Testimony and the epistemic problem of society in  al-Risālat al-Kāmiliyya fī al-Sīrat al-Nabawiyya

Marco Lauri

doi:10.13135/1825-263X/2254

Marco Lauri University of Macerata

DOI: https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/2254

Keywords: testimony, Arabic philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of language

Abstract

This paper outlines some of the historical and epistemological themes of al-Risālat al-Kāmiliyya fī al-Sīrat al-Nabawiyya (‘the Epistle of Kāmil on the life-story of the Prophet’; henceforth, Risālat Kāmiliyya) by Ibn al-Nafīs (d. 1288) in the context of discussions about testimony in Medieval Islamicate intellectual milieus. The paper is divided into three parts.

The first one will offer a brief description of the place of testimony in Medieval epistemic discussions, with some comparative elements. The second part presents a short summary of Risālat Kāmiliyya’s close precedent, Ibn Ṭufayl’s Risālat Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓān, with some remarks on the role of testimony in its epistemology. In the third part, Risālat Kāmiliyya’s original epistemic stance on testimony will be examined and discussed, with some proposals about its historical and philosophical significance.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Marco Lauri, University of Macerata

Marco Lauri is adjunct professor of Arabic Philology and Arabic Literature at the University of Macerata, and of History of Islam at the University of Urbino, Italy. He published several articles on the utopian philosophical literature in Medieval Islam.

References

Adler, Jonathan. 2012. “Epistemological Problems of Testimony.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (https://plato.stanford.edu/).

Adamson, Peter. 2004. “Non-discursive thought in Avicenna’s commentary on the Theology of Aristotle.” In Interpreting Avicenna. Science and Philosophy in Medieval Islam, edited by Jon McGinnis, 87-111. Leiden: Brill.

Adamson, Peter. 2005. “On Knowledge of Particulars.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 105.1: 257-278.

Bertolacci, Amos. 2013. “Averroes against Avicenna on Human Spontaneous Generation: The Starting-Point of a Lasting Debate.” In Renaissance Averroism and its Aftermath. Arabic Philosophy in Early Modern Europe, edited by Anna Akasoy and Guido Giglioni, 37-54. Dordrecht: Springer.

Black, Deborah. 2006. “Knowledge (‘ILM) and Certitude (YAQĪN) in Al-Fārābī’s Epistemology.” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 16.1: 11–46.

Black, Deborah. 2013. “Rational Imagination: Avicenna on the Cogitative Power.” In Philosophical Psychology in Arabic Thought and the Latin Aristotelianism of the 13th century, edited by Jörg Tellkamp and Luis Xavier López Farjeat, 59-81. Paris: Vrin.

Bürgel, Christoph. 1996. “‘Symbols and hints:’ some considerations concerning the meaning of Ibn Ṭufayl’s Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓān.” In The World of Ibn Ṭufayl, edited by Lawrence Conrad, 114-132. Leiden: Brill.

Capezzone, Leonardo. 1998. La trasmissione del sapere nell'Islam medievale. Roma: Jouvence.

Capezzone, Leonardo. 2010. Fuori dalla città iniqua. Roma: Carocci.

Cheng, Anne (ed.). 2005. Y a-t-il une philosophie chinoise ?; Un état de la question, issue of Extrême-Orient, Extrême-Occident 27.

Conrad, Lawrence. 1996. “Through the Thin Veil: On the Question of Communication and the Socialization of Knowledge in Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓān.” In The World of Ibn Ṭufayl, edited by Lawrence Conrad, 238-266. Leiden: Brill.

Drory, Rina. 1994. “Attempts to legitimize fiction in Classical Arabic literature.” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 18: 146-164.

Fancy, Nahyan. 2006. Pulmonary Transit and Bodily Resurrection: The Interaction of Medicine, Philosophy and Religion in The Works of Ibn al-Nafīs (d. 1288). Doctoral Dissertation, Notre Dame University.

Fancy, Nahyan. 2010. “The Virtuous Son of the Rational: A Traditionalist’s Response to the Falâsifa”, in Avicenna and his Legacy, edited by Tzvi Langermann, 219-248. Turnhout: Brepols.

Faulkner, Paul. 2000. ”The Social Character of Testimonial Knowledge.” The Journal of Philosophy 97.11: 581-601.

Ferrari, Cleophea. 2005. “La scuola aristotelica di Bagdad.” In Storia della filosofia nell'Islam medievale, edited by Cristina D’Ancona, 352-379. Torino: Einaudi.

Forcada, Miquel. 2011. “Ibn Bājja On Medicine And Medical Experience.” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 21: 111–148.

Freschi, Elisa, “There in only ‘Philosophy:’ The case of Testimony” (this volume).

Fricker, Elizabeth. 1994. “Against Gullibility.” In Knowing from Words, edited by Bimal Krishna Matilal and Arindam Chakrabarti, 125-161. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Fricker, Elizabeth. 1995. “Telling and Trusting: Reductionism and Anti-Reductionism in the Epistemology of Testimony.” Mind 104: 393-411.

Germann, Nadja. 2008. “Philosophizing without philosophy? On the concept of philosophy in Ibn Ṭufayl’s ‘Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓān.’” Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales 74.2: 271-301.

Gilliot, Claude. 2007. “Creation of a fixed text.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Qur’ān,” edited by Jane Dammen McAuliffe, 41-57. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Gutas, Dimitri. 2000. “Avicenna’s Eastern ('Oriental') Philosophy. Nature, Contents, Transmission.” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 10: 159-180.

Gutas, Dimitri. 2002. “The Study of Arabic Philosophy in the Twentieth Century. An Essay on the Historiography of Arabic Philosophy.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 29.1: 5-25.

Gutas, Dimitri. 2014. Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition. Leiden: Brill.

