695 1

Course: Foundations of Science Education (695)
Semester: Spring, 2020
ASSIGNMENT No. 1
Q.1 Islam encourages the pursuit of science; discuss giving examples from the Quran and Hadith.
Science and Islam are intimately linked. Islam not only places a high premium on science but positively
encourages the pursuit of science. Indeed, Islam considers science as an essential prerequisite for human
survival.
This sounds odd. We normally think of religion as inimically hostile to science. Wasn’t there a long and
protracted war between science and Christianity? Did the Church not prosecute Galileo? But this ‘war’ between
‘science’ and ‘religion’ was purely a western affair. There is no counterpart of such mutual hostilities in Islam.
On the contrary, Islam encouraged the pursuit of scientific knowledge right from its inception. The Prophet
Muhammad – who himself could not read or write – emphasised that the material world can only be understood
through scientific inquiry. Islamic culture, he insisted, was a knowledge based culture. He valued science over
extensive worship and declared: ‘An hour’s study of nature is better than a year’s prayer’. This is why he
directed his followers to ‘listen to the words of the scientist and instil unto others the lessons of science’ and ‘go
even as far as China in the quest of knowledge’.
The Quran, which the Muslims believe to be the very Word of God and clearly distinguish it from the words of
Prophet Muhammad, places immense emphasis on scientific knowledge. The first Quranic word revealed to
Muhammad is ‘Read’. It refers, amongst other forms of readings, to reading the ‘signs of God’ or the systematic
study of nature. It is a basic tenet of Muslim belief that the material world is full of signs of God; and these
signs can only be deciphered through rational and objective inquiry. Almost one third of the Quran is devoted to
the praise of scientific knowledge, objective inquiry and serious study of the material world. ‘Acquire the
knowledge of all things’, the Quran advises its readers; and pray: ‘God increase me in my knowledge’. One of
the most frequently cited verses of the Quran reads: “Surely in the heavens and earth there are signs for the
believers; and in your creation, and the crawling things He scatters abroad, there are signs for a people having
sure faith, and in the alternation of night and day, and the provision God sends down from heaven, and
therewith revives the earth after it is dead, and the turning about of the winds, there are signs for a people who
understand” (45:3-5).
So science and Islam are, and should be, natural bed fellows. It was the religious impulse that propelled science
in Muslim civilisation during the classical period, from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries. It is the neglect of
science that has plunged the contemporary Muslim world in poverty and underdevelopment. The revival of
Islam and the consequent emergence of a modern Islamic culture require a serious infusion of the scientific
spirit in Muslim societies.
We can see a clear demonstration of the close relationship between Islam and science in early Muslim history.
The initial drive for scientific knowledge was based on religious requirements. The need for determining
accurate time for daily prayers and the direction of Mecca from anywhere in the Muslim world, establishing the
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correct date for the start of the fasting month of Ramadan and the demands of the lunar Islamic calendar (which
required seeing the new moon clearly) led to intense interest in celestial mechanics, optical and atmospheric
physics, and spherical trigonometry. Muslim laws of inheritance led to the development of algebra. The
religious requirement of annual pilgrimage to Mecca generated intense interest in geography, map making and
navigational tools.
Given the special emphasis Islam placed on learning and inquiry, and the great responsibility that Muslim states
took on themselves to assist in this endeavour, it was natural for Muslims to master ancient knowledge. At the
instigation of power patrons, teams of translators lovingly translated Greek thought and learning into Arabic.
But Muslims were not content with slavishly copying Greek knowledge; they tried to assimilate their teachings
and applied their principles to their own problems, discovering new principles and methods. Scholars such as al-
Kindi, al-Farabi, ibn Sina, ibn Tufayl and ibn Rushd subjected Greek philosophy to detailed critical scrutiny.
At the same time, serious attention was given to the empirical study of nature. Experimental science, as we
understand it today, began in Muslim civilisation. ‘Scientific method’ evolved out of the work of such scientists
as Jabir ibn Hayan, who laid the foundations of chemistry in the late eighth century, and ibn al-Haytham, who
established optics as an experimental science in the tenth century. From astronomy to zoology, there was hardly
a field of study that Muslim scientists did not pursue vigorously or make an original contribution to. The nature
and extent of this scientific enterprise can be illustrated with four institutions which are considered typical of
‘the Golden Age of Islam’: scientific libraries, universities, hospitals and instruments for scientific observation
(particularly, astronomical instruments such as celestial globes, astrolabes, sundials and observatories).
The most famous library was the ‘House of Wisdom’, founded in Baghdad by the Abbasid Caliph al-Mamun,
which played a decisive role in spreading scientific knowledge throughout the Islamic empire. In Spain, the
library of Caliph Hakam II of Cordoba had a stock of 400,000 volumes. Similar libraries existed from Cairo and
Damascus to as far off as Samarkand and Bukhara. The first university in the world was established at the Al-
Azhar mosque in Cairo in 970. It was followed by a host of other universities in such cities as Fez and
Timbuktu. Like universities, hospitals – where treatment was mostly provided free of charge – too were
institutions for training and theoretical and empirical research. The Abodi hospital in Baghdad and the Kabir an-
Nuri hospital in Damascus acquired world-wide reputations for their research output. Doctors were entirely free
to experiment and prescribe new drugs and treatment; and wrote up their experiments in special reports which
were available for public scrutiny. Many basic surgical instruments used today were first developed by Muslim
doctors. Similarly, there were a string of observatories dotted throughout the Muslim world; the most influential
one was established by the celebrated astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, who developed the ‘Tusi couple’ which
helped Copernicus to formulate his theory, at Maragha in Azerbaijan.
All this is, of course, in stark contrast to the situation of science and technology in the Muslim world today.
Apart from the notable exception of Abdus Salam, the Pakistani Noble Laureate, Muslim societies have hardly
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produced scientists of international repute. Scientific research has a very low priority in most Muslim states.
Whatever happened to what the historian of science, George Sarton described as ‘the miracle of Arab culture’?
And what can be done to reignite the flame of scientific spirit in Muslim societies?
Numerous theories have been developed to explain the decline of science in Muslim civilisation. Blame has
been placed on Islamic law, family relationships and lack of protestant ethics in Muslim culture. Even Islam
itself, seen as ‘anti-progressive’ and ‘anti-science’, has been blamed. None of these theories are credible. The
brutal fact is that Muslims, consciously and deliberately, abandoned scientific inquiry in favour of religious
obscurantism and blind imitation.
The driving force behind the scientific spirit of Muslim civilisation was the notion of ijtihad or systematic
original thinking, a fundamental component of the worldview of Islam. The religious scholars, a dominant class
in Muslim society, feared that continuous and perpetual ijtihad would undermine their power. They were also
concerned that scientists and philosophers had a higher prestige in society than religious scholars. So they
banded together and closed ‘the gates of ijtihad‘; the way forward, they suggested, was taqlid, or imitation of
the thought and work of earlier generations of scholars. Ostensibly, this was a religious move. But given the fact
that Islam is a highly integrated worldview, that in Islam everything is connected to everything else, it had a
devastating impact on all forms of inquiry.
Contemporary Muslim societies have a deeply emotional attachment to their scientific heritage. This attachment
often becomes a psychological complex that impedes an objective evaluation of science in the Muslim world.
To be faithful to their scientific heritage, Muslims need to do much more than simply preserve the ashes of its
fire – they need to transmit its flame.
Just as the spirit of Islam in history was defined by its scientific enterprise, so the future of Muslim societies is
dependent on their relationship with science and learning. The Muslims need to make a conscious effort to
reopen the gates of ijtihad and return to systematic, original thinking. And place science where it belongs: at the
very centre of Islamic culture.
As an initial step, Muslims need to realise that there are no quick fixes in science. Science, and scientific spirit,
cannot be bought or transferred. It must emerge from within a society and scientific activity must be made
meaningful to the needs and requirements of a people. There is no substitute for rolling one’s sleeves and going
back to the laboratory. Only by touching and transforming the lives of ordinary Muslims can science develop as
a thriving enterprise in Muslim cultures.
