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Religion
Is Religious Intellectualism the Same as the Intellectualism of the Religious?
Religious intellectualism is not the same as the intellectualism of the religious; its condition is not personal faith or a religious life, but the effort to achieve a liberating understanding of religion compatible with the modern world. Rejecting a conflationary view, arguments are advanced in favor of this distinction.
In this essay I attempt, in a condensed manner, to show that, contrary to the view of some commentators, “religious intellectualism” is not the same as the intellectualism of the religious, because: first, the reasons adduced in favor of this view (equating religious intellectualism with the intellectualism of the religious) are not defensible. Second, the arguments advanced against the alternative view—which does not reduce religious intellectualism to the intellectualism of the religious—are not defensible. And third, this equating view itself faces serious problems. These problems, in brief, are: 1. the vitiating ambiguity inherent in some meanings of the concept of religiosity, 2. the capacity to foster institutionalized hypocrisy and dissimulation, 3. the impossibility and undesirability of identifying instances of religiosity (according to some meanings of this concept), 4. the danger of exclusionism. In the course of this, I also put forward two positive arguments in favor of the alternative (non-equating) view of religious intellectualism.
Is Religious Intellectualism the Same as the Intellectualism of the Religious?*
Yaser Mirdamadi
1- Framing the Discussion
It is now more than a decade that the concept of religious intellectualism has been discussed and debated by various commentators. What has provoked discussion and dialogue so far has mostly revolved around the question of whether the compound “religious intellectualism” is a paradoxical combination, and consequently the intellectual enterprise cannot be reconciled with the religious one, or whether the two are reconcilable. Let us call this discussion, for ease of reference, the “compatibility debate.”
But another discussion that has been taking shape under this concept in recent years is one that tends to ask a more fundamental question: what does religious intellectualism essentially mean? And under this question, it is asked: is religious intellectualism the same as the intellectualism of the religious, or does it have a different meaning? Let me refer to this discussion as the “meaning debate.”
In this essay, I generally address the meaning debate and do not directly and in detail address the compatibility debate, although at the end of this essay I will briefly point out that the positive position put forward in this piece regarding the meaning debate also sheds light on the compatibility debate.
2- Two Views on the Meaning of Religious Intellectualism
Under the discussion of the meaning of religious intellectualism, two views have been proposed. The first view says that a religious intellectual is someone who tries to do intellectual work within religion. That is, they try to provide an emancipatory understanding of religious propositions, practices, institutions, and relations, such that believers in these propositions, practices, relations, and institutions can coherently recognize the new world and its components (modern rationality, human rights, etc.). By emancipatory understanding in this discussion is meant an understanding that tries to reinterpret the unequal relations prevalent in the common understanding of religion, and specifically Islam (such as inequality between men and women, Muslims and non-Muslims, so-called observant and non-observant Muslims, dissenting and non-dissenting Muslims, jurist and non-jurist, and the like), in favor of egalitarian relations.
According to this view, whether the intellectual personally believes in religion and lives in a manner widely considered religious has no bearing on their intellectual work in the domain of religion—though it is not necessarily an obstacle to it either. In other words, religious belief and living religiously (assuming the concept of religiosity or living religiously does not suffer from vitiating ambiguity) is neither a necessary condition for intellectual work in the domain of religion, nor a sufficient one; and religious intellectualism, in this view, is neutral with respect to religious belief and religious lifestyle, and precisely for this reason, it may or may not be combined with religious belief and lifestyle. The necessary and sufficient condition for religious intellectualism, according to this view, is the effort to provide an emancipatory understanding of religion, whether the individual personally believes in and adheres to religion or not.
Accordingly, an intellectual who does not believe in the possibility of an emancipatory reading (in the sense described above) of religious texts, or considers it highly unlikely, is not considered a religious intellectual, even if they are, in any sense, considered religious. Seyyed Hossein Nasr is not a religious intellectual in this sense, although he is considered religious. Because from a traditionalist standpoint, he does not recognize the modern world and its theoretical and practical components (including emancipation in the above sense), and consequently sees religion, as he understands it, as fundamentally incompatible with the modern world. He is not a religious intellectual because he is not considered an intellectual in the above sense. On the other hand, Aramesh Doustdar is also not a religious intellectual because, although he is considered an intellectual in the above sense, in his view religion is purely emancipatory-killing and there is absolutely no possibility of offering an emancipatory understanding of it. In other words, according to this picture, Nasr is not a religious "intellectual" and Doustdar is not a "religious" intellectual.
This conception of the meaning of religious intellectualism (let us call it the "emancipatory conception") is undoubtedly very far from the conventional conception of it—which I will discuss further below. In the conventional conception (let us call it the "identitarian conception"), religious intellectualism is the same as the intellectualism of the religious, but in the emancipatory conception, religiosity (even if this concept lacks disruptive ambiguity and is free from other problems—which I will address below) is not considered among the determining components of religious intellectualism.(1)
3- Two Arguments in Favor of the Emancipatory Conception of Religious Intellectualism
The emancipatory conception of religious intellectualism seems to me more defensible than the identitarian conception. Although I accept that the first conception seems unconventional compared to the second (I will address this further below). In what follows, I will try to present two arguments in favor of the emancipatory conception. Both of these arguments are based on thought experiments. A thought experiment is a widely accepted method of reasoning—both in the natural sciences and in the humanities (and specifically philosophy)—that, by invoking a hypothetical scenario or situation, tries to test and cultivate our intuition regarding that scenario and thereby help solve a problem—a problem for which the scenario has been designed.
