Introduction to the Classification of Sciences Project
Inaugurated in this new series are essentially an exercise in conceptual disambiguation relating to the central problem of what could be termed cognitive hierarchy, and the role and implication of principled thought to the turāth. The intent was not so much to present an academic exercise in erudite prose but rather to engage ideas around the consequences of presuming a classification of the sciences, in order to catalyse an effective discourse on pedagogical protocols, on the framing of modernist refurbishment of the religious sciences, and the centrality and need for the rooting of all intellectual adventures in first principles. There is nothing new essentially in these essays, in as far as one could say that the bricks and mortar of a building are nothing new, but what is presented represents perhaps a new architectural resolution as to how those same bricks and mortar may be utilized more effectively.
The Classification of the Sciences project was initiated in late 2015 at Tabah Research, a division of Tabah Foundation. Having expended ten years since its inauguration in disseminating lectures and studies, researchers at the Foundation came to have a clearer idea of the state of contemporary intellectual discourse in the Islamic world predominantly in relation to the religious sciences. What effectively came to notice was that much of the confusion surrounding adherence to traditional models of education revolved around a correct understanding of traditional hierarchies that necessitated certain pedagogical methodologies.
The commissioning of this project arose due to several reasons. The foremost of those was the spread of modernist secularist viewpoints in relation to education and traditional knowledge. Despite the many advantages and benefits of the universal model of university education of the last century, one can scarcely avoid its connection with an increase in latitudinarian attitudes to knowledge, or, one can say, the democratization of knowledge. It is safe to say that access to university or school education is not the same as access to knowledge. Furthermore, the accumulation and learning of facts can never be synonymous with, nor amount to, scientific knowledge (Note: Scientific knowledge in this instance does not refer to the natural sciences but to a body of knowledge that is ordered in line with an external hierarchy, its place in the division of the sciences, and an internal hierarchy, the architectural composition of its subject matter and scope of interest in line with ordering principles). In contrast, knowledge in the traditional model is attained through principles that govern the relationship of things, the order of things. Moreover, the underlying structure of metaphysics that imbues all theoretical knowledge ensures that the fetidness of reason can never strangulate transcendent aspirations, as metaphysics ensures that the framework of knowledge belongs to theoria, ensuring the necessity of vision for the completion or perfection of the cognitive process.
On a more foundational note, the animating principles of the project stem unashamedly from the complete metaphysical acceptance of the Ash’ari creed, despite the unconventional manner in which it might be presented, and an unqualified adherence to the school of Imam Junayd in iḥsān. The contemporary waning of the Ash’ari creed in many intellectual circles due to the general and modernist recoil from such central and critical ideas has largely not been ameliorated. The recent attempt to stem such a credal desuetude by way of a reactionary and muscular neo-Ash’arism has led to a dangerous rationalization of ‘aqīda more befitting the ambience of a wrestling pit and its corresponding etiquette, rather than the sober scholarly forum demanded by the subject matter.
The authority of pedagogical methodologies in the transmission of the Islamic sciences is another point in question that has led to much pondering. Once again, much ink has been spilled on whether traditional methodologies should ‘keep up with the times’, or adhere to more critical and historicist positions, or even be abolished. The question that could be distilled from such abundant objections is the one that asks whether traditional methodologies of transmission were necessarily part and parcel of the discipline being inculcated, and thus sacrosanct at their core, or whether they were merely incidental and of practical significance alone. That is to say, whether one can separate transmission procedure from substantive knowledge. The answer to this question and the manner in which it is answered necessarily determines the future of the Islamic intellectual sciences.
We contend that any discourse on these aforesaid matters must be based on, understand, and commit to metaphysical coherence. By this we mean that sound discourse must be in line with metaphysical principles, being themselves reflections of the order of Reality.
The 2021 Papers
The first paper in the series presented here explores one of those first principles of metaphysics, the principle of identity in its logical form, namely, the principle of non-contradiction, and the relationship between its metaphysical and logical dimensions. The second paper explores the nature of definition and whether the latter is effective in advancing conceptual knowledge that may be deemed essential or objective. The third paper examines the notion of objectivity by setting out the various understandings of the theory of nafs al-amr, or things in themselves. If reason is relational, then how do we situate and come to know the object of our thought in itself shorn of that subjective relationality?
The truth and how we arrive at it in the Islamic intellectual tradition provide the main focus of the three papers. The centrality of the role of the sciences in treating the various levels of reality is purported to be key to understanding the necessity for hierarchy, and if hierarchy, then order of knowledge. Every intellectual perception is subject to a science, that is to say, it pertains to a science in the order of knowledge. Just as reality is multilateral in its aspects, so is knowledge, in that one may speak of a direct correlation between levels of existence or reality and levels of knowledge. This is a cosmological truth as well as a metaphysical truth, as the world can never be known simply as one-dimensional in the traditional perspective. The symbolic frame of mind, necessary to any serious metaphysical work, arises from a vision of the universe as wheels within wheels, intertwined and interrelated dimensions revealing a synthetic unity that ensures continuity of theological meaning. It is to see things in reality in their unitive rather than in their separative aspects. This viewpoint sees the world as metaphysically transparent, a place that may be sifted for the understanding of the qualities and attributes of God, and thus allowing us to put everything in its place, and more importantly, to see everything in its rightful place.
The realm of reason is essential to understanding and situating the realm of the ‘aqliyyāt, wherein the three papers in the series can be situated. Just as the truths of reason can never be incompatible with Kitāb and Sunna, we can safely say that the truths of Kitāb and Sunna can never be unreasonable. Having said that, reason naturally plays a mediating role for truths but up to a point, since it is the passivity of the intellect that ensures the higher echelons of cognitive capacity. The use of logic is determinant of sound discourse and essential for the determination of sound judgements. Logic, however, is largely a methodology, a tool, rather than knowledge per se, one that validates the process of thought but cannot create the content of thought. One must first therefore have something on which logic can work, a premise from which one might proceed. Its basis thus lies in metaphysics, and because there is no break in reality, the rational is premised on Reality, not only extramental reality as generally understood.
The logical thus can never contradict the metaphysical, and the metaphysical can never in turn be illogical. This seamlessness between the two orders is critical to the safeguarding of a sound intellectual discourse representing no less than a principial underpinning of logic by metaphysics. Although invariably the truths of metaphysics are imposed upon us, much as Reality is imposed upon us, the intellectual realm is there to allow us to expose those truths, uncovering and discovering them by principial deliberation or insight. It is in this way that every age must call for a return to principle, if it is to safeguard the ability for the human soul to understand its existential condition, a condition that remains the same regardless of time and place.
Karim Lahham
Chief Investigator of the Classification Project