The cover of the book features an early 17th-century Indian miniature by Muhammad Ali that\u2019s entitled \u201cPoet in a Flower Garden\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the classes that I\u2019m teaching this term is Middle East Studies (Arabic) 467R, which is also listed as Philosophy 360R. \u00a0The first book that we\u2019re reading for the class is\u00a0Lenn Evan Goodman, Ibn Tufayl\u2019s <\/em>Hayy ibn Yaqzan: A Philosophical Tale<\/em> (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2009), where we\u2019re focusing on the translation of a wonderful Andalusian text from the twelfth century.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an Islamicate Neoplatonic work, which means that it\u2019s quite different in crucial ways from philosophy as philosophy is currently taught in western academia.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ultimate goal for Ibn Tufayl and likeminded philosophers wasn\u2019t the analysis of propositions (in the manner of contemporary analytic philosophy), nor even the amassing of syllogisms in physics and metaphysics leading to discussions of God, important though such syllogisms and their mastery were.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The end goal is direct intuition of, even union with, the divine. \u00a0Ibn Tufayl refers to this experience using various terms, such as \u201cecstasy\u201d and \u201cintimacy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a good passage on the subject, in which the term apprehension<\/em> is used to denote not \u201canxiety\u201d but \u201cunderstanding\u201d or intellectual\/spiritual \u201cgrasp\u201d:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now these states, as Avicenna describes them, are reached not by theorizing, syllogistic deductions, postulating premises and drawing inferences, but solely by intuition. \u00a0If you wish an analogy to make clear the difference between this sort of apprehension and all others, imagine a child, growing up in a certain city, born blind, but otherwise intelligent and well endowed, with a sound memory and an apt mind. \u00a0Through his remaining channels of perception he will get to know the people as well as all sorts of animals and objects, and the streets and alleys, houses and markets \u2014 eventually well enough to walk through the city without a guide, recognizing at once everyone he meets. \u00a0But colors, and colors alone, he will know only by descriptive explanations and ostensive definitions. \u00a0Suppose after he had come this far, his eyesight were restored and he could see. \u00a0He would walk all through the town finding nothing in contradiction to what he had believed, nor would anything look wrong to him. \u00a0The colors he encountered would conform to the guidelines that had been sketched out for him. \u00a0Still there would be two great changes, the second dependent on the first: first the daybreak on a new visual world, and second, his great joy. \u00a0(97)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 One of the classes that I\u2019m teaching this term is Middle East Studies (Arabic) 467R, which is also listed as Philosophy 360R. \u00a0The first book that we\u2019re reading for the class is\u00a0Lenn Evan Goodman, Ibn Tufayl\u2019s Hayy ibn Yaqzan: A Philosophical Tale (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2009), where we\u2019re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[882,656,66,419,55,1414,2110,2010],"class_list":["post-69346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-andalusia","tag-ibn-tufayl","tag-islam","tag-islamic-philosophy","tag-mormonism","tag-mormonism-and-islam","tag-sufi","tag-sufism"],"yoast_head":"\n
Seeing something, rather than merely learning about it<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\" One of the classes that I'm teaching this term is Middle East Studies (Arabic) 467R, which is also listed as Philosophy 360R. \u00a0The first\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2019\/01\/seeing-something-rather-than-merely-learning-about-it.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Seeing something, rather than merely learning about it\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\" One of the classes that I'm teaching this term is Middle East Studies (Arabic) 467R, which is also listed as Philosophy 360R. \u00a0The first\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" 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<\/a>