. 21). Moulavi believed that man already had the best aptitudes given to him by nature. So, the main role of educators was to realize and actualize these potential aptitudes in pupils and not to create new aptitudes in them (Rumi 2000, p. 22).

According to Moulavi, motivation, interest and enthusiasm in seeking and the acquisition of science and knowledge could be very effective factors in the success of individuals. If one wanted to attain comprehension of truth, it would be quite necessary to make his thought free from all carnal desires and all worldly goals, which were against the Divine aims (Rumi, 2000, P.4). The Quran confirms this fact that:

O you who believe! Be careful of (your duty to) God and believe in His Apostle: He will give you two portions of His mercy, and make for you a light with which you walk and forgive you (Hadid (57: 28)

It was in the light of real knowledge that man achieved a status in which he could see the Being or the Universe as it was. That was the reason why Moulavi repeated this prayer of the Prophet of Islam - “O God, show us the things as they are for it is in the light of real possessors of such knowledge that the entire world was filled with light, and all human beings were guided” (Rumi 2000, p. 2).

If man wished to understand the truth, it was quite necessary to purify his thought from all sorts of temptations and those intents and objectives which were not Divine and god-like. Moulavi asked God to show him the entire universe as it was so as to not stray. Worldly belongings that appeared very beautiful and attractive for some superficial people were in fact objects that those who have not understood their reality would fall in love with and never identify their true worthlessness. From the viewpoint of Moulavi, ‘knowledge and sciences’ could both ‘guide’ or ‘make man to go astray’.

Knowledge guided a man onto the straight path if he was free from the shackles of materialism and temptations. Moulavi emphasized that if man could overcome lust and carnal desires, even for a moment, all the knowledge of the prophets would become clear for him. However, those, who were pawns of selfishness and egoism and had not been delivered out of passing fancies and urges, could not possess useful knowledge for themselves or others. This was because worldliness and profanity made man’s intellectual eye blind and separated him from the real knowledge.

Moulavi even believed that teaching the ill-natured people was like giving a sword to a thief. That is the reason why Moulana said that giving the sword to a deaf and blind drunk was better than to give knowledge to the base and abject. Knowledge, wealth, and status would create havoc, turbulence and disturbance for the ill natured.

For a man who possessed intellect with insight and intuition and had ‘knowledge and action’ - that is, he thought well and was driven to do deserving deeds, the others would assuredly hold humility, and be humbled before such an intellect. Moulavi spoke of ‘the pleasure of knowledge and Divine action’. He deemed Divine acceptance as sufficient for his own ‘knowledge’ and ‘action’ and he also expressed his repugnance toward any thing other than this.

Nevertheless, Moulavi did not agree with those sciences and actions that had no spiritual effect, and sprung from blind following and repetitions. He asked God that he be freed from such sciences and actions before his death.

From his viewpoint, the real knowledge tried to impart the ‘certitude’ and ‘certitude’ tried to see ‘the Beloved’. Moulavi believed that such love could not be found in the pages of usual books, because this real love came from pure hearts and souls that were free of the shackles of egotism and therefore had come to a position where they could see and understand the truth as it was.

Moulavi introduced the ‘love’ as a real school that its teacher was God and all human beings were the students. The knowledge received in such a school was ‘infinite’ because ‘the Beloved’, that is the Lord of the worlds was ‘infinite’ This was the reason why Moulana ordered man to acquire knowledge that was not limited to ‘signs and marks’.

Moulana believed that one could be delivered from usual schools, pages and repetition of lessons. The seekers of truth did not become tired of such inborn and instinctive knowledge. The sciences that were found in the usual schools were something different from ‘love’. Thus, a man who appealed to the Divine love was as if he had obtained all the real sciences and it was not necessary for him to have any other distinction or sciences. Because when the knowledge was blended in man’s heart and soul, it really helped and saved him.

Moulavi used the words ‘spirit’, ‘knowledge’, and ‘love’ with each other. He believed in the light of such knowledge, that the real life was ingrained with love, which pervaded the man’s body, and the body received the spirit and life. It was in the light of ‘love’ that a man’s intellect transformed into pure gold and found its true worth.

Thus, Moulana insistently asked the jurisprudents with a superficial understanding to seek the ‘knowledge of love’, learn and teach it. This was so because this knowledge could save man in this world, as well as, in the hereafter. Therefore, the enlightened gained knowledge of reaching closer to God through their hearts.

Educational Principles

The following educational principles could be extracted from Moulavi’s works (Beheshti, Abujafari & Faqihi, 2000, p. 220-232):

1. Submission to God

Moulavi had emphasized this principle in many of his writings and poems. By obeying this principle, human beings received a particular insight, in the light of which they would not see or want anything save God. They would not attach to anything other than Him, and would worship Him alone. In fact, the real philosophy and reason for all worships was submission and servitude to God.

2. Following the Educator

Moulavi had expressed the need of human beings to have an aware and reliable educator. He believed that following such an educator would take man to perfection and elevation. Such educator knew the soul, faculties of the soul, existential dimensions of the soul, temptations and deceptions of the soul, and the spirit’s pains. This was why this educator could help others and treat them well. These educators were physicians and guides, and pure bondsmen of God that never thought of the material and worldly pleasures.

3. Motivation and Request

Moulavi said that the basis and foundation of attaining truth was the request or a wanting that increased man’s efforts and activities to this end.

4. Effort and Activity

Moulavi considered effort and activity as great factors for bringing man to goals and aims. He had also introduced these two factors as the cause of man’s happiness and joy.

5. God’s bounty and grace

In addition to effort and activity, the grace of God was a major factor for bringing human beings to perfection.

6. Esteem or the dignity of man

Moulavi believed that in addition to the satisfaction of material and superficial needs of a person, we should not neglect their higher and supreme needs. Man had a constitution that could be a manifestation of God and be light from Him. Therefore, he should not lose himself, his self-esteem or dignity.

7. Sociability

Moulavi believed that there was no monasticism or renunciation in Islam. He introduced joining a society as the way of attaining growth, elevation and perfection. Moulavi said that membership in a society made man valuable and spiritual. This caused man to avoid egoism and individualism. It was in the light of joining the society that the spirit of compassion, altruism, patience, trust or good judgment, and affection were cultivated in human beings. That was the reason why the principle of sociability was considered in Islamic worships.

8. Individualism

Moulavi stated the importance of individual differences in psychological and intellectual characteristics of each person, and the necessity of observing these factors in life and education. In his view, educational policies should be consistent with the rate of comprehension, understanding, intelligence and aptitude of each student.

9. Simplification

Moulavi was of the opinion that this principle was the educational principle of all Divine religions and the recommendation of all high mystics; while severity and imposing an ignorant plan for education indicated crudeness.

Educational Methods

The educational methods from Moulavi’s viewpoint could be considered in two categories - methods of student education and methods of self-training.

Methods for educating students

The following could be extracted from Moulavi’s works as some of the important educational methods for students.

1. Suggestopedia or mimesis method

Moulavi emphasized the effective role of this method in education. He believed that the admonishment of others through one’s deeds was more attractive.

2. Affection Method

Moulavi believed that an educator could make students attached to him or her and provide the ground for the student’s acceptance of learning and place trust in the educator.

3. Encouragement or punishment Method

Moulavi agreed that education was based on encouragement and affection. In spite of this, he sometimes spoke of punishment when encouragement or kindness was not effective in teaching a student. Importantly, the intention of the teacher should be educational and correction of the student’s behavior. It must not however be a kind of revenge, acting out of self-interest or self- comfort.

4. Good Admonishment or Positive Advice Method

Moulavi introduced good admonishment or good exhortation as the educational method of God’s prophets. He used this method in many cases and in different stories and exemplum. He referred to two major points in this regard – firstly, if admonishment was prudent, tactful and its conditions observed, it would have a great influence and effect; secondly, the main condition for effectiveness of admonishment was readiness of the one who was to receive it. Many a stubborn men opposed friendly advice, or justified them.

