Modernity and the Ideals of Arab-Islamic and Western-Scientific Philosophy: The Worldviews of Mario Bunge and Taha Abd al-Rahman

by A. Z. Obiedat

Overview

This is the first study to compare the philosophical systems of secular scientific philosopher Mario Bunge (1919-2020), and Moroccan Islamic philosopher Taha Abd al-Rahman (b.1945). In their efforts to establish the philosophical underpinnings of an ideal modernity these two great thinkers speak to the same elements of the human condition, despite their opposing secular and religious worldviews. While the differences between Bunge’s critical-realist epistemology and materialist ontology on the one hand, and Taha’s spiritualist ontology and revelational-mystical epistemology on the other, are fundamental, there is remarkable common ground between their scientific and Islamic versions of humanism. Both call for an ethics of prosperity combined with social justice, and both criticize postmodernism and religious conservatism. The aspiration of this book is to serve as a model for future dialogue between holders of Western and Islamic worldviews, in mutual pursuit of modernity’s best-case scenario.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030942670
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	07/09/2022
Edition description:	1st ed. 2022
Pages:	411
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

A. Z. Obiedat is an Assistant Professor of Arabic Language and Culture at Wake Forest University, USA.

Table of Contents

1- Introduction:
1.1. Dual Misconception of Modernity
1.2. Demarcating the ‘Religious’ from the ‘Secular’ and the ‘Scientific’
2- Islamic Philosophy Resurrected: Ṭāhā’s Spirit of Modernity
2.1. The History of Modernizing Arabic-Islamic Philosophy
2.2. Ṭāhā ‘Abd al-Raḥmān’s Modernity
2.2.1. The Structure of the Spirit of Modernity
2.2.2. Consequences of the Spirit of Modernity
2.2.3. Conditions for a Genuine Application of Modernity
3- Construction of Worldview: Similar Functions of Religion and Philosophy (19 pages)
3.1. Mario Bunge’s Works and the Meaning of ‘Systemism’
3.2. Mario Bunge as a Worldview Constructor: A Brief Introduction to his Life and Works
3.3. Systematic Worldview as the Task of Philosophy
3.4. The Place of Mario Bunge in the Tradition of System Building
4- Taha’s Indictment Against the Philosophy of Actual Modernity (9 pages)
4.1. The Creative and Internal Implementation of Modern Criticism
4.2. The Ingenious and Local Implementation of Modern Universality
4.3. The Innovative and Organic Implementation of Modern Maturity
5– Modern Being via Scientific Ontology: The Analytic-Synthetic Structure of Reality
5.1. Rethinking Current Ontological Assumptions
5.2. Bunge’s Proofs of Reality: Error, Prediction, Control, and Discovery
5.3. Bunge’s Systemization of the World I: The Micro Structure of Reality
5.4. Bunge’s Systemization of the World II: The Macro Structure of Reality
5.5. Questioning the Supernatural Divine: The Psychological, Ontological, Cosmological, Teleological, Ethical Arguments and the Doxastic Turn
6 – Modern Knowing via Realistic Epistemology: Bunge on the Perfectibility and Unity of Human Knowledge (15 pages)
6.1. Approaching the Epistemological Problem
6.2. The Nature of Knowledge
6.3. The Validation of Truth Claims
6.4. Reduction and Integration: The Tree of Knowledge
7 – Modern Virtuousness via Social Welfare: Bunge on Knowing the Good and Doing the Right (16 pages)
7.1. Scientific Humanism
7.2. Naturalist Interpretation – A Quick Survey
7.3. Scientific Humanism and the Structure of Ethics
7.4. Values in Scientific Humanism
7.4.1. Nature, Content, and Structure of Values
5
7.4.2. The Hierarchy of Values
7.5. The Supreme Good
7.6. Morality and Scientific Humanism
8. Ṭāhā’s Critique of Postmodern Family Ethics
8.1. The Human and the Ethics of Selfhood
8.2. Reason and the Ethics of Commitment
8.3. Inclusive Attachment to Worldliness and the Ethics of Happiness
8.4. The Postmodern Family and the Inversion of Modern Ethical Values
8.4.1 The Inversion of Selfhood into Non-self
8.4.2 The Inversion of Commitment into Privilege
8.4.3 The Inversion of Happiness into Playfulness
8.4.4. Ṭāhā’s Observations on Ethical Inversions
9- Conclusion: Bunge versus Taha on Secular and Islamic Worldviews
9.1. Ṭāhā’s Justification of the Spirit of Modernity
9.2. Bunge’s Systemism: Further Reflections
Bibliography