Digressions&Impressions

On Ibn Khaldun, Biblical Criticism and Spinoza and Hume

For example, al-Mas'udi and many other historians report that Moses counted the army of the Israelites in the desert. He had all those able to carry arms, especially those twenty years and older, pass muster. There turned out to be 600,000 or more. In this connection, (al-Mas'udi)  forgets to take into consideration whether Egypt and Syria could possibly have held such a number of soldiers. Every realm may have as large a militia as it can hold and support, but no more. This fact is attested by well-known customs and familiar conditions. Moreover, an army of this size cannot march or fight as a unit. The whole available territory would be too small for it. If it were in battle formation, it would extend two, three, or more times beyond the field of vision.
How, then, could two such parties fight with each other, or one battle formation gain the upper hand when one flank does not know what the other flank is doing! The situation at the present day testifies to the correctness of this statement. The past resembles the future more than one (drop of) water another. Furthermore, the realm of the Persians was much greater than that of the Israelites. This fact is attested by Nebuchadnezzar's victory over them. He swallowed up their country and gained complete control over it. He also destroyed Jerusalem,their religious and political capital. And he was merely one of the officials of the province of Fars. It is said that he was the governor of the western border region. The Persian provinces of the two 'Iraqs, Khurasan, Transoxania, and the region of Derbend on the Caspian  Sea were much larger than the realm of the Israelites. Yet, the Persian army did not attain such a number or even approach it. The greatest concentration  of Persian troops, at al-Qadisiyah, amounted to 120,000 men, all of whom had their retainers. This is according to Sayf  who said that with their retainers they amounted to over 200,000 persons. According to 'A'ishah and az- Zuhri, the troop concentration with which Rustum advanced against  Sa'd at al-Qadisiyah amounted to only 60,000 men, all of whom had their retainers.
Then, if the Israelites had really amounted to such a number, the extent of the area under their  rule would have been larger, for the size of administrative units and provinces under a particular dynasty is in direct proportion to the size of its militia and the groups that support the  (dynasty), as will be explained in the section on provinces in the first book. Now, it is well known that the territory of the (Israelites) did not comprise an area larger than the Jordan province and Palestine in Syria and the region of Medina and Khaybar in the Hijaz.--Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, Translated by Franz Rosenthal.

The quoted passage is from the Introduction to the Muqaddimah. As I have noted before (here and here) the book is embedded in a framework derived from Aristotelian science.* To say this is revealing in lots of ways, but today I want to point to some of his evidential strategies -- Ibn Khaldun calls it "probing with the yardstick of philosophy...[and]  the help of knowledge of the nature of things...speculation and historical insight" -- in which he anticipates methods we are more likely to associate with Spinoza and Hume. I have quoted the first, instructive example of the claim that "historians, Qur'an commentators and leading transmitters have committed frequent errors in the stories and events they reported." The underlying point is to show how one can do source criticism by appealing to non-demonstrative principles that, nevertheless, have the status of robust commitments or generalizations that help one constrain or interpret the data (or some causal claim, etc.). I will call such principles, practical, empirical generalizations. 

Here are some such practical generalizations.

• [A] Every realm may have as large a militia as it can hold and support, but no more.
• [B] An army has [given technological and physiological constraints] a maximum size in which it can fight as a unit.
  • The size of an army/militia is constrained by the requirements of battle-field communication;
  • The size of an army/militia is constrained by field of vision;
• [C] The size of administrative units and provinces under a particular dynasty is in direct proportion to the size of its militia and the groups that support the (dynasty),

The epistemic status of such practical, empirical generalizations is grounded in or based on historical and practical experiences, reflection on human and social nature, underlying political economy, demographics, group psychology,and principles of analogy (etc.). As Ibn Khaldun says, he will show the robust veracity of [C] in a separate chapter. I don't mean to suggest that these are only empirical generalizations. For example, [A] borders on a tautology. But the point of [A] is not to offer an a priori truth, but to make the reader reflect on the demographic, geographic, and economic, !etc.) constraints on the possible size of a militia.  And given the plausibility of such constraints [A] can, in turn, by an informed constraint on the interpretation of source material. (Hume is a master of using informed and empirically grounded constraints to sift data in his work on demographics and political economy. This works in both directions.)

In addition, in practice, [A-C] also assume a further principle of human nature:

• [D] that if military might exists, it will be used to expand territory until it gets checked by an opposing power. 

This principle, [D], is the conatus/will-to-power principle of Ibn Khaldun's historiography. In order to avoid misunderstanding, I don't mean to suggest that for Ibn Khaldun that military power is sui generis or an explanatory primitive; it is grounded in group feeling, demography, economy, leadership qualities, etc. 

Of course, some of the claims that Ibn Khaldun's source criticism relies on are not merely such practical generalizations, but they are connected to more fundamental metaphysical principles. So, for example, one of the principles he explicitly relies (again see the quote above)on is this:

• [E] The past resembles the future,

That Ibn Khaldun embraces [E] is especially notable because he also thinks an unthinking reliance on a version of [E] is simultaneously one of greatest dangers in the writing history because it can license (i) a form of anachronism that prevents understanding of the past (this is familiar enough), and (ii) also (and more interesting) a misunderstanding of the present based on familiarity with works of history. The example he offers is that the content and status of particular political and legal offices have, without changing names, dramatically shifted in character. So, he claims that in the early caliphate and also the conquest of Spain a judge was often somebody who either had the power of the sword or was very closely affiliated to the center of power (due to group feeling); in his own age the judge is more an administrative functionary.+ Contemporary readers, may misunderstand their own time, and "aspire to similar positions" if they think that judges are still at the center of political power.

The last paragraph also hints at the fact that point of source criticism for Ibn Khaldun history is not just an understanding of the past, but also a better understanding of the present. In addition, Ibn Khaldun recognizes that works of history can motivate readers to courses of action. Some other time I return to that. 