5. Counseling Method

Moulavi had spoken of this method in many cases, and had mentioned its role and importance in helping individuals for making cognitive changes, creating new insights and finding solutions to different problems.

6. The Method of taking an object lesson

Moulavi had introduced the taking lessons as a sign of intellect, insight and growth. He believed that a man could take many lessons from the history of the past.

7. Storytelling Method

Storytelling was one of the most frequent used methods of Moulavi. He had explained many facts in different kinds of stories.

8. Exemplum Method

Moulavi had used exemplum to clarify different subjects to permeate them to his audiences and addressees. He had described, in some cases, difficult and complex subjects by running several subsequent exempla.

Methods for training Self

The following self-training methods were some of the important methods that could be extracted from Moulavi’s works in this regard (Beheshti, Abujafari & Faqihi 2000, p. 235- 262).

1. Fulfillment of Knowledge

According to Moulavi, the heart of the matter of knowledge was commitment and action. The criteria of humanity should be searched for in practical obligation and commitment. We should not be beguiled by superficial knowledge of some people. If knowledge was combined with action, it not only brightened the soul of its owner, but also guided the ignorant people.

A man, who had no commitment to gaining knowledge about self, was like a tree that had no root. On the other hand, in Moulavi’s view, the basis of knowledge was intuition. This particular kind of knowledge could only be obtained through action. It should also be noted that in the event of acting according to superficial sciences (not the science of intuition), one could eventually achieve the desired perfection and knowledge from intuition in a gradual manner.

2. Loving God

Moulavi considered love as the most basic educational method for mysticism, and believed that spiritual education and development were only possible through having such a love, as love had a power to change or revolutionize the personality of the lover and purify him from himself and from his unbecoming attributes, habits and behaviors, and led him to harmony with the beloved.

3. Watching over the soul and self- examination

Moulavi talked much about watching over the soul and self-examination and their role in self-training. He considered them as factors that led human beings to perfection, self-revelation, indulgence of heart and passage through different stages of a mystic’s journey.

4. Reciting the Quran

Moulavi said to us, regarding the Quran, not to consider it like other words and usual concepts because its appearance had a great inner form. If we read the Quran and speculated on the deep meaning of each verse, our soul will gain such a magnitude that enthusiasm for spiritual flight would leave it restless with no moment of calm.

5. Remembrance and Thinking

Moulavi was of the opinion that man’s thinking should be combined with remembrance of God, because this remembrance produces dynamism, purification, and magnificence of thinking. It also caused separation and purification from all sorts of evils and vices. It not only enlightened man’s thought, but also it cultivated his inner senses.

B. Saadi's Views on Moral Education

Educational Goals

According to Beheshti, Faqihi and Abujafari (2001), although Saadi had not explicitly stated the educational goals in his works, the following goals could be deduced from his sayings and poems:

1. Detachment

Saadi spoke in detail about self-cognition, faith, servitude to God, and praising God in his writings. He considered such traits necessary if one desired to reach the position of attachment to God i.e. to reach a place that included all values.

Saadi recognized serving God was a way to gain esteem, power and greatness. He regretted that people came and passed away without tasting the most pleasurable and enjoyable pleasure of sincere devotion and absolute sincerity, which would cause springs of wisdom to flow from the heart to the tongue.

Therefore, the ultimate goal of education, in Saadi’s viewpoint, was cognition of the exalted God and devotion to Him. He said that the way to reach this state was through the soul and being detached so that one acquired inner purity or good morality and was able to surrender to God.

2. Cultivation of spirit

Saadi considered the cultivation of spirit as the basis of education and man’s personality, development. He believed that it was impossible to cultivate the spirit without the purification of the soul and banishing carnal desires, arrogance, rancor, and oppression. He said that it was also impossible without acquiring moral virtues such as humility, modesty, benevolence, justice, and magnanimity.

3. Health of Body

Saadi considered man to consist of physical body and a spiritual soul. He stated that spirit’s cultivation was by itself desirable and was a major goal. However, he considered procurement of health, the power of body, and the satisfying its needs as desirable intermediate goals for the purpose of worship of God and rendering service to people.

Saadi warned humans against indolence. He mentioned four points regarding preserving the health of the body: avoiding gluttony, moderation, preservation of greatness and magnanimity, and finally, refraining from idleness.

4. Social Adjustment

From the viewpoint of Saadi, social adjustment that led to peaceful coexistence was desirable as we aspired to attain the perfection of an ideal society. He imagined a Utopia in which these two things were the firm foundation of each individual in such society.

It was for this reason that Saadi, in all parts of Gulistan and Bustan, spoke of characteristics of the individuals in a desired society and mentioned properties such as justice, humility, peace, benevolence, sympathy, and contentment as the characteristics of a desirable society. Saadi mentioned the following items as factors, which created social adjustment - justice, humility, self-esteem and uprightness, and finally, benevolence and goodness.

Teaching and Instructional Methods

Teaching and instruction methods should bring the students to the educational goals. Therefore, to reach the goals envisioned by Saadi, there was an emphasis on activities such as question and answer and improved lecture methods.

Saadi also suggested some points in teaching, instruction, and learning that could improve the students’ education. He not only emphasized paying attention to the techniques of speaking or talking but also placed much emphasis on the distinct role of silence as one of the greatest techniques or methods of increasing and improving educational policies.

The importance of questioning and asking according to Saadi’s viewpoint was revealed when he said, “They asked Imam Mohammad Bin Mohammad Ghazali, (on whom be the mercy of God) about the means by which he had attained such a degree of knowledge. He replied – ‘In this manner that whatever I did not know, I was not ashamed to enquire about’”

He told people to enquire about everything they did not know, ‘since for the small trouble of asking, you will be guided onto the respectable road of knowledge’ (Gulistan, chapter VIII, tale LXXVII). However, he also noted that ‘whenever you were certain that anything will be known to you in time, be not hasty in inquiring after it’ (ibid, tale LXXVIII). However, one should think and then answer. He said, ‘whosoever doth not reflect before he giveth an answer, will generally speak improperly’ (Gulistan, chapter VIII, tale XXXVI).

Saadi referred to three points in applying the question-and- answer method. Firstly, we should question for knowledge. He believed that one should not ask a question for pedantry, ostentation and dawdling, or for getting information about the others’ private and personal affairs. Therefore, if the questioner received his answer without asking and with patience and silence, it was not necessary that he asked a question.

Secondly, questions should be asked of the wise ones. Saadi was of the opinion that one should only ask educated, knowledgeable and well-intentioned scholars.

Thirdly, he believed in the necessity of a well-thought-out answer. When a wise person wanted to give the answer to a question, he would do so in a thought-provoking way, sound technique and with good intentions because the unexamined speech could mislead instead of increasing knowledge (Beheshti, Faqihi & Abujafari, 2001).

When speaking and questioning or answering, Saadi emphasized not interrupting the others. He has been quoted to say: “No one confesses his own ignorance, excepting he who begins to speak whilst another is talking, and before the discourse has ended” (Gulistan, chapter IV, tale VII). The reason Saadi said this was that “a discourse hath a commencement and a conclusion” (ibid). In another instance, he said, “Whosoever interrupts the conversation of others to make a display of his own wisdom, certainly betrays his ignorance” (Gulistan, chapter VIII, tale LXXXII). He added, “A wise man speaketh not until they ask him a question” (ibid).

Saadi ordered all people, “Till you perceive a convenient time for conversing, lose not your own consequence by talking to no purpose” (Gulistan, chapter I, tale XIII). Saadi said that when a business could be managed without one’s interference, it was not proper for him to speak on the subject; but if he sees a blind man headed towards a well and he kept silence, it was a crime (Gulistan, chapter I, tale XXXVIII)”.