Hallaq, Wael. 2009. An Introduction to Islamic Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hasanali, Parveen. 1995. Texts, Translators, Transmissions: “Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓān” and its Reception in Muslim, Judaic and Christian Milieux. PhD dissertation, McGill University.

Hawi, Sami. 1976. “Ibn Ṭufayl’s Appraisal of His Predecessors and Their Influence on his Thought.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 7.1: 89-121.

Hourani, George. 1956. “The Principal Subject of Ibn Ṭufayl’s Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓān. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 1: 40-46.

Ivry, Alfred. 2012. “Arabic and Islamic Psychology and Philosophy of Mind.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (https://plato.stanford.edu/).

Janssens, Jules. 2004. “Experience» (tajriba) in Classical Arabic Philosophy (al-Fārābī – Avicenna).” Quaestio 4.1: 45-62.

Kilito, Abdelfattah. 1992. L’Œil et l’aiguille. Essais sur Les Mille et Une Nuits. Paris: La Découverte.

Kochin, Michael. 1999. “Weeds: Cultivating the Imagination in Medieval Arabic Political Philosophy.” Journal of the History of Ideas 60.3: 399-416.

Kruk, Remke. 1995. “History and Apocalypse: Ibn an-Nafîs’ justification of Mamluk rule.” Der Islam 72.2: 324-37.

Kruk, Remke. 1996. “Ibn Ṭufayl: a Medieval Scholar’s Views on Nature.” In The World of Ibn Ṭufayl, edited by Lawrence Conrad, 69-89. Leiden: Brill.

Kukkonen, Taneli. 2009. “Ibn Ṭufayl and the Wisdom of the East: On Apprehending the Divine.” In Late Antique Epistemology, edited by Panayiota Vassilopoulou and Stephen Clark, 87-102. London: Palgrave.

Kukkonen, Taneli. 2014. Ibn Ṭufayl: Living the Life of Reason. London: Oneworld Publications.

Lancioni, Giuliano. 1991. “Al-kalām huwa l-murakkab min kalimatayn. Note sulla terminologia grammaticale araba”. Rivista degli Studi Orientali 65: 195–212.

Lauri, Marco. 2013. “Utopias in the Islamic Middle Ages: Ibn Ṭufayl and Ibn al-Nafīs.” Utopian Studies 24.1: 23-40.

Lauri, Marco. 2015. “The Philosopher’s Solitude.” In The Individual and Utopia, edited by Clint Jones and Cameron Ellis, 279-294. London: Ashgate.

Mahdi, Muhsin. 1970. “Remarks on the 'Theologus Autodidactus' of Ibn Al-Nafīs.” Studia Islamica 31: 197-209.

Malti-Douglas, Fedwa. 1996. “Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓān as a Male Utopia.” In The World of Ibn Ṭufayl, edited by Lawrence Conrad, 52-68. Leiden: Brill.

Marmura, Michael. 1979. “The Philosopher and Society: Some medieval Arabic Discussions.” Arab Studies Quarterly 1.4: 309-323.

Marmura, Michael. 1980. “Avicenna's Proof from Contingency for God’s Existence in the Metaphysics of the Shifā.’” Mediaeval Studies 42.1: 337-352.

McGinnis, Jon. 2003. “Scientific Methodologies in Medieval Islam.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.3: 307–327.

McGinnis, Jon. 2007. “Logic and Science: The Role of Genus and Difference in Avicenna’’s Logic, Science and Natural Philosophy.” Documenti e Studi sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale 18: 165-186.

McGinnis, Jon. 2011. “Natural Knowledge in the Arabic Middle Ages.” In Wrestling with Nature, edited by Peter Harrison, Ronald L. Numbers and Michael H. Shank, 59-82. Chicago-London: University of Chicago Press.

Mohanty, Jitendra Nath. 1994. “Is there an irreducible mode of word-generated knowledge?” In Knowing from Words, edited by Bimal Krishna Matilal and Arindam Chakrabarti, 29-49. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Richter-Bernburg, Lutz. 1996. “Medicina Ancilla Philosophiae: Ibn Ṭufayl’s Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓān.” In The World of Ibn Ṭufayl, edited by Lawrence Conrad, 90-113. Leiden: Brill.

Rosenthal, Franz. 2007. Knowledge Triumphant. Leiden: Brill.

Rostalska, Agnieszka. “Reliability of a Speaker and Recognition of a Listener: Bocheński and Nyāya on the Relation of Authority” (this volume).

Russell, Gül. 1994. “The Impact of the Philosophus autodidactus: the Pocockes, Locke, and the Society of Friends.” In The Interest of the Natural Philosophers in ‘Arabick’ in Seventeenth-Century England, edited by Gül Russell, 224-266. Leiden: Brill.

Schacht, Joseph and Max Meyerhof. 1968. The Theologus Autodidactus of Ibn al-Nafīs. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Strawson, Peter. 1994. “Knowing from Words.” In Knowing from Words, edited by Bimal Krishna Matilal and Arindam Chakrabarti, 23-27. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Van Ess, Joseph. 2008. L’alba della teologia musulmana, Torino: Einaudi (Italian translation of Prémices de la théologie musulmane. Paris: Albin Michel: 2002; the Italian translation is used).

Wisnovsky, Robert. 2004. “One Aspect of the Avicennian Turn in Sunnī Theology.” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 14: 65–100.

Wisnovsky, Robert. 2005. “Avicenna and the Avicennian tradition” in The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 92-136.

Wisnovsky, Robert. 2009. “Philosophy and theology.” In The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 698-706.

Yorke, Christopher. 2006. The Mystic and the Ineffable: Some Epistemological, Political, and Metaphilosophical Concerns. MA dissertation, Montreal University.