Here I want to close with a final observation because the title of this post promises something riviting than Ibn Khaldun's source criticism. In the quoted passage, Ibn Khaldun calls attention to the greatest military victory of early Islam, the battle at al-Qadisiyah. In this battle the numerically inferior Arabs defeated one of the great superpowers of the Ancient worlds, the mighty Persian Sassanid empire. It opened the 'East' to Muslim expansion. The significance of the battle would have been familiar to Ibn Khaldun's readers and a source of group pride. 

Ibn Khaldun's official point of reminding the reader of this famous battle is to undermine the plausibility of historians's reports that Moses's army turned out to be 600,000 or more. Such an army would have been the basis of world domination not the occupation of a small bit of territory. Ibn Khaldun deftly shows that this number is implausibly large.

The interest of the example is, however, not just illustrative correction of bad scholarship. There is a more important point lurking here. For the implausibly large number is (as is well known) in the Biblical source-material. Numbers 1: 45-46 states, "And all those that were numbered of the children of Israel by their fathers' houses, from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war in Israel; even all those that were numbered were six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty." As it happens, the Quran recounts the story of exodus and the further exploits of Moses and Israelites, but without the claim to (exaggerated) exactitude of the sort the Hebrew Bible offers.

So, it is quite clear that the historians that Ibn Khaldun criticizes have embellished their account of the Biblical history re-narrated by the Quran by glancing at the Hebrew Bible (itself a sacred text familiar to Muslim scholars). The error is in the historical source not just the scholarship. What to do? After engaging in such source criticism, a pious and prudent scholar can't respond by claiming that the error "occurs only in the Torah which as is well  known, was altered by the Jews" (for reasons of self-aggrandizement, bias, etc.). Even to an Islamic scholar this response is unavailable "since custom prevents people who have a revealed religion from dealing with their divine scriptures in such a matter."

The problem is obvious, if one allows that sacred Hebrew scripture has been corrupted by interests motivated by group-loyalty one is stuck claiming that it is possible other sacred scriptures could also have been corrupted. This is the road to Spinozism. 

From the vantage point of Spinozism, Ibn Khaldun's response is disappointing. He claims that such passages have to be treated as miracles. This is not the end of the matter, of course, because one must understand what a miracle is. But that's for another time. Here I close with the observation that for Ibn Khaldun one can only speak of such miracles after engaging with source criticism. And this means that he has quietly invited us to apply his methods also to the Quran.

 

Plato, Ibn Rushd, Eugenics, and Being an (Accidental) Straussian

Since for everything that has come into being destruction is appointed, not even such a fabric as this will abide for all time, but it shall surely be dissolved, and this is the manner of its dissolution. Not only for plants that grow from the earth but also for animals that live upon it there is a cycle of bearing and barrenness for soul and body as often as the revolutions of their orbs come full circle, in brief courses for the short-lived and oppositely for the opposite; but the laws of prosperous birth or infertility for your race, the men you have bred to be your rulers will not for all their wisdom ascertain by reasoning combined with sensation, but they will escape them, and there will be a time when they will beget children out of season. Republic, Book 8, 546ab, Translated by Paul Shorey.

In the quoted passage, Socrates confronts (recall here, and here) the limits of his eugenic, breeding program. I tend to describe it (somewhat anachronistically) as his recognition that sexual desire among the carefully, artificially selected beautiful-of-mind-and-body-guardians cannot be controlled and falls outside scientific cognition. At one point, fairly recently, Eric Brown, a distinguished philosopher, who I have looked up to my whole academic career, objected to this characterization as Straussian. (It was not intended as a compliment.) Rather (and I summarize informally) Socrates claims that the cause of the decline of Kallipolis is the reliance on sensation/sense perception. Brown is not alone in this--in the summary to their translation of book 8, Grube/Reeve assert that kallipolis "will decline because the philosopher-kings have to rely on sense perception in putting their eugenics policy in practice." (213) Let's call this the standard reading. By contrast, the "Straussian" reading has an unhealthy interest in sexual desire.*

And, indeed, the standard reading is well grounded in the text. But the Straussian reading is not silly because what sense perception misses is  copulation by the guardians. And what this shows that even a state carefully organized around moderation and properly cultivated dispositions (by way of indoctrination, drilling, censorship, noble lies, and eugenics, etc.) and learning flounders on a mixture of natural drives and cognitive limitations. The standard reading emphasizes these cognitive limitations, whereas the Straussian reading emphasizes the former. The standard reading does justice to the plain meaning of the text. But the Straussian reading is on this point not based on some fancy esoteric numerology+ --  in fact, it's the Socratic eugenicist-philosopher-kings who have to deploy such fancy numerology --, but a fairly straightforward interpretation of why the cognitive limitations induced by sense perception matter.**

So, my objection to the standard reading is not that it is decidedly prudish (although I think that, too, of course), but that it kind of fails to do justice to the very grounds of rejecting the true/healthy city, and to embark on the Kallipolis which is, in part, (recall and more elaborately here) grounded in what's possible for beings like us (the true city assumes we're like pigs/animals). And in analyzing the causes for its decline, it turns out there are limited to improving our human nature (cognitive limitation, sexual desire)* when we are dealing with populations (and population improvement).

As it happens, this week, I am teaching Ibn Rushd's commentary on Plato's Republic (translated from the Hebrew by Ralph Lerner; this Third Treatise 87.20ff.) Here is how he treats the issue in question:

Here the guardians are blamed for the failure of the eugenics problem in two ways: (i) they are not paying sufficient attention to the copulation (of their fellow guardians); (ii) they are not sufficiently ruthless enough in removing or -- to use a term from Al-Farabi -- weeding out the bad offspring that are the product from improper copulation. (Recall that he seems to suggest that Sharia is also offering a breeding program.)

Now, Ibn Rushd's commentary, which presents itself as an epitome that only presents the demonstrable parts of the Republic, here is offering, in one sense, a misleading summary. It's possible that this is due to the manuscript-translation of the Republic he had access to, or to a mistake in the Hebrew translator of Ibn Rushd. But I will assume that the change is deliberate. (There are other places in the commentary where the changes are evidently deliberate.) 