Therefore, Saadi concluded, “until you are persuaded that the discourse is strictly proper, speak not; and until you are convinced that whatever you know will obtain a favorable answer, ask not” (Gulistan, chapter VII, tale XIII). Another wisdom from Saadi stated, “He who listens not to advice, studies to hear reprehension. When advice gains not admission into the ear, if they reprehend you, be silent” (Gulistan, chapter VIII, tale XLVIII).

Educational Contents

Since Saadi believed that the sources of knowledge were unlimited, he did not confine himself to formal and classic textbooks. He placed particular emphasis on informal learning, for which the students would try to take lessons from the great school of nature, the events of their lives and the lives of other people, in all places and times.

Thus, people should not confine themselves to the appearance of matters; rather, they should make great effort to get to the essence of matters and subjects and try to comprehend their truth. The educational method of storytelling utilized by Saadi in both poetry and prose, could be considered as an epitome of the teaching methods. Therefore, students should be committed to this approach in that they should not only study history books, for example, but also must pay great attention to all of history, nature and all human beings, if they wished to reach their highest educational goals. This was also a task for all scholars and authorities in the educational system.

Saadi believed in hidden learning and learning from all things. For example, he related, “They asked Loqman from whom he had learnt urbanity, and he replied, ‘From those of rude manners; for whatsoever I saw in them that was disagreeable, I avoided doing the same.’ Not a word can be said, even in the midst of sport, from which a wise man will not derive instruction” (Gulistan. Chapter II, tale XXI).

Saadi believed in ‘informal learning’ and said, “listen to the discourse of a learned man with the utmost attention” (Gullistan. Chapter II, tale XXXVIII). Saadi wanted all people to pay attention to the admonitions of the advisers and take lessons from them. He said, “know you not, that you will see your feet in fetters, when you listen not to the admonition of mankind” (Gulistan, chapter I, tale XVI).

Saadi believed that ‘admonition’ came before ‘confinement’ and said, “Great men first admonish, and then confine; when they give advice and you listen not, they put you in fetters” (Gulistan, chapter XIII, tale XC). Saadi said that it was up to people to admonish even though the other did not listen. “Admonish and exhort as your duty requires; if they mind not, it does not concern you. Although thou knowest that they will not listen, nevertheless speak whatever you know that is advisable. It will soon come to pass that you will see the silly fellow with his feet in the stocks, there smiting his hands and exclaiming, ‘Alas! that I did not listen to the wise man’s advice’” (Gulistan, chapter VII, tale V).

Saadi also believed that the fortunate took warning from the histories and precepts of the ancients, in order that they did not become an example to posterity (Gulistan, chapter XIII, tale XC). Therefore, Saadi ordered all people, “Take warning from the misfortunes of others so that others may not take example from you” (ibid).

Teaching methods and instructional content alone were not considered to be sufficient to bring students to their educational goals. It was also necessary to utilize particular techniques to improve and accelerate the gradual progress of students toward those goals. Encouragement and punishment of students were necessary techniques. The reasons for using these two were the same - leading students to educational goals. It was necessary for educators and teachers to be the epitome of both authority and affection, so students will both respect and love them.

A teacher should be the epitome of affection and authority. He explained, “Anger, when excessive, createth terror; and kindness out of season destroyed authority” (Gulistan, chapter VIII, tale XVIII). Therefore, Saadi believed that teachers should be not so severe as to cause disgust, nor so lenient as to encourage audacity. Severity and leniency should be tempered together. A wise man did not carry severity to excess, nor suffered such relaxation as will lessen his dignity. Thus, one should be complacent, but not to that degree that they may insult him with sharp teeth of the wolf (ibid).

Saadi believed that one should use both encouragement and punishment adequately and thoughtfully, in a timely manner. This was so because undue, unnecessary and unexamined anger and punishment made students truant, and undue encouragement made him or her be arrogant, egoistic and exigent to the extent that he or she did not obey the teacher or the educator. According to Saadi, encouragement and motivating others was of particular importance and could influence them for better performance to accomplish their desired goals (Gulistan, chapter I, tale III).

Saadi put emphasis on praising the students and said in this regard, “If you wish to preserve peace with your enemy, whenever he slanders you in your absence, in return praise him to his face; at any rate as the words will issue from the lips of the pernicious man, if you wish that his speech should not be bitter, make his mouth sweet” (Gulistan, chapter I, tale XXIV). Saadi did not think it was advisable to overindulge in blame even when blame was necessary (Gulistan, chapter I, tale XVI).

It appears that Saadi affirmed punishment when necessary. Saadi said, “A king sent his son to school, and placed a silver tablet under his arm. On the face of the tablet was written in gold – ‘The severity of the master is better than the indulgence of the father’ (Gulistan, chapter VII, tale IV). However, punishment should be the last method in education and not the first one.

He professed, “When the hand has failed in every trick, it is lawful to draw the sword” (Gulistan, chapter XIII, tale XV). “Forgiveness was commendable, but apply not ointment to the wound of an oppressor. Knoweth he not that whosoever spareth the life of a serpent, committeth injury towards the sons of Adam” (ibid, tale XVI).

The reason Saadi confirmed punishment in some cases was that, “An enemy did not become a friend through indulgence; nay, it increases his avarice. Be humble unto him who shows you kindness” (Gulistan, chapter VIII, tale LXXXI). In another tale, he added, “When you speak to a low fellow with kindness and benignity, it increases his arrogance and perverseness” (Gulistan, chapter VIII, tale LXI).

He believed the men with base nature did not deserve affection because “when you connected yourself with base men, and showed them favor, they committed crimes with your power, whereby you participate in their guilt” (Gulistan, chapter VIII, tale VIII). In another instance, he said, “When you support and favor the vicious, you commit wickedness with your power, by participation” (Gulistan, chapter VIII, tale LIII).

Individual Differences

Saadi believed that in spite of some of similarities between different people, there were some differences in their aptitudes in comparison with one another (meaning there were differences between their physical, intellectual, social, emotional and moral aptitudes).

Saadi said that people should consider the extent of their abilities. He was of the opinion that “whosoever contendeth with the great sheds his own blood. He, who thinks himself great, had been compared to one who squinted and saw double. You would get a broken front by sporting your head against a ram” (Gulistan, chapter XIII, tale XLV).

In another example he said, “It is not the part of a wise man to box with a lion, or to strike his fist against a sword. Neither fight nor contend with one more powerful than you are; put your hands under your armpit” (ibid, tale XLVI). He also warned, “A weak man, who contended with one who was strong, befriended his adversary by his own death”. (ibid, tale XLVII). Saadi emphasized that the teachers should speak to students in conformity with the temperament of the listener (Gulistan, chapter VIII, tale XXIX).

Real Knowledge

Saadi considered the forsaking of carnal desires as the cause of acquisition of real knowledge (1995, p.947). This was the reason why he emphasized that truth should be searched by those who had succeeded to forsake their carnal desires (ibid, p.796). Also, Saadi introduced a superficial scholar whose action did not prove his or her knowledge, as individuals who suffered in vain and made efforts in vain (Alavi 2002, p.186). Saadi believed that committing crimes and sins by scholars was much more objectionable than when carried out by others (ibid).

Even, Saadi introduced knowledge as the factor for nurturing religiosity (ibid, p.214).
Saadi believed that a man was lucky and prosperous if he obtained a provision from knowledge for himself (1996). Saadi introduced science and knowledge as the heritage of God’s prophets (Alavi 2002, P.180).

Saadi introduced wise persons as pure gold so that wherever they went everyone knew their value. While, the ignorant were like counterfeit jewelry who were isolated and an outsider in their own home (ibid, p.180).

Saadi strongly emphasized that ‘knowledge’ was the factor for nurturing ‘religiosity’ in humans (Alavi 2002, p.214). Thus, he put emphasis on the fact that people were not to waste their valuable time learning superficial sciences, and to appeal to those sciences which led them to perfection (Saadi, 1374, p.847).