3-1. The Agnostic Argument in Favor of the Emancipatory Conception
Consider a hypothetical situation where an agnostic individual—that is, someone who believes that the epistemic and non-epistemic reasons (such as pragmatic reasons) for and against theism are equipollent (equally balanced)—comes to believe that the possibility of providing an emancipatory understanding of religion (and in our discussion: Islam) exists, and this possibility is not even a remote one. They then try to realize such a—in their view, not remote—possibility. For example, they try to offer a reading of the Quran according to which women's rights (in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, etc.) can be secured, at least to some extent. It seems that such an agnostic individual, regardless of what their personal lifestyle might be (2), can without any problem be called a religious intellectual. It seems one could go even further than this, but this much suffices to advance the discussion.
3-2. The Manifestation Argument in Favor of the Emancipatory Conception
Consider a hypothetical situation in which, after the death of a well-known religious intellectual, documents come to light that conclusively show that he in fact had no belief whatsoever in God, the Prophet, or the Resurrection (suppose a private letter of his is found, whose attribution to him is certain and it is established that he wrote it in a state of mental health and without any external threat or pressure, and in that letter he explicitly states that he never held religious belief throughout his life). Regardless of what judgment we might pass on such an individual, in such a case, should we exclude this person’s project from the domain of religious intellectualism and no longer devote a chapter to him in the history of religious intellectualism? According to the identitarian conception, since the intellectual’s religiosity and religious belief are considered conceptual constituents of the project of religious intellectualism, the answer is yes; that is, henceforth we cannot consider his “project” an instance of the project of religious intellectualism, and this is a conclusion that seems strange and unacceptable. But according to the emancipatory conception, the religiosity and religious belief of the intellectual are incidental to the project of religious intellectualism, and therefore, in this hypothetical situation, the revelation of the individual’s lack of belief in religious tenets brings about no change in the nature of his project, and we can still, without any difficulty, consider his project part of the history of religious intellectualism. (3)
4- A Critique of the Arguments in Favor of the Identitarian Conception of Religious Intellectualism
According to the conventional or identitarian conception of religious intellectualism, belief in religion and commitment to it are considered a central component in the definition of this concept, such that if these two components (religious belief and commitment) are removed from the definition of religious intellectualism, religious intellectualism will have no determinate meaning. In the view of one proponent of the identitarian conception: “Someone who does not believe in religion / is not truly religious, but wraps his wares in the gilt of religion to sell his goods to religious audiences and calls himself a religious intellectual, is neither an intellectual nor religious.” (4) Although this statement logically contains a tautology, for it literally says: “Someone who is not truly religious […] is not […] religious,” (just as if one were to say: someone who is unmarried is without a spouse) and a statement that is logically tautological (5) in fact tells us nothing (beyond repeating words), yet if this statement is reconstructed in a non-tautological way, it probably intended to tell us: an intellectual who is not religious is not a religious intellectual. This interpretation is reinforced by other sentences that appear later in the text from which we have just quoted: “In any case, the definition I have of religious intellectualism is the same definition that appears in the minds of the general Persian-speaking audience upon hearing this expression. According to this definition, a religious intellectual means a religious intellectual.” (6)
What reasons have been offered in favor of the identitarian conception? In what follows, I will cite and critique two reasons that have been advanced in favor of this conception.
4-1. A Critique of the Conventional Argument in Favor of the Identitarian Conception
The first reason that appears to have been offered, or could be offered, in favor of the identitarian conception is an emphasis on the conventionality of this conception. This argument can be formulated as follows:
The Conventional Argument: Religious intellectualism is the intellectualism of the religious, because the conventional understanding of religious intellectualism entails such a requirement.
A Critique of the Conventional Argument: It cannot be denied that whatever flaws the identitarian conception of religious intellectualism may have, it has the virtue of conforming to the conventional understanding of this concept. And conversely, whatever virtues the emancipatory conception of religious intellectualism may have, it has the flaw of being unconventional. But this is not the first time that a conventional conception of a concept has, as a result of critiques, given way to an unconventional one.
A clear example of this shift is the episode that occurred over the definition of the concept of “knowledge” in contemporary epistemology. While the conventional understanding of this concept among philosophers (i.e., knowledge = justified true belief) had a history stretching from the time of Plato to the mid-twentieth century (or at least the prevailing opinion on the matter holds this), a short, three-page article in 1963 by Edmund Gettier, an unknown young philosopher (who, as it happens, wrote this article for career advancement and, despite all the impact the article had, did not pursue the subject further after its publication) (7) caused the conventional understanding of the concept of knowledge to face a serious crisis. After the publication of this article, epistemologists either added qualifications to this definition, subtracted from it, or gave a new meaning to one or more components of this definition (especially the qualification of justification). Some philosophers also (independently of this article’s influence) proposed entirely different definitions for the three components of the conventional definition of knowledge (such as Popper, for whom knowledge consists of falsifiable but as-yet-unfalsified conjectures proposed to solve a problem, which, in comparison with alternative conjectures, solves that problem better in a provisional manner). In any case, this definition no longer remained in its conventional and ancient form in any way. On this basis, the mere fact that a definition is conventional is not considered a reason in its favor, nor is the mere fact that a definition is unconventional considered a reason against it.
4-2. Critique of the Identity Argument in Favor of the Identitarian Conception
Another argument advanced in favor of the identitarian conception is the identity argument. According to this argument, religious intellectuals are those who have a concern for religious identity, and having such a concern is not possible except through religiosity (religious belief and practice).