Ibn Rushd is frank about the significance of copulation as the proximate cause of decline (so that's like the Straussian). But what (i)-(ii) have in  common is that he puts much more emphasis on, we may say, a failure of policy, even a loss of nerve, among the guardians (who are in a sense not ruthless enough in spying and killing, that is, the kind of Straussianism associated, fairly or not, with the neocons). And the underlying sensibility is that, while the best regime is certainly not stable, it is in some sense both more attainable (recall) and also more enduring if one were willing to make one's hands dirty.

Ibn Rushd on the transition problem; On Multi-Generational Political Projects.

Someone might say: If the existence of this city [kallipolis] can only come about if people such as these happen to exist, and their existing with these qualities [is contingent on] their having grown up in this city, why then there is no way in this city can come into being. What we were laying down in speech and had then thought to be possible is [now seen to be] impossible.--Ibn Rushd Commentary on Plato's Republic, Treatise 2, 62.24, translated by Ralph Lerner.

The toughest version of the the transition problem (recall and here) is how to create an ideal political future with a population raised under bad institutions (or worse, that is, bad breeding). One of the central philosophical tasks according to Socrates (recall my treatment of Republic 592ab) is the ongoing theoretical exploration of ideal models of political orders that are humanly possible (in the sense of not violating known human nature), but de facto unavailable given the near-impossibility of solving the transition problem.

In his commentary, Ibn Rushd articulates the transition problem very nicely, but skips the paragraph (Rep 592) in which Socrates acknowledges it.*  In particular, he offers his own distinctive, solution to it. This has three features. First, and here he echoes a commitment expressed by Socrates, he allows that would-be-philosophical legislators can originate under bad circumstances (62.27). Philosophies can be cultivated, but they can also be natural flukes born anywhere.

Second, such a would-be-philosophical-legislator has pre-existing materials, including (a) not what he calls the "general common nomos;" it is not entirely clear  what he means by this, but in a note, the translator, Lerner ,plausibly suggests it is a kind of natural standard for any human association. This standard is something short of natural law, but more the kind of thing that regulates (to use a phrase of Adam Smith) "the usual strain" of in-group relations. In addition, (b) would-be legislators may be able to work with, and adapt pre-existing religious laws. This, too, fits with an import commitment of Socrates, which presupposes (recall) at the founding of the Kallipolis, a rationalized version of existing religious practices and theology (see Republic 427bc & 469a). For, (c) the pre-existing religious laws partake in some sense of the rational order that is achieved (were the transition problem solved.) Rather than seeing religion as opposed to rational political order, it is a natural stepping stone to it. (This fits in with the larger, Platonizing tendency (recall Al-Farabi) to treat religion as a politically functional, symbolic representation of the truth and indicative of the truth/rational order.)

Strikingly, Ibn Rushd explicitly asserts that these pre-conditions exist in his own time and in Sharia. I call this striking because he is also extremely critical of the political conditions and (religious) intellectuals of his time. One may understand Ibn Rushd's Decisive Treatise as the work that explains how such rationalized religion is possible within Islam.

Third, he suggests that one can build the conditions for the emergence of Kallipolis over time, when "virtuous kings" come to rule in succession, "one after another and for a long time--not ceasing to incline these cities gradually until the situation in them, by the end of time, comes to be good governance." (Again, "these cities" refer to the political situation of his own time.) Here Ibn Rushd reverses a template that is familiar both from Al-Farabi and the history of early Islam, in which a succession of second best, but good kings preserves a perfect founding absent a philosopher-king; but he uses the possibility of such a series of second bests, as a a gradual ascent toward the best city. 

Such second-best good kings, must nudge the polity toward dispositions that facilitate good beliefs and virtuous deeds simultaneously. Ibn Rushd assumes here that it is possible that political rulers are capable and willing of seeing their own rule as part of a larger architecture or plan. This is is not silly because plenty of rulers (can) understand themselves in terms of dynastic or national interests; religiously inspired rulers do not find it difficult to understand their temporary rule in terms of a providential plan/order. (Ibn Rushd is quiet to what degree such rulers would have to share their long-term plan with their subjects.) Scientists today routinely understand their own work and contributions in terms of open-ended projects that will outlive them.

The starting points of such a multi-generational political project differs in space and time. So, for example, Ibn Rushd is explicit that in his own time the inclination toward virtuous deeds is "more likely than their inclining to good beliefs," (79.5; as noted above he is very critical of the intellectual atmosphere of his own era). 

One may think that a multi-generational, top-down political project carried by a cognitive elite, and centered on their decision-making, on behalf of a very idealistic ideals is an outlandish possibility. (In response, Ibn Khaldun will argue that dynasties have natural cycles of rise and fall.) That such a proposal this does not really address the transition problem. But it is worth reminding ourselves that inspired by (recall Kant's Perpetual Peace  (who drew on a more dismal picture of human nature), the European Union has been engaged in such a project. And while it is quite possible that we will witness the collapse of it in the near future, it also also possible that it will sustain itself. The comparison with the EU is a bit fanciful, but Ibn Rushd could count on his readers to imagine such a multi-generational political project in terms of a caliphate.

 

Ibn Tufayl and the Three Kings

§3.  they say, that there lay, not far from this our Island, another Great Island very fertile and well peopled; which was then govern'd by a Prince of a Proud and Jealous Disposition: he had a Sister of exquisite Beauty, which he confin'd and restrain'd from Marriage, because he could not match her to one suitable to her quality. He had a near Relation whose Name was Yokdhân, that courted this Princess, and Married her privately, according to the Rites of Matrimony then in use among them; it was not long before she prov'd with Child, and was brought to Bed of a Son; and being afraid that it should be discovered, she took him in the Evening, and when she had Suckled him she put him into a little Ark which she closed up fast, and so Conveys him to the Sea shore, with some of her Servants and Friends as she could trust; and there with an Heart equally affected with Love and Fear, she takes her last leave of him...  