Saadi considered humanity, magnanimity and courtesy as the knowledge, or the essence of knowledge. Thus, from his viewpoint, if a human being lacked such characteristics, he was only apparently human, and would inwardly be like an animal (ibid, p.974).

Saadi had a comprehensive view of education. He considered all kinds of education as complementary to each other. According to Beheshti, Faqihi and Abujafari (2001), kinds of education from the viewpoint of Saadi could be classified as follows:

1. Intellectual Education

Saadi considered intellect as the great gift of God. He believed that if intellect governed man’s existence and being, then the carnal soul will have no power to fight with intellect, and man will be able to reach perfection. It was in this way that a man spoke thoughtfully, avoided pretentse, took lessons from every happening, swallowed his anger, quelled his lust and was not avaricious.

Saadi believed that the soul’s purification and deliverance from the captivity of gluttony and lust was the first step in intellect’s education. He considered talkativeness, speaking unpretentiously when it was necessary, and speaking when an event did not deserve speech as the characteristics of ignorant people.

2. Religious Education

Saadi frequently spoke of God in Gulistan and Bustan, His greatness, mercy, forgiveness, kindness, manifestations in creation, the hereafter and the day of resurrection. He invited people to religion and religious education. He considered religion and faith as the basis of a man’s life. He even considered knowledge as the means of nurturing religiosity. He emphasized knowledge and good deeds in religious education and recognized religious knowledge as a means for bringing man to his spiritual purpose. He said that good deeds are the result of that religious knowledge. Saadi placed emphasis on three points in religious education - God’s remembrance, lamentation and supplication for morality, lastly, thinking of the hereafter.

3. Mystical Education

Saadi was aware of mystical thoughts, and he frequently spoke in his works about mystical education, deep emotion, exaltation, love, self-sacrifice, approaching God, welcoming hardships for the sake of God, and annihilation in divine essence. He had allocated the third part of Gulistan to love, deep emotion and exaltation and said that it was up to the mystic seeker to start a journey toward the infinite region of cognition and mysticism by self-refinement and overcoming the carnal soul, until he gradually reaches a place where there was no trace of his own name and remembrance.

4. Moral Education

Saadi frequently spoke of moral virtues and high human values such as forgiveness, chivalry, sympathy, compassion, justice, magnanimity, goodness, righteousness, and contentment. In Gulistan and Bustan, he allocated many chapters to moral education. He considered himself an educator of morality and as an admonisher.

Saadi’s art was in his ability to express skillfully and artistically the moral virtues and admonishments using beautiful, eloquent, fluent, and rhythmical statements so that the reader could accept them and did not become tired of them. Saadi had particularly emphasized moral education, and had introduced moral education and acquisition of good morality as the purpose of the mission of the Prophet of Islam and the aim of the Quran’s revelation.

He considered bad-temper and moral degeneration as factors that would cause man to fall into a burning Hell and eternal punishment. Saadi believed that moral education was very difficult and required much time. He emphasized two fundamental points in moral education.

Saadi was of the opinion that moral education should begin in childhood, because if a bad habit is positioned in a man’s nature or soul, it cannot be easily omitted. Secondly, Saadi believed that the success of moral education was dependent upon a good educator who had virtue and knowledge, did good deeds, had right speech, and had educated his own soul before educating others.

Saadi placed much emphasis on the determinative role of inheritance and heritage on man, to the extent that he said, “An evil root would not thrive in a goodly shade. To educate the worthless was like throwing a walnut upon a dome. Though the clouds should pour down the water of life, you would never gather fruit from the branch of the willow. Waste not your time
on low people, for we can never obtain sugar from the reed. The wolf’s whelp would at length turn into a wolf, although it be brought up along with men. How could anyone form a good sword out of bad iron? O ye philosophers, it is impossible to convert a worthless wretch into a good man. The rain, in whose nature there is no partiality, produced tulips in the garden, but only weeds in a barren soil. A sterile soil will not yield spikenard, waste not then seed upon it” (Gulistan, chapter I, tale IV). In another tale, he says, “When nature has given capacity, instruction will make impression, but if iron is not of a proper temper, no polishing will make it good” (Gulistan, chapter VII, tale I).

Saadi believes that ‘a capacity without education was deplorable’ (Gulistan, chapter VIII, tale LVI). He gave some examples of this, saying, “the education was the same, but the capacities were different; although silver and gold were produced from a stone, yet these metals were not to be found in every stone. The star Canopus shines all over the world, but the scented leather comes only from Yemen” (Gulistan, chapter VII, tale VI). Therefore, Saadi concluded that - “an education without capacity was thrown away” (Gulistan, chapter VIII, tale LVI). “A student without inclination was a lover without money; a traveler without observation, was a bird without wings; a learned man without work was a tree without fruit; and a devotee without knowledge was a house without a door” (Gulistan, chapter VIII, tale LXXI).

In spite of this, Saadi emphasized the role of education during childhood and believed, “He who was not taught good manners in his childhood would have no good qualities when he arrived at manhood” (Gulistan, chapter XII, tale III). Saadi likened a child to a piece of green wood that could be bent as much as we pleased, but when it dried, it could not be made straight without fire (ibid).

Saadi believed that good children were so important for their parents and society that “it was better in the opinion of the wise that a woman in labor should bring forth a serpent than wicked children” (Gulistan, chapter VII, tale X). Therefore, it was up to educators to teach wisdom to their sons.

He counseled, “If you desire your name to be remembered, teach your son wisdom and judgment” (Bustan, pp. 382-383). Saadi placed so much emphasis on intellect that he believed that if such a son “lacked both these assets, you would die, and have no descendants” (p. 383). Saadi admonished that it was up to the parents and educators to take care of their sons and bring them with comfort “so that their eyes was not fixed at others’ hands, because he who showed no care of his offspring will see him cared for by others and roaming about” (Bustan, year, p. 384).

C. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Views on Moral Education

Moral education was so important for Rousseau that he dedicated the second section of ‘Emile’ to moral education. Rousseau (1973) believes that we should consider a moral personality for the child from the very beginning of childhood. Rousseau recommended that one should pay no attention to the carnal desires of the child, because there were no such desires and if we ourselves do not create them, he or she would not be hurt.

In another part of ‘Emile’, Rousseau emphasized that educators should distinguish the real and natural needs of children from the needs that were created through carnal desires. Rousseau tried to keep the child away from all kinds of pretense and nurture compassion in him by sharing other people’s pains and sorrows. A child should be interested in goodness, generosity, mercy, magnanimity and other subtle and fair tendencies, which were naturally desirable for human beings. The child should avoid greed, jealousy, revenge, and all despicable lusts, which not only naturalized sensitivity but also had a impacted it negatively as Rousseau believed that degenerate lusts destroyed the heart.

It is due to such belief that Rousseau recommended that the youth be kind, truthful, honest and without vanity. They should be able to speak to people as their conscience let them, without being anxious that their words had to be praised by others. They should be firm on the road of truth for upholding what their hearts identified as true, and not be led astray from that way of stating the right and doing the right because of self-conceit.

The only important thing was that a human being did his or her duty well in this world. He should even admonish himself to keep away from insolence, rectify himself and continue living piously away from corrupt delusion. Rousseau spoke of changing greed, bad tendencies and attitudes (Ulich, 1962). He asserted that if the nature of youngsters were not to be destroyed and led astray, they would ultimately discover the great moral sensations of love, justice, and obligation. They would attain a deeper unity with the universe (Ulich, 1962).

Such moral refinement and nurturing of high moral disposition, from Rousseau’s viewpoint, was not only necessary for those who were being educated, but was also necessary for educators in order to teach the children and youngsters with a pure intention. This sprang from Rousseau’s belief that a human could choose his or her instincts (Cameron, 1973).

According to Rousseau (1967), it was only the freedom and power of will that made humans good and beneficent. On the contrary, inability to act and captivity would have no outcome other than wickedness. Rousseau believed that man’s nature was good, and it was in the light of moral education that human’s natural aptitudes and powers would be actualized.

