Avicenna

So I’m new at this philosophy thing and I don’t know all the names. The last few — Plotinus, Boetinus and now Avicenna — I’d never heard of. This is also because we’re at an in-between stage in the history of philosophy. In Europe, the podcast Philosophize This! is delving into the Dark Ages. Stephen West explains it better than I can, but this period got its name because it was considered that there was a decline in economic, intellectual, and cultural activity in western Europe. Like any stereotype, there’s a basis of truth in there but historians are not so black and white about it.

At the same period in Baghdad, the Muslim world is at its apogee of culture when Avicenna lived (980-1037). So one culture rose while the other fell, and process that would be repeated later when the golden Islamic age ended. I’ve wikied this, and the end is called the Great Divergence, when the west grew into the behemoth that we know today.

So that’s me educated.

West often asks a question at the end of an episode. With episode 019, it’s the following; are there things we cannot prove with reason alone, things that aren’t magical in the slightest bit, things that every day, whether we realize it or not, we accept on faith? I think he was talking about Averroes, who lived after Avicenna and tried to reconcile Islam with philosophy (and particularly Greek philosophy).

So one answer: I think that emotions exchanged among humans are a fit answer to that question. I cannot prove that someone loves, or hates me, but I accept it on faith. There are signs, but no more signs than the average believer in any religion might have for their god/God/gods.

There’s also the feeling my father had (the lazy agnostic about this topic at least), that there was something big and beautiful out there in nature, in the skies, a feeling maybe of “other”. This feeling didn’t give him solid reasons to believe in something, but he had faith in it.

Being loved by someone is the greatest gift anyone can give you. However, I have to play devil’s advocate and talk about the idea of being hated. I know I’ve been hated in the past; I’m a teacher. I’ve had to tell students “no”, or draw a line with their bad or selfish behavior. It’s not comfortable to be hated. When it’s happened, I’ve wanted to cry out “But but but, you don’t know me! I really am a nice person!” (because everyone wants to be seen as a nice person).

The fact that me drawing a line in the sand was completely, institutionally justified doesn’t help. The fact that the couple of kids who’ve really hated me were sociopaths doesn’t really change anything. If someone has never been told “no” before, it’s world shattering when it happens. The only good thing is that these kids probably don’t remember exactly why they hated me, or if they needed to nurture their hatred, they likely added things to their hate to make it more justifiable. (It wasn’t just that I brought everyone home from our school outing early because they were being awful, but I….who knows, I insulted them maybe? or said something racist or anti-who-knows-what…) Or they just forgot about it and moved on to hating someone else. Of those who’ve hated me, most were going through something else at the time, and I was collateral damage. A couple weren’t. A couple are really just bad people. Happens.

So West’s question: are there things we cannot prove with reason alone, things that aren’t magical in the slightest bit, things that every day, whether we realize it or not, we accept on faith? I accept that these couple of students hated me. I accept that my partner loves me, and my sister, and probably my nephew. There are a few friends I’d add to that, my oldest ones mostly, who I’ve loved and have loved me for so long we no longer ask ourselves why.

And I suppose that’s how Averroes reconciled his faith with philosophy. He accepted God’s (Allah’s) love on faith.