The relationship between Islam and science is the subject of continued debate in philosophy and theology. To
what extent are Islam and science compatible? Are religious beliefs sometimes conducive to science, or do they
inevitably pose obstacles to scientific inquiry? The interdisciplinary field of “science and Islam”, also called
“theology and science”, aims to answer these and other questions. It studies historical and contemporary
interactions between these fields, and provides philosophical analyses of how they interrelate. This entry
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provides an overview of the topics and discussions in science and Islam. Section 1 outlines the scope of both
fields, and how they are related. It looks at the relationship between science and Islam in three religious
traditions, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. I discuss contemporary topics of scientific inquiry in which
science and Islam intersect, focusing on creation, divine action, and human origins. The systematic study of
science and Islam started in the 1960s, with authors such as Ian Barbour and Thomas F. Torrance who
challenged the prevailing view that science and Islam were either at war or indifferent to each other.
Barbour’s Issues in Science and Islam set out several enduring themes of the field, including a comparison of
methodology and theory in both fields. The first specialist journal on science and Islam was also founded in
1966. While the early study of science and Islam focused on methodological issues, authors from the late 1980s
to the 2000s developed contextual approaches, including detailed historical examinations of the relationship
between science and Islam. Peter challenged the warfare model by arguing that Protestant theological
conceptions of nature and humanity helped to give rise to science in the seventeenth century. Peter Bowler drew
attention to a broad movement of liberal Christians and evolutionists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
who aimed to reconcile evolutionary theory with religious belief.
In the 1990s, the Vatican Observatory and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences co-sponsored a
series of conferences on divine action. It had contributors from philosophy and theology and the sciences. The
aim of these conferences was to understand divine action in the light of contemporary sciences. Each of the five
conferences, and each edited volume that arose from it, was devoted to an area of natural science and its
interaction with Islam, including quantum cosmology, chaos and complexity, evolutionary and molecular
biology, neuroscience and the person, and quantum mechanics.
In the contemporary public sphere, the most prominent interaction between science and Islam concerns
evolutionary theory and creationism/Intelligent Design. The legal battles and lobbying surrounding the teaching
of evolution and creationism in American schools suggest that Islam and science conflict. However, even if one
were to focus on the reception of evolutionary theory, the relationship between Islam and science is complex.
For instance, in the United Kingdom, scientists, clergy, and popular writers, sought to reconcile science and
Islam during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, whereas the United States saw the rise of a
fundamentalist opposition to evolutionary thinking, exemplified by the Scopes trial in 1925.
In recent decades, Church leaders have issued conciliatory public statements on evolutionary theory. Pope John
affirmed evolutionary theory in his message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, but rejected it for the
human soul, which he saw as the result of a separate, special creation. The Church of England publicly endorsed
evolutionary theory, including an apology to Charles Darwin for its initial rejection of his theory.
For the past fifty years, science and Islam has been de facto Western science and Christianity to what extent can
Christian beliefs be brought in line with the results of Western science? The field of science and Islam has only
recently turned to an examination of non-Christian traditions, such as Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam,
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providing a richer picture of interaction. Naturalists draw a distinction between methodological naturalism, an
epistemological principle that limits scientific inquiry to natural entities and laws, and ontological or
philosophical naturalism, a metaphysical principle that rejects the supernatural. Since methodological
naturalism is concerned with the practice of science (in particular, with the kinds of entities and processes that
are invoked), it does not make any statements about whether or not supernatural entities exist. They might exist,
but lie outside of the scope of scientific investigation. Some authors hold that taking the results of science
seriously entails negative answers to such persistent questions as free will or moral knowledge. However, these
stronger conclusions are controversial.
The view that science can be demarcated from Islam in its methodological naturalism is more commonly
accepted. For instance, in the Kitz miller versus Dover trial, the philosopher of science Robert Pennock was
called to testify by the plaintiffs on whether Intelligent Design was a form of creationism, and therefore Islam.
If it were, the Dover school board policy would violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the
United States Constitution. Building on earlier work, Pennock argued that Intelligent Design, in its appeal to
supernatural mechanisms, was not methodologically naturalistic, and that methodological naturalism is an
essential component of science though it is not a dogmatic requirement, it flows from reasonable evidential
requirements, such as the ability to test theories empirically.
Natural philosophers, such as Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Robert Hooke, and Robert Boyle, sometimes
appealed to supernatural agents in their natural philosophy (which we now call “science”). Still, overall there
was a tendency to favor naturalistic explanations in natural philosophy. This preference for naturalistic causes
may have been encouraged by past successes of naturalistic explanations, leading authors such as Paul Draper
to argue that the success of methodological naturalism could be evidence for ontological naturalism. Explicit
methodological naturalism arose in the nineteenth century with the X-club, a lobby group for the
professionalization of science founded in 1864 by Thomas Huxley and friends, who aimed to promote a science
that would be free from religious dogmas. The X-club may have been in part motivated by the desire to remove
competition by amateur-clergymen scientists in the field of science, and thus to open up the field to full-time
professionals.
Because “science” and “Islam” defy definition, discussing the relationship between sciences (in general) and
Islam (in general) may be meaningless. For example, Kelly Clark argues that we can only sensibly inquire into
the relationship between a widely accepted claim of science (such as quantum mechanics or findings in
neuroscience) and a specific claim of a particular Islam (such as Islamic understandings of divine providence or
Buddhist views of the no-self).
Q.2 “Arabic civilization contributed much more to the development of science and technology during
the golden period of Islam (7th to 12th A.D) than passive transmission of ancient knowledge to the
west”, debate supporting your argument with examples.
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The Islamic Golden Age was a period of cultural, economic, and scientific flourishing in the history of Islam,
traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 14th century. This period is traditionally understood to have
begun during the reign of the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (786 to 809) with the inauguration of the House
of Wisdom in Baghdad, the world's largest city by then, where Islamic scholars and polymaths from various
parts of the world with different cultural backgrounds were mandated to gather and translate all of the world's
classical knowledge into Arabic and Persian. Several historic inventions and significant contributions in
numerous fields were made throughout the Islamic middle ages that revolutionized human history.
The period is traditionally said to have ended with the collapse of the Abbasid caliphate due to Mongol
invasions and the Siege of Baghdad in 1258. A few scholars date the end of the golden age around 1350 linking
with the Timurid Renaissance. while several modern historians and scholars place the end of the Islamic Golden
Age as late as the end of 15th to 16th centuries meeting with the Age of the Islamic Gunpowders. (The
medieval period of Islam is very similar if not the same, with one source defining it as 900–1300 CE.)
The metaphor of a golden age began to be applied in 19th-century literature about Islamic history, in the context
of the western aesthetic fashion known as Orientalism. The author of a Handbook for Travelers in Syria and
Palestine in 1868 observed that the most beautiful mosques of Damascus were "like Mohammedanism itself,
now rapidly decaying" and relics of "the golden age of Islam".
There is no unambiguous definition of the term, and depending on whether it is used with a focus on cultural or
on military achievement, it may be taken to refer to rather disparate time spans. Thus, one 19th century author
would have it extend to the duration of the caliphate, or to "six and a half centuries", while another would have
it end after only a few decades of Rashidun conquests, with the death of Umar and the First Fitna. During the
early 20th century, the term was used only occasionally and often referred to as the early military successes of
the Rashidun caliphs. It was only in the second half of the 20th century that the term came to be used with any
frequency, now mostly referring to the cultural flourishing of science and mathematics under the caliphates
during the 9th to 11th centuries (between the establishment of organised scholarship in the House of
Wisdom and the beginning of the crusades),[13] but often extended to include part of the late 8th or the 12th to
early 13th centuries. Definitions may still vary considerably. Equating the end of the golden age with the end of
the caliphates is a convenient cut-off point based on a historical landmark, but it can be argued that Islamic
culture had entered a gradual decline much earlier; thus, Khan (2003) identifies the proper golden age as being
the two centuries between 750–950, arguing that the beginning loss of territories under Harun al-Rashid
worsened after the death of al-Ma'mun in 833, and that the crusades in the 12th century resulted in a weakening
of the Islamic empire from which it never recovered.