Paying Attention to Individual Aptitudes and Differences

People have different aptitudes at different ages. Therefore, it was necessary for educators to pay attention to these aptitudes. Rousseau asserted that girls were different from boys, and each child was different from another child; so each child should be considered differently (Claydon, 1969). Rousseau believed that the best way of gaining man’s happiness was to give him his particular position.

Method of Observing the Measure of Individuals’ Aptitude in their Moral Education

This was one of the methods of paying attention to individuals’ aptitudes and differences. Rousseau stated that children and youngsters should be expected accurately, according to and consistent with their aptitudes and powers to perform their duties and responsibilities. Rousseau believed moral things and social relations had no meaning for a child who had not yet reached puberty. Therefore, we should avoid using those words around them.

False thoughts caused error and corruption, thus we should pay much attention to his first period. The only knowledge children possessed before puberty was of nature and physical events. They did not even know history, metaphysics, ethics or morality. They knew the relation between man and things, but did not know about moral relations between people.
The children had little and limited power the formation and comprehension of abstract concepts and general ideas (Boyd, 1975).

When they reached puberty, their instincts grew. Then they began to compare themselves with others, begin to understand abstract concepts, and comprehend deeper secrets of the world. It was necessary to use history and natural religions for teaching this age group. Thus, the youngsters would discover the great moral sensations (Ulich, 1962).

Moral education was the most important during adolescence. At fifteen years of age the person would reach the age of reason and logic. He possessed the instruments for removing the obstacles to understanding what he confronted in moral and social fields. Before this period, the child’s sensitivity was restricted to himself, but now it would extend to the environment until it achieved creation of emotions, which led to concepts about good and bad (Chateau, 1990).

We should, keep egoism from children. Rousseau maintained that if a teacher did not hasten in instruction and education, he would not hurry up in waiting for difficult works from children or students. Rather, he would want what was needed in suitable time, in his way. The personality of children would thus form well, and they would not be raised spoiled.

Principle of Making Environmental Conditions Sound

Rousseau believed that people were affected by different environmental conditions. Therefore it was necessary to improve upon these conditions in order to remove undesirable states and behaviors. These should be replaced with desirable states and behaviors.

Rousseau asserted that to improve the society, we should start from improvement of family and not the government. If we wanted to rectify the general manners, these rectifications should begin with family manners, and this responsibility belonged to the parents (Chateau, 1990). Rousseau also believed that it is necessary that educated people stayed away from corrupt people.

Preparation Method

One of the educational methods for implementing the principle of making environmental conditions sound was the preparation method. It meant that Rousseau had paid attention to those environmental conditions and factors, which increased the probability of appearance of desirable behaviors and states.

Rousseau asserted that what is told to others was of no influence unless there would have been a merited preparation before it, as an earth must be prepared in advance for planting. Also, the seeds of virtues grew slowly, thus there should have existed a long period of cultivation and nurturing before they had roots. Therefore, we should not speak to youngsters about reason and logic even when they reached the age of reason and logic, unless they had been prepared (Boyd, 1975).

Rousseau himself tried that Emile could learn and understand deep concepts about the world until the age of twelve (Jarret, undated). Rousseau, by keeping Emile away from every kind of corruption, tried to prepare him to learn moral concepts (Chateau, 1990). He deemed it necessary for children to tolerate harms and hardships in their childhood so that they were prepared to tolerate greater pains when they became adults.

Method of Travel

The second method based which can be extracted from the Rousseau’s works about making environmental conditions sound was the educational method of travelling. Rousseau maintained that it was sometimes necessary to change the place in which one lived in order to enjoy the educational effects of the new places.

According to Rousseau, the situation of a country influenced its people. He asserted that human beings were not trees, which had been planted in a single place forever. Rather, they were meant to move, travel and know other countries and people. Rousseau said that Emile, in two years, travelled to many great and small countries of Europe (1973). If the educator made Emile travel, it was so that his entrance into society could be carried out in best way, for Rousseau believed that before an individual chose a position in the social system, he should know what rank and positions were suitable for him (Chateau, 1990).

Patterning Method

Patterning method was the third method, which could be extracted from Rousseau’s works as based on the principle of creating sound environmental conditions. It meant that the educator had to set an example for desirable behavior. Rousseau said -

“I would always encourage people towards continence and doing good works and I would be an example for them as far as it was possible for me. I would try to manifest religion for them as beautiful and enjoyable. I would make their faith firm to real theism, doing right and other useful principles of faith - those things that every person should accept. (1973, p. 218)

That is why Rousseau said: “O ye teachers, forsake pretention. Be really pious and good. Your good behavior should first inscribe into your students minds, and then influence their hearts. I prefer to give alms in the presence of my student instead of wanting him to give alms” (1973, p. 82). Rousseau not only recommended all educators to be role models for their students, but he also encouraged the students to follow good examples (Ulich, 1962).

Principle of Responsibility

This principle meant that a person should follow his or her inner obligations instead of external pressures. Rousseau asserted that we should hold people responsible for their deeds. Such control and supervision should spring from knowledge (Boyd, 1975). Rousseau believed that we should help a child when necessary and be proud when he helped himself (1973). Rousseau believed that a person had the power to influence the environment. Therefore, without forcing them, children could correct their own behavior.

Method of Confrontation with the Results of One’s Deeds

This is one of the methods that Rousseau suggested on the basis of principle of responsibility. Rousseau put forward this method so that his student could become a responsible person by becoming aware of the results of his action.

Rousseau designed an environment for Emile in which he experienced the results of his undesirable behavior (Ryan, 1976). For instance, Rousseau asserted that if a child told lies, he would have to see all of that lie’s bad results (author, 1973). That’s why Rousseau maintained that adults should not place any obstacles to children’s tendencies. Children should overcome only natural and physical obstacles and penalties would be incurred due to their deeds (Claydon, 1969). In other words, Rousseau said that instead of punishing children for their lies, educators should show the children the bad results of telling lies by not believing anything that they say (Ryan, 1976).

Method of Bearing Hardship

This was another method which could be extracted from Rousseau’s writings with due attention to the principle of responsibility. Rousseau believed that educators taught their students hard lessons (Ryan, 1976). Rousseau said in this regard:

“If we exempted a person from all kinds of harms which were necessary for human beings, haven’t we acted against his natural construction? Yes, I again emphasize that a child should become familiar with small pains if he wanted to comprehend great bounties and happiness. This was man’s nature that if the body were in great comfort, his spirit would become corrupted. The one who didnot know pain and sorrow would not understand the pleasure of kindness nor would he comprehend the sweetness of mercy. Did you know what is the most certain for misery of your child? It is accustoming him to the notion that he could take everything he wanted by force. The more easily his desires were accepted, the more his desires will become (1973, p. 62).

Nature showed pain and sorrow to children from the very beginning of their lives. And, Rousseau recommended that children should not be protected from hardships (Claydon, 1969). Accepting pain should be the first lesson of children’s life, and this was what Emile needed more than anything else (Claydon; Jarret, n.d.). That is the reason why Rousseau introduces Emile as a diligent person, patient, firm and brave that few bad things affect him, and he can calmly endures pain (Boyd, 1975).

Rousseau (1987) introduced patience, submission and perfect justice as the only wealth that a person could take with him from this world. These were those things that human beings were able to complete until they reached perfection and happiness. Rousseau (1989) said that God was just:

“I should suffer, while He knows my innocence. This is all that bestows me assurance and reliance. My heart and intellect testify that I should not be disappointed. I should learn that I should suffer in silence; all things will finally find their suitable and merited place. (1973, p. 61)

Rousseau stressed the fact that if we tried to remove all sorrows from children’s lives, we would cause more adversities for their future. The child should be taught to accept the adversities of the world. In addition, Rousseau believed one could not understand the concept of other people’s pains so far as he himself had not experienced pain.

