Universality Of Reason Research Articles

Разум, язык, культура: как сегодня прочитывать концепцию «арабского разума» ал-Джа̄бири

In his four-volume Critique of Arab Reason the late Moroccan philosopher Muḥammad ‘Ābid al-Jābirī (1935–2010) argues that human history witnessed “Greco-European” and “Arab” variants of reason, and not the single one. He challenges the confidence of philosophers in the universality of reason which disclosed itself in the course of European history. Reading al-Jābirī’s theory in Kantian optics will prove fruitful in view of significant number of observations accumulated in Arabic philosophical studies and directly related to the question of the type of rationality that grounds Arab-Muslim culture. The Arabic linguistic tradition bases itself not on the being of substance but on the flux of action. The indivisible segment of the Arabic speech is the flow of sound between the two “sides” (ḥ arf, pl. ḥ urūf). The copulative function ensures the gluing of the subject and predicate into a single statement due to the action of “leaning” (isnād) between them, which excludes the use of the “to be”-like copula and removes “being” from the list of the fundamental metaphysical categories. All Arabic words, with few exceptions, are “branches” growing from “roots” represented by names of actions. The “root – branches” (’aṣl – furū‘) model, developed by the representatives of the Arabic linguistic tradition and Islamic jurists, explains the diversity of Islamic culture which allows for direct contradictions, legitimizing them by tracing down to a single “root”, which contrasts with the law of contradiction fundamental to European rationality. Islamic ethics is concerned not with the moral perfection of a single substantial individual, but with maintaining a network of interactions between human being and God and between members of society, constituting society not as a hierarchy of strata and classes, but as multiple networks of interactions. The concept of the “Arab reason” by al-Jābirī, read in Kantian optics on the basis of the achievements of philosophical Arabic studies, allows to substantiate the hypothesis of the plurality of types of rationality developed through the history of humankind.

On the Universality of Reason

Section introduction.

Why the postmodern attitude towards science should be denounced

Postmodernism is a philosophical, political, social and artistic movement. It is mainly defined by its suspicion towards the Enlightenment's faith in science, progress and the universality of reason. It has become a powerful movement that exerts a strong influence on academic thought in American and European societies, especially as it has become hegemonic in some institutions. Considering its influence on so‐called ‘science–society debates’ and its criticisms formulated against the scientific method, it is legitimate, in turn, to analyse critically its claims and the consequences of these claims, especially those from the ‘science studies’—also called ‘science and technology studies’. This postmodernist, mainly sociological, discipline has gained momentum in the past few decades in its appreciation of science and technology; it uses specific concepts that create a specific vision of scientific research as a social activity. An initial reflection concerns the shift from ‘public understanding’ of science to ‘public engagement’ in science. A typical delusion of the ‘science studies’ community is the belief that “knowledge co‐production beyond the classic expert communities… can substantially benefit scientific design.” In fact, science has become so complex and specialized that co‐production among scientists from various fields is becoming a difficult task. Therefore, when it comes to the layperson, even with the involvement of social scientists, co‐production of knowledge is nothing more than a myth. Of course, examples of collaboration between professional scientists and ‘amateurs’ do exist, and can be mutually beneficial—when botanists collect seeds from plant species for conservation purposes or when amateur astronomers detect interesting phenomena in the sky. But note that in both cases there is no hidden political agenda. By contrast, for genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which are criticized for their industrial and commercial use, and for the alleged political consequences of their use, there are powerful political forces at work. Collaboration between …

Alethic Pluralism, Logical Consequence and the Universality of Reason

Alethic Pluralism, Logical Consequence and the Universality of Reason

The Shift from Church and State to Religions as Public Life in Modern Europe

The theme of church and state in modern Europe lay well-situated within the positivist genre of historical study, which served as the dominant model in the profession for generations and in some sense still does. The keystone of the positivist edifice was the commitment to the universality of reason and the efficacy of reason in achieving definitive histories written by professional historians. The functioning of rationality in historical study was exemplified in the stream of history books about male elite subjects—politics, war, diplomacy, the institutions of the state and the church, and the ideas of canonical thinkers—which flowed from the pens of male European and North American academic historians since the late nineteenth century.

Russia and the West: The quest for Russian national identity

"Russia and the West" appears to be the central problem of the Russian philosophical tradition, Russian literature, and Russian culture, at least from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present. When one speaks for example about "Russian philosophy," and not just philoso phy in Russia, one usually has in mind the discussions revolving around that problem, justly assuming that in these discussions Russian thought found its most interesting and original expression. It may appear at first sight that the topic "Russia and the West" has only a limited, regional significance, and therefore can not be interesting for philosophy or cultural theory beyond the borders of Russia, since philosophy searches for general truths and universal laws of thought. But the pretension to the universality of rational, logical and scientific thinking rests on faith in the Cartesian "ego cogito," Kantian transcendental subjectivity or some other kind of disembodied, pure reason which would be its subject. And it is exactly this faith that is described in Russian philoso phy as specifically Western. For Russian philosophy the universal subject of thinking and cultural creativity appears only as a mark of the concrete individual representative of Western culture attempting to pass off his own specific culture as universal. Russia, from the point of view of Russian philosophy, is not a part of the West, and therefore by its very existence restricts Western aspirations to the universality of thought. It is this restriction that, indeed, constitutes, in the eyes of Russian philosophy, its own specific philosophical calling. In that sense, in the context of Russian philosophical thinking, the terms "Russia" and "West" do not have exclusively geographic, political or sociological meanings. They appear rather to be ciphers or code words which signal a more fundamental philosophical question about the universality of reason. The term "West" in that context appears as a

Roberto de Nobili, Adaptation and the Reasonable Interpretation of Religion

The study of mission history introduces us to men and women whose views of Christianity and culture only partially coincide with our own, and we learn much from the differences as well as the similarities. Roberto de Nobili, SJ, a missionary in South India in the first half of the seventeenth century, is a good example: his immersion in Indian culture and his views on the necessary adaptation of the Christian message in new environments anticipated by centuries the methods and arguments of modern inculturation theory. Yet, as will be shown, his belief in the universality of reason is premodern, and is the feature of his thought that most clearly divides him from most modern missionaries and modern scholars of religion.