Abstract
Falsafa emerges in the Islamic world during the Abbasid Caliphate when Islamic civilization was first coming into contact with Greek philosophy. The project of Falsafa was in large part and in the first instance an attempt to come to terms with this exciting, and for them, new discovery. In order to understand Falsafa then, we must first have a working understanding of some of the key themes and ideas in the Greek philosophy they were inheriting. This is the task of this chapter. We will explore in rough outline the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle and also how their ideas were developed by some of their respective followers, sowing the seeds for a potential harmonization of their seemingly radically different thought—a project that sets the scene for Islamic philosophy.
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Notes
- 1.
Significantly, Plato wrote his philosophical works in the form of dialogues.
- 2.
The Sophists were rhetoricians working at the time of Plato .
- 3.
For example, some scholars suggest that the paradox echoes the style of the well-known fourth/fifth century bc Sophist (see Hoerber 1960).
- 4.
As a slight aside, I hope you have noticed the resonance this part of the Meno has with the issue we discussed in the previous chapter in regard to the role of spiritual guides in rationalistic, Evidentialist religions like Islam in certain interpretations. The slave boy here is potentially taking the place of the Man-Friday correlate in Ibn Tufayl’s Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān that we discussed.
- 5.
If you look at a stopped clock (that has stopped at 12.00) at 12.00, you may have a justified true belief that it is 12.00 but not knowledge that it is 12.00. These kinds of scenario are known as Gettier cases, after Edmund Gettier ’s classic 1963 paper. It is worth noting, however, that for Plato knowledge was not justified, true belief (Antognazza 2015).
- 6.
Booth and Rowbottom (2014).
- 7.
Irwin (1977) argues that the distinction between knowledge and true belief is Plato ’s actual solution to the Eristic Paradox .
- 8.
This will be discussed in Chap. 8.
- 9.
The period that marks the transition from the Classical period to the Middle Ages.
- 10.
In fact, in a version of the video for U2’s One that played on MTV at the time the song was released, we are shown a series of shots of buffalo and plants. I think this is a certain reference to Plotinus on the internal principles of unity of plants and animals.
- 11.
Another way of thinking about things here in more modern terms is that, according to most scientists, simplicity is a virtue of scientific explanation—the simpler the theory, the more explanatory it is. This is what motivates some physicists, for example, to look for a “Theory of Everything”. One might think that the One for Plotinus just takes this to its logical conclusion: the most simple theory (postulating only one explanatory entity) is the most explanatory theory there can be since the one postulated entity is supposed to explain everything (see Emilsson 2017, p. 71).
- 12.
“To Plotinus ‘the goal, ever near, was shown’; for his end and goal was to be united to, to approach god who is over all things. Four times while I was with him he attained that goal, in an unspeakable actuality” (23, 14–17).
- 13.
However, see Emilsson (2017) for scepticism about the idea that for Plotinus this sort of communion with the One was central to Plotinian thought, since, he asks: “how could the human soul transcend the level of soul and become one with the Intellect, not to mention the One, and still remain a soul?” (p. 337). And, further, “there is no hint anywhere in the Enneads that anything other than philosophical thinking can prepare the way for this sort of awakening” (p. 339).
- 14.
Though there has been a lot of controversy about exactly how exactly to understand this.
- 15.
The Posterior Analytics, with the Prior Analytics, were Aristotle ’s classic logic texts.
- 16.
Works such as the Rhetoric were considered part of Aristotle ’s Organon—the collection of his logical works.
- 17.
Roughly, the idea that all knowledge is inferentially based upon indubitable propositions (foundations), such as (classically) the proposition that you exist (Descartes being the classic Foundationalist ).
- 18.
Of course, not all contemporary epistemologists espouse this view. Williamson (2011) is a monumental case in point, since according to the latter, intuitions are nothing but judgements or beliefs (or propensities to make judgements or beliefs) about counterfactuals. Thus we have an alternative doxastic model of intuitions . For a critique of the idea that Aristotelian “grasp of essences ” is parallel to a modern non-doxastic (perceptual) model of intuitions , see Lowe (2014).
- 19.
We will return to this argument in Chap. 5.
- 20.
An Aristotelian philosopher living in Alexandria (c. 490—570).
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Booth, A.R. (2017). The Greek Legacy. In: Analytic Islamic Philosophy. Palgrave Philosophy Today. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54157-4_2
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