Principle of Showing Affection and Not Showing Affection

Rousseau believed that we should never underestimate affection and that all social, educational and political relations should be based on affection (Myer, 1971). According to Rousseau (1973), a child was the most important person deserving to receive mercy, care and support.

Rousseau considered childhood as the period of giving affection to children. Therefore, he strongly advised loving children. Rousseau (undated) considered himself fortunate to have been raised in a loving environment.

The opposite principle of not showing affection could also be found in Rousseau’s writings. Rousseau recommended that if we felt that our loving behavior had no educational impact on a child and he or she became worse because of that affection, that child should be deprived of such affection (1973).

Principle of Not Following Community

Rousseau considered (bad) society and community as a factor that contributed to moral corruptions and enslavement (Khadivi Zand, 1966). He believed that all humans were created free and equal. He believed that in a community one or several persons might be powerful and have authority over everyone else. What formed the legal basis of power and a right government were those contracts, which had been satisfactorily concluded among the members of a community.

Rousseau believed in moral inequality, which was permitted by some laws and was contrary to people’s natural right. He said that in a society, the individuals should sacrifice their private benefits for the will and benefits of all (1969).

Method of Keeping Children Away from Community

This method can be suggested for the principle of ‘not following from community.’ Rousseau believed it was necessary to keep children away from community or society. Rousseau asserted that children, at least for a short period of their lives, should be exempt from bearing of the yoke that nature had not imposed on them (i.e. the yoke of community which had been made by adults). We should not limit children’s natural freedom (1973).

Rousseau maintained that children did not possess a power for living in society without being embroiled in its corruptions. The original and pure nature of a child could lead him to corruption and wickedness because of living in a society and intercourse with other people (Claydon, 1969). In other words, Rousseau wanted to nurture the child’s social attitude away from society.

According to Ulich (1962) nothing else seemed more contradictory than a child being educated far from society for life in society. Rousseau wanted a child to become familiar with social problems and people. They would then enter the society so as to remain be protected from its bad effects.

Principle of ‘Following from Nature’

This principle was the basis of many of Rousseau’s educational theories. Rousseau maintained that all human beings should follow nature and its rules. Even a man’s aptitudes could be considered a part of human nature, or in harmony with nature.

Rousseau believed that we should know children’s nature, and formulate educational plans according to that nature. It was up to educators to direct children’s growth, and protect them from bad influences. This caused a child to become a real human being and to serve humanity.
Rousseau considered nature and its performance quite correct, valid and good (Wise, 1964). He asserted that nature caused the proper growth of mankind (Claydon, 1969). Rousseau considered following the nature as following God (1973). According to Rousseau, nature only knew God, and different religions, which caused differences among people, were the inventions of society. Thus, we should only be the students of God (ibid).

Romanticism started with Rousseau. Romantics believed that the educational environment must be flexible and suitable to let children reveal their inner goodness, social abilities, and virtues (Kohlberg & Mayer, 1972). Therefore we should avoid from imposing formal and predetermined experiences on children (Ryan, 1976). Rousseau maintained that nature led human beings to higher ranks of development in the light of properties it had given them.

Method of Natural Punishment

Rousseau suggested this method based on the principle of following nature. Rousseau meant that children should never be punished for their misbehavior; seeing the results of their bad deeds should be their punishment instead (1973). Rousseau gave the example of an apostate and a liar. The results of their bad actions would be enough for them, thus, it was not necessary for educator to lecture children on the bad results of their actions.

Method of Negative Education

This was one of the other educational methods based on principle of following nature. Rousseau believed that if human being was naturally good, he would remain good as far as he was not corrupted. Therefore, Rousseau recommended closing the way for evil to enter a person’s heart, so that the heart might remain pure forever.

Negative education did not teach moral virtues, but rather only defects (Chateau, 1990). The first education (between birth and age 12) should be negative; educators should not teach or instruct virtues and truth to this age group. Their education should consist of keeping the heart from sin (Boyd, 1975). Rousseau emphasized that we should avoid speaking about truth to children have not yet come to understand the truth. This might cause a false opinion in place of truth (Chateau, 1990), or make children go to church to the extent that they become tired of prayer and worship (Rousseau, 1973).

Rousseau devoted his Emile to a scheme of domestic education, which would allow the impulses of children to develop naturally, with as little interference from their tutors as possible (Mautner, 2005). Rousseau spoke of the corruption of morals due to the trappings of culture (Mautner, 2005). He suggested civic religion to which all citizens should subscribe (Audi, 2001).

Rousseau found a solution to the problems of individuals’ freedom and interest in the superior from of moral or political action that he called the general will. The citizen substituted ‘I must’ for ‘I will’, which was also an ‘I shall’ when it expressed assent to the general will.

The general will was a universal force or statement and thus was nobler than any particular will. In willing his own interest, the citizen was at the same time willing what was communally good. The particular and the universal were thus united. The individual realized himself in realizing the good of all (Audi, 2001).

As a moralist, Rousseau attempted to unite the individual and the citizen through universal political action or consent (Audi, 2001). According to Rousseau, man was born free and yet, everywhere he was in chains (Honderich, 2005). In accordance with Rousseau’s philosophy of nature, true religious faith was more an affair of the heart than head (Blackburn, 2005).

Rousseau argued that ills of the human condition derived from society, and that in its natural state, life was free, independent, healthy, happy, and innocent (Blackburn, 2005). In his later years, after returning to France, Rousseau found himself more drawn to communion with nature than with other men. The most lyrical pages of all his writings, his Reveries, expressed the joys of solitude, the raptures of drifting imagination and the wonders of a natural wilderness uncultivated by mankind (Mautner, 2005).

In the celebrated section of Book 4 of Emile, Rousseau referred to ‘The Profession of Faith - eloquent case against atheism and materialism’ (Mautner, 2005). According to Rousseau, when Emile matured and needed to find a place for himself in society he would not try to control all that was around him. Rather, he would establish relations grounded in friendship, mutual respect and cooperation.

Our capacity to feel compassion and our acceptance of compassion with gratitude formed, in Rousseau’s view, the basis of unity among human and the true explanation of the Golden Rule. Real moral demands were not imposed upon us from outside, nor were they precepts discovered by reason. Rather, they were the requirements by which a bond of creative respect could be sustained between equals (Dent, 1998).

Rousseau held that most men and women were corrupted and their lives deformed because of their nature and relationships with the civil order. That man himself was good by nature, but was perverted by society was the theme of Emile. Thus, if people were to live a whole and rewarding life they must first be protected from such damaging influence and then be given the resources and the disposition to develop in a creative, harmonious and happy way once they entered society (Dent, 1998).

Rousseau’s influence remained very great, not only because of his political writings which have become part of the canon of political theory, but also because of his effect on sensibility and attitudes. His love of nature and stress on the value of the simple life, as well as his far - reaching explorations of his own character and feelings, made him a central figure in Romanticism. The emphasis in Rousseau’s educational writings on not coercing the child into performing the pointless influenced the work of Maria Montessori and A.S Neil. His place as a major figure in western civilization was secure, even though he was still controversial (Dent, 1998).

In his controversial writings on religious belief, Rousseau argued that we knew God not by reason, but through simple feelings and convictions much deeper and more permanent than any theorems of reason. Such feelings taught us that the world was animated by a loving and powerful intelligence of God (Dent, 1998).

D. John Dewey's views on moral education

Dewey said that growth itself was the only moral end, and he identified it as a social process. Our behavior was interpersonal; as such, it was the source of most of our learning, and our participation with others was the source of our most profound satisfaction. As a constituent of growth - shared experience was the greatest of human goods.

The ‘construction of good’ was typically a shared activity, facilitated by deliberate cooperation. The activity required appropriate conduct, including communication and cooperation. Above all, Dewey believed, it required experimental inquiry. Every person had a right to participate in the formation of goods.

