Modern science, technology, and productive capacities give us the ability to have societies which are *more* "Islamic" than our predecessors could have had. (1/10)
Even the most pious, knowledgeable, and justly governed Muslim society in the past would have to have been structured around securing mere subsistence for most of its population (2/)
Feb 16 • 23 tweets • 3 min read
One of the hallmarks of the modern western order is institutions which attempt to align individual material self-interest with the public good.
There is certainly genius in this. Rather than fight against human nature in the form of selfishness, harness it.
However... (1/23)
Amongst the highest this-worldly goods is virtuous/excellent character.
The Prophet ﷺ said: "I have only been sent to perfect noble character." (2/)
Feb 2 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Marx identified our alienated condition under capitalism, and posited that dialectically overcoming this condition (ie doing so whilst retaining and expanding its benefits) would involve technologically-given material abundance and rational socio-economic planning. (1/13)
The result would be a society where individuals and free associations of individuals (treating each other as ends in themselves) would freely engage in production and distribution for its own sake, which he equated with human flourishing (the fulfilment of our "species-being").
Feb 1 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Crypto seems to be very popular amongst a subset of Muslim Twitter.
I'm agnostic as to whether crypto is going to be a net good or bad.
But let's suppose the best case scenario: it's brilliant and should and will replace other types of currencies. (1/6)
Even if that outcome was guaranteed, that likely couldn't justify the scale of attention on crypto specifically.
It is a means of exchange. Incommensurably more important is to have things to exchange. (2/6)
Jan 31 • 23 tweets • 3 min read
To my knowledge, Muslim intellectuals have failed to grapple with the fact that – by the standards of virtually everyone pre-industrial revolution – we have achieved the capacity to have a "post-scarcity" society. (1/22)
Muslim political thought seems to be a mix between Luddism on the one hand, and simple failure to recognise the profound changes ushered in by the Industrial Revolution on the other hand. (2/)
Dec 27, 2024 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Utterly bizarre that (in stable, secure societies with advanced economies) one can purport to be "interested" or even "involved" in politics without ever having reflected systematically on the proper ends of politics (society, the state, etc) from first principles. (1/8)
Indeed, this lack of reflection is virtually universal – even amongst highly educated elites. (2/)
Dec 6, 2024 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
It seems to me that any successful large-scale "Islamic" governance in the Muslim world would need the following elements: (1/11)
I. The "Islamic" component
This would include, amongst other things:
1. Courts making rulings derived from fiqh.
This is the sine qua non of an Islamic polity. (2/)
Aug 26, 2024 • 20 tweets • 3 min read
I was thinking about the S5 modal ontological argument recently.
In short, it goes: it is possible that God necessarily exists, therefore (via a system of modal logic known as S5) God necessarily exists.
My current sense is that this is *not* a valuable argument. (1/20)
We need to unpack the modal categories used here, namely "possibly" and "necessary".
Following Avicenna, it seems that necessity comes in two sorts: an entity or state of affairs P can be: (2/)
Mar 11, 2024 • 33 tweets • 5 min read
"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do."
🧵 (1/)
– Samuel P. Huntington.
The modern secular world holds that values are not the sort of thing we can or should reason about.
Supposedly, true values are "self-evident", and/or knowable through so-called "intuition" (really, gut feelings), and/or not objective. (2/)
Sep 27, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
My current philosophical leaning is broadly Aristotelian, save that Aristotle's immanent realism is grounded in an exemplary realism, and all of the above is grounded in God.
I.e., exactly the position of the majority of Abrahamic philosophy, whether of the falasifa, post-Razi mutakalimin, some of the Akbaris, Catholic Scholastics, and Jewish followers of Rambam.
Jul 30, 2023 • 27 tweets • 4 min read
I certainly don't hate analytic philosophy (AP). It is the form of philosophy I am formally trained in, I think it has produced and continues to produce much of value, and I generally prefer its writing style.
I'm currently most sympathetic to the view that the principal and highest goal of philosophy is to help us uncover, *see*, and contemplate the haqa'iq (realities). (2/)
Jul 26, 2023 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
I think the best design argument for the existence of God is that the fact the world is intrinsically *intelligible* (as opposed to arbitrary, nominalistic, chaotic) indicates or demonstrates an Intelligence standing behind it.