What can be said about this argument? Even if we assume that having a concern for religious identity must be one of the goals of religious intellectuals, it is still unclear why religiosity is considered a necessary condition for having an identity concern. It is conceivable that someone has a concern for religious identity but is not religious, in the conventional sense of the word. A historical example of this is Henry Corbin, the French Islamicist and philosopher. He played an unparalleled role in reviving the written esoteric heritage of Shiite Islam and, in this respect, is greatly indebted to the epistemic identity of Shiite Islam. He was personally attached to such an identity as well, but he never formally became a Muslim. On this basis, it is unclear why someone like Corbin cannot be considered to possess an identity concern, while he is not considered religious in the conventional and formal sense of the word.
In response to this critique, defenders of the identity argument can, to shield their argument from the above criticism, reduce the scope of this argument and increase its depth, by saying: Although layers and levels of identity-concern regarding religion are possible without religiosity, the deeper layers of this concern are possible only through religiosity, that is, sharing with one’s whole being in the lived experience of believers. In response to the reconstructed form of the identity argument, it can be said, firstly, that sometimes a deep understanding of a phenomenon, quite to the contrary, requires distancing oneself from it and not sharing with one’s whole being in that phenomenon. For example, someone who stands at a very short distance from a painting in a gallery, although they may observe a part of that painting better, is deprived of understanding the totality of the painting compared to someone who looks at the painting from a farther distance. In a quite similar way, it can be said that perhaps those who are not religious but engage with religious identity with concern, by maintaining their distance, can achieve an understanding of dimensions of religiosity that the non-distanced religious person is incapable of understanding. Secondly, even if we assume that understanding layers and levels of religious identity requires an individual’s religiosity, religiosity is still not a “necessary condition” for concern regarding religious identity, although in this assumption it might be a sufficient condition for it.
5- Critique of Objections Against the Emancipatory Conception of Religious Intellectualism
In what follows, I will recount and critique the reasons advanced against the emancipatory conception.
5-1. Pragmatic considerations have led to the emancipatory conception being proposed, read: "Pragmatic considerations allow an intellectual who has no belief in religion or religious beliefs, and merely because they are not anti-religion, to call themselves a religious intellectual." These pragmatic considerations could be: "In religious societies, such as Iranian society, religious intellectuals have an audience, and anyone who wishes to attract this audience is compelled to call themselves a religious intellectual."
Critique of Objection 1- These are not at all—or at least not solely—pragmatic reasons that have been, or could be, advanced in favor of the emancipatory conception. An epistemic argument can also be presented. The agnostic and manifestness argument in favor of the emancipatory conception, which was presented earlier, whether defensible or not, is an epistemic argument and not a pragmatic one.
5-2. The pragmatic considerations that have led to the emancipatory conception being proposed are not defensible considerations because people accept as religious intellectuals those who are "really" religious: "The secret of the religious people's reception of and attention to religious intellectuals is not that these intellectuals invoke religion, or speak about religion, or are merely not anti-religion, but rather because these intellectuals are really religious; that is, they both have faith in religious beliefs and, in practice, are practitioners of religious conduct."
Critique of Objection2- Since the qualifier "really" plays an important role in understanding the above phrase, it is not clear how one can understand whether an individual or individuals "really" have faith in religious beliefs and are also "really" religious in practice (setting aside the vitiating ambiguity of the term religious—according to some of its meanings—which we will address below). If we take the qualifier "really" in the above phrase to mean the reality of the thing-in-itself, then answering this question seems very difficult, especially if we consider problematic examples such as the Malamatiyya. The Malamatiyya, as is well-known in the history of Sufism, were those who, for the purification of the inner self and struggle against the ego, would feign transgression (for example, they would pour water into a wine bottle and drink it, walking as if drunk on grape wine) so that they would be despised and belittled by people, and through the abasement of the ego, engage in the purification of the inner self. Suppose a Malamati does this so artfully that no one but themselves becomes aware of their intention; on this basis, can others, merely based on appearances, call such a person irreligious? On the other hand, consider an individual who performs religious rites so habitually (and purely out of habit) that it has become as if second nature to them, such that they perform these rites even when no one is present; can such an individual be considered "really" religious (assuming that religiosity consists of performing religious rites in its conventional understanding)? The intuitive answer to both of the above questions seems to be negative. As it happens, it seems it is this vitiating ambiguity of the term religiosity—in some of its meanings—that has led to the attempt to disambiguate it by adding the qualifier "really" (I will address the vitiating ambiguity of this term according to some of its meanings in detail below), but this qualifier does not seem to remove any ambiguity.
It might be said in response that religiosity also has visible and measurable aspects that sociologists assess. The answer is that the sociologist deals with the external manifestation and appearance of religiosity, in the sociological sense of the word, and not with what was quoted above, that is, not with what was called "really" religiosity by the defenders of the identitarian conception (if we take reality to mean the reality of the thing-in-itself). In other words, the sociologist deals with what is "apparently" religiosity, not with what was called "really" religiosity (in the possible sense of the thing-in-itself) above by the defenders of the identitarian conception.
5-3. Religious intellectualism, based on the emancipatory conception, leads to hypocrisy and dissimulation. Because those who are not religious intellectuals (i.e., do not have religious belief and commitment) pass themselves off as religious intellectuals, and this is far from the ethics of both intellectualism and religiosity.