Democratic life implied that individuals should be seriously respectful of each other’s concerns. It also implied that people communicated with each other freely and honestly to convey their concerns and to propose their plans of action. Out of such virtue and discourse, learned with scientific knowledge, shared proposals for action would thus emerge and be honored.

It should go without saying that democratic virtue deliberately excluded antisocial behavior. No philosopher before Dewey had conceived moral discourse as essentially communicative. The democratic virtue, after all, was impertinent to the incarnations of the classic tradition (Gouinlock, 1998). As Dewey conceived it, the moral life was suffused with innumerable possibilities of enjoyment and happiness, as well as of disaster.

Ordinary life revolved around familiar attachments, ambitions and fears. Dewey believed the philosopher’s task was to place at the disposal of human beings the assumption and methods that would facilitate the efforts in which they will be engaged in any case (Gouinlock, 1998).
The key insight in Dewey’s critique was that behavior was usually constructed by cycles of organism/ environment interaction, rather than sensory - motor interaction (Lachs & Talisse, 2008).

Dewey claimed that democracy was present when personal and community life were marked with faith in the capacity of human beings to exercise intelligent judgment and action when the proper conditions were provided, only with a shared view communicated to provide these conditions as fully and broadly as possible and a dedication to the value of this commitment (Lachs & Talisse, 2008, p.194).

For Dewey moral life was experienced as an open-ended but continuous process in which the past and the future were integral to the present. Always there were stable elements that we could rely on. The most stable elements were habits and not the rules or any of the discursive resource preferred by traditional ethics. Habits resided in the background of situation, but even they were not fixed and could change in their application to concrete circumstances.

Dewey did not offer a criterion for right conduct and thus challengedthe traditional expectations about an ethical theory. Traditional ethical theories usually assumed that the norm or how reasonable was our specific moral judgment, was solely derived from a general standard of right conduct.

Dewey’s ethics does not deny the importance of having, using, and carrying forward our inherited moral knowledge in from principles, ideals, and habits. But it held that these will lose their validity and instrumental capacity the more they were made absolute, that is, when intelligence did not continue to reexamine them in light of present conditions. For Dewey the most important instrumentalities for morality, the ‘cardinal’ virtues were the traits of character that could improve moral habits and more importantly, assist us better in determining what morality required here and now (i.e. in a situation).

The broadest possible characterization of Dewey’s normative vision was that he advocated a moral life that was intelligent, aesthetic, and democratic. These three adjectives characterized mutually dependent aspects of a single moral vision (Lachs & Talisse, 2008, P.182). As Dewey pointed out good, virtue, and duty were all irreducible features found intertwined in moral situations, they had no common denominator nor was there a set hierarchy among them.

Dewey’s faith in the instrumentalities of experience was tempered by the honest realization that the most intense moments of our moral life are tragic, in the sense that there is an irreducible, and sometimes irresolvable, conflict between positive moral demands or values. Moral life is then more than the struggle between good and evil (Lachs & Talisse, 2008, P.181). For Dewey, moral experience is the proper starting point of a philosophical inquiring about morality. He designated those situations that we experience as predominantly moral as those that demanded of the agent that (s)he discovered what (s)he ought to do morally amidst conflicting moral forces or demands.

Dewey characterized the generic elements and phases of our moral life as a process. There were three predominant stages in Dewey’s model of moral inquiry. First, the agent found herself in a morally problematic situation. Finally, (s)he arrived at a judgment that resulted in a choice. Moral deliberation was on experimental, emotional, and imaginative process that results in a moral judgment - a decision to act in one way or another. But judgments were not static (Lach & Talisse, 2008, P.181).

Dewey’s ideas about ethics underwent gradual but continual reconstruction during his 71-year long public career. There was gradual shift from an ethics of self-realization to a mature pluralistic ethics that described morality as contextual, experiment, imaginative, aesthetic, and democratic (Lach & Telisse, 2008, p. 181).

The fundamental aim of education for him was not to convey information but to develop critical methods of thought (Audi 2001, p. 231). Dewey maintained that we should be constantly rethinking and reworking our democratic institution in order to make them ever more responsive to changing times (Audi 2001, p. 231). Dewey constructed nature as an organic unity not marked by any radical discontinuities that would require the introduction of non - natural categories or new methodological strategies (Audi 2001, p. 230).

Dewey believed that the inherited dualisms had to be overcome, particularly the one between fact and value in as much as it functioned to block the use of reason as a guide for human action. On this view people naturally had beliefs as well (Audi 2001, p. 230). Dewey’s view was also naturalistic to the degree that it advocated the universal scope of scientific method. Influenced in this regard by Pierce, he saw scientific method not as restricted to a specific sphere but simply as the way we ought to think.

The structure of all reflective thought was future-oriented and articulation of a felt difficulty, through the elaboration of hypotheses as possible resolutions of the difficulty, to the stage of verification or falsification (Audi 2001, p. 230). Dewey’s notion of experience was intimately tied to his notion of nature. He did not conceive of nature as ‘the-world- as- it- would-be- independent- of- human- experience’ but rather as a tripartite distinction between the physiochemical level, the psychophysical level, and the level of human experience with the understanding that this categorization was not to be constructed as implying any sharp discontinuities (Audi 2001, P.230).

Dewey felt that one of the cardinal errors of philosophy from Plato to the modern period was what he called ‘the spectator theory of knowledge.’ Knowledge had been viewed as a kind of passive recording of facts in the world and success was seen as a matter of correspondence of our beliefs to these antecedent facts. On the contrary, Dewey viewed knowing as a constructive conceptual activity that anticipated and guided our adjustment to future experiential interactions with our environment.

The purpose of knowing was to effect some alternation in the experiential situation, and for this purpose some cognitive proposals were more effective than others. This was the context in which ‘truth’ was normally invoked, and instead of this Dewey proposed ‘warranted assertability’ (Audi 2001, p .229-230). Dewey’s educational goal for children, as for adults, was ‘growth’ - growth in powers, in capacities for experience. Growth, he claimed, was really ‘the only moral end’. For quite plainly, it was not a real end but always a means.

Democracy, Dewey’s other guiding ideal, was likewise both a goal and a means (Honderich 2005, p. 212). Dewey’s epistemological and moral fallibility - his view that no knowledge-claim, no moral rule, principle, or ideal was ever certain or immune from any possible criticism and revision, was yet allied with an optimistic progressivism.

The realization of progress required, however, the cultivation of intelligent habits in individuals and the maintenance of social structures that encouraged continuous inquiry. Thus Dewey focused on the nature and practical improvement of education, arguing that children could not be understood as an empty vessel, passively waiting for the knowledge to be poured in. Rather it had to be seen as active center of impulse, influenced also by shaping their environment.

Children will develop habits of one sort or another in the course of their interactions with their social and physical surroundings, so if we want those habits to be flexible, intelligent, we must do our best to structure an environment that will allow and indeed provoke the operations of intelligent inquiry (Honderich 2005, P.211).

Dewey advanced a philosophy interested in the question of how life should be lived, and he argued that addressing that question required bridging the gap between moral and science. His logic was a theory of inquiry, a general account of how thought functions, not in an abstract or purely formal mode, but in the inquiries of successful science and in the problem-solving of ordinary daily life. What is required in all cases is the application of intelligent inquiry, the self- correcting method of experimentally testing hypotheses created and refined from our pervious experience (Honderich 2005, p. 211).

Dewey’s work as a psychologist and educational thinker crystallized a reaction against the excessively formal and rigid educational practices of the time. Dewey recognized that the child is an active, exploring, inquisitive creature, so the task of education is to foster experience infused by skills and knowledge (Blackburn, 2005, P.98).

Dewey was eager to reassure his readers that they were not a drift in a cold and alien world, and that the comforts of poetry, religion and art were not private consolations, but as reputable in their own way as science and mathematics themselves (Mautner, 2005, P.157). According to Dewey what we are concerned to do is adjust ourselves to our environment and our environment to ourselves, and Dewey spends much of his time characterizing the ways in which we do it.