§98. They say that there was an Island not far from that where Hai Ebn Yokdhan was born (no matter according to which of those two different Accounts they give of his Birth) into which one of those good Sects, which had some one of the ancient Prophets (of pious Memory) for its Author, had retir'd. A Sect which us'd to discourse of all things in Nature, by way of Parable and Similitude, and by that means represent the Images of them to the Imagination, and fix the Impressions of them in Men's Minds, as is customary in such Discourses as are made to the Vulgar. This Sect so spread it self in this Island, and prevail'd and grew so eminent, that at last the King not only embrac'd it himself, but oblig'd his Subjects to do so too.'--Ibn Tufayl  The Improvement of HUMAN REASON, Exhibited in the LIFE of Hai Ebn Yokdhan [also known as Philosophus Autodidactus], translated by Simon Ockley (1708).

Regular readers know, I think of Ibn Tufayl's book as one of the great gems of the history of philosophy with great thought experiments, a beautiful account of humanity's place in the order of things, and a serious reflection on the tensions between a philosophical life and living in society. It's also a book that invites a lover of riddles to try to unravel the many little mysteries lodged in the book. (Ibn Tufayl  closes the book with a reminder that it contains "hidden Knowledge." §120) Today's post may be a garden path, and evidence for the kind of scholarly chase that Umberto Eco ridiculed so well in Foucault's Pendulum (and lovingly described in The Name of the Rose). But here goes; it presupposes, alas, some knowledge of the narrative. 

Ibn Tufayl's text mentions three kinds of kingship. I have quoted the pertinent passages of two of these in passing. The first kind of kingship is tyranny. The sister of this tyrant, Hayy's mom (in the version of his origins that emphasizes ordinary birth--in the other (recall) he is generated spontaneously), is not allowed to marry. The underlying politics are barely disguised: the tyrant wishes to use his sister for his dynastic ambitions. In addition we can infer that he clearly lacks off-spring, and so his sister's progeny are  a danger to his throne. I call him a tyrant because his court his characterized by fear. It is also characterized (and this is even more speculative) by political faction because Hayy's mom is said to have friends she can trust. (In the context of a tyranny the personal is, to adapt a famous slogan, political.)*

The second kind of kingship is mentioned very briefly, but it is, in the terms of Islamic political philosophy, a democratic king, that is, one whose rule is grounded in the opinion of the people. This king adapts to their changing views on religion, and once he is confident that the majority is one his side he is willing to use force to convert the rest of his population.

I am assuming that this democratic king is the same king under which Absâl and Salâman grow up together. (That's not entirely clear because it could also be a king who lived longer in the past; I think not because it is explicitly said that Absâl and Salâman meet with the religious sect, and the wording implies that they do so before it is state religion.) So, if this is correct, than prior to establishing a state religion, this king permitted religious diversity (and again, this fits with calling it a democracy--see Al-Farabi.) In addition, he allowed freedom of movement, in particular, the right to exit. That this is so is established by the fact that Absâl is allowed to leave the island undisturbed. That this is significant, is made clear by the fact that when Salaman becomes ruler, he thinks a right to withdrawal is explicitly un-lawful.** 

The third king is Salaman. He is explicitly one of the three characters we are instructed to focus on by the narrator/Ibn Tufayl in his introduction. The name is significant of cause because it echoes King Solomon, the Biblical king who is also venerated in Islam, (in New Atlantis, Bacon uses (recall) a similar device) and recalls a famous companion of Muhammad. We are not told how he gains power. We are given some information that he rules in his own image: he is disinterested in further religious innovation and he focuses on the literal meaning of Scriptures, showing a marked lack of intellectual curiosity. He himself follows the religious rites strictly (§99). He is outgoing, and sees society being in society as a means to (useful) self-disciplining (§100). He has a clear dislike of pluralism -- and this is the cause of his falling out with one-time friend, Absal-- and this makes him intolerant.++  

It's not entirely clear how to evaluate Salaman. From the perspective of political order, he is a very successful king: his subjects echo his attitudes and they are obedient. They reject abstract and mystical knowledge, sticking to material world and sensory evidence. This is not a society that will produce great innovations in knowledge and science. Moreover, his people are described as small-minded, committed to acquisitiveness and show little regard for the (possibility of) the afterlife (§115-116). These are observant, but not godly people, slaves to their appetites. 

I want to close with a reflection. The book naturally raises the question what role a (mystic) philosophy can have in society. Hayy's and Absal's return to exile is dramatic. In so doing the book also clearly demonstrates the political limits of theoretical knowledge absent understanding of political rhetoric and the ways one can rule through the effective use of symbols (Al-Farabi calls this 'religion'; see also here.) The means of the "true religion," which is the one that forces the conversion of the second king, succeed where Hayy's methods of preaching fail (see the quote from §98 above). The truth is not self-vindicating among those not made receptive toward it. 

But the question that Ibn Tufayl pursues is more subtle. In Deliverance from Error (a text mentioned by Ibn Tufayl at the start of his book), Al-Ghazali had grandly and self-confidently rejected a form of inherited religious, servile conformism un-grounded in inquiry. And after some time in self-imposed exile and contemplation of Sufi mysteries, he re-entered society in order to teach again (and call people to God's way). One way to understand Ibn Tufayl is to see in him the suggestion that religion is a tool for strict conformism, which generates political order and stability. If one values such stability, then, perhaps, the costs (no science, knowledge, etc.) may be a price worth paying. But, perhaps, the more remarkable observation lurking here -- and this is very much in the spirit of Al-Ghazali -- is that such conformist religious practice, focused on rule-following and obedience, is also fundamentally hollow when it is not a means toward further spiritual development and the only end it serves is political stability.

 

 

 

Ibn Rushd and Functional Explanation of Scriptures

Copulation ought not to be permitted them [the guardians] whenever they wish and with whomever they wish, since we wish that this activity be human among them and that their copulations not be of any chance character. The arrangement of their procreation will be the best possible with respect to their conditions of guardianship, but at fixed times an with determined individuals and characteristics. This is, as it were, common to the other conventions and Laws [Shari'a], though as it appears the adherents of the Laws differ from one another in the force of the statements. We ourselves will here briefly what Plato asserts about these things.---Ibn Rushd on Plato's Republic, the first treatise, 54.20-8, translated by Ralph Lerner.