Critique of Objection 3- This objection can be read in two ways: Reading 1- Religious intellectualism based on the emancipatory conception leads to hypocrisy and dissimulation in a systematic and institutionalized manner. Reading 2- Religious intellectualism based on the emancipatory conception leads to hypocrisy and dissimulation on a case-by-case basis. If, in criticizing the emancipatory conception of religious intellectualism, the second reading is intended, then this is a valid critique, but not a destructive one. Because it can be said that, in principle, every belief and creed, even the most anti-hypocrisy belief and creed, is susceptible to drawing its believer into hypocrisy and dissimulation on a case-by-case basis in practice. On this basis, for example, it is possible that someone from the Malamatiyya (who were probably the most radical anti-hypocrisy group) might also fall into dissimulation and hypocrisy on a case-by-case basis. Moreover, this possibility also holds true for the identitarian conception of religious intellectualism. In other words, the emancipatory conception and the identitarian conception of religious intellectualism, and indeed any conception whatsoever, are normally more or less susceptible to provoking case-by-case hypocrisy and dissimulation.
But if the intention is that the emancipatory conception of religious intellectualism leads to hypocrisy and dissimulation in a systematic and institutionalized manner, whereas the identitarian conception does not, then this judgment not only seems indefensible but, on the contrary, it is precisely the identitarian conception of religious intellectualism that is susceptible to falling—in a systematic and institutionalized manner—into the trap of dissimulation and hypocrisy, and not the emancipatory conception: Suppose it is defensible to judge that religious intellectuals gain more social acceptance compared to non-religious intellectuals, and let us also suppose that the identitarian conception of religious intellectualism is defensible; in that case, intellectuals who aspire to have an impact on the level of religious intellectuals will be tempted to feign religious belief and commitment in order to be counted among them and become as influential as they are. But if the emancipatory conception of religious intellectualism is defensible, an individual does not need to feign religious belief or commitment to a religious lifestyle in order to advance their intellectual work in the field of religion under the title that religious intellectuals advance it. They can pursue their effort to provide an emancipatory understanding of religion independently of feigning religious belief or commitment to a religious lifestyle.
6- Critique of the Identitarian Conception of Religious Intellectualism
Even if the objections raised against the emancipatory conception by proponents of the identitarian conception are not valid objections (and I have tried to show they are not valid), it may still be that the identitarian conception is, in principle, more defensible than the first conception, or equally defensible. On this basis, to show that the emancipatory conception is more defensible than the identitarian conception, it is not enough to argue in favor of the emancipatory conception (which I did with the agnostic and manifestation arguments), nor is it enough to respond to the objections raised against this conception (which I tried to do above); rather, I must also demonstrate the flaws of the identitarian conception. Of course, I also have a fundamental assumption here: we are faced with only two conceptions of religious intellectualism: the emancipatory conception and the identitarian conception. Only with such an assumption will the emancipatory conception become defensible if I critique the identitarian conception. In this article, to avoid prolonging the discussion, I will not argue in favor of this fundamental assumption and will simply take it as given.
In what follows, I will try to demonstrate the objections to the identitarian conception of the meaning of religious intellectualism.
6-1. The Detrimental Ambiguity of the Concept of Religiosity
Earlier, while responding to the objections raised against the emancipatory conception of the meaning of religious intellectualism, I explained one of the criticisms of the identitarian conception, which was that this conception is prone to fostering the institutionalization of hypocrisy and dissimulation. But there are other problems as well: the concept of religiosity is a central concept for the identitarian conception. However, it seems that this concept, when it acquires central importance in the definition of religious intellectualism, becomes afflicted with an ambiguity that is detrimental (to understanding)—at least according to some of its meanings.(8)
Proponents of the identitarian conception, when defending this conception and criticizing the emancipatory conception, have not presented their own definition and understanding of religiosity. Accordingly, we will try to consider four different possibilities regarding the meaning of religiosity and show that religiosity, when employed as the meaning of religious intellectualism, cannot defensibly denote at least the first three of these meanings:
First Possibility: The first possibility that can be considered for the meaning of religiosity is as follows:
Religious intellectualism is the same as the intellectualism of the religious, and the meaning of religiosity is its conventional meaning.
Critique of the First Possibility: What is the conventional meaning of religiosity? Most likely, the conventional meaning of religiosity is its jurisprudential (fiqhī) meaning. Since the discussion among adherents of the identitarian conception of religious intellectualism takes place within an Iranian-Islamic context, considering this context, religiosity in the first possibility means acting according to the practical treatise (risāla-yi ʿamaliyya) of one of the Twelver Shīʿī jurists, or exercising caution (iḥtiyāṭ, in its jurisprudential sense), or possessing the capacity for independent legal reasoning (ijtihād) in this matter. A problem immediately arises: what if a religious intellectual were an Ismāʿīlī? Does religiosity here still carry the meaning of a practical treatise? Note that in some branches of the Ismāʿīlī school, the ritual prayer (ṣalāt) as commonly understood among other Muslims (Twelver Shīʿa, Zaydī, and Sunnī) does not exist, and in its place there is a prayer specific to this school. Adult women are not subject to the ruling of ḥijāb (in its conventional jurisprudential sense, i.e., covering the hair and neck), and fasting is, in principle, recommended. If religiosity in its conventional sense is a requisite of the definition of religious intellectualism, then an Ismāʿīlī intellectual cannot be a religious intellectual. But since religious intellectuals are pluralist, or inclusivist, or non-dogmatic exclusivists (9), they cannot offer a definition of religiosity according to which, for example, an Ismāʿīlī could not be considered religious.
Second Possibility: In light of the problem raised against the first possibility, proponents of the identitarian conception of religious intellectualism might reconstruct their conception of the meaning of religiosity in the following way:
Religious intellectualism is the same as the intellectualism of the religious, and the meaning of religiosity is acting according to the sharīʿa of any of the Islamic schools of law.