The problem with many design arguments is that they posit some particular feature of the world or other (eg complex organisms or "fine-tuning") stands out from other features in evincing design.
These have (at least) three problems:
May 14, 2023 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Islam is a civilisational endeavour.
As the universal religion of tawhid, nothing is excluded from the purview of Islam.
This includes that which undergirds all of life in the dunya: those things which we call 'civilisation'. (1/10)
What does this entail?
For one thing, it means pursuing strong states, strong economies, strong militaries, powerful technologies, influential media, etc – and everything (material and intellectual) which is needed to achieve these things. (2/10)
Apr 18, 2023 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
Plotinus on matter
This paper provides an overview of Plotinus' alternative view of substance to Aristotelian hylomorphism.
(There is some evidence to suggest Razi held a Platonist view of substance akin to this, just as he might have held to Platonist views of forms, space, and time.) (1/11)
Apr 18, 2023 • 34 tweets • 6 min read
Strong forms of occasionalism ('SO'), by which I mean those which deny the existence of any substances, essences, and universals in the world (besides, maybe, those of God and metaphysical atoms), *might* be incompatible with arguments for God's existence. (1/19)
The problems are both ontological and epistemological.
Ontologically:
How can we say that there are *things*, let alone that those things are *contingent*, let alone that a *universal* feature of contingent things is that they require a cause for their existence? (2/)
Apr 11, 2023 • 40 tweets • 7 min read
A quick argument for Platonism, defined here as the view that there exists a realm of intelligible entities outside of the sensible world and human minds, and that this realm is the constitutive ground for the content of the sensible world and human minds. (1/)
All of our putative experiences, apprehensions, knowledge, etc is suffused with intelligible content all the way through.
We do not (only) purportedly experience, apprehend, or know "raw" sense-data of the infinite flux of the world. (2/)
Jan 4, 2023 • 63 tweets • 9 min read
What objects constitute the world of sensible particulars?
The early mutakalimin were atomists.
Later mutakalimin, starting with Ghazali, had a variety of views: some being atomists, some Aristotelians, some other positions.
This has implications for causality. (1/)
Atomism is the view that the world of sensible particulars is ultimately constituted by, and only by, discrete units of matter ("atoms") and their "accidents". (2/)
Jan 1, 2023 • 18 tweets • 3 min read
Every science has limitations.
Take, for instance, physics:
1. The enterprise of physics is to explain physical states in terms of other physical states. It is outside the remit of physics to explain why any physical states exist at all. (1/)
2. Physics explains physical states in terms of other physical states by recourse to "laws" of physics. But it does not explain what these so-called laws are; nor why the cosmos follows these laws (rather than other laws or no laws at all). It takes laws for granted. (2/)
Dec 31, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I've been perusing two interesting books on the philosophy of science: one defending Platonism, the other Aristotelianism. (1/3)
Berman argues that the objects studied by natural science are in fact Platonic forms; and not spatiotemporal particulars, immanent universals, mental constructs, or Aristotelian immaterial natures.
Summary: (2/3)
Dec 22, 2022 • 30 tweets • 5 min read
Classical Ash'arism, by which I mean here the school up to around the time of Razi, has a very strong appeal.
With only thin metaphysical assumptions, it can establish: the existence of God, the truth of Islam, the need for revealed morality; and (1/13)
through occasionalism, it (arguably) can reconcile itself to any possible natural-scientific finding whatsoever. (2/13)
Dec 21, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
For me the core appeal of "classical metaphysics" is that although I do not know the following to be the case:
I *hope* that there are (i) indubitable starting points for our knowledge, (ii) a self-explicating ground of all explanation, and (iii) the ability to move with (1/4)
demonstrative certainty from (i) to (ii).
That is, I hope that reality is ultimately explicable and in principle knowable, all the way through.
Ie, I hope that reality is, in its entirety, fundamentally rational and open to rational investigation. (2/4)
Berman argues that the objects studied by natural science are in fact Platonic forms; and not spatiotemporal particulars, immanent universals, mental constructs, or Aristotelian immaterial natures.