The centrality of scripture and its study in the Islamic tradition helped to make education a central pillar of the
religion in virtually all times and places in the history of Islam. The importance of learning in the Islamic
tradition is reflected in a number of hadiths attributed to Muhammad, including one that instructs the faithful to
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"seek knowledge, even in China" This injunction was seen to apply particularly to scholars, but also to some
extent to the wider Muslim public, as exemplified by the dictum of al-Zarnuji, "learning is prescribed for us
all". While it is impossible to calculate literacy rates in pre-modern Islamic societies, it is almost certain that
they were relatively high, at least in comparison to their European counterparts. Education would begin at a
young age with study of Arabic and the Quran, either at home or in a primary school, which was often attached
to a mosque. Some students would then proceed to training in tafsir (Quranic exegesis) and fiqh (Islamic
jurisprudence), which was seen as particularly important. Education focused on memorization, but also trained
the more advanced students to participate as readers and writers in the tradition of commentary on the studied
texts. It also involved a process of socialization of aspiring scholars, who came from virtually all social
backgrounds, into the ranks of the ulema.
For the first few centuries of Islam, educational settings were entirely informal, but beginning in the 11th and
12th centuries, the ruling elites began to establish institutions of higher religious learning known as madrasas in
an effort to secure support and cooperation of the ulema. Madrasas soon multiplied throughout the Islamic
world, which helped to spread Islamic learning beyond urban centers and to unite diverse Islamic communities
in a shared cultural project. Nonetheless, instruction remained focused on individual relationships between
students and their teacher. The formal attestation of educational attainment, ijaza, was granted by a particular
scholar rather than the institution, and it placed its holder within a genealogy of scholars, which was the only
recognized hierarchy in the educational system. While formal studies in madrasas were open only to men,
women of prominent urban families were commonly educated in private settings and many of them received
and later issued ijazas in hadith studies, calligraphy and poetry recitation. Working women learned religious
texts and practical skills primarily from each other, though they also received some instruction together with
men in mosques and private homes.
Madrasas were devoted principally to study of law, but they also offered other subjects such as theology,
medicine, and mathematics. The madrasa complex usually consisted of a mosque, boarding house, and a
library It was maintained by a waqf (charitable endowment), which paid salaries of professors, stipends of
students, and defrayed the costs of construction and maintenance. The madrasa was unlike a modern college in
that it lacked a standardized curriculum or institutionalized system of certification. Muslims distinguished
disciplines inherited from pre-Islamic civilizations, such as philosophy and medicine, which they called
"sciences of the ancients" or "rational sciences", from Islamic religious sciences. Sciences of the former type
flourished for several centuries, and their transmission formed part of the educational framework in classical
and medieval Islam. In some cases, they were supported by institutions such as the House of Wisdom in
Baghdad, but more often they were transmitted informally from teacher to student.
Q.3 a) Define the terms “science” and “philosophy”.
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The touchstone of the value of philosophy as a world-view and methodology is the degree to which it
is interconnected with life. This interconnection may be both direct and indirect, through the whole
system of culture, through science, art, morality, religion, law, and politics. As a special form of social
consciousness, constantly interacting with all its other forms, philosophy is their general theoretical
substantiation and interpretation. Can philosophy develop by itself, without the support of science?
Can science "work" without philosophy? Some people think that the sciences can stand apart from
philosophy, that the scientist should actually avoid philosophizing, the latter often being understood as
groundless and generally vague theorizing. If the term philosophy is given such a poor interpretation,
then of course anyone would agree with the warning "Physics, beware of metaphysics!" But no such
warning applies to philosophy in the higher sense of the term. The specific sciences cannot and should
not break their connections with true philosophy. Science and philosophy have always learned from
each other. Philosophy tirelessly draws from scientific discoveries fresh strength, material for broad
generalizations, while to the sciences it imparts the world-view and methodological im pulses of its
universal principles. Many general guiding ideas that lie at the foundation of modern science were first
enunciated by the perceptive force of philosophical thought. One example is the idea of the atomic
structure of things voiced by Democritus. Certain conjectures about natural selection were made in
ancient times by the philosopher Lucretius and later by the French thinker Diderot. Hypothetically he
anticipated what a scientific fact became two centuries later. We may also recall the Cartesian reflex
and the philosopher's proposition on the conservation of motion in the universe. On the general
philosophical plane Spinoza gave grounds for the universal principle of determinism. The idea of the
existence of molecules as complex particles consisting of atoms was developed in the works of the
French philosopher Pierre Gassendi and also Russia's Mikhail Lomonosov. Philosophy nurtured the
hypothesis of the cellular structure of animal and vegetable organisms and formulated the idea of the
development and universal connection of phenomena and the principle of the material unity of the
world. Lenin formulated one of the fundamental ideas of contemporary natural science—the principle
of the inexhaustibility of matter—upon which scientists rely as a firm methodological foundation.
The latest theories of the unity of matter, motion, space and time, the unity of the discontinuous and
continuous, the principles of the conservation of matter and motion, the ideas of the infinity and
inexhaustibility of matter were stated in a general form in philosophy.
Besides influencing the development of the specialised fields of knowledge, philosophy itself has been
substantially enriched by progress in the concrete sciences. Every major scientific discovery is at the
same time a step forward in the development of the philosophical world-view and methodology.
Philosophical statements are based on sets of facts studied by the sciences and also on the system of
propositions, principles, concepts and laws discovered through the generalisation of these facts. The
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achievements of the specialised sciences are summed up in philosophical statements. Euclidian

geometry, the mechanics of Galileo and Newton, which have influenced men's minds for centuries,
were great achievements of human reason which played 'a significant role in forming world-views and
methodology. And what an intellectual revolution was produced by Copernicus' heliocentric system,
which changed the whole conception of the structure of the universe, or by Darwin's theory of
evolution, which had a profound impact on biological science in general and our whole conception of
man's place in nature. Mendeleyev's brilliant system of chemical elements deepened our understanding
of the structure of matter. Einstein's theory of relativity changed our notion of the relationship between
matter, motion, space and time. Quantum mechanics revealed hitherto unknown world of
microparticles of matter. The theory of higher nervous activity evolved by Sechenov and Pavlov
deepened our understanding of the material foundations of mental activity, of consciousness.
Cybernetics revealed new horizons for an understanding of the phenomena of information interactions,
the principles of control in living systems, in technological devices and in society, and also the
principles of feedback, the man-machine system, and so on. And what philosophically significant
pictures have been presented to us by genetics, which deepened our understanding of the relationship
between the biological and the social in man, a relationship that has revealed the subtle mechanisms of
heredity.
The creation and development by Marx, Engels and Lenin of the science of the laws of development of
human society, which has changed people's view of their place in the natural and social vortex of
events, holds a special place in this constellation of achievements of human reason.
If we trace the whole history of natural and social science, we cannot fail to notice that scientists in
their specific researches, in constructing hypotheses and theories have constantly applied, sometimes
unconsciously, world-views and methodological principles, categories and logical systems evolved by
philosophers and absorbed by scientists in the process of their training and self-education. All
scientists who think in terms of theory constantly speak of this with a deep feeling of gratitude both in
their works and at regional and international conferences and congresses.
So the connection between philosophy and science is mutual and characterised by their ever deepening
interaction.