Critique of the Second Possibility: Identitarian religious intellectuals cannot consistently adopt the second possibility for the meaning of religiosity, because religious intellectuals have fundamentally criticized significant portions of the sharīʿa (in the sense common to almost all Islamic schools of law): the jurisprudential rulings on apostasy, women's rights, the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals and dissidents, etc., are among the cases they have criticized in various ways, and these rulings are still an important part of the shared jurisprudence of almost all Islamic schools of law. Consequently, religious intellectuals who advocate the identitarian conception cannot, without falling into inconsistency, include acting according to the sharīʿa of the Islamic schools of law in their meaning of religiosity. It might be said that some jurists are now also sympathetic to the criticisms of religious intellectuals regarding parts of the sharīʿa, but firstly, there are still many differences between the opinions of even sympathetic jurists and the opinions of religious intellectuals, and secondly, consider a time when jurists had not yet been influenced by the criticisms of religious intellectuals regarding significant parts of the sharīʿa. In such a situation, the implication of the second possibility is that if religious intellectuals criticize those parts of the sharīʿa, they would deviate from acting according to the sharīʿa and, consequently, would not be considered religious, and would no longer be counted as religious intellectuals.
Third Possibility: In light of the objections raised against the second possibility, proponents of the identitarian conception of religious intellectualism might reconstruct the meaning of religiosity in the following way:
Religious intellectualism is the same as the intellectualism of the religious, and the meaning of religiosity is the intellectual individual's practice of their own accepted Sharia.
Critique of the Third Possibility: Although the third possibility does not have the problems of the two previous ones, it seems highly unlikely that proponents of the identitarian conception of religious intellectualism, when speaking of the religious person in the compound term religious intellectual, would have this third possibility in mind. This is because, in the third possibility, the criterion for religiosity is not conventional Sharia but the Sharia and customs that the individual has personally approved; and such an individual-centered understanding of Sharia may bear little relation to Sharia in its conventional, or near-conventional, sense. Some of the statements we quoted earlier from proponents of the identitarian conception show that they do not take religiosity to mean the third possibility, but let us add a new quotation: "The public's favor towards past generations of religious intellectuals was not merely due to the 'label' of religious intellectual, but because of the meaning/truth to which this title pointed. [...] The favor of the religious towards these individuals was both due to the 'teachings' that resulted from these intellectuals' theoretical efforts to reconcile intellectualism and religiosity, and due to the theoretical and practical commitment these intellectuals had to religion in their personal and social lives." It is evident that religiosity here is not used in the sense of the third possibility but rather in the sense of the second, or first (or the fourth possible meaning, which will follow). Fundamentally, it is the first, third, and fourth possible meanings that, if taken as the basis for religiosity, might then allow one to speak of being 'truly religious' and of hypocrisy and dissimulation, because these three definitions provide an intersubjective definition of religiosity. However, if the third conception is considered, this meaning has become so personalized that it is highly unlikely one could speak of being truly religious, because an individual's religiosity, which in this sense has become personalized, cannot be measured against anything other than itself to determine its genuineness or its hypocritical and dissimulating nature.
Fourth Possibility: In light of the objections raised against the three previous possibilities, proponents of the identitarian conception of religious intellectualism might reconstruct their understanding of the meaning of religiosity by saying: Their definition of religious intellectualism is a posteriori, meaning their theory is based on the common points of 'clear instances' that have conventionally been called religious intellectuals: Seyyed Jamal, Bazargan, Shariati, Taleghani, Soroush, Shabestari, and so on. All these individuals have been considered religious and believers in religion by the convention of society, and they tried to offer an understanding of religion more compatible with the requirements of the time. It seems unlikely that the conventional recognition of the religiosity of, for example, Bazargan, Soroush, or Shabestari and others would be a difficult task. Of course, it is always possible that some might doubt their religiosity and not consider it genuine, but in most cases, even their opponents have rarely doubted the principle of their religiosity. In other words, in the real world, there has been a kind of relative consensus regarding the religiosity of these individuals. Now, proponents of the identitarian conception can claim that to understand religious intellectualism, we must refer to prominent examples (or paradigmatic cases), and organize our theory in such a way that it fulfills two important tasks: 1. It is compatible and proportionate with prominent cases and instances; 2. It can adequately explain those cases. Based on this a posteriori approach, they can claim that their definition is more proportionate to the reality of the phenomenon of religious intellectualism, and even if its explanatory power is not greater than the first conception, it is no less (10).
Critique of the fourth possibility: Although identifying the “conventional” religiosity of a person is not very difficult, as I quoted earlier, proponents of the identitarian conception consider the identification of “genuine” religiosity a condition for regarding someone as a religious intellectual; read again: “The secret of the attention and regard that religious people have for religious intellectuals is [...] that these intellectuals are genuinely religious.” And what can be discovered through external observation is a person’s conventional religiosity, not their genuine religiosity. Moreover, even if one could a posteriori, by referring to clear examples of religious intellectuals, also discover and determine their genuine religiosity, this religiosity would probably, to a large extent, at least in the personal sphere, resemble conventional religiosity (the first possibility); and if this type of conventional (or near-conventional) religiosity constitutes the meaning of religiosity in the identitarian conception of religious intellectualism, then the same objection leveled against the first possibility also applies to this one. That is, on this basis, for instance, the differing sharia of an Ismaili intellectual would still fall outside the instance of religiosity, and this is not an acceptable conclusion, at least for a religious intellectual.
