Freeing philosophy from metaphysics: Fakhr al-DÄ«n al-RÄzÄ«'s philosophical approach to the study of natural phenomena
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This dissertation examines the views of Fakhr al-DÄ«n al-RÄzÄ« (d. 1210) as advanced in his two major philosophical works, al-MabÄḥith al-Mashriqiyya and al-Mulakhkhaá¹£ fÄ« al-Ḥikma. It argues that RÄzÄ« seeks to develop a philosophical programme that provides an alternative to the Aristotelian theory of scientific knowledge. The work is divided into two parts. Part I reconstructs the central components of RÄzÄ«'s logical system, including his theory of universals, his view of the role of definitions in philosophical analysis, and the alternative theory of predication that he advances in place of Aristotle's theory of predication. Part I focuses on the epistemological and logical programme that, in RÄzÄ«'s view, should precede the analysis of problems in the philosophical or post-logical part of the MabÄḥith and Mulakhkhaá¹£ (namely, Books I to III of both works). Part I consists of four chapters and a background discussion. The background discussion examines aspects of the Aristotelian theory of demonstrative science and Avicenna's interpretation of the Aristotelian theory, focusing on the nature of per se predication. Chapter 1 assesses the epistemological principles and views that RÄzÄ« sets out in logic. RÄzÄ«'s discussion underscores a number of problematic epistemological assumptions in the Aristotelian theory of definition and concept acquisition, which he believes should not encroach on the logical analysis. Chapter 2 focuses on RÄzÄ«'s critique of per se predication on which demonstrative science is based and the alternative theory of predication that he advances. His alternative theory is based on the notion of "structured universals" as opposed to essences and per se properties. Chapter 3 examines RÄzÄ«'s critique of real definitions and assesses his view of nominal definitions. RÄzÄ« advances nominal definitions as the alternative to real definitions. Chapter 4 examines how RÄzÄ«'s epistemological and logical programme informs his restructuring of philosophical discourse. I argue that the organization and order of the MabÄḥith and Mulakhkhaá¹£ are based on the alternative approach that he advances, which no longer preserves the standard ordering of the Aristotelian sciences. Here, metaphysics, construed as the highest science in the Aristotelian scientific system, no longer occupies a privileged position. Foundational ontological positions â such as, form-matter analysis, the theory of the four causes, or even atomism â are no longer presumed in the analysis of the nature of sensible objects, which RÄzÄ« takes up in the lengthy Book II of the MabÄḥith and Mulakhkhaá¹£. I conclude Part I with a postscript that examines aspects of the nature of Aristotelian logic, particularly in authors preceding Avicenna. Part II consists of two chapters, which examine his philosophical positions that follow, and are based on, his logical analysis, focusing primarily on views set out in Books I and II. Chapter 5 examines ontological problems relating to Avicenna's doctrine of the quiddity and Aristotelian form-matter analysis. It consists of a close textual analysis of a number of RÄzÄ«'s chapters in Book I of the MabÄḥith. I attempt to show that RÄzÄ« read Avicenna's texts quite closely and that he sharply departs from Avicenna on central ontological questions. I argue that RÄzÄ«'s departure is informed by the philosophical programme that he advances in logic. Chapter 6 examines core elements of RÄzÄ«'s epistemology and psychology. The chapter expands on a number of epistemological problems that were only pointed out in his logical analysis, such as his rejection of the theory of mental forms. I argue that a core motivation for RÄzÄ«'s opposition to the Avicennan theory of mental forms derives from RÄzÄ«'s views on optics. RÄzÄ« opposes the Avicennan theory of the "impression" of sensible forms (simulacra) and suggests that the perception of complex sensible forms involve processes that are more mind-dependent than allowed for by Avicenna's theory.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".