Some people think that science has reached such a level of theoretical thought that it no longer needs
philosophy. But any scientist, particularly the theoretician, knows in his heart that his creative activity
is closely linked with philosophy and that without serious knowledge of philosophical culture the
results of that activity cannot become theoretically effective. All the outstanding theoreticians have
themselves been guided by philosophical thought and tried to inspire their pupils with its beneficent
influence in order to make them specialists capable of comprehensively and critically analysing all the
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principles and systems known to science, discovering their internal contradictions and overcoming
them by means of new concepts. Real scientists, and by this we usually mean scientists with a
powerful theoretical grasp, have never turned their backs on philosophy. Truly scientific thought is
philosophical to the core, just as truly philosophical thought is profoundly scientific, rooted in the
sum-total of scientific achievements Philosophical training gives the scientist a breadth and
penetration, a wider scope in posing and resolving problems. Sometimes these qualities are brilliantly
expressed, as in the work of Marx, particularly in his Capital, or in Einstein's wide-ranging natural
scientific conceptions.
The common ground of a substantial part of the content of science, its facts and laws has always
related it to philosophy, particularly in the field of the theory of knowl edge, and today this common
ground links it with the problems of the moral and social aspects of scientific discoveries and technical
inventions. This is understandable enough. Today too many gifted minds are oriented on destructive
goals. In ancient times, as we have seen, nearly every notable scientist was at the same time a
philosopher and every philosopher was to some extent a scientist. The connection between science and
philosophy has endured for thousands of years. In present-day conditions it has not only been
preserved but is also growing substantially stronger. The scale of the scientific work and the social
significance of research have acquired huge proportions. For example, philosophy and physics were at
first organically interconnected, particularly in the work of Galileo, Descartes, Kepler, Newton,
Lomonosov, Mendeleyev and Einstein, and generally in the work of all scientists with a broad outlook.
At one time it was commonly held that philosophy was the science of sciences, their supreme ruler.
Today physics is regarded as the queen of sciences. Both views contain a certain measure of truth.
Physics with its tradition, the specific objects of study and vast range of exact methods of observation
and experiment exerts an exceptionally fruitful influence on all or nearly all spheres of knowledge.
Philosophy may be called the "science of sciences" probably in the sense that it is, in effect, the self-
awareness of the sciences and the source from which all the sciences draw their world-view and
methodological principles, which in the course of centuries have been honed down into concise forms.
As a whole, philosophy and the sciences are equal partners assisting creative thought in its
explorations to attain generalising truth. Philosophy does not replace the specialised sciences and does
not command them, but it does arm them with general principles of theoretical thinking, with a method
of cognition and world-view. In this sense scientific philosophy legitimately holds one of the key
positions in the system of the sciences.
To artificially isolate the specialised sciences from philosophy amounts to condemning scientists to
finding for themselves world-view and methodological guidelines for their researches. Ignorance of
philosophical culture is bound to have a negative effect on any general theoretical conclusions from a
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given set of scientific facts. One cannot achieve any real theoretical comprehension, particularly of the
global problems of a specialised science, without a broad grasp of inter-disciplinary and philosophical
views. The specialised scientists who ignore philosophical problems sometimes turn out to be in thrall
to completely obsolete or makeshift philosophical ideas without even knowing it themselves. The
desire to ignore philosophy is particularly characteristic of such a trend in bourgeois thought as
positivism, whose advocates have claimed that science has no need of philosophy. Their ill-considered
principle is that "science is in itself philosophy". They work on the assumption that scientific
knowledge has developed widely enough to provide answers to all philosophical problems without
resorting to any actual philosophical system. But the "cunning" of philosophy lies in the fact that any
form of contempt for it, any rejection of philosophy is in itself a kind of philosophy. It is as impossible
to get rid of philosophy as it is to rid oneself of all convictions. Philosophy is the regulative nucleus of
the theoretically-minded individual. Philosophy takes its revenge on those who dissociate themselves
from it. This can be seen from the example of a number of scientists who after maintaining the
positions of crude empiricism and scorning philosophy have eventually fallen into mysticism. So, calls
for freedom from any philosophical assumptions are a sign of intellectual narrowness. The positivists,
while denying philosophy in words, actually preach the flawed philosophy of agnosticism and deny
the possibility of knowing the laws of existence, particularly those of the development of society. This
is also a philosophy, but one that is totally misguided and also socially harmful.
b) Describe the origin of philosophy of science and the main tenets of philosophy of science.
It may appear to some scientists that they are using the logical and methodological means evolved
strictly within the framework of their particular speciality. But this is a profound delusion. In reality
every scientist, whether he realises it or not, even in simple acts of theoretical thought, makes use of
the overall results of the development of mankind's cognitive activity enshrined mainly in the
philosophical categories, which we absorb as we are absorbing our own natural that no man can put
together any theoretical statement language, and later, the special language of theoretical thought.
Oversimplifying the question a little, one may say without such concepts as property, cause, law or
accident. But these are, in fact, philosophical categories evolved by the whole history of human
thought and particularly in the system of philosophical, logical culture based on the experience of all
fields of knowledge and practice.
Knowledge of the course and results of the historical development of cognition, of the philosophical
views that have been held at various times of the world's universal objective connections is also
essential for theoretical thinking because it gives the scientist a reliable yardstick for assessing the
hypotheses and theories that he himself produces. Everything is known through comparison.
Philosophy plays a tremendous integrating role in scientific knowledge, particular ly in the present
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age, when knowledge has formed an extremely ramified system. Suffice it to say, for example, that
medicine alone comprises some 300 specialised branches. Medicine has "scalpelled" man into
hundreds of little parts, which have become the targets of independent investigation and treatment.
Sciences have become so ramified that no brain, however versatile can master all their branches, or
even one chosen field. No one nowadays can say that he knows the whole of medicine or biology or
mathematics, as some people could have said in the past. Like Goethe's Faust, scientists realise that
they cannot know everything about everything. So they are trying to know as much as possible about
as little as possible and becoming like people digging deeper and deeper into a well and seeing less
and less of what is going on around them, or like a chorus of the deaf, in which each member sings his
own tune without hearing anyone else. Such narrow specialisation may lead, and has in some cases
already led, to professional narrow-mindedness. Here we have a paradox. This process is both harmful
and historically necessary and justified. Without narrow specialisation we cannot make progress and at
the same time such specialisation must be constantly filled out by a broad inter-disciplinary approach,
by the integrative power of philosophical reason. Otherwise a situation may arise when the common
front of developing science will move ahead more and more rapidly and humanity's total knowledge
will increase while the individual, the scientist, for example, will lag farther and farther behind the
general flood of information and become more and more limited as the years go by. Aristotle knew
nearly everything that was known to his epoch and constituted the substance of ancient science, but
today by the time he leaves school the pupil is expected to know far more than Aristotle. And it would
be a lifetime's work even for a gifted person with a phenomenal memory to learn the fundamentals of
all the sciences.
What is more, narrow specialisation, deprived of any breadth of vision, inevitably leads to a creeping
empiricism, to the endless description of particulars.
What are we to do about assembling integral knowledge? Such an assembly can nevertheless be built
by the integrative power of philosophy, which is the highest form of generalisation of all human
knowledge and life experience, the sum-total of the development of world history. By means of
philosophy the human reason synthesises the results of human knowledge of nature, society, man and
his self-awareness, which gives people a sense of freedom, an open-ended view of the world, an
understanding of what is to be found beyond the limits of his usual occupation and narrow professional
interests. If we take not the hacks of science but scientists on the big scale, with a truly creative cast of
mind, who honestly, wisely and responsibly consider what their hands and minds are doing, we find
that they do ultimately realise that to get their bearings in their own field they must take into
consideration the results and methods of other fields of knowledge; such scientists range as widely as
possible over the history and theory of cognition, building a scientific picture of the world, and absorb
12
philosophical culture through its historically formed system of categories by consciously mastering all
the subtleties of logical thought. Max Born, one of the creators of quantum mechanics, provides us
with a vivid example of this process. Born had a profound grasp of physical thought illumined by
philosophical understanding of his subject. He was the author of many philosophical works and he
himself admitted that the philosophical implications of science had always interested him more than
narrow specialised results. After Einstein he was one of the first of the world's leading scientists to
realise the futility of positivism's attempts to act as a basis for understanding the external world and
science and to deny this role to philosophy.
