Alparslan Acikgenc

One of the most debated subjects in philosophy is the nature and subject matter of philosophy itself. It is perhaps the only discipline that critically discusses its own nature. This is one reason that has led philosophers, particularly after the nineteenth century, to distinguish philosophy from such other experimental sciences as physics, biology, or astronomy. When we add to this the nature of subjects discussed in philosophy, as opposed to the issues discussed in those sciences, the sharp distinction between the two becomes decisively clear.

It is our aim to investigate critically the nature of philosophical subjects, which constitutes basically the method of philosophy, in order to arrive at a concept of philosophy that is acceptable to the Qur'anic perspective, which can be taken, as we shall see, as a contribution toward the effort of Islamization. Our discussion requires the development of a clear conception of the term "philosophy." If we are to develop an Islamic concept of philosophy, then we are required in the first instance to clarify what we mean by philosophy. We feel compelled to do this, because in the history of human thought there are more than a score of conceptions about the nature, purpose, and subject matter of philosophy. However, settling this problem alone does not fulfill the task of our paper. We must, moreover, show what the role of philosophy may be in this society (in general) so that we can delineate more effectively its significance in a Muslim community (in particular). Finally, we must try to justify our arguments from the Qur'anic perspective in order to defend the conception of philosophy that is to be developed here as an adequate one.

The discussion, then, will be divided into three main sections. The first section will be devoted to "what philosophy is." In the second, we shall elucidate what we shall tern the "Qur'anic conception of or attitude  towards philosophy" as reflected in the oft-used Qur'anic notion of hikmah; and finally, in the third section, we shall illustrate the limitation of philosophy in a Muslim society. Each discussion shall analyze a philosophical problem in order to reach an explicit judgment concerning an issue debated throughout the history of Islamic thought. At the center of this debate lies the doctrine of Islamic Aristotelianism that came into conflict with the Qur'anic text. Instead of working out a philosophical system based on the Qur'an, certain Muslim thinkers (i.e., a1 Ash’ari and al Ghazali attacked not only the Mashsha’i doctrines, but also any activity that may be characterized as philosophical. When one considers the intellectual effort behind these debates, however, one finds no other description than "philosophy" to characterize their activity, which, ironically, was developed to refute philosophy as such.

Within the context of these three discussions, then, our central concern is to develop what may be called a Qur'anic perspective of philosophy. In order to achieve this, we shall analyze the related Qur'anic term hikmah rather than going into the cumbersome discussion of social and intellectual conditions that paved the way in Islam for the disparagement of philosophy per se.

On What Philosophy Is

In order to pinpoint the Qur'anic attitude toward philosophy, we must clarify what we mean by it, for there are several conceptions of philosophy that, as we shall show, the Qur'an definitely opposes. This fact reveals that the Qur'an is not antagonistic to philosophy as such, but rather that it has a particular attitude toward certain conceptions of philosophy. This attitude is reflected clearly in several verses, which will be discussed below, as "disapproval" and "discontent." Therefore, in order to determine what kind of a philosophical conception would constitute the Qur'anic term hikmah used in this sense, we shall present a historical survey of the issue.

For the purposes of this paper, areas of learning can be divided into two broad fields: experimental and experiential. Those areas connected with human experience (i.e., one's existence par excellence, one's existence in the universe, one's social existence) belong to the study of either human sciences or social sciences. Although philosophy has a specific place among these sciences, it differs from all other sciences in that some of its subjects fall under natural sciences and others under social sciences.

We have characterized the areas of learning pertaining to philosophical, human, and social sciences as "experiential." This characterization is chosen to reflect our approach in investigating the nature of philosophy, for we think that in the experiential field, in addition to sense-experience, there is the need for experience of a higher order (which may tentatively be called "mystical," as we have no other term at our immediate disposal), simply on epistemological grounds. We have also pointed out that there am several conception  of philosophy. Our historical survey about the nature of philosophy shall further clarify these two points.

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