At the start of the quoted passage, Ibn Rushd is referring to the breading program of the guardians of Socrates's Kallipolis (see Republic, 457-8). It is part of a larger passage, which is explicitly presented as a what "he said" (see 54.19).* But at the second to last sentence of the quoted passage he has slipped into his own voice, something he then calls attention to in the last sentence. The next paragraph then starts with a "we say,"and Ibn Rushd is officially speaking in his own voice. But what concerns me here is the second to last sentence {This is, as it were, common to the other conventions and Laws [Shari'a], though as it appears the adherents of the Laws differ from one another in the force of the statements.} This claim is not in the Republic, and it's Ibn Rushd's addition. 

But to see what's at stake we must first turn to the first sentences of Ibn Rushd's commentary on Plato's Republic; these tell us that Ibn Rushd's "epitome" only presents the scientific, that is, demonstrative elements of the Republic. (Ibn Rushd claims to have  removed the dialectical arguments.) To be clear, Ibn Rushd does not present a summary of the Republic, but rather only conveys the bits that can be taken to be true,+ and useful (because it is a practical science).  So, this is an epitome in both senses: it's the best parts of the Republic and a synopsis.

As an aside, the most immediately striking omissions are that Book I of the Republic is skipped almost entirely (because as he says at the of the  third and final treatise, "it is entirely dialectical arguments") and the contents of Book 10 are barely conveyed. In addition, the dialogical structure of the Republic is entirely effaced. Socrates himself is only mentioned once, en passant, to remind the reader that Socrates chose death when he could not serve the polity anymore.** Ibn Rushd mentions this to convey accurately one of Socrates's claims (that physicians should not cure those who can't contribute in their functional role to society anymore), but this detail is absent in the Republic.

Okay, let me return to the main point. Two key claims of Ibn Rushd's Decisive Treatise are (a) that the hidden meaning of allegorical interpretation of Scriptures should not be shared with the masses, and (b) that (recall) such hidden knowledge can only put in texts that are demonstrative treatises, but these may only circulate among the cognitive elite. As I noted, the reason for (a) is that Ibn Rushd thinks this is the cause of (religious and political) faction; the reason for (b) is that the demonstrative sciences are recondite, and so ordinarily of little interest to the masses. (One can imagine him thinking that a text about Plato would be of even less interest!) Of course, the commentary on the Republic, does not advertise itself as offering evidence of the hidden meaning of Scriptures as revealed by allegorical interpretation. And, now we can return to the point at hand.

In the passage, Ibn Rushd is claiming that Kallipolis is not the only political constitution in which constraints on copulation serve an eugenic or domestic/artificial selective purpose. He says that this is also the point of other polities, including Islamic Sharia. And, in fact, the Quran and the Haddith, regulate, for example, when sex is and is not allowed. De facto, Ibn Rushd is offering a functional explanation of the meaning behind some of Scriptural practices.++ Another function of Sharia is to point (or to use the language of the Decisive Treatise, indicate) to the significance of good governance and good counsel (48.17).

A very important instance of Ibn Rushd's engaging with a kind of functional interpretation of Scripture occurs just after he has explained why woman ought not just be, in principle, guardians (as they are in Kallipolis), but that there is empirical evidence that they can be quite capable warriors (praising the Berber, female warriors of the dessert). And just before he goes on to explain (recall) that the institutions of his own time have the effect of dumbing down women (and causing economic hardship), he briefly pauses to note that Sharia has a tendency to prevent women from being part of the clerisy. He explains this fact as a consequence of an empirical regularity in which -- presumably in the time of revelation -- there are fewer capable women. But as the next page makes clear this regularity is itself a consequence of badly designed institutions. So, here, Ibn Rushd comes extremely close to saying that Scriptures didn't know any better based on the empirical evidence available; and that [the author(s) of] Scripture lacked the demonstrative understanding to correct for this. So, this is a case in which the hidden functionality of Scriptures reveals a defective understanding of nature.***

 

Íbn Rushd and the Meaning of Scripture

[A] So we affirm definitely that whenever the conclusion of a demonstration is in conflict with the apparent meaning of Scripture, that apparent meaning admits of allegorical interpretation according to the rules for such interpretation in Arabic. [B] This proposition is questioned by no Muslim and doubted by no believer. But (a) its certainty is immensely increased for those who have had close dealings with this idea and put it to the test, and (b) made it their aim to reconcile the assertions of intellect and tradition. [C] Indeed we may say that whenever a statement in Scripture conflicts in its apparent meaning with a conclusion of demonstration, [C*] if Scripture is considered carefully, and the rest of its contents searched page by page, there will invariably be found among the expressions of Scripture something which in its apparent meaning bears witness to that allegorical interpretation or comes close to bearing witness.--Ibn Rushd, Decisive Treatise, Chapter 2, Translated by George Hourani. [Letters added--ES]

Earlier in the Decisive Treatise, Ibn Rushd had established that Scripture cannot conflict with demonstrative knowledge/science. The first sentence of the quoted passage [A] is an implication of Ibn Rushd's tendency to rationalize scripture. So, that allegorical interpretations of Scripture are invited whenever these are required to have Scripture come out true by the lights of demonstration/reason and when the apparent meaning of the text would seem to violate it. (Spinoza scholars are familiar with this position because it is the one Spinoza attributes to Maimonides and criticizes; I ignore here the tricky question to what degree, if any, Ibn Rush influenced Maimonides or the other way around.)

As an aside, it is notable that [A] is explicitly treated by Ibn Rushd as a kind of political axiom, and so perhaps constitutive, of the Muslim community: [B] "This proposition is questioned by no Muslim and doubted by no believer." And he goes on to point out that while the axiom [B] is accepted unquestionably, those few, the cognitive elite,+ that put it to work (a) both come to hold it more firmly [suggesting that unquestioned acceptance is perhaps more fragile than it seems] and (b) end up being committed to a reconciliation project between science and revelation/traditional religion. the ways in which inherited religion and reason can be reconciled. (What the exact relationship between (a) and (b) is, is left unclear--perhaps the Arabic makes clear if this conceptual, logical, or contingent.)

