RESEARCH PROJECTS
The voluntariness of belief formation The paper argues that belief-formation is more in the nature of a rule-following, normative activity, for which the believer could be held responsible. Recent work on the nature of belief-formation is considered and assessed. S.J. Agha. The justification of the principle of charity The Principle of Charity is a methodological principle supposedly providing the backbone to explanations of actions. It states that, in explaining what a person does, we ought to so attribute beliefs and desires to him as to make him overall as rational as possible. Although the Principle is often invoked, there is not much discussion of its justification, beyond the claim that without it we would be unable to explain human action. The project aims at investigating whether there can be a deeper justification of the Principle in the very nature of beliefs and desires introduced to explain action. S.J. Agha. Self deception, belief and intentionality The paradoxes of self-deception are presented, and a map of the possible solutions to these paradoxes is sketched. It is argued that the best way to resolve these paradoxes is to appeal to a proto-conceptual level of thinking. (A version of the paper was read before the Philosophy Symposium in the Spring of 95-96). S.J. Agha. Contract stipulations in Islamic law: from the Ottoman Majalla to Ibn Taymiyya The paper focuses on the principle of tolerance at the basis of Hanbalite contract law. Starting from a problem facing the Ottoman jurists of the majalla (Civil Law) in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, it reconstructs their attempts to produce a legal structure in harmony with the demands of a modern economy; in particular, their recourse to the legal philosophy of the Hanbalite jurist Ibn Taymiyya with its guiding motto: “The principle in contracts is tolerance, al-asl fil’l ‘uqud al-ibaha.” Accepted for publication. O. Arabi. The logical implications of the mihna An investigation of the logical and epistemological assumptions that governed the thought-patterns of the two main contending parties of the Islamic Inquisition (al-mihna) at the dawn of the third century Hijri. In particular studying a fideist restriction of the scope of logic, practiced by Ibn Hanbal and ahl al-Hadith, versus the total logicist position of the Mu‘tazilite rationalists. Conclusions are drawn on the place of logical and empirical argument in religious discourse, employing themes from the later Wittgens’s philosophy of language. O. Arabi. Early Islamic legal philosophy: identity and difference in Islamic jurisprudence An analysis of the various theories of knowledge flourishing in the second century ah Islamic jurisprudence. Special emphasis on the speculative, pragmatic, and skeptical elements in the works of Abu Hanifa, Malek, and al-Shafi‘i respectively. Supportive illustrations are taken from substantive rulings on slave manumission, interest charging, and contract law. Accepted for publication. O. Arabi. Intention and method in Sanhuri’s fiqh: cause as ulterior motive A study of the legal methodology of the Arab world’s leading twentieth-century jurist, ‘Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri. Special attention is given to his comparative method integrating notions of intention from Christian canon law, modern French, and classical Islamic jurisprudence. Clauses from Sanhuri’s codifications of the New Egyptian Civil Code of 1949 are analysed as instances of his pluralistic methodology in action. Accepted for publication. O. Arabi. Myth, magic and the origin of science This is a book-length project which deals with the emergence of science in ancient Greece. The central thesis defended is that scientific inquiry presupposes the acquisition of a body of second-order theory about how the process of belief formation works in various respects (roughly, that it depends on processes and mechanisms which are far from being fully reliable, and hence that one’s theory of nature can be assumed to be radically incomplete and underdeveloped), that science was not an option for traditional, pre-scientific societies because they lacked this second-order theory, and that it was its discovery by the presocratics which made science possible. The transition from pre-science to science is thus to be seen as an instance of theoretical development not unlike that which periodically occurs within the history of science. It is argued that this diagnosis of what was involved in the emergence of science, and the interpretation of pre-scientific thought upon which it depends, makes much better sense of the available evidence than any of the alternative accounts which have been proposed. K. Ferguson. Metaphysics before semantics An attempt is made to pose an insoluble dilemma for traditional arguments against metaphysical realism. If these arguments are intended to show that realism is a false theory they cannot plausibly succeed, since they are not based upon any empirical or scientific evidence. On the other hand if the point is to defend a philosophical interpretation of the content of our system of theory, then the arguments cannot have any bearing on the truth of metaphysical realism. K. Ferguson. Is there a theory-independent scientific method? The central thesis is that the current popularity, among both realists and anti-realists in the epistemology of science, that all methods of inquiry are theory-dependent can be traced primarily to an ambiguity in the term ‘theory-dependence.’ Methods of inquiry depend on theory in the sense that scientists must presuppose background theory in making epistemic judgments. It is consistent with this, however, that scientific method is independent of theory in the more important causal sense that it can be expected to work regardless of what reality may be like. K. Ferguson. Realism, explanation and the goal of science An argument for scientific realism is developed which is based on the premise that any genuine explanation must be motivated by the familiar forms of scientific evidence. The realist hypothesis that the success of accepted theories in science is due to their approximate truth satisfies this condition merely in virtue of the fact that those theories are successful. By contrast, it is argued that any non-realist explanation of their success would be committed to positing condition in the absence of any appropriate evidence for their existence, and hence would fail to qualify as a genuine, scientific explanation. K. Ferguson. Lévinas and Cassirer Emmanuel Lévinas based his whole philosophical work on the reinstatement of the primacy of ethics and the rejection of the privileging of ontology in traditional philosophy, and more particularly in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. The revolt is clearly articulated in his 1935 essay entitled “De l’évasion” and then elaborated in his major books like Totalité et infini of 1971 and Autrement qu’être ou au-delà de l’essence of 1974. A similar revolt is found in the work of Ernst Cassirer, in his famous Davos discussion with Heidegger, but also in his neo-Kantian essays of the 30s and 40s. The project aims at comparing these two criticisms of ontology and investigating their meanings and consequences. E.S. Kassab. Arab discourses on cultural identity: a philosophical analysis The issue of cultural self-definition has occupied a central place in twentieth-century Arab thought. Questions of the relation to tradition and of the definition of this tradition, questions of the relation to the West, both political and cultural, to modernity, to reason, to faith, to Greek as well as Arab philosophy, to other cultures, languages and religions have been at the heart of this exercise of self-definition. Critical thinkers such as Taha Hussein, Sadek Jalal al-Azm, Adonis, Mohammad Abed al-Jabiri, Mohammad Arkoun and Georges Tarabichi have produced some of the founding discourses on this matter and have discussed important notions and aspects involved in these questions such as those of essentialism, identity and critique. The project aims at examining the conceptions of culture used in them, with particular interest for the place of ethics in thinking culture. E.S. Kassab. Kulturphilosophie, critical theory and post modern thought The Kulturphilosophie of the turn of the century was developed in Germany to address the cultural malaise of the time, associated with the problems of modernity, like the phenomena of mass society and culture, the paradoxes of modern individuality, the proliferation and fragmentation of the fields of specialized knowledge, the phenomena of fashion, style and identity, the crisis of values, nihilism and scepticisim, all themes that are known today to be the Leitmotivs of post-modern thinking and that were dealt with earlier in the 40s and 50s by the thinkers of the Frankfurt school. How do the treatments of these issues change, if at all, within these three currents of twentieth- century philosophy? E.S. Kassab. Exercises in cultural self-identification: Europe and the United States of America—a comparison With the recent economic and political unification process of Europe there is a renewal of discourses on Europe as an “Idea.” This project aims at studying these recent discourses in Germany and France with special attention devoted to the philosophies of culture underlying them and the place given to ethics in them. It also proposes to compare these European discourses on Europe with some American discourses on American culture. E.S. Kassab. Philosophy and medicine: the need for practical ethics Students
of medicine are trained to become scientists. Professionals whose training
has been predominantly ‘scientific’ tend to avoid ‘philosophical’ questions.
They are, understandably, more comfortable when dealing with facts than
they are when dealing with values. Yet, people in the medical profession
(whether they are practitioners or researchers) must learn how to deal
with the various philosophical and normative questions with which they
are now routinely confronted in their clinics or laboratories. The preparation
of medical students to deal with these philosophical and normative questions
should become an important and integral part of their education and of
their training as professionals. The project aims at establishing the extent
to which philosophy, as a discipline and a tradition, may contribute to
the success and effectiveness of courses on medical ethics. W.N. Nasr.
Arabi, O., Al-Sanhuri’s reconstruction of the Islamic law of contract defects. Journal of Islamic Studies, 6 (2), 153-172, 1995. ———, Constitutaspects of conflict resolution in classical Islam. In Conflict Resolution in the Arab World: Selected Essays, P. Salem (ed.), 72-92. Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1997. ———,
Intention and method in Sanhuri’s fiqh: cause as ulterior motive.
Islamic
Law and Society, 4 (2), 200-223, 1997.
ABSTRACTS, PRESENTATIONS AND PROCEEDINGS Arabi, O., Al-Sanhuri’s reconstruction of the Islamic law of contract defects: error versus real intent, Middle East Studies Association of North America, Washington, D.C., USA, December 7-10, 1995. ———, The present agenda of hadith studies, Middle East Studies Association of North America, Providence, Rhode Island, USA, November 24-27, 1996. Nasr,
W.N., Philosophy and medicine: the need for practical ethics, International
Symposium on Bioethics and Human Rights, Mission Culturelle Française,
Beirut, Lebanon, January 28-30, 1997.
Alagha, J.E., Al-Farabi’s interest in politics and Shi‘ism (1997). Advisor: A. Moussalli. Haj-Ismail, R.H., A philosophical account of subjectivity and desire (1997). Advisor: P. Bornedal. Fattouh,
N.Z., Self-division and self-deception (1997). Advisor: S.J. Agha.
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