Response to the critique of the fourth possibility: The qualifier “genuine” in a phrase like genuine religiosity can be taken in the conventional sense of the word and not in its noumenal sense. On this basis, the religiosity of figures like Bazargan, Motahhari, and Shariati can be conventionally considered genuine without encountering all the problems that the qualifier “genuine” faces in the noumenal sense of the word. Furthermore, the fact that the outcome of the meaning of religiosity, derived a posteriori, turns out to resemble conventional religiosity (the first meaning) does not mean that the fourth possibility faces the same problems as the first. This is because the fourth possibility leaves open the point that if, in the future, religious intellectuals were religious in a different way, then the meaning of religiosity could also undergo transformation, whereas such a thing is not possible in the first possibility.
It seems that this response to the critique of the fourth possibility is a convincing one. Accordingly, since the proponents of the identitarian conception of religious intellectualism have not specified what they mean by religiosity, their discussion suffers from a vitiating ambiguity, and based on the discussion above, they cannot consider their intended meaning of religiosity to be one of the first three possibilities and can only take it in the fourth sense.
6-2. The Impossibility and Undesirability of Discovering Instances of Religiosity
Since in this conception of religious intellectualism, religiosity is central, identifying whether or not someone is religious becomes centrally important for distinguishing religious intellectuals from non-religious intellectuals. If the proponents of the identitarian conception of religious intellectualism lean towards identifying the genuine religiosity of individuals (genuine in the noumenal sense of the word) in order to determine their religiosity, then several problems arise. Suppose a historian inclined towards the identitarian conception of religious intellectualism wants to write a book on the views of religious intellectuals (who, in this conception, are simply religious intellectuals). By what criterion should such a person distinguish religious intellectuals from non-religious ones?
Since it appears that the proponents of the identity theory mean by “religious person”—even if we consider the fourth possibility of religiosity—a religious person in the conventional or near-conventional sense, the historian of religious intellectualism, as well as those interested in religious intellectualism, must then endeavor to find out, for example, whether there is any indication in the works of these individuals that they believe in God and perform prayers. Or, if these intellectuals are married, whether their works contain any mention that their spouse observes hijab. Even if such indications are found, according to the view we earlier read from the advocates of the identity conception, these indications are still insufficient; rather, it must be established that their religiosity is “genuine.” And what if nothing is found in their works? Since religiosity becomes central in this sense for distinguishing religious intellectuals from non-religious ones, it seems that the historian of religion, as well as those who wish to favor religious intellectuals, must seek to discover in some other way whether a religious intellectual is “genuinely” religious or not (above, quoting one proponent of the identity conception, it was mentioned that in his view, the secret of people’s favor toward religious intellectuals is that they are genuinely religious, and his reference to this matter was prescriptive rather than merely descriptive, meaning that in his view, this is how it ought to be, not merely that this is how it has been so far).
But it seems very difficult to find a way to discover an individual’s genuine religiosity. Moreover, even if a way could be found to discover an individual’s genuine religiosity (11), it seems unlikely that such an undertaking would be desirable from an ethical, or even a religious, standpoint. Ethically, such an act violates individuals’ privacy, and from a Quranic perspective, at least according to one reading of the Quran, it constitutes “spying” (tajassus), which is prohibited by the Quran (49:12).
The objection of “the impossibility of discovering instances of religiosity” might be criticized on the grounds that those raising this objection commit the “fallacy of unattainable perfection,” meaning they propose an overly strict standard and criterion for identifying individuals’ religiosity such that this criterion can never be met, and then conclude that discovering instances of religiosity is impossible. In response to this criticism, it can be said that for the proponents of the identity conception, religiosity is of central importance in the definition of religious intellectualism; they then, in order to give centrality to religiosity in this conception, add the qualifier “genuine” to it, and a common understanding of the word “genuine” lies in its noumenal sense; therefore, it is they who, by adding such a qualifier without explaining their intent, commit the fallacy of unattainable perfection (or at least their position, due to its ambiguity, is susceptible to committing such a fallacy), and not those who, by raising the objection of “the impossibility of discovering instances of religiosity,” uncover this fallacious aspect. (12) In other words, by adding the qualifier “genuine” to religiosity, the proponents of the identity conception render the discovery of instances of religiosity impossible, and this is an unintended consequence of their adding this qualifier, even if they themselves do not take this consequence seriously. Accordingly, adding this qualifier, and not the uncovering of the implications of adding this qualifier, is an instance of the fallacy of unattainable perfection.
6-3. The Danger of Exclusionism
But leaving aside the objection concerning the possibility and desirability of discovering religiosity, the identity conception of religious intellectualism faces another problem: the danger of exclusionism. Emphasis on religiosity, even if it does not suffer from detrimental ambiguity, especially where such emphasis is unwarranted, inadvertently leads to exclusionism, and this has a historical precedent:
“The late Motahhari formed a meeting to establish rules and criteria for speakers. Perhaps most of these criteria were intended to exclude Shariati from the Hoseiniyeh. These provisions included not openly committing sins, adherence to piety, and abstaining from major sins. As Mohammad Homayoun, the owner of the Hoseiniyeh, put it: ‘Then please also add a provision that the speaker must not be bald! (implying that all these criteria are aimed at excluding Shariati)’” (13).
But setting aside all these difficulties, a point worth recalling at the end of this section is that even if religiosity harbored no disruptive ambiguity, and even if discovering individuals’ religiosity were possible and desirable and such an undertaking did not face the risk of reductionism, it is still unclear why, according to the proponents of the identitarian conception, an individual’s religiosity has acquired such pivotal importance in the intellectual work of an intellectual in the field of religion. As I demonstrated in the two arguments above (the agnostic and the manifestness arguments), religiosity is not counted among the constitutive components of religious intellectualism and is an accidental matter.
