Absolute Reality in the Qur'an

Masudul Alam Choudhury

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781137589477
• Topic: Philosophie
• Subtopic: Religionsphilosophie

This book studies the absolute reality of the Qur'an, which is signified by the struggle of truth against falsehood in the framework of monotheistic unity of knowledge and the unified world-system induced by the consilience of knowledge. In such a framework the absolute reality reveals itself not by religious dogmatism. Rather, the methodology precisely comprises its distinctive parts. These are namely the 'primal ontology' as the foundational explained axiom of monotheistic unity; the 'secondary ontologies' as explanatory replications of the law of unity in the particulars of the world-system; 'epistemology' as the operational model; and 'phenomenology' as the structural nature of events induced by the monotheistic law, that is by knowledge emanating from the law. The imminent methodology remains the unique explanatory reference of all events that take place, advance, and change in continuity across continuums of knowledge, space, and time.

Part I
The Absolute Reality in the Qur’an: The Methodological Worldview

© The Author(s) 2016

Masudul Alam ChoudhuryAbsolute Reality in the Qur'anPalgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History10.1057/978-1-137-58947-7_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: Foundations of the Qur’anic Worldview

Masudul Alam Choudhury¹

(1)

Department of Shari’ah and Economics Academy of Islamic Studies, University of Malaya Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

End Abstract

In the light of its universality and uniqueness, the derived Qur’anic methodological worldview covers the overarching meaning of ‘episteme’. An ‘episteme’ structures scientific reasoning according to the following sequence: Ontology → Epistemology → Phenomenology → Continuity. Yet, the entire concept of an episteme rests on the continuity of a multi-causal reflexive relationship, structured as follows: Episteme: Primal Ontology (Qur’an and the Prophetic Teaching) ↔ Epistemology ↔ Functional Ontology ↔ world-system ↔ Phenomenology ↔ Processes (Continuity). The idea of ‘episteme’ thus encompasses the totality of knowledge derivation; its formal construction both conceptualizes and applies to general and particular phenomena. The resulting interpretive methodological worldview of unity of knowledge (consilience) arising from the Qur’an yields a methodological worldview of meta-science for all to consider without religious and parochial differentiation.

I commence my methodological discussion on the unity of knowledge arising from the Qur’an by defining selective concepts.

Epistemology

Epistemology means ‘the theory of knowledge’. Its broader meaning spans the understanding the foundations of knowledge derivation. That is, it encompasses the question, where does knowledge arise—in human will, the will of nature, or in the realm of the universal holism that the universal law offers for the subsequent discursive use by the human participation? By this reasoning, the search for knowledge is a study of critical realism. The domain of critical realism investigates questions like the following: what is the source of holistic knowledge in scientific inquiry? How is such a source identified in the critical search for both universality and uniqueness with the functionalism of ‘everything’? How is knowledge thereby derived and disseminated from the sources for the development of concepts and applications? In this work we will argue that knowledge is rooted in an analytic understanding of principle of unity of knowledge and its induced world-system. This understanding is the province of monotheistic law. It is uniquely and universally embodied in the Qur’an. It is discovered, conceptualized, directed, and applied with analytical meaning amd depth.

Pluralistic views of epistemological derivations hold that there are differentiated origins of epistemology and thereby in the methodological worldviews belonging to the sciences, social sciences, and religion. Economics’ methodology and its attendant worldview remains particularly specialized (Proceedings, First International Conference on Epistemological Foundations of Social Theory 1989, Humanomics, International Journal of Systems and Ethics, 1991). The pursuit of such a branch of study since time immemorial points to mankind’s incessant quest for the roots of knowledge acquisition. Such a historical quest marks epistemology as the age-old search for the origin of fundamental truth. All questing for knowledge is essentially a flight from error into higher degrees of certainty in our perception and understanding of self and the universe around us. Such a better understanding of the universe, one unfettered by differentiated overtones, helps mankind to reach out honestly and sincerely for truth as universality of being and becoming.

Indeed, epistemology can be functionally defined as an approach to deriving certain universal relationships (Choudhury 1990). Epistemology acts as a study of methodology, working to know the real a priori nature of things and their relationships with each other is thus broader in scope than the science of symbolic logic. While symbolic knowledge deals with the establishment of consistency among the relationships between rational concepts, epistemology goes further to establish not only such logical relationships but also to find the true a priori nature of the subject matter under study.

Since both logic and the quest for the fundamental structure of things are the goals of epistemological inquiry, there is a rationalistic foundation to such inquiry. Here, of course, arises the complex philosophical question as to what describes the concept of rationalism. The idea of substantive rationalism has varied across history: through the Classical era, the Golden Age of Islamic cosmology, medieval Western scholasticism, the great Enlightenment thinkers such as Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, and finally the modern philosophical enquiries of Kant, Hume, and the classicists. Today, the concept of rationality has found its resting place in the field of economics, as economic rationality derived from the philosophy of rationalism (O’Donnell 1989).