The philosophical approach enables us to overcome the one-sidedness in research which has a negative
effect in modern highly specialised scientific work. For example, natural science today is strongly
influenced by integrative trends. It is seeking new generalising theories, such as a unitary field theory,
a general theory of elementary particles, a general theory of systems, a general theory of control,
information, and so on. Generalisations at such a high level presuppose a high degree of general
scientific, natural-humanitarian and also philosophical culture. It is philosophy that safeguards the
unity and interconnection of all aspects of knowledge of the vast and diversified world whose
substance is matter. As Werner Heisenberg once observed, for our senses the world consists of an
infinite variety of things and events, colours and sounds. But in order to understand it we have to
introduce some kind of order, and order means to recognise what is equal, it means some sort of unity.
From this springs the belief that there is one fundamental principle, and at the same time the difficulty
to derive from it the infinite variety of things. The natural point of departure is that there exists a
material prime cause of things since the world consists of matter.The intensive development of modern
science, which by its brilliance has tended to eclipse other forms of intellectual activity, the process of
its differentiation and integration, gives rise to a vast number of new problems involving world-view
and methodology. For example, do any extra terrestrial civilisations exist and is there life in other
galaxies? How did the universe arise in its given qualitative determinacy? What is meant by the
infinity of space and time? Certain fields of knowledge constantly run into difficulties of a
methodological nature. How can one judge the degree to which physical or chemical methods are
applicable to the investigation of animate nature without oversimplifying it? In modern science not
only has there been an unusually rapid accumulation of new knowledge; the techniques, methods and
style of thinking have also substantially changed and continue to change. The very methods of
research attract the scientist's growing interest, as discussion at national and international symposiums
and congresses shows. Hence the higher demands on philosophy, on theoretical thought in general.
The further scientific knowledge in various fields develops, the stronger is the tendency to study the
logical system by which we obtain knowledge, the nature of theory and how it is constructed, to
13
analyse the empirical and theoretical levels of cognition, the initial concepts of science and methods of
arriving at the truth. In short, the sciences show an increasing desire to know themselves, the mind is
becoming more and more reflective. Not only are the subject-matter of this or that science and the
methods of studying it being verified. We are trying to define the exact social and moral role that this
or that science plays or may play in the life of society, what it implies or may imply for the future of
mankind—benefit or destruction? This trend towards self-knowledge, of which much is said both by
scientists and philosophers, is bound to show itself and should show itself in the relationship between
philosophy and science. The methodological significance of the philosophical principles, categories
and laws should not be oversimplified. It is wrong to suggest that not a single specific problem can be
solved without them. When we think of the place and role of philosophy in the system of scientific
cognition, we have in mind not separate experiments or calculations but the development of science as
a whole, the making and substantiation of hypotheses, the battle of opinions, the creation of theory, the
solving of inner contradictions in a given theory, the examination in depth of the initial concepts of
science, the comprehension of new, pivotal facts and assessment of the conclusions drawn from them,
the methods of scientific research, and so on. Karl Jaspers (1968), the German psychiatrist and
philosopher, once made the point that students who became dissatisfied with philosophy often entered
the natural scientific faculties to get to grips with "real things", which they then studied
enthusiastically. But later, when they began to seek a basis for their own lives in science, the general
ruling principles of their actions, they were again disappointed and their search led them back to
philosophy. Philosophy, besides all its other functions, goes deep into the personal side of human life.
The destiny of the individual, his inner emotions and desires, in a word, his life and death, have from
time immemorial constituted one of the cardinal philosophical problems. The indifference to this
"human" set of problems, which is a characteristic feature of neopositivism, is rightly regarded as one-
sided scientism, the essence of which is primitively simple: philosophy must be a science like natural
science, and strive to reach the same ideal of mathematical precision and authenticity. But while many
scientific researchers look only outwards, philosophers look both outwards and inwards, that is to say,
at the world around man and man's place in that world. Philosophical consciousness is reflective in its
very essence. The degree of precision and the very character of precision and authenticity in science
and philosophy must therefore differ. Who, for instance, reflects man's inner world with all its
pathological aberrations "more precisely"—the natural scientist with his experimental techniques,
mathematical formulae and graphs or, for example, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, in their
immortal works that are so highly charged with philosophical meaning?
At this point a huge philosophical problem arises. How are we to overcome the yawning gap between
mathematised natural-scientific and technological thinking, on the one hand, and humanitarian, social
14
thought, on the other? How are we to resolve the intense and continuing argument between the so-
called "lyricists and physicists", who symbolise these two diverging styles of thought? This is
something that has a harmful effect on the human personality, dragged in opposite directions by the
two principles. This morbid dichotomy may have negative consequences for the present and future of
both the individual and collective human reason. So it is an educational, philosophical, moral and
profoundly social problem.
Philosophy, as we have said, is not simply an abstract science. It also possesses an evaluative aspect,
its moral principles. Science has given man a lot of things, but ethics or, to put it more bluntly,
conscience, is not one of them. The evaluative, axiological and aesthetic aspects are also important for
science. And they are not part of it either.
Philosophy helps us to achieve a deeper understanding of the social significance and general prospects
of scientific discoveries and their technical applications. The impressive achievements of the scientific
and technological revolution, the contradictions and social consequences it has evoked, raise profound
philosophical problems. Contemporary philosophical irrationalism gives a pessimistic appraisal of
scientific and technological advance and predicts worldwide disaster. But this raises the question of
the responsibility of philosophy, since philosophy seeks to understand the essence of things and here
we are dealing with the activity of human reason and its "unreasonable" consequences. Thus the
question of the nature of philosophy in our day grows into a question of the historic destinies of
humanity and becomes a vitally important social problem. To what extent can society comprehend
itself, rationally control its own development, be the master of its own destiny, command the
consequences of its own cognitive and practical activity?
There are many questions that the epoch poses before humanity and these questions can be answered
by philosophy. For example, what does the future hold for the contesting social systems in the modern
world? What are the rational ways of removing the threat of universal annihilation?
In present-day conditions the role not only of natural science and technology, but also of the humane
sciences that study "human affairs", the laws of life and development of society, has grown
enormously and will continue to do so as time goes on. The results of social research have today
assumed not only exceptional theoretical but also exceptional applied, social and political importance.
The very structure of social life is becoming more complex, new forms of human activity are
appearing, the scientific and technological revolution continues its advance, the role of social and
political problems in the life of society, in the development of culture is steadily increasing.
Q.4 a) Describe the origin of philosophy of logical positivism.
15
According to logical positivism, there are only two sources of knowledge: logical reasoning and empirical
experience. The former is analytic a priori, while the latter is synthetic a posteriori; hence synthetic a priori does
not exist.
The fundamental thesis of modern empiricism [i.e. logical positivism] consists in denying the possibility of
synthetic a priori knowledge.
(H. Hahn, O. Neurath, R. Carnap, Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung. Der Wiener Kreis, 1929).
Logical knowledge includes mathematics, which is reducible to formal logic. Empirical knowledge includes
physics, biology, psychology, etc. Experience is the only judge of scientific theories; however, logical
positivists were aware that scientific knowledge does not exclusively rise from the experience: scientific
theories are genuine hypotheses that go beyond the limits of finite human experience.
It is not possible to establish a logically durable building on verifications [a verification is an observational
statement about immediate perception], for they are already vanished when the building begins. If they were,
with respect to time, at the beginning of the knowledge, then they would be logically useless. On the contrary,
there is a great difference when they are at the end of the process: with their help the test is performed... From a
logical point of view, nothing depends on them: they are not premises but a firm end point.
(M. Schlick, '&Uumlber das Fundament der Erkenntnis', in Erkenntnis, 4, 1934).
