Seyyed Hossein Nasr Under the Microscope of Shargh Daily | Sedanet

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Nasr and Modern Science

Mohammad Reza Tavakoli-Saberi. Author and translator of scientific works

After Galileo turned his astronomical telescopes toward the sky and released his balls down inclined planes, he set off a tremendous revolution in science and philosophy—a revolution that continues to this day. Before that, philosophers studied the world and existence through rational and logical methods and interfered in the experimental work of scientists. Galileo’s important achievement was to show that the method of observation and experiment holds the upper hand in understanding nature and must ultimately test the validity of the rational method. In doing so, he made humanity more aware of the powerful tool of experiment and experience, enabling a better explanation of the natural world than before. A tool that allowed humans to see the farthest galaxies and the tiniest organisms, and to travel to the heights of the skies and the depths of the oceans. Nevertheless, even in our age there are those who do not see this immense power and this great achievement, and who try to belittle them. They prefer the pre-Galilean world—a world in which everything was interconnected. The Earth was the center of the universe and the other planets revolved around it. The celestial spheres determined human destiny, diseases were caused by humors or the influence of the stars upon humans, and enemas, fumigations, and herbal concoctions cured all human illnesses. The scholars and sages of the past were wiser and more comprehensive than contemporary scientists because their knowledge encompassed a wide spectrum of learning. The driving factor behind these individuals’ outlook is their specific ideology, philosophy, and religious perspective. Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr is one of those who has written numerous books and articles on the history and philosophy of science in Islam and is among the Traditionalists who believe that the Islamic world needs Islamic science—that is, a type of scholarship built upon Islamic foundations and beliefs. Dr. Nasr considers the modern experimental sciences to be entirely separate from the definition of science, and even deems the pursuit of them un-Islamic and condemns it. In his article “Islam and Science,” Dr. Nasr states: “Many Muslims have tried to show that Islam, unlike Christianity, is not in conflict with science, but what they meant by science was knowledge in the sense of wisdom and the traditional sciences, not the modern sciences.” (Book: Islam and Contemporary Society) Dr. Nasr believes that modern sciences are incompatible with Islam because they cause young people to lose faith in religion. In his view, science must possess characteristics that do not destroy the faith of Muslims. He believes that “the sciences produced by Muslims in no way challenged Islam or Islamic scholarship in the manner of modern sciences. They did not abandon their prayers the way today’s students abandon their religious duties upon studying mathematics or chemistry. Something very important separates the modern sciences of today from the traditional sciences of the past. This ‘something’ lies at the heart of the problem of the confrontation between Islam and modern sciences. Until this ‘something,’ or the factors that separate modern sciences from traditional sciences, is identified and understood, there is no hope of resolving the threat and challenge posed by modern sciences to the traditional sciences and the Islamic worldview. No matter how much the existence of this problem is denied and it is said that Islam is in agreement with science, this does not prevent the spread of this secular science, whose foundation rests upon the forgetting of God, nor does it prevent the erosion of the foundations of the edifice of Islamic faith.” (Same source) Another aspect of Dr. Nasr’s opposition to modern sciences is the reductionism of science. He says that Islam cannot accept the reductionism of the sciences and their reduction into more specialized branches, because these sciences reduce metaphysics to psychology, psychology to biology, biology to chemistry, and chemistry to physics, thus bringing all elements of reality down to the lowest level of manifestation, namely the physical realm. Dr. Nasr’s objection to the reductionism of scholarship is unwarranted, because this division does not conflict with Islamic science. Did not the scholars of Islam, over successive centuries, make science more specialized and branched? Did they not make algebra and arithmetic more specialized, or, as they themselves have said, separate pharmacology from medicine? If that same scientific tradition of Muslims had continued until now, Muslims would probably have followed the same path as Christians. Science is a dynamic and active human endeavor and cannot fail to grow and develop. Even now, it is impossible for anyone to study all branches of physics or astronomy, let alone other fields such as medicine, theology, and philosophy, as the Islamic and Christian sages and scholars once did. In his book Science and Civilization in Islam, Dr. Nasr says that in the history of Islam, the central and principal figure in the transmission of science was the wise man or hakim.
A hakim was usually a physician, writer, or poet. In the figure of the hakim one can observe the unity of all sciences, as he would teach various branches of knowledge. The hakim or polymath, Dr. Nasr, corresponds to those scholars or Renaissance men, one of the last and finest examples of whom was the Italian Leonardo da Vinci, whose artistic works in painting and sculpture and scientific works in mechanics, physics, and other fields of human knowledge were far more advanced than those of many Islamic sages of his time and after them. Dr. Nasr is so immersed in and enamored of the past that he ultimately disregards the achievements of knowledge and thought over the past four centuries, considering them a negative trait for human beings because they have been emptied of their metaphysical burden. Instead of taking pride in and boasting about the science of the past, Dr. Nasr and his like would do better to devote their efforts to encouraging modern science in various fields (especially the theoretical sciences), so that perhaps in the long run someone might emerge to reconcile Islamic metaphysics with the new scholarship. Scholarship cannot subordinate itself to metaphysics; rather, it is metaphysics and the supernatural that are influenced by scholarship and adapt themselves to it. Santillana is therefore right in saying that if Abu Rayhan had been in the place of Copernicus or Galileo, he would have done the same as they did, which is a sign of the truth-seeking of genuine scholars, regardless of philosophical and religious considerations, in the process of scientific discovery.

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PDF file of all the above writings in Shargh Daily

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Discussion3 comments

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اصغر

نام آقای نصر تنها نام ایرانی در فهرست صد فیلسوف زنده جهان است،اما شهرت ایشان در غرب به دلیل رویکرد ایشان در مواجهه با مشکلات و بحرانهای جهان مدرن میباشد.در واقع ایشان برای غربی که در مدرنیسم غوطه ور است،حرفی برای گفتن دارد(حتی مهم نیست که نظر او درست یا اشتباه باشد،همین که طرح مسئله میکند برای آنها غنیمت است).اما تردید نباید کرد که استقبال از ایده های ایشان در جایی مانند ایران که هنوز در حال چالش با سطحی ترین ابعاد مدرنیته است و کمتر درکی از اعماق این زیست جهان دارد،حرکتی ضد فرهنگی و نوعی ضدیت با پویش ترقی خواهانه علمی صنعتی جامعه ایرانی است.

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علیرضا افخمی

منظور حضرت عالی آن است که حتما باید صبر کنیم تا به همان جهان مدرنیته پیشرفته غرب برسیم و با آفات این مدرنیته مواجه شویم و بعد حرفهای نصر را گوش بدهیم؟!یعنی علاج واقعه قبل از وقوع نکنیم؟!!

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احمد

انگاره های ضدعلمی نصر به ویژه از طریق شاگردان و پیروانش مانع رشد علم در ایران بوده است . نقد نصر هر چند دیرهنگام اما ضروری و ستودنی است .