7- The emancipatory conception and the problem of compatibility
If, hypothetically, the emancipatory conception of the concept of religious intellectualism is defensible and the identitarian conception is not, what light does this discussion shed on the compatibility debate? That is, what consequence does it have for this recurrent and longstanding objection that religious intellectualism is a combination of mutually incompatible and discordant elements? The summary of this recurrent and longstanding objection is that the essence of religiosity rests on submission to authority, while the essence of intellectualism rests on critique, and critique and submission to authority are incompatible with one another. Our present discussion has this consequence for the compatibility debate: whether the compatibility objection holds or not, it is solely the identitarian conception of religious intellectualism that faces this objection (whether it can answer it or not), and not the emancipatory conception. For it is in the identitarian conception that religious intellectualism is reduced to and equated with the intellectualism of the religious, and then the objection is raised as to whether religiosity is compatible with intellectualism or not. But in the emancipatory conception of religious intellectualism, since religious intellectualism is not reduced to the intellectualism of the religious, we are not fundamentally faced with such an objection.
8. Farewell to “Religious Intellectualism”?!
A reader who has followed the discussion up to this point, even sympathetically, will naturally have this question cross their mind: now that “religious intellectualism” in its conventional sense (the identitarian sense) cannot be employed, what insistence is there on proposing an unconventional sense (the emancipatory sense) for this concept and thereby preserving its usage? Why not instead set this concept aside altogether and refrain from using it?
This question can be turned into a more serious one by invoking a normative principle concerning the application of concepts, proposed by the nineteenth-century British philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill. In Mill’s view: “When we mean different things by a name, we have no right to address those things by that same name.” (14) On this basis, an argument can be formulated as follows against the continued employment of the concept of “religious intellectualism”:
1- The emancipatory conception of the concept of “religious intellectualism” employs this concept in a sense different (from the conventional conception).
2- When we possess a different conception of a concept, for instance concept A, we must employ a different concept, for instance concept B, to name that different conception, and not continue to address that different conception with the same previous concept, concept A. (Let us call this, owing to its attribution to John Stuart Mill, “Mill’s Principle”).
Conclusion: To name the emancipatory conception of “religious intellectualism,” a concept different from “religious intellectualism” must be employed.
This argument is formally valid. On this basis, to critique it, one must see whether it is a sound argument? That is, besides formal validity, does it also have true premises? As we showed earlier, there is no doubt about the truth of premise 1, meaning the emancipatory conception is undoubtedly an unconventional conception. But what about premise 2, that is, “Mill’s Principle”? The second premise, however, appears to be false. For not only does considering it true entail that metaphor and figurative language be declared impermissible, but according to this principle, it is impossible for historical transformation and evolution to occur in the understandings formed of concepts (15), because whenever a new conception of a concept is formed, a new concept must be constructed for that new conception, rather than considering it a new conception of the previous concept.
For example, if in ancient Greece, love was predominantly used to mean love between men (see, for instance, the account of Alcibiades in the Symposium regarding the unrequited love between him and Socrates, which clearly has homosexual connotations), and if later, in the medieval centuries (the Middle Ages), love was predominantly used to mean love between a man and a woman, then according to Mill's principle, this cannot be considered a historical transformation and evolution in the understanding of a single concept called love; rather, medieval love is a new and separate entity that should be given another name, whereas our linguistic intuition dictates that we can, without any problem, consider both the Greek and medieval conceptions of love as two different understandings of the single concept of love and a part of the historical evolution of this concept.
Nevertheless, even if this argument is convincing and, consequently, a mere change in our understanding of a concept does not prohibit us from continuing to apply the same concept with the new understanding, the question still remains: when, then, should we abandon the use of a concept? The answer, in brief, is that a concept can be used as long as it retains its function.
Although the concept of religious intellectualism has historically been applied mostly to those who were called religious, the primary function of this concept is to refer to efforts aimed at presenting a liberating reading of religion, and the religiosity of these individuals has not been a determining factor in this matter. In its historical evolution, this concept may now or in the future be applied to individuals who are not personally called religious and/or do not describe themselves as such, but as long as their work involves striving to present a liberating reading of religion, their work can, without any problem, be considered an instance of religious intellectualism.
Summary of the Discussion
Two conceptions of the meaning of religious intellectualism have been proposed. According to the liberating conception, religious intellectualism is intellectual work in the field of religion aimed at presenting a liberating reading of religious texts, undertaken by anyone with any belief and lifestyle. According to the identitarian conception, religious intellectualism is intellectual work carried out in the field of religion by the religious (and only the religious). Two arguments were advanced in favor of the liberating conception: the agnostic argument and the manifestness argument. The aim of both these arguments was to show that the beliefs and lifestyle of intellectuals working in the field of religion have no bearing on the definition of the concept of religious intellectualism. Then, the arguments advanced in favor of the identitarian conception were criticized, and it was shown that neither the conventionality of this conception is a defensible argument in its favor, nor is religiosity a necessary condition for taking religious identity seriously. Subsequently, the objections raised against the liberating conception were answered, and it was emphasized that none of these objections are valid. Then, four objections were raised against the identitarian conception: its potential to foster institutionalized hypocrisy and dissimulation, the disruptive ambiguity of the concept of religiosity, the impossibility and undesirability of identifying instances of religiosity, and the danger of exclusionism. Following this, the implications of the two conceptions for the debate on whether religious intellectualism is paradoxical or not were briefly discussed. Finally, the issue was raised: now that the concept of "religious intellectualism" in its conventional (identitarian) sense cannot be used, why not simply abandon the use of this concept altogether and consign it to the stagnant archive of concepts? The answer was that this concept still has a function, so it does not belong in the attic.
