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Monday, March 19, 2012
CVSP 202 General Lecture
[email protected]
IBN TUFAYL AND THE PHILOSOPHUS AUTODIDACTUS (self-taught
philosopher)
I. Brief historical background
II. Abu Bakr Ibn Tufayl Al Qaisi: Life and works
III. Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān – a philosophic parable on mysticism?
a. General introduction - Overall purpose and aim of the
parable
b. Ibn Tufayl’s own introduction to the parable:
Critique of Al-Fārābī, Ibn Bājjah, Ibn Sīnā, and Al-Ghazālī
c. The two accounts of Hayy’s coming to be on the island:
science/philosophy and
tradition/religion?
d. The life of Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān:
i. First stage (which extends to his 3rd
septennial, i.e. until he is 21 years of age):
learning and discovery through observation and empirical
inquiry; from particulars
to universals…
ii. Second stage (which follows the first and extends to his
5th
septennial, i.e. between
the ages of 21 and 35): from the observable world to the
intelligible world; from
matter, to form, to essence; to the unity of the Whole…
iii. Third stage (which follows the second and extends to his
7th
septennial, i.e. between
the ages of 35 and 49): beyond the observable and intelligible
worlds; seeking the
Divine Essence… the path of true happiness and felicity; the
three emulations: of
animal life, of the celestial beings, and of the Necessary
Being…
iv. Post-enlightenment period:
a. Encountering Asal
b. Desiring to enlighten the believers
c. Return to the ‘uninhabited’ island
IV. Conclusive remarks:
i. Are we restricted by our social constructs in our quest for
the attainment of the Divine?
ii. As we can never truly be Hayy, are we at best capable of
Asal’s attainment? Or are we to
strive to be Hayys?
iii. Is Salaman truly ignorant? Or is he perhaps protecting the
populace, and as such wiser
than our friends in their early attempts at enlightening the
many?
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Central quotations from Ibn Tufayl’s Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān:
“The reason that the disclosure of this secret and the tearing
of its veil were made easy for us was
the appearance, in our present time, of corrupt opinions aired
and broached by some
contemporaneous pretenders to philosophy, till they spread all
over the countries, and the
mischief caused by it has now become common. Fearing lest the
weak ones who have rejected
the authority of the prophets and who would want to imitate the
fools, should think that these
opinions are the secrets guarded against the ones unworthy of
them, and so increase their
inclination to, and love of, them, we decided to give them a
glimpse of the secret of secrets in
order to attract them to the side of selffulfillment and avert
them from this road. Nevertheless, we
have not left whatever secrets we confided to these pages
without a thin veil and a delicate
curtain, which is easy to break by those worthy of doing so, but
which turns thick for the ones
unworthy of going beyond it so that they would be unable to go
any further.”
“O God, thou form’dst this Child out of nothing, and didst
cherish him in the dark Recesses of
my Womb, till he was compleat in all his parts…”
“For this Spirit emanates continually and abundantly from the
Most High and Glorious God, and
may be compared to the Light of the Sun which is sent forth
continually and abundantly over the
World”.
“He began to imagine that the hurt was in some Organ which was
remote from the sight and
hidden in the inward part of the Body… and that if this Organ
suffer any hurt, the damage was
General, and a cessation of the whole ensu’d.”
“Whereas at first sight Things had appeared to him innumerable
and not to be comprehended;
now he discovered the whole Mass and Bulk of Creatures to be in
Reality only One.”
“That there was an Agent, that was not Body, nor separated from
it, nor within it, nor without
it…”
“He that continually has it present to him must needs enjoy
uninterrupted Delight, boundless
Felicity, and Infinite Joy and Gladness.”
“Let not thy heart crave a Description of that which the Heart
of Man cannot conceive… and
whosoever asks to have that State explain’d, asks an
impossibility… However, I shall not
dismiss you without some Indications whereby I shall convey to
you in some Measure what
wonderful things he saw when in that Station, but all
figuratively and by way of Parable, without
knocking upon the Door of Truth.”
[All excerpts above taken from: Hayy Ibn Yaqzan by Abu Bakr Ibn
Tufail, translated by Simon Ockley, Revised with an introduction by
A. S.
Fulton, London Chapman and Hall limited, 1929]
