An Appraisal of Al-Razi's Rationality and his Doctrine of the Five Essesnces
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Date
2019
Authors
Owosho, S.A.
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Publisher
Department of History, Kaduna State University
Abstract
Against the background of Al-Razi's rationalist epistemology as demonstrated in his exaltation and highest admiration of reason over revelation, this paper critically examines Al-Razi's attempt at reconciling rationalistic theology with philosophy by incorporating concepts taken from Aristotle and other Greek philosophers with the Quran. The metaphysical doctrine of Al-Razi, insofar as it can be reconstructed, derives from his concept of the five eternal principles. God, for him, does not 'create' the world from nothing but rather arranges a universe out of pre-existing principles. His account of the soul features a mythic origin of the world in which God out of pity fashions a physical playground for the soul in response to its own desires; the soul, once fallen into the new realm God has made for it, requires God's further gift of intellect in order to find its way once more to salvation and freedom. In this scheme, intellect does not appear as a separate principle but is rather a later grace of God to the soul; the soul becomes intelligent, possessed of reason and therefore able to discern the relative value of the other four principles. Whereas the five principles are eternal, intellect as such is apparently not. Such a doctrine of intellect is sharply at odds with that of all of Razi's philosophical contemporaries, who are in general either adherents of some form of Neoplatonism or of Aristotelianism. The remaining three principles, space, matter and time, serve as the non-animate components of the natural world
Description
Scholarly Publication
Keywords
God , Soul , Space , Matter , Time
Citation
Owosho S.A. (2019). An Appraisal of Al-Razi's Rationality and his Doctrine of the Five Essesnces, Kaduna Journal of Humanities, 3 (1), ISSN: 2636-6436, Department of History, Kaduna State University, Kaduna, 410-422