A statement is meaningful if and only if it can be proved true or false, at least in principle, by means of the
experience -- this assertion is called the verifiability principle [aka the "verifiability criterion of meanng"]. The
meaning of a statement is its method of verification; that is we know the meaning of a statement if we know the
conditions under which the statement is true or false.
When are we sure that the meaning of a question is clear? Obviously if and only if we are able to exactly
describe the conditions in which it is possible to answer yes, or, respectively, the conditions in which it is
necessary to answer with a no. The meaning of a question is thus defined only through the specification of those
conditions...
The definition of the circumstances under which a statement is true is perfectly equivalent to the definition of its
meaning.
... a statement has a meaning if and only if the fact that it is true makes a verifiable difference.
(M. Schlick, 'Positivismus und Realismus' in Erkenntnis, 3, 1932).
Metaphysical statements are not empirically verifiable and are thus forbidden: they are meaningless. The only
role of philosophy is the clarification of the meaning of statements and their logical interrelationships. There is
no distinct "philosophical knowledge" over and above the analytic knowledge provided by the formal
disciplines of logic and mathematics and the empirical knowledge provided by the sciences.
Philosophy is the activity by means of which the meaning of statements is clarified and defined.
(M. Schlick, 'Die Wende der Philosophie' in Erkenntnis, 1, 1930).
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A scientific theory is an axiomatic system that obtains an empirical interpretation through appropriate
statements called rules of correspondence, which establish a correlation between real objects (or real processes)
and the abstract concepts of the theory. The language of a theory includes two kinds of terms: observational and
theoretical. The statements of a theory are divided in two groups: analytic and synthetic. Observational terms
denote objects or properties that can be directly observed or measured, while theoretical terms denote objects or
properties we cannot observe or measure but we can only infer from direct observations. Analytic statements
are a priori and their truth is based on the rules of the language; on the contrary, synthetic statements depend on
experience, and their truth can be acknowledged only by means of the experience. This conception about the
structure of scientific theories is perhaps the most durable philosophical principle of the logical positivism.
Its main points are:
 the distinction between observational and theoretical terms
 the distinction between synthetic and analytic statements
 the distinction between theoretical axioms and rules of correspondence
 the deductive nature of scientific theories
b) What are the main tenets of concepts of logical positivism?
These four points are linked together. Rules of correspondence give an empirical meaning to theoretical
terms and are analytic, while theoretical axioms express the observational portion of the theory and are
synthetic. A theory must be a deductive system; otherwise, a formal distinction between the various kinds
of sentences and terms is impossible.
The distinction between observational and theoretical terms depends on the verifiability criterion of
meaning. A statement is meaningful only if it is verifiable; but, in scientific theories, there are many statements
which are not verifiable -- for example, assertions dealing with quantum particles or relativistic gravitational
fields. These statements are too "theoretical" for a direct test; strictly speaking, they are meaningless.
To avoid such a consequence, one could either deny that these were statements, or one could try to "reduce" the
"theoretical terms" to "observational terms." The theoretical terms which belong to the abstract language of a
scientific theory are explicitly definable in a restricted language whose terms describe only that which is
directly observable. So a distinction between observational and theoretical terms arose. But soon Carnap
realized that theoretical terms are not definable by observational ones. In a first time, he proposed a partial
reducibility of theoretical to observational terms ('Testability and meaning', in Philosophy of science, 3, 1936
and 4, 1937). Later, it was supposed that all theoretical terms were removable from a scientific theory. This
hypothesis was supported by two outcomes of formal logic: Craig's theorem and Ramsey statements.
Craig's theorem is an unquestionable result of formal logic. According to this theorem, it is possible to translate
a scientific theory in a purely observational language without any loss of deductive power. Ramsey sentences,
named after English philosopher Frank Plumpton Ramsey (1903-1930), were used by Carnap for dividing the
17
axioms of a theory in two sets, say A and R. Set R contains only statements which contain purely observational
terms and expresses the empirical portion of the theory, the "observational data." Set A consists of analytic
statements and defines the meaning of theoretical terms. Given a typical scientific theory T containing both
observational and theoretical terms, it is thus possible to rationally reconstruct that theory as theory T* which
contains no theoretical terms, such that T and T* are equivalent with respect to all observational statements that
can be deduced from the avxioms of T*.
[While the analysis of relationships between the two kinds of terms began the object of many logical and
philosophical studies, the distinction itself was criticized. According to Popper all scientific concepts are
theoretical, for every assertion not only entails hypotheses but also is hypothetical, that is not sure and always
falsifiable. Quine ('Two dogmas of empiricism' in The Philosophical Review, 60, 1951) criticized both
observational-theoretical and analytic-synthetic distinction. Hempel ('The theoretician's dilemma' in Minnesota
studies in the philosophy of science, II, 1958) noted that the theory T* without theoretical terms, in spite of the
equivalence (with respect to the observational language) to the original theory T, is not useful as T. In fact, from
an inductive point of view, T and T* are very different. Usually the original theory T suggests certain relations
between its concepts, while in T* these concepts are forbidden. The discovery of laws is almost impossible in
T*, while it is a natural consequence in T. Moreover, while the number of the axioms of T usually is finite,
Craig's theorem does not assure us of the existence of a theory T* with a finite number of axioms. So T* is
almost useless. Theoretical terms are thus necessary in science.]
In Philosophical foundations of physics, 1966, Carnap proposed a slightly different approach to observational-
theoretical distinction. Now the starting-point is the difference between empirical and theoretical laws. It is
possible to directly confirm (or disprove) an empirical law, while a theoretical law can be tested only through
the empirical laws that are among its consequences. Moreover, an empirical law explains facts while a
theoretical law explains empirical laws. Thus there are three levels:
a) Empirical facts: these are expressed by direct "observation reports"
b) Empirical laws: Simple generalizations we can directly confirm by observation. They explain facts and are
employed to predict empirical facts by deducing observation statements from laws and statements of initial
conditions..
c) Theoretical laws: General principles we can use to explain empirical laws:al laws by deducing the
empirical laws from such theoretical statements.
Empirical laws include only observational terms, while theoretical terms occur in theoretical laws.
The distinction between analytic and synthetic statements is another consequence of the verifiability principle
and it is linked with the observational-theoretical as well as axioms-rules of correspondence
distinction. According to the verifiability principle, an alleged synthetic a priori statement does not have a
meaning; thus there are only two kinds of assertions: synthetic a posteriori and analytic a priori. What is the role
18
of analytic sentences in a scientific theory? Only two possibilities are allowed: an analytic statement is a
logical-mathematical theorem (thus it has no empirical significance) or it is a convention that defines the
meaning of theoretical terms.
There is an explicit assumption in logical positivism's analysis of science: a theory is a deductive
system. This means that pragmatic aspects are not considered. Moreover, neopositivism was not interested in
the real process of discovering, but it was concerned with the rational reconstruction of scientific knowledge,
that is it dealt with logical (formal) relationships between statements in a given theory.
According to logical positivism, there is not any method of discovering a hypothesis prior to its test by
deducing empirical consequences, and therefore a scientist can propose any hypothesis he prefers; only logical
relationships between the hypothesis and the given empirical evidence are relevant. But there were some
problems with this conception of science. First of all, the relation between empirical experience and theoretical
principles is not a deductive one: observational statements do not imply theoretical axioms. Carnap argues that
the relation is explicable with the help of the inductive logic.