Morality is not a search for ultimate principles by sophisticated reflection on what we already do (Mautner, 2005, P.157). Dewey believed that human thinking was essentially a matter of problem- solving; education was a matter of giving children the widest possible problem-solving skills. Because Dewey thought that human beings needed a social setting in order to flourish, these problem- solving skills included what one might call ‘moral skills’ (Mautner 2005, p. 157). Dewey’s view was that children neither had a fixed nature such that teachers could stand back and let them grow nor had such plastic natures that teachers could simply mould them into anything they liked (Mautner, 2005).

Conclusion

Rumi believed that there was no monasticism or renunciation in Islam. He introduced unity within a society as the way of attaining growth, development and perfection. Rumi maintained that membership in a society made man both valuable and spiritual. This caused man to avoid egoism and individualism. In this light, we should cultivate compassion, altruism, patience, trust or good judgment and affection so as to unite the society.

According to Saadi too, social adjustments led to peaceful coexistence. This was desirable if we aspire to achieve perfection in a society. He mentioned justice, humility, peace, benevolence, sympathy and contentment as the characteristics of an ideal society. Dewey believed that participation with others was the source of our most profound satisfaction.

Collective experience was the greatest of human goods that contributed to growth. Rousseau argued that the ills of the human condition were derived from the society. He spoke of the corruption of morals arising from the trappings of culture. According to Rousseau, people must be protected from damaging influences of a society prior to entering that society.

Rumi introduced good admonishment or good exhortation as the educational method that was used by the prophets of God. Saadi believed that self-cognition, faith, servitude to God, and praising God were necessary to reach God. The ultimate good of any education was cognition of the exalted God and devotion to Him. It was impossible to cultivate this spirit without the purification of the soul and banishing carnal desires, arrogance, rancor, and power of body. The satisfaction of the body’s needs is a desirable intermediate goal for the purpose of worshiping God and rendering one’s service to the people.

Rousseau believed that the first education (between birth and 12 years of age) should be such that educators must not teach or instruct virtues and truth to children. The kind of education required at this stage should comprise of protecting the heart from all sins.

Dewey maintained that no knowledge-claim, no moral rule, principle, or ideal was ever certain and immune from all possible criticism and revision. He asserted that moral deliberation was an experimental, emotional, and imaginative process that resulted in a moral judgment, which was a decision to act in one way or another. However, these judgments were not static.

These judgments contributed towards the good in the society. According to Dewey, every person had a right to participate in the formation of ‘good’ in society. Therefore he said that growth towards this itself was the only moral end.

According to Rumi, the knowledge of real scholars was not superficial. Intellect and reason governed their lives. Even their religiosity is based on knowledge. Rumi complained of a science of imitation in which a learner did not apply his or her intellect, and did not understand anything through his own thinking and reflection.

Rumi emphasized upon informal education, in addition to formal education. He stated that the skies and the earth spoke with the one who understood. It was up to people and learners to reinforce their power of thinking and reflection so that they could understand the hidden and real aspects of every fact. This way they could achieve a very comprehensive and deep meaning of everything. He believed that one could be thus delivered from the usual schools, pages of learning material, and repetition for learning.

Since Saadi believed that the source of knowledge was unlimited, he did not confine himself to formal and classic textbooks. He placed emphasis on informal learning, by which the students could take lessons from the great school of nature and the events of the lives of other people, in all places and times. In his view, the students for example, should not only study history books, but must also pay great attention to entire history and nature.

Saadi encouraged questions and answer sessions. He improved methods of teaching through lectures. Rousseau stressed active teaching methods based on discovery and problem solving. Therefore, he paid attention to those points, which nurtured the senses, intellect and reason. The aim of education for Dewey was not to convey information, but to develop a critical method for thinking.

Dewey believed that human thinking was there for the sake of problem solving and education was a matter of equipping children with the strongest possible problem-solving skills. He recognized that a child was an active, exploring, inquisitive creature, so in his opinion, the task of education was to infuse the child’s experience with skills and knowledge.

Rousseau maintained that all human beings should follow lessons from nature and its rules. It was up to educators to avoid undue interferences in education. He considered following the nature to be akin to following God. He believed in minimal interference from tutors.

In Dewey’s view, the children neither had a fixed nature such that a teacher could stand back and let them grow nor they had such plastic natures that teachers could simply mold them into anything they liked. Rumi agreed that sound education was based on encouragement and affection. In spite of this view, he sometimes spoke of punishment when encouragement or kindness was not effective; however the intention of teacher should be educational.

Rousseau believed that educational relations between a teacher and student should be based on affection; but not so if a loving behavior had a damaging effect. According to him, the children should never be punished for misbehavior; rather they should see and experience the outcomes of that behavior.

According to Rumi, the sayings and teachings of the teacher should be in accordance with the individual differences in abilities of the students. It was also up to the teacher to consider the spiritual capacity of his or her students. Rumi believed that educational planning should be consistent with the rate of comprehension, understanding, intelligence and aptitude of each student.

Saadi believed that people and students differed from one another physically, intellectually, socially, emotional and morally. Thus, we should consider the extent of their abilities and aptitude in the fields of learning. According to Rousseau, we should expect from children and youngsters to do their responsibilities according to and consistent with their aptitude and abilities.

Rumi has referred to the need of human beings for an aware and reliable educator. Rumi asserted that speeches, deeds and characteristics of teachers and educators affect their students. Rousseau maintained that an educator should set a good example for his or her students to follow. From Rousseau’s viewpoint, moral refinement and nurturing of high moral disposition was not only necessary for those to be educated, but it was also up to the educators to educate children and youngsters with a pure intent.
Rumi maintained one should become free from darkness, material and worldly attachment, fight against carnal desires, ambition and disgrace, and destroy all devilish temperaments or dispositions in order to reach truth and God. Rousseau attempted to keep the child away from all kinds of pretenses and nurture his compassion, share other people’s pains and sorrows, and make him interested in goodness, generosity, mercy, magnanimity and ethereal qualities which are naturally desirable in human beings to avoid greed, jealousy, revenge and all lusts.

Saadi considered the forsaking of carnal desires as the source of real knowledge. Such knowledge nurtured religiosity. Rumi considered acquisition of knowledge and guidance as the goal of creation. The knowledge and intellect of the people prevented them from evil. Thus, such knowledge was a main factor in religiosity. He deemed it necessary to cultivate intellect and thought in spiritual experiences and intuition, and considered it to be a goal for education.

Storytelling was one of the most frequently used methods by Rumi. Rumi believed that the past taught many lessons. The educational method of storytelling utilized by Saadi in both poetry and prose is an epitome of the teaching methods.

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- 1.

General Conclusion

A general glance at all of the chapters of this book and the philosophical and educational ideas of Muslim and Non-Muslim scholars investigated in this book revealed that any thinker, in any part of the world, and at any time in history - after comprehensive and deep contemplation over subjects such as ontology, anthropology, epistemology, axiology, and other educational points - despite a few differences, had reached similar conclusions.

These shared aspects could be considered and applied as a model or pattern offered by some of the most important philosophers of the world for everyone. These can be a real source of inspiration for the formulation of new philosophical theories, and for affecting the learning and behavior of the inhabitants of the world. Such an approach would be surely be a source for achieving a scientific and intellectual unity that would be a factor in preventing conflicts and differences among different societies.

Topic Tags:

- Philosophy of religion [10]

- Contemporary Islamic Philosophy [11]

- Philosophy [12]

- education [13]

Author(s):

- Hamid Reza Alavi [3]

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- Ansariyan Publications - Qum [4]

Category:

- Comparative Religion [5]

- Education [6]

- General [7]

- General [8]

- Philosophy [9]

Featured Category:

- Muslim Practices [14]

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[15] http://www.science.uva.nl/~seop/entries/theology-aristotle/
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