This reconciliation project by the cognitive elite presupposes that Scripture is (and this anticipates Spinoza) primarily aimed at the masses who require opinions to be "guided." That is, Scripture is fundamentally a work of social, ethical, and political significance. (In the first sentence of this paragraph, I say 'primarily' because Ibn Rushd also claims that the apparent tension between reason and Scripture are deliberately there "in order to draw the attention of those who are well grounded in science to the interpretation which reconciles them,"--that is to say, Ibn Rushd claims that Scripture has an esoteric message for those that can understand.) The reconciliation project is explicitly not in the service of public Enlightenment because Ibn Rushd argues later in the Decisive Treatise that (recall) allegorical interpretations by the cognitive  elite should not be shared with ordinary folk. This may entail that the reconciliation project is merely for private edification of the cognitive elite.* 

The final sentence [C] is extraordinary. And it can be taken in (at least) two ways: first, the pious way affirms the miracle of Scripture, which is a holistic work in which any passage can, when taken literally be used,to illuminate some  obscure or evidently false passages, which require allegorical interpretation by the cognitive elite. Second, the scandalous way, which suggests that Scripture can be made to say literally just about anything that, in the hands of the skilled cognitive elite, can support the truths they already know!** 

 

On Written Law and the Rise of the Caliphate according to Al-Farabi

82. If there happens to be an association of these kings at a single moment in a single city, a single nation, or many nations, then their whole association is like a single king due to the agreement in their endeavors, purposes, opinions, and ways of life. If they succeed one another in time, their souls will be as a single soul. The second will proceed according to the way of life of the first, and the one now present according to the way of life of the one who has passed away. Just as it is permissible for one of them to change a Law he legislated at one moment if he is of the opinion that it is more fitting to change it at another moment, so may the one now present who succeeds the one who has passed away change what the one who has passed away has already legislated. For the one who has passed away would change [it] himself, were he to observe the [new] condition. When there does not happen to be a human being of this condition, the Laws that the former [kings] prescribed or ordained are to be adopted, then written down and preserved, and the city is to be governed by means of them. So the ruler who governs the city by means of written Laws adopted from past leaders is the king of traditional law.--Al-Farabi, Political Regime, Translated by Charles Butterfield

In context it is clear that "these kings' are akin to Platonic philosopher-kings ("king in truth according to the ancients," (80)). The most visible difference is that for Al-Farabi, but not Plato, a philosopher-king can rule over an empire ("many nations") whereas Plato limits their rule to an explicitly delimited city-state/polity [Republic, 423b]. Another important difference -- not evident from this quote, but crucial -- is that in the Republic, Socrates farms out to the oracle of Apollo the fundamental laws pertaining to the divine (427),* so that the philosopher-kings of the Republic , which then inherit the oracle's injunctions, are more akin to an executive of earthy matters than a constitutional-onto-theological-legislator. Al-Farabi stresses this difference when he  points out that rather than calling one of them a philosopher king, it's better "of whom it ought to be said that he receives revelation." (80) 

A reader familiar with early Islamic history, is likely to read in this passage, the era of Muhammad and (at least) the four righteous caliphs, which came to an end . Unlike, say, Ibn Rushd later (recall here), he treats the period of the four righteous caliphs not as an imitation of the virtue of Muhammed, but as a continuation of the best kind of polity founded by Muhammad.+ For the sake of argument, I call this a continuity thesis. The continuity comes to an end, when under the Umayyad dynasty caliphs onward, judges and jurists are appointed who rely on and interpret written law.

This continuity thesis has an interesting implication: that the according to the four righteous caliphs contextually necessitated changes away from Muhammad's practice and example are not really changes, as it were, of the inner meaning of the law. It's only when Caliphs started to rely on written law that the polity becomes, at best, an imitation of virtue. This second-best structure is due to the lack of talent at the top. 

Of course, there is an alternative way to read the passage, which suggests that the collection and canonization of the Quran is indicative of this decline. The tradition assigns the completion of this process to the period of the third (righteous) Caliph, Uthman, although it was started under the first. It follows from this, that according to Al-Farabi, already the Rishdun caliphate became an imitation of the best.

Be that as it may, while it is tempting to see in Al-Farabi's position an echo of Socrates' bias against writing. It is important to recognize that for Al-Farabi this is merely a symptom; what he calls rule by "traditional law" is a consequence of a lack of available ruling talent or at least a mechanism by which it can come to rule.

We moderns are inclined to reflect on the selection mechanism or process of the right ruler. But that's not how Al-Farabi sees it. We can put the significance of his point as follows: if you can't govern by personal authority you must rely on written law; this reflects a lack of prudential wisdom. 

Al-Farabi's General Political Science and History.

Political science that is a part of philosophy is limited—in what it investigates of the voluntary actions, ways of life, and dispositions, and in the rest of what it investigates—to universals and to giving their patterns. It also brings about cognizance of the patterns for determining particulars: how, by what, and by what extent they ought to be determined. It leaves them undetermined in actuality, because determining in actuality belongs to a faculty other than philosophy and and perhaps because the circumstances and occurrences with respect to which determination takes place is infinite and without limitation. Al-Farabi "The Book of Religion, 15. in The Political Writings. Trans. Charles Butterworth, p. 106.

In Al-Farabi (reflecting the classical heritage) a philosophy of a special science is, in the first instance, a theoretical subject matter grounded in some principled yields demonstrations or proofs about universals. These are universals that apply to a particular domain. From the perspective of contemporary social science, Al-Farabi's political science that is a part of philosophy, is highly abstract and general. In order  to avoid confusion let's call this (politics that is a part of philosophy) general political science. But as Al-Farabi notes in the quoted passage, it's also part of such a general political science to create the framework that allow some of the preconditions for subsuming important features of political reality under these universals.

