Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 46
EUROPEAN PHILOSOPHY empiricism of Hume. Agnostic as he was, he was wise enough to realize the indispensability of morality. He was perhaps the pioneer in the suggestion that morality should be deduced from reason alone. He divided reality into phenomenal reality and noumenal reality. He believed that scientific investigation cannot go beyond phenomenon. As such he ruled out that the existence of God could be proved through the instrument of phenomenal investigation. His system is usually referred to as a transcendental idealism. . This in turn gave birth to Hegel's absolute idealism. . Many a new phrase was coined during this prolific period of the growth of his philosophy, such as the logical positivism, existentialism and objectivism. Yet no new dramatic chapter was added to the philosophies of Plato and. Aristotle, who reigned supreme as the undisputed masters till the end of time. Even the smart clichés of dialectical materialism and scientific socialism were but other names for what we find freely discussed in the works of Aristotle. . It should not be forgotten however, that the European philosophers were no less indebted to their Muslim forerunners of Andalusia and Baghdad, than they were to their Greek masters. This was the period when Hegel's absolute idealism ruled supreme. Yet most of the. Europeans little realised the fact that it was no more than the continuity of the idealism of Plato. If we understand. Hegel correctly, for him subjectivism was inseparably related to the outside realities. This means that he did not deny objective realities altogether, but laid emphasis on the supremacy of ideas. . In the Islamic school of thought, the objectivist Sufis were a different tale altogether. They carried their subjectivism to such dizzy heights as the European philosophers could not have dreamt of. These Sufis could as well be referred to as illusionists. 46