Rationality and logic are the ingredients of the epistemological approach; but because epistemological inquiry goes further to study the a priori nature of things, it challenges the reconstruction of socio-scientific thought. Indeed, without a well-developed epistemology no new scientific foundation can be laid. The development of a meta-socio-scientific methodological worldview requires the use of epistemology at its foundation (Bohr 1951).

The idea of the epistemic is different from that of the epistemological. The epistemic as representative of the totality of the methodology of knowledge refers to the specific characterization of an a priori problem as comprehended in the Kantian sense of metaphysical perception, together with a posteriori reasoning. The purely epistemic has, therefore, no link in the reverse relation leading to the understanding how the a posteriori world is formed in perception and application. Thereby, a strict dichotomy is created between the a priori and the a posteriori when considering an event as a purely epistemic condition of thought and theory in Kantian, epistemological scientific inquiry. The differentiation in reasoning between the a priori and the a posteriori perspectives of the otherwise unified methodological worldview is referred to as heteronomy.

Evolutionary Epistemology

Within the study of epistemology, there are varying ideas about how knowledge is formed and how it evolves (Radnitzky and Bartley 1987).

For example, Kant’s a priori rationalism-based epistemology conjures up a perception of reality on the basis of a primordial mental construct (Kant trans. Paton 1964). When such a primordial concept is subsequently made to dissociate itself from the realm of the a posteriori, it becomes clear that each subset of knowledge must be completely defined by a pluralistic view of reality. In Kant, the a priori premise cannot be treated along with the a posteriori premise to establish a linkage between the two, a linkage that could generate a progressive interaction between the two perceptions of reality—of mind and matter. Hence, in such a milieu of knowledge acquisition it an essential advance toward an evolutionary quest for the a priori embedded in the a posteriori premise becomes impossible.

Evolutionary epistemology is a perception of knowledge acquisition that evolves over stages of interaction between the perceptual and sensible view of the world. Interaction between the primordially constructed world and the knowable world creates a sequence of evolving scenarios of reality (Campbell 1987). The premises of the normative and positive views of the world are subsequently bridged together as interactions between essence, mind, and matter. The a priori and the a posteriori understanding of knowledge and the knowledge-induced world-system proceed in a unified way.

Karl Popper’s idea of scientific refutation is an example of evolutionary epistemology as it leads to a perpetual evolution in scientific thought, with one paradigm supplanting another. In this way, scientific knowledge is continuously subject to criticism, evaluation, and growth (Popper 1972). Darwinism is another example of evolutionary epistemology, where knowledge is viewed as an ordered and selective medium of acquisition in the biological world. Knowledge in the Darwinian theory of natural selection is seen essentially as a perpetuation of growth and reinforcement of well-ordered and independently existing organisms (Darwin 1966). Between the fully determinate patterns of knowledge as presented by Darwin and the purely random form of selection as provided by Popper, there are studies on evolutionary epistemologies, called ‘hierarchical selection models of knowledge acquisition’ (Popper 1987).

In each of these approaches, and thereby, in evolutionary epistemology as a whole, the idea of evolution, integration, and selection suffers of some deep logical problems. In every case of evolutionary epistemology mentioned above there remains a sense of selectivity in the pattern of acquisition and continuity of knowledge. This segmentation of knowledge-premises among groups springs from their different group-specific perceptions and their competition by power to grow and to be sustained. An essential non-interactivity prevails between groups (i.e. inter-systems), although interaction is maximized within groups that are intra-systems.

Non-interactivity between groups contradicts the essence of evolutionary epistemology, which is not simply to explain the theory of knowledge acquisition within separate groups. Rather it also means both acquisition and sustainability of knowledge between groups through the medium of interaction and co-evolution.

Another deep problem of evolutionary epistemology as conceived hitherto is its neutrality, indeed its subservience, to random ways of acquiring knowledge, which may thereafter take up independent hierarchical forms. Such theories inevitably lead to a perception of the world evolving in the midst of endless competition, independence, hierarchical chaos . Knowledge cannot be uniquely derived inter-systemically in such evolutionary but chaotic systems.

An Analytical Explanation of Non-interactivity in Evolutionary Epistemology

A brief technical exposition of the problems of chaos, order, and absence in inter-systemic interaction in evolutionary epistemology can be formalized as follows (Maddox 1970):

Let, A₁, A₂, A₃,… be proper subsets of a grand and uniquely unified knowledge base, T₁, such that the evolutionary concept implies,

. Likewise, let B₁, B₂, B_3, …denote another sequence of subsets belonging to the knowledge base, T₂.

. Let the Darwinian v...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. The Absolute Reality in the Qur’an: The Methodological Worldview
• 2. The Absolute Reality in the Qur’an: Applications to Economics, Finance and Society Using the Generalized Socioscientific System
• Backmatter