Subsequent History of Logical Positivism:
The spread of logical positivism in USA came in the early 1930s. In 1929 and in 1932 Schlick was Visiting
Professor at Stanford, while Feigl emigrated to USA in 1930, where he became lecturer (1931) and professor
(1933) at the University of Iowa and afterwards at the University of Minnesota (1940). In 1932 the American
Philosophical Association organized a discussion on the philosophy of logical positivism. In the same years
several articles about logical positivism were published in American philosophical journals. In 1936 Schlick
was murdered by a Nazi student at the University of Vienna. Between 1936 and 1940 several German and
Austrian philosophers emigrated to USA: Carnap moved in 1936 to the University of Chicago, Reichenbach in
1938 to UCLA, Frank in 1938 (he became professor at Harvard University in 1939), Hempel in 1939 (City
College of New York and in 1940 Queens College). Logical positivists found a favourable terrain in USA. They
established solid relationships with American pragmatism; particularly Charles Morris took part to several
neopositivist's projects. One of them was the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, primarily promoted
by Neurath. Although the original project was never fully realized, many works were indeed published.
The English philosopher Alfred Jules Ayer (1910-1989) played an important role in spreading logical
positivism. His work Language, Truth and Logic, 1936, gained an immediate success. In that book, Ayer
completely accepted both the verifiability principle and the distinction between analytic and synthetic
statements; hence he asserted that metaphysical sentences are meaningless. A direct influence was exerted by
Waismann and Neurath who emigrated in England in 1937 and 1940 respectively.
Q.5 Write brief notes on the following topics:
a) The Quran, Hadith and modern science.
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The Qur'an does not constitute the sole source of doctrine and legislation in Islam. During Muhammad's life and
after his death, complementary information of a legislative nature was indeed sought in the study of the words
and deeds of the Prophet.
Although writing was used in the transmission of hadith from the very beginning, a lot of this came also from
the oral tradition. Those who undertook to assemble them in collections made the kind of enquiries which are
always very taxing before recording accounts of past events. They nevertheless had a great regard for accuracy
in their arduous task of collecting information. This is illustrated by the fact that for all of the Prophet's sayings,
the most venerable collections always bear the names of those responsible for the account, going right back to
the person who first collected the information from members of Muhammad's family or his companions.
A very large number of collections of the Prophet's words and deeds thus appeared under the title of Hadiths.
The exact meaning of the word is 'utterances', but it is also customary to use it to mean the narration of his
deeds.
Some of the collections were made public in the decades following Muhammad's death. Just over two hundred
years were to pass before some of the most important collections appeared. The most authentic record of the
facts is in the collections of Al Bukhari and Muslim, which date from over two hundred years after Muhammad
and which provide a wider trustworthy account. In recent years, a bilingual Arabic/English edition has been
provided by Doctor Muhammed Muhsin Khan, of the Islamic University of Madina.[102] Al Bukhari's work is
generally regarded as the most authentic after the Qur'an and was translated into French (1903-1914) by Houdas
and Marcais under the title Les Traditions Islamiques (Islamic Traditions). The Hadiths are therefore accessible
to those who do not speak Arabic. One must, however, be wary of certain translations made by Europeans,
including the French translation, because they contain inaccuracies and untruths which are often more of
interpretation than of actual translation. Sometimes, they considerably change the real meaning of a hadith, to
such an extent indeed that they attribute a sense to it which it does not contain.
As regards their origins, some of the hadiths and Gospels have one point in common which is that neither of
them was compiled by an author who was an eyewitness of the events he describes. Nor were they compiled
until some time after the events recorded. The hadiths, like the Gospels, have not all been accepted as authentic.
Only a small number of them receive the quasi-unanimous approval of specialists in Muslim Tradition so that,
except al-Muwatta, Sahih Muslim and Sahih al-Bukhari, one finds in the same book, hadiths presumed to be
authentic side by side with ones which are either dubious, or should be rejected outright.
In contrast to Canonic Gospels which though questioned by some modern scholars but which have never been
contested by Christian high authorities, even those hadiths that are most worthy to be considered as authentic
have been the subject of criticism. Very early in the history of Islam, masters in Islamic thought exercised a
thorough criticism of the hadiths, although the basic book (The Qur'an) remained the book of reference and was
not to be questioned.
20
I thought it of interest to delve into the literature of the hadiths to find out how Muhammad is said to have
expressed himself, outside the context of written Revelation, on subjects that were to be explained by scientific
progress in following centuries. Al-though Sahih Muslim is also an authentic collection, in this study 1 have
strictly limited myself to the texts of the hadiths which are generally considered to be the most authentic, i.e.
those of Al Bukhari. I have always tried to bear in mind the fact that these texts were compiled by men
according to data received from a tradition which was partially oral and that they record certain facts with a
greater or lesser degree of accuracy, depending on the individual errors made by those who transmitted the
narrations. These texts are different from other hadiths which were transmitted by a very large number of people
and are unquestionably authentic.
I have compared the findings made during an examination of the hadiths with those already set out in the
section on the Qur'an and modern science. The results of this comparison speak for themselves. The difference
is in fact quite staggering between the accuracy of the data contained in the Qur'an, when compared with
modern scientific knowledge, and the highly questionable character of certain statements in the hadiths on
subjects whose tenor is essentially scientific. These are the only hadiths to have been dealt with in this study.
Hadiths which have as their subject the interpretation of certain verses of the Qur'an sometimes lead to
commentaries which are hardly acceptable today.
We have already seen the great significance of one verse (sura 36, verse 36) dealing with the Sun which "runs
its course to a settled place". Here is the interpretation given of it in a hadith: "At sunset, the sun . . . prostrates
itself underneath the Throne, and takes permission to rise again, and it is permitted and then (a time will come
when) it will be about to prostrate itself . . . it will ask permission to go on its course . . . it will be ordered to
return whence it has come and so it will rise in the West . . ." (Sahih Al Bukhari). The original text (The Book
of the Beginning of the Creation, Vol. IV page 283, part 54, chapter IV, number 421) is obscure and difficult to
translate. This passage nevertheless contains an allegory which implies the notion of a course the Sun runs in
relation to the Earth: science has shown the contrary to be the case. The authenticity of this hadith is doubtful
(Zanni).
Another passage from the same work (The Book of the Beginning of the Creation, vol. IV page 283, part 54,
chapter 6, number 430) estimates the initial stages in the development of the embryo very strangely in time: a
forty-day period for the grouping of the elements which are to constitute the human being, another forty days
during which the embryo is represented as 'something which clings', and a third forty-day period when the
embryo is designated by the term 'chewed flesh'. Once the angels have intervened to define what this
individual's future is to be, a soul is breathed into him. This description of embryonic evolution does not agree
with modern data.
Whereas the Qur'an gives absolutely no practical advice on the remedial arts, except for a single comment (sura
16, verse 69) on the possibility of using honey as a therapeutic aid (without indicating the illness involved), the
21
hadiths devote a great deal of space to these subjects. A whole section of Al Bukhari's collection (part 76) is
concerned with medicine. In the French translation by Houdas and Marcais it goes from page 62 to 91 of
volume 4, and in Doctor Muhammad Muhsin Khan's bilingual Arabic/English edition from page 395 to 452, of
volume VII. There can be no doubt that these pages contain some hadiths which are conjectural (Zanni), but
they are interesting as a whole because they provide an outline of the opinions on various medical subjects that
it was possible to hold at the time. One might add to them several hadiths inserted in other parts of Al Bukhari's
collection which have a medical tenor.
This is how we come to find statements in them on the harms caused by the Evil Eye, witchcraft and the
possibility of exorcism; although a certain restriction is imposed on the paid use of the Qur'an for this purpose.
There is a hadith which stresses that certain kinds of date may serve as protection against the effects of magic,
and magic may be used against poisonous snakebites.
We should not be surprised however to find that at a time when there were limited possibilities for the scientific
use of drugs, people were advised to rely on simple practices; natural treatments such as blood-letting, cupping,
and cauterization, head-shaving against lice, the use of camel's milk and certain seeds such as black cumin, and
plants such as Indian Qust. It was also recommended to burn a mat made of palm-tree leaves and put the ash
from it into a wound to stop bleeding. In emergencies, all available means that might genuinely be of use had to
be employed. It does not seem-a priori-to be a very good idea, however, to suggest that people drink camel's
urine.
