Philosophers
are “acknowledging the crucial role played by Islamic scholars in preserving,
transmitting and developing the ideas of Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus and their
progeny to later generations,” Jay, a professor of history at the University of
California, tells the Mehr News Agency in an exclusive interview.
Jay
adds, “Western historians of philosophy have also recognized their achievements
as masters of medicine and science.”
Following
is the text of the interview:
Q:
What is your idea of Iranian philosophers such as Avicenna and Farabi? And what
is their position in the history of philosophy?
A:
Avicenna and Al Farabi—along with Averroës--are major figures in any account of
medieval Western philosophy. Acknowledging the crucial role played by Islamic
scholars in preserving, transmitting and developing the ideas of Plato,
Aristotle, Plotinus and their progeny to later generations. Western historians
of philosophy have also recognized their achievements as masters of medicine
and science. For those, like myself, interested in the history of optics,
Alkindi and Alhazen are also acknowledged as important contributors to the
development of that field.
It
was very interesting to see you refer to them as “Iranian philosophers,” as I
think it fair to say that most Westerners would simply classify them as Islamic
and not impose back on the world in which they lived modern national
categories. Al Farabi, after all, spent most of his life in Baghdad, and I
gather that there is a dispute in the literature about his ethnic origins. For
an outsider like myself, I have no stake in claiming them for any particular
nation, nor any special expertise in judging the issue, but I couldn’t help
being struck by your claiming them for Iran rather than for the larger Islamic
world.
By
chance, I recently came across Avicenna and Al Farabi in two very different
contexts. In a book on the theological origins of modernity, the American
historian of philosophy Michael Gillespie shows how the development of
nominalism in the 13th century, which undermined the neo-Aristotelianism of
Aquinas and the Scholastics, emerged from theological debates about the
omnipotence of divine will. Because the Scholastics were understood to have
constrained that will by stressing the rational nature of creation, they were
accused of underestimating God’s omnipotence. Nominalists like the English Franciscan
William of Occam stressed the absolute will of God, whose miracles could
suspend the rational laws he had himself made. Interestingly, some of the
animus against the Scholastic position, so Gillespie argues, was due to
suspicion that it had been derived from Islamic philosophy. Al Farabi, after
all, had argued for the importance of essential forms, and Avicenna had denied
free will (or at least, so he was understood). In short, the nominalist
revolution, which Gillespie sees as fundamental to modern Western ideas of
politics and science, was caused in part by a voluntarist reaction to the role
of Islamic thinkers in preserving and developing ancient Greek philosophy.
The
second context in which I encountered the figures you mentioned, in particular
Al Farabi, involved the thought of the controversial conservative political
philosopher, Leo Strauss, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany who spent most of
his career in America. He was a fervent opponent of nominalism or historicism
in any form, extolling instead the wisdom of the ancient Greeks. Strauss, who
has been accused—rightly or wrongly--of inspiring some of the neo-conservative
sponsors of the American invasion of Iraq, was in fact a great admirer of Al
Farabi’s work on Plato’s Laws. Not only did he like Al Farabi’s preference for
Plato over Socrates, by which he meant the precedence of objective truth over
subjective judgment, but he also appreciated Al Farabi’s secretive way of
presenting Plato’s thought. Strauss believed that the indirect and esoteric
presentation of unpopular ideas was a way to avoid persecution, and he thought
Al Farabi shared his belief in its value. It is ironic that Strauss, who
defended the noble lies Plato had thought were necessary to delude the masses
for their own good and whose followers were accused of inventing the threat of
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, was also a great admirer of a celebrated
Islamic thinker. You can’t always chose your disciples!
Q:
What is the status of ethics in international relations? What is the relation
between ethics and peace in international relations? How can we promote and
deepen ethics in international relations?
A:
The traditional dichotomy between “idealists” and “realists” in foreign policy,
the former motivated by ethical concerns, the latter pragmatic ones, is
unsatisfactory. It is perhaps more useful to borrow Max Weber’s distinction
between two types of ethics, one of “ultimate ends,” the other of
“responsibility,” to describe the conflicts that inevitably shape the interactions
among sovereign states. The former suggests that sometimes states operate
according to absolute principles, which they feel they must follow no matter
the consequences. Thus, for example, it may be necessary to support a small
country that is unjustly invaded by its neighbor, no matter the costs involved
in intervening. Or it may be ethically intolerable to stand aside and merely
observe from afar a government’s slaughtering of its own people, while that
government hides behind the screen of national sovereignty. Although
sovereignty in the sense of a people deciding its own destiny is itself a
strong principle, which is violated at our peril, from the perspective of the
“ethics of ultimate ends” it can be trumped by a higher humanitarian
imperative.
In
contrast, an “ethics of responsibility” will focus on the balance sheet of
costs and benefits in pursuing any initiative, knowing that there are often
unintended consequences in following absolute principles. Thus, it may well
question a pacifist foreign policy that refuses to use force under any
circumstances, because rather than leading to peace, it may produce the
opposite. The obvious example is the appeasement of Hitler by well-intentioned
statesmen in Britain and France before World War II. And of course, an
intervention in the name of humanitarian values may at times be a cynical cover
for darker motives. Here the ethical center of gravity must be placed on
healthy consequences rather than good intentions.
The
most obvious ethical dilemmas emerge when means and ends conflict. Thus a
foreign policy that condones force to bring about peace often defeats itself by
employing a cure that is worse than the disease. But one that seeks to be
morally consistent and ethically pure risks failing to understand the realities
of an imperfect world and thus is impotent to prevent worse disasters from
ensuing. There is no formula that I can give to provide any guidance in the
delicate balance that must be achieved by statesmen who have the weighty task
of exercising their judgment without knowing what the outcome will be.
If
there is one area in foreign relations where I think a clear-cut moral
imperative always should trump raison d’état, it is in the treatment of
individuals who are aliens on the soil of another country. Kant said that the
right of hospitality is the most basic human right. If I seek asylum on your
shores, you are obliged to give me shelter, at least until I can become
independent again. Governments that use individuals as pawns in a larger struggle
between states, turning them into victims of processes outside of their
control, are acting unethically. The same might be said of such acts of
violence as random suicide bombings, which destroy innocent lives in the
service of an allegedly superior cause. There is no honor in or justification
for the slaughter of innocents, who are sacrificed for some purpose that is
more likely than not to be undermined by that very act. A government that
ruthlessly uses such tactics—or supports surrogates to do their dirty
work—forfeits any claim to the ethical high ground.
Martin
Jay is the Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor of History at the University of
California, Berkeley. He is a renowned intellectual historian and his research
interests have been groundbreaking in connecting history with other academic
and intellectual activities, such as the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt
School, other figures and methods in continental social theory, cultural
criticism, and historiography among many others.
Source:
MEHR News Agency