Now for Al-Farabi 'religion' is always a means to some given political end ("religion is opinions and actions, determined and restricted with stipulations and prescribed for a community by their first ruler, who seeks to obtain through their practicing it a specific purpose with respect to them or by means of them.") And, given this (recall) expansive functional definition and understanding of religion (which has clear debts to Plato), general political science studies the contents -- i.e., social mores (including institutions), habits of thoughts, and voluntary actions -- that are the main ingredients of religion. So, general political science is the general knowledge of the contours of making 'religion' politically functional. So, general political science is the generic knowledge of how political leaders/founders can achieve their aims. 

Of course, general political science deals in merely possible religions and the ways of discerning types of actions, dispositions, and mores. Really existing political reality is too specific to fall under general political science. It's too specific in ways that are in a sense too varied. Al-Farabi's way of expressing this -- "infinite and without limitation" -- is striking because it reminds one of properties of God. (Modern theorists would say political reality is too complex or too uncertain to be put in a model.) And so applying the generic knowledge of religion requires contextual knowledge, prudence, grounded in experience of individual particulars (17).  

Now, I want to close with a speculative thought (that may involve a terminological misunderstanding). I noted a few years ago, that one of Al-Farabi's distant philosophical successors, Ibn Rushd, inscribed (recall) in his commentary on Plato's Republic, a pattern of the rise and, especially fall of political regimes that was applicable to different social realities (see also this post on the Decisive Treatise). Ibn Rushd is no political historian, but he does thereby provide a framework for the kind of philosophical history that makes Ibn Khaldun worth reading to this day. In particular, Ibn Khaldun is (recall) the historian who focuses on the means by which religion is a means toward political ends, and by analyzing the mechanisms of one of its means, group-feeling.* What I had no appreciated before, but believe is true, is that this is the completion (not the anthisesis) of Al-Farabi's program for a general political science.+ 

Al-Ghazali's Genealogy of Philosophy and Natural Religion

29. Know that the philosophers, notwithstanding the multiplicity of their groups and the diversity of their doctrines, can be divided into three main divisions: Materialists, Naturalists, and Theists.
30. The first category, the Materialists, were a group of the most ancient philosophers who denied the existence of the omniscient and omnipotent Creator-Ruler. They alleged that the world has existed from eternity as it is, of itself and not by reason of a Maker. Animals have unceasingly come from seed, and seed from animals: thus it was, and thus it ever will be. These are the godless in the full sense of the term.
31. The second category, the Naturalists, were men who devoted much study to the world of nature and the marvels found in animals and plants; they also were much taken up with the dissection of animal organs. In these they saw such marvels of God Most High’s making and such wonders of His wisdom that they were compelled, with that in mind, to acknowledge the existence of a wise Creator cognizant of the aims and purposes of all things. Indeed, no one can study the science of anatomy and the marvelous uses of the organs without acquiring this compelling knowledge of the perfect governance of Him Who shaped the structure of animals, and especially that of man. 

32. However, it appeared to these philosophers, because they had studied nature so much, that the equilibrium of the mixture of humors had a great effect on the resulting constitution of the animal’s powers. Hence they thought that man’s rational power was also dependent on the mixture of his humors and that its corruption would follow the corruption of the mixture of his humors, and so that power would cease to exist. Once it ceased to exist, they alleged that bringing back the nonexistent would be unintelligible. So they adopted the view that the soul dies, never to return. Consequently they denied the afterlife and rejected the Garden and the Fire, the assembly and the Recall, and the Resurrection and the Reckoning. So in their view there would be no future reward for obedience, and no punishment for disobedience. Therefore they lost all restraint and abandoned themselves to their passions like beasts. These were also godless men, because basic faith is belief in God and the Last Day — and these men denied the Last Day, even though they believed in God and His Attributes.
33. The third category, the Theists, were the later philosophers, such as Socrates, the master of Plato, and Plato, the master of Aristotle. It was Aristotle who systematized logic for the philosophers and refined the philosophical sciences, accurately formulating previously imprecise statements and bringing to maturity the crudities of their sciences. Taken altogether, these refuted the first two categories of the Materialists and the Naturalists. Indeed, by the arguments they advanced to lay bare the enormities of the latter, they relieved others of that task: “And God spared the believers from fighting (the unbelievers)” (33.25) by reason of the unbelievers’ own infighting.
34. Then Aristotle refuted Plato and Socrates and the Theists who had preceded him in such thorough fashion that he disassociated himself from them all. Yet he, too, retained remnants of their vicious unbelief and innovation which he was unsuccessful in avoiding. So they all must be taxed with unbelief, as must their partisans among the Muslim philosophers, such as Ibn Sina and al-Farabi and their likes. None, however, of the Muslim philosophers engaged so much in transmitting Aristotle’s lore as did the two men just mentioned. What others transmitted is not free from disorder and confusion and in studying it one’s mind becomes so muddled that he fails to understand it — and how can the incomprehensible be rejected or accepted?--Al-Ghazali Deliverance from Error.

In Deliverance from Error (recall and here), Al-Ghazali conceives the origin of philosophy as a atheist revolt against a natural form of theism, one that posits an omniscient and omnipotent Creator-Ruler of the sort that naturally accompanies sovereign kingship [in which the political ruler understands himself as a God, the mirror image  of the cosmic Creator-Ruler). We are not told much else about the natural form of theism, but (given the stringent denials of the original philosophers), we can infer it posited a providential creation story. (I return to this below.) By contrast (on the hostile interpretation of Al-Ghazali) the first philosophers -- one can recognize a stylized picture of the atomists in it -- posit a cosmic order of eternal return without meaning. 

Al-Ghazali is careful not to name any of these original philosophers nor to characterize the natural theism they reject. But they both precede Socrates. There is, in fact, a peculiarity here in that Al-Ghazali ignores the pure forms of Greek polytheism. The natural form of theism is closer to Judaism and (perhaps more likely on his mind) Zoroastrianism; and original philosophy a revolt against it.  

Al-Ghazali's 'naturalists' are a kind of empirical, natural philosophers. (It's a bit surprising he does not mention medicine in this context, but there are hints of Galen throughout the piece.) These find evidence of functionality and design everywhere, there are led, inductively to a theistic designer. But they view a soul as something emergent from or grounded in physical processes and so mortal. Because they deny an afterlife (and resurrection), they become practical atheists. 