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Footnotes:
* I am grateful to the friends and professors who reviewed the draft(s) of this essay and whose critical insights led to changes in the text: Koosha Eqbal (second draft), Ali Paya, Mohammad Reza Jalaeipour, Soroush Dabbagh, Mohammad Hossein Dabbagh, Ali Saboohi, Akbar Ganji, and Arash Naraghi (both the draft and oral discussions). And I thank the other friends and professors whose critical insights on the first draft of this essay, though they did not lead to changes in the text, prompted me to pause and reflect: Hossein Kamali and Mohammad Mehdi Mojahedi. And finally, I thank the friends and professors who read the first draft of this essay: Mostafa Rokhsefat and Abolghasem Fanaei. It goes without saying that—not least because I did not find some critical insights agreeable, did not apply them, or applied them in a different manner—the responsibility for this text rests solely with the author.
1. For two accounts of the religious intellectual according to the emancipatory conception, see:
and also:
For two accounts of the religious intellectual according to the identitarian conception, see:
and also:
2. I have argued elsewhere that an agnostic “can” pray to God; see the end of this interview: On Negative Theology (1), Radio Zamaneh website, at this address. Some philosophers of religion have tried to go even further and say that not only can agnostics pray to God, but atheists too, under certain conditions, not only can pray to God, but have a prima facie epistemic duty to do so. For example, see:
Mawson, T. J., Praying to stop being an atheist, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, (2010) 67:173–186.
4. The proposal and formulation of this argument are the result of Arash Naraghi’s critical insight; I extend special thanks to him.
5. See: Fanaei, Abolghasem, source in footnote 1.
6. Logical tautology differs from literary tautology. For example, Ali Shariati’s famous sentence “Fatemeh is Fatemeh,” considering the context of his speech, is tautological only in a literary sense and not in a logical one. Accordingly, the definition of logical tautology we provided in the text (which is nothing but the repetition of a word) does not apply to this literary tautology. Because Shariati’s sentence, although deliberately having a tautological appearance, is in fact trying to express the point that no description does justice to the character of Fatemeh, which is a completely non-tautological statement, and a tautological appearance is merely used to emphasize this point.
7. Fanaei, Abolghasem, source in footnote 1. Henceforth, all our direct and indirect references in the discussion of the identitarian conception are to this same source.
- Pritchard, Duncan, What is This Thing Called Knowledge, Routledge, 2006, p. 24.
8. The emphasis here is not on the vagueness of this concept in itself, but on the fact that this vagueness is detrimental to understanding. For the vagueness of a concept, in itself, does not count as an objection against it, because it is highly unlikely that one could find a concept that is in principle free of vagueness. That is to say, the vagueness of the concept of religiosity as a central component in the definition of religious intellectualism—and not the vagueness of religiosity in itself (and this qualification is important)—is such that it makes grasping its meaning difficult. And this is different from when a concept is vague, but its approximate meaning is, or can become, clear to the audience; in other words, in such cases the existing vagueness is non-detrimental (to understanding). From this explanation, it becomes clear that the position adopted here leads to the detrimental vagueness of certain concepts in specific contexts, and not every concept in every context. In other words, the position adopted here does not lead to “semantic skepticism,” in the sense that all concepts have detrimental vagueness. Rather, a concept merely has detrimental vagueness if, in a specific context, it cannot indicate any of its possible meanings. Accordingly, many concepts are vague, but after examination, they can be defensibly applied to one of their possible meanings. In what follows, I will argue that the concept of religiosity, not in itself, but when employed as a central concept for defining religious intellectualism, becomes afflicted with detrimental vagueness, meaning it cannot defensibly indicate some of its possible meanings.
9. The dogmatic exclusivist does not grant the other the right to err and does not, in principle, consider the other to have a right in what they see as their erroneous belief. The non-dogmatic exclusivist, however, although considering only their own religion to be true, grants the other the right to err or, in Arash Naraghi’s terms, the “right to be wrong.” Furthermore, the dogmatic exclusivist does not consider themselves obliged to respond to others’ criticisms of their religious position, nor do they grant others the right to critique religion (except for critiquing religions they deem false), whereas the non-dogmatic exclusivist acknowledges such an obligation for themselves to defend their religion and, typically, such a right for others to critique their religion. It is also necessary to note that our discussion here concerns theological exclusivism, which differs from political exclusivism, and there is no necessary connection between non-dogmatic theological exclusivism and political exclusivism, although a connection might possibly be established between dogmatic theological exclusivism and political exclusivism.
10. The proposal and formulation of the fourth possibility, as well as the response to the critique of the fourth possibility, are the result of Arash Naraghi’s insightful observations; I extend special thanks to him.
11. For example, imagine a situation in which lie-detector devices have advanced to such an extent that, with a negligible margin of error, they could be asked to measure the realization of a defined possible state of affairs for those devices (for instance, religiosity in the jurisprudential Twelver Shi‘i conception) in a specific individual.
12. Ali Paya had considered such a critique to apply to the “problem of the impossibility of discovering instances of religiosity.” I extend special thanks to him.
13. Shariat-Razavi, Pouran, Tarhi az yek Zendegi [An Outline of a Life], vol. 2, Tehran, Chapakhsh Publications, 1376 [1997], p. 229.
- Mill, John Stuart, An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy and of the Principal Philosophical Questions Discussed in His Writings, ed. J M Robson, University of Toronto Press, 1979, p. 102.
- MacIntyre, Alasdair, Which God Ought We to Obey and Why? Faith and Philosophy, Volume 3, Issue 4, 1986, p. 369.
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Is Religious Intellectualism the Same as the Intellectualism of the Religious?
Author: Yaser Mirdamadi
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