Current essay deals with an important issue of Eastern and Western philosophy. The post-renaissance period will be analyzed to outline and explicate the main trends in Islamic and European philosophy which includes extensive comparison of epistemology, representatives, worldviews and problems posed. There is no denying the importance of the fact that cultural and social differences between Eastern and Western civilization were one of the main factors determining the direction of philosophical reflection of the world. Hence, the analysis of Islamic and Western philosophy proceeds from the analysis of dominant cultural patterns of Western and Eastern civilization and can not be reduced to mere hermeneutics of philosophical texts.
Before Renaissance Islamic and Western philosophical current were much connected with each other both in problems they posed and the methods of their resolution. The dominance of scholastic philosophy was characteristic both to Arabic and Christian world.
As Amin suggests Christian theology and scholastic borrowed much from Arabic philosophers such as Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and hence Arabic philosophy shouldn’t be described as something inferior in comparison to Western thought. Both philosophies even during Renaissance continued to pose the same questions about religion, belief, the creation of world, logic, morality which they based on their religious texts interpreted using Aristotelian logic (Amin, 1989).
But starting from 15 century the vectors of Western philosophy has considerably changed and it gained its unique cultural characteristics distinct from Islamic traditions. The Renaissance philosophy of Italy represented by Pico de Mirandola, Leonardo da Vinci, Giordano Bruno and other philosophers placed more emphasis on humanistic values in contrast to dominant religious currents in Islamic philosophy which continued to developed in fasfala and sufismo currents. The basic questions, methods and problematic also was significantly challenged in Western philosophy. Instead of following longstanding tradition of Aristotelian logic such thinkers as Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, John Locke developed their own version of empiricist logic and inductivity. Post-renaissance Western philosophy placed more emphasis on the development of methodology for natural sciences such as chemistry, physics, and mathematics and elaborated the scientific worldview. It drifted from traditional theological metaphysics to scientific epistemology and avoided the marginal problems such as theology and ontology.
Thus, it may be claimed that Western post-renaissance philosophy was deeply affected by the development of Western material civilization. Western philosophy became more subjectivist rather than ontological. Such thinkers as Kant, Hume, Hegel, Fichte, Descartes tried to perceive the reality from the standpoint of individual or universal subject (Shand, 1993, p.234).
Besides this it should be noted that in moral issues, religion and ethics Western philosophy followed the same path from ontological theology and morality to subjectivist theology represented in Lutheranism and Calvinism. Moral philosophy elaborated by Kant is a good example of new emphasis on subjectivist reasons rather that God providence. Enlightenment philosophy also changed perception of human needs and nature from theologian ascetics to utilitarian morality represented in Lametri and Mill theories.
To sum it up it should be noted that the demise of feudal society in the West and rapid development of material civilization created preconditions for genesis of qualitatively new mindsets and philosophical paradigms which omitted traditional scholastic and metaphysic problems. All this contributed to the vigorous development of new Western philosophy which lasted for more than four centuries until its recent crisis.
What concerns Islamic philosophy its decline may be connected with the decline of Islamic civilization which started with the loss of influence in Spain and North Africa. The decline of Islamic philosophy influence on Western philosophy began with the end of Peripatetic Arabic School which affected much scholastic philosophy through the followers if Ibn Rushd. The contact between Western and Eastern Islamic philosophy was worsened as the former took independent modern direction. By large the Islamic philosophy continued to address theological, moral and ontological issues though some efforts to modernize it are evident if we consider Ottoman scholars such as Ahmad Sirhindi and Shah Waliullah (Watt, 1985). The development of logic continued in seminaries and in philosophical circles. After the death of Ibn Rushd many school appeared in Islamic philosophy among which the most prominent are those founded by Ibn Arabi, Mulla Sadra, and Suhrawardi. These schools successfully continued elaboration of dominant theological topics and even tried to introduce rationalistic topics (Watt, 1985).
Islamic philosophy was particularly successful in the perception of social reality which was its particularly success over Western philosophy which addressed social reality only after Hegel. For instance, Ibn Haldun was the first thinker who introduced the notion of social conflict, the division between town and village, and even outlined the contours of labor value theory later developed by Marx.
Hence as current essay proved Eastern and Western philosophy have many parallels and similarities as well as distinctions which are the caused of different social conditions that fostered their development. Their comparative analysis helped us to better understand their peculiarities.
References
- Amin, Samir. Eurocentrism. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1989.
- Shand, John. Philosophy and Philosophers: An Introduction to Western Philosophy. London: UCL Press, 1993.
- Watt, W. Montgomery. Islamic Philosophy and Theology: An Extended Survey. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1985.