It is difficult today to subscribe to certain explanations of subjects related to various illnesses. Among them, the
following might be mentioned:
--the origins of a fever. there are four statements bearing witness to the fact that "fever is from the heat of hell"
(Al Bukhari, The Book of Medicine, vol. VII, chapter 28, page 416).
--the existence of a remedy for every illness: "No disease God created, but He created its treatment" (Ibid.
chapter 1, page 396). This concept is illustrated by the Hadith of the Fly. "If a fly falls into the vessel of any of
you, let him dip all of it (into the vessel) and then throw it away, for in one of its wings there is a disease and in
the other there is healing (antidote for it). i.e. the treatment for that disease" (Ibid. chapter 15-16, pages 462-
463, also The Book of the Beginning of Creation part 54, chapters 15 & 16.)
--abortion provoked by the sight of a snake (which can also blind). This is mentioned in The Book of the
Beginning of Creation, Vol. IV(chapter 13 and 14, pages 330 & 334).
--hemorrhages between periods. The Book of Menses (Menstrual Periods) Vol. VI, part 6, pages 490 & 495
contains two hadiths on the cause of hemorrhages between periods (chapters 21 & 28). They refer to two
women: in the case of the first, there is a description (undetailed) of the symptoms, with a statement that the
hemorrhage comes from a blood vessel; in the second, the woman had experienced hemorrhages between
periods for seven years, and the same vascular origin is stated. One might suggest hypotheses as to the real
22
causes of the above, but it is not easy to see what arguments could have been produced at the time to support
this diagnosis. This could nevertheless have been quite accurate.
--the statement that diseases are not contagious. Al Bukhari's collection of hadiths refers in several places
(chapters 19, 25, 30, 31, 53 and 54, Vol. VII, part 76, of the Book of Medicine) to certain special cases, e.g.
leprosy (page 408), plague (pages 418 & 422), camel's scabies (page 447), and also provides general statements.
The latter are however placed side by side with glaringly contradictory remarks: it is recommended, for
example, not to go to areas where there is plague, and to stay away from lepers.
Consequently, it is possible to conclude that certain hadiths exist which are scientifically unacceptable. There is
a doubt surrounding their authenticity. The purpose of reference to them lies solely in the comparison that they
occasion with the verses of the Qur'an mentioned above: these do not contain a single inaccurate statement. This
observation clearly has considerable importance.
One must indeed remember that at the Prophet's death, the teachings that were received from this fell into two
groups:
--firstly, a large number of Believers knew the Qur'an by heart because, like the Prophet, they had recited it
many, many times; transcriptions of the text of the Qur'an already existed moreover, which were made at the
time of the Prophet and even before the Hegira[104].
-secondly, the members of his following who were closest to him and the Believers who had witnessed his
words and deeds had remembered them and relied on them for support, in addition to the Qur'an, when defining
a nascent doctrine and legislation.
In the years that were to follow the Prophet's death, texts were to be compiled which recorded the two groups of
teachings he had left. The first gathering of hadiths was performed roughly forty years after the Hegira, but a
first collection of Qur'anic texts had been made beforehand under Caliph Abu Bakr, and in particular Caliph
Uthman, the second of whom published a definitive text during his Caliphate, i.e. between the twelfth and
twenty-fourth years following Muhammad's death.
What must be heavily stressed is the disparity between these two groups of texts, both from a literary point of
view and as regards their contents. It would indeed be unthinkable to compare the style of the Qur'an with that
of the hadiths. What is more, when the contents of the two texts are compared in the light of modern scientific
data, one is struck by the oppositions between them. I hope I have succeeded in showing what follows:
--on the one hand, statements in the Qur'an which often appear to be commonplace, but which conceal data that
science was later to bring to light.
--on the other hand, certain statements in the hadiths which are shown to be in absolute agreement with the
ideas of their times but which contain opinions that are deemed scientifically unacceptable today. These occur
in an aggregate of statements concerning Islamic doctrine and legislation, whose authenticity is unquestioningly
acknowledged.
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Finally, it must be pointed out that Muhammad's own attitude was quite different towards the Qur'an from what
it was towards his personal sayings. The Qur'an was proclaimed by him to be a divine Revelation. Over a period
of twenty years, the Prophet classified its sections with the greatest of care, as we have seen. The Qur'an
represented what had to be written down during his own lifetime and learned by heart to become part of the
liturgy of prayers. The hadiths are said, in principle, to provide an account of his deeds and personal reflections,
but he left it to others to find an example in them for their own behaviour and to make them public however
they liked: he did not give any instructions.
In view of the fact that only a limited number of hadiths may be considered to express the Prophet's thoughts
with certainty, the others must contain the thoughts of the men of his time, in particular with regard to the
subjects referred to here. When these dubious or inauthentic hadiths are compared to the text of the Qur'an, we
can measure the extent to which they differ. This comparison highlights (as if there were still any need to) the
striking difference between the writings of this period, which are riddled with scientific inaccurate statements,
and the Qur'an, the Book of Written Revelation, that is free from errors of this kind.[105]
b) Constructive empiricism and its implications for science education.
Constructivism is basically a theory -- based on observation and scientific study -- about how people learn. It
says that people construct their own understanding and knowledge of the world, through experiencing things
and reflecting on those experiences. When we encounter something new, we have to reconcile it with our
previous ideas and experience, maybe changing what we believe, or maybe discarding the new information as
irrelevant. In any case, we are active creators of our own knowledge. To do this, we must ask questions,
explore, and assess what we know.
In the classroom, the constructivist view of learning can point towards a number of different teaching practices.
In the most general sense, it usually means encouraging students to use active techniques (experiments, real-
world problem solving) to create more knowledge and then to reflect on and talk about what they are doing and
how their understanding is changing. The teacher makes sure she understands the students' preexisting
conceptions, and guides the activity to address them and then build on them. Constructivist teachers encourage
students to constantly assess how the activity is helping them gain understanding. By questioning themselves
and their strategies, students in the constructivist classroom ideally become "expert learners." This gives them
ever-broadening tools to keep learning. With a well-planned classroom environment, the students learn. Groups
of students in a science class are discussing a problem in physics. Though the teacher knows the "answer" to the
problem, she focuses on helping students restate their questions in useful ways. She prompts each student to
reflect on and examine his or her current knowledge. When one of the students comes up with the relevant
concept, the teacher seizes upon it, and indicates to the group that this might be a fruitful avenue for them to
explore. They design and perform relevant experiments. Afterward, the students and teacher talk about what
they have learned, and how their observations and experiments helped (or did not help) them to better
24
understand the concept. Contrary to criticisms by some (conservative/traditional) educators, constructivism does
not dismiss the active role of the teacher or the value of expert knowledge. Constructivism modifies that role, so
that teachers help students to construct knowledge rather than to reproduce a series of facts. The constructivist
teacher provides tools such as problem-solving and inquiry-based learning activities with which students
formulate and test their ideas, draw conclusions and inferences, and pool and convey their knowledge in a
collaborative learning environment. Constructivism transforms the student from a passive recipient of
information to an active participant in the learning process. Always guided by the teacher, students construct
their knowledge actively rather than just mechanically ingesting knowledge from the teacher or the textbook.
Constructivism is also often misconstrued as a learning theory that compels students to "reinvent the wheel." In
fact, constructivism taps into and triggers the student's innate curiosity about the world and how things work.
Students do not reinvent the wheel but, rather, attempt to understand how it turns, how it functions. They
become engaged by applying their existing knowledge and real-world experience, learning to hypothesize,
testing their theories, and ultimately drawing conclusions from their findings. The best way for you to really
understand what constructivism is and what it means in your classroom is by seeing examples of it at work,
speaking with others about it, and trying it yourself. As you progress through each segment of this workshop,
keep in mind questions or ideas to share with your colleagues.
25

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Course: Foundations of Science Education (695)

Semester: Spring, 2020

achievements of the specialised sciences are summed up in philosophical statements. Euclidian

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