It's no surprise that Al-Ghazali sees a tight connection between beliefs about the nature of the soul and, perhaps, more important the existence of judgment day and  observed behavior. (Let's stipulate he is right about observed behavior.) But it is a bit surprising that the charge of immoral behavior is only lodged against the so-called naturalists and not the earlier materialists (a point repeated in paragraph 33!)

I called Al-Ghazali's narrative a 'genealogy.' But it would have been better, perhaps, to call it a 'natural history.' The achievement of the (Socratic) Theists is not just to refute the materialists and naturalists theoretically and to show why the behavior of the latter was truly immoral, but to turn an immature practice into a mature fields ("accurately formulating previously imprecise statements and bringing to maturity the crudities of their sciences.") To put Al-Ghazali's narrative in Kuhnian terms, Socrates is the start of a revolution in philosophy that culminates in Aristotle's achievements.

In the analysis of the after-effects of Aristotle's achievements, Al-Ghazali notices that even theistic philosophy inherit the "remnants of...vicious unbelief and innovation" of the naturalists and materialists relative to the original religion. This entails that Al-Ghazali treats the original religion as a species of (what we may call along with the tradition) true religion. Not for the first time (recall), I notice that Al-Ghazali suggests that that while Muhammad's revelation is instrumentally useful, it is not itself necessary for the existence of true religion. 

 

On Bullying, Conformism, Self-Censorship, and Clinical Depression: The Religiosity of Fahrenheit 451, revisited

Now let's take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the dog lovers, the cat lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, and mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic-books survive. And the three-dimensional sex magazines, of course. There you have it, Montag. It didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no!  Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals.....
With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word `intellectual,' of course, became the swear word it deserved to be. You always dread the unfamiliar. Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally 'bright,' did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man?--From Ray Bradbury (1953) Fahrenheit 451, pp. 75-6

Judging by the results of a Google search, which shows me links to many essay writing companies, the passage quoted is extremely popular among high school and college students. So, for all I know what follows has been worked out countless times before (and, if not, will -- because it's free -- perhaps become a staple of such essays). The narrator here is Beatty, the fire captain and boss of the main protagonist, Guy Montag. Montag -- his name (man Monday) an allusion to Crusoe's man Friday* -- is part of a book burning brigade (firemen). The speech occurs just as Montag's growing doubts about his work and society are crystallizing.

As it turns out, Beatty's own stance toward his own work and society is also ambivalent, but this is shown more indirectly. Be that as it may, he understands legal censorship as originating in self-censorship which arises out of three elements: a do-no-harm principle, mass democracy, and a heterogeneous population. The embrace of a do no harm principle is not a deeply felt normative stance, but rather dictated by prudence--minorities can organize and create unwanted controversy and hurt sales. In a heterogeneous population it will be difficult to avoid giving offense except by embracing a certain blandness and conformity. The idea being that in a homogeneous society free speech is more natural.

One may read in Beatty's speech a prescient prediction about the origin of what is now known as political correctness (something Bradbury encouraged late in life). But his speech is more subtle. His list of possible would-be-aggrieved minorities omits mention of African Americans and Jews. When the book was published, the great civil rights victories were still in the future, and the persecution of Jews (and the burning of their books) too fresh in living memory.  So, the underlying (neo-Humean) idea is that only when one's resentment can be felt by the majority, will the majority embrace bland conformism toward that minority. 

The previous paragraph may be thought speculative. But Beatty himself goes on to call attention to the two key elements, first not everybody is born equal and, second, he exposes the conformist violence at the core of his consumerist, mass-media society when he describes the school bullying of the boy** that stands out. In an age of McCarthyism, Bradbury need not have done it, but the political significance of bullying is made explicit (with a nod to the Constitution)-- bullying makes us equal. That is, rather than being a bug of a democratic polity, conformist violence is a feature of it.+ While African Americans are effaced, the burning of witches at Salem haunts the whole narrative. It is no surprise, then, that such a society, which disguises its own structural violence by, paradoxically presenting it as spectacle, expresses it abroad with a violent foreign policy. 

To what degree Beatty's origin story fits the facts is an open question. (This is a society in which the printer Benjamin Franklin has become the patron saints of book burners. There is a Swiftian fondness for reversals.) Beatty's diagnosis of the conformism and self-censorship of modern mass culture echoes the meritocratic critique of democracy first developed by Mill (recall here and here). Beatty is an interesting character because he clearly is the nerd in disguise (he is well read despite the prohibition) who  goes on to serve a soul-less and cruel regime.++ The regime is grounded in elections, but no less cruel for it. Its bad laws rooted in public opinion.

This last point deserves more emphasis. The underlying horror of the society depicted is that human life in it is trivialized. Something that Guy Montag becomes increasingly sensitive to. This lack of soul is what creates an undercurrent of clinical despair and dangerous thrill-seeking; where fun is everything. It's a bit surprising that Bradbury is not thought of as the prophet of the clinical depression epidemic of a society addicted to communication by (ahh) screens; this is a society in which all feeling is at the surface and in which our desires for goods are made to outstrip our means, but no connection intimate. For such intimacy is only possible -- the point is made explicit right at the start of the novel [Clarisse does not want anything from him]-- if it is not instrumentalized. 

For, while Bradbury himself facilitated the idea that this was a book about the perils of censorship, the truer theme of the book is the pernicious effects of spiritual deprivation on individual and society. At the start of the book, when talking to Clarisse, Montag understands himself (cf. Plato's Cave), by chance, as somebody watching a puppet show. Clarisse is likened to an angel more than once. She is the prophetic light that points the way out of the cave.*** It's no surprise then in the aftermath of rational-man-made cataclysm -- mutually assured destruction is the fruit of the tree of knowledge --, the novel closes with a quote from Revelation (22:2), which not only prophecies such a destruction, but also the promise of a light that follows. Those that have read the novel will understand my conclusion: there is only redemption if you can hold on to a text.