The Epistemic Virtues of Islam and the Ideals of the Enlightenment

Dr. habil. Mehmet Sait Reçber

Mehmet Sait Reçber, born in 1967, is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the Ankara University since 2005. Currently, he is Visiting Associate Professor at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. He was Assistant Professor at the Ankara University from 2001-2005 and Visiting Associate Professor at the Kyoto University (2002-2003). He received a Ph.D. from the King’s College, University of London, in 1998. He published several academic articles in English and Turkish.

Selected publications

Tanrı’yı Bilmenin İmkânı ve Mâhiyeti [The Possibility and Nature of Knowing God] 2004, Ankara: Kitabiyat.

İslam, Din ve Çağdaş Durum [Islam, Religion and Modern Predicament] (2004), İslâmiyât.

Hick, the Real and al-Haqq (2005), Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 16.

Ibn al Arabi, Hick and Religious Pluralism (2008), Asian and African Area Studies, 7-2.

Dini Çeşitlilik [Religious Diversity] (2006), Din ve Ahlak Felsefesi (İlitam) ed. R. Kılıç, Anküzem Yay., Ankara, 2006.

The Epistemic Virtues of Islam and the Ideals of the Enlightenment

Islam and the Enlightenment may seem incommensurable inasmuch as the former is a religion with a definite set of beliefs and practices while the latter is a thought or ideology or intellectual attitude concerning different aspects of a contingent human phenomenon shaped under certain social and historical circumstances. This consideration can be justified to some extent, but it is true that both Islam and the Enlightenment presuppose certain elements constitutive of a thought-system or world-view. Islam and the Enlightenment have various aspects and each of them needs to be analyzed with due consideration. In my presentation, however, by restricting my interest to the epistemological perspectives of Islam and the Enlightenment I would like to argue that there is or can be a considerable overlapping between their truth-claims that are essential to an individual’s self-emancipation from an unwarranted attitude, particularly, in religious matters. It thus seems to me that the epistemological ideals of the Enlightenment as exemplified in the thought of someone like Kant can reasonably be defended in conjunction with the epistemic virtues required by Islam. The intellectual requirements of the Enlightenment and epistemic virtues of Islam can be defended on the common ground of a ‘virtue epistemology’ where a considerable openness to various criticisms and argumentations is maintained for a responsible attitude with respect to an unconditional pursue of truth. Although there may be certain difficulties if one thinks it necessary to exclude the idea of revelation in our search for truth such an approach will be unjustified as long as the truth-claims of a revelation are left open to rational scrutiny. Finally, given that the nature of the Enlightenment is currently under debate, it seems to me that the meta-epistemological considerations of Islam can help one in eliminating the undesired consequences resulting from certain pretensions of the Enlightenment thought.