ARABIC HELLENISM. BETWEEN REASON AND VOLITION

Did 'the tragic experience (as a philosophical attitude) and tragedy (as a literary category) seriously influence the creation of a specific Western way of thinking, experiencing and. feeling'? Did they found 'a fundamental attitude of being and acting which, during 2500 years, provided a specific Western face of art, religion and philosophy'? And was 'consequently, Western man ... stimulated to act, to feel released from nature, to make choices and to take responsibilities, all aspects of human life relying upon the human "will" '? (quotes taken from the conference outline)

(a) the frrst one ( ethéloo) is used in order to ex pre ss a passive and spontaneous receptivity towards external influences or stimuli; its meaning is: 'to be ready, to be inclined; to be disposed to; to give in to, to desire' ... As such, the verb is referring to our emotional and 'irrational' functioning.
(b) the other verb (boulomai) refers primarily to our planning and deliberating, preceding any conscientious action ( etymologically, the verb is related, in Greek, to words denoting 'consultation, deliberation and counseling).We could paraphtase the meaning of it with: 'I prefer or decide on the basis of rational deliberation'.
Greek language, you could say, actually rationaZizes human volition.Inasmuch as 'willing' is considered to be an active faculty, resulting in conscientious and purposeful action, it is reduced to a function of human intelligence, of reason, and consequently it is subordinate to knowledge.Moral value judgements, thus, in the Greek view of man, refer primarily to what we would call the intellectual performances implied in a person's behaviour.Accordingly, the Greek word for 'to sin' (hamartanein) means literally: 'to miss one's target', just like the archer missing the bull's-eye.Take, for example, Sophocles' King Oedipus, with the parricide, the sphinx, the incest, Oedipus' blinding of himself: surely, this is not a drama of the human will, but one of human knowledge and ignorance.The same goes for Greek ethical and philosophical thinking.Greek ethical intellectualism, of course, is best epitomized in the famous dictum of Socrates: 'virtue is knowledge' -i.e. in order to choose the .good, and thus automatically to do it, it suffices to know it.Or to put it otherwise, immoral behaviour is due to ignorance, i.e. ignorance that is of 'the good'.
What is implied in this world view, is the objectiye existence of 'the good', not in so far as it would be personified in a theistic (Christian or Islamic) God.One could call the Greek view rather a naturalistic one: the good • for man coincides with the rational order in nature (nature as a whole being deified).The frrst philosopher to have formulated for us this intellectualist and at the saffie time naturalistic view of man, was Heraclitus of Ephesus (5th c.B.C), fragment 112: 'thinking well is the greatest virtue, and wisdom is to speak anq act things true, according to nature, paying attention'.
2. So, in Greek tradition, human intention is referring back to thus to an objective, etemal and rational order of being.
in the B1bhcal and Koranic tradition, on the contrary, i.e. in the world v1ew of the "Abrahamic" religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, thlngs are viewed qmte differently.All three of them proclaim the belief in one, personal god: point of departure of thls religious view is the of creatwn , the creation of the world out of nothing (creatzo ex mhûo), through s almighty will alone.What is introduced, that way, is the principle of a rad1cal distinction between the divinity, i.e. the Creator, on the one hand, and natura!reality, as a created reality, on the other hand.More important, still: inasmuch as creation is dependent on the divine Will, thls will transcends.all order and regularity withln the world.God being understood as the only truly of that name, nature and its order are not truly real: it's all a questwn of d1vme._.. voluntarism.Yahwe's or God's promise to hls chosen people, for that reason, more trustworthy than any regularity or stability man is observing in nature.As 1t is said in the Bible, /saiah, 54.10: 'For the mountains may reeede and the hllls may stagger, but my mercy will not reeede from you and my covenant will not stagger, says the Merciful, your Lord'.
In the Qur' än roughly the same idea is succinctly expressed in sura 28, verse 88: 'And do not invoke anyone besides God.For everythlng will perish, His countenance, whlch is etemal.His alone is the command and to Hrm alone everyone shall return'.
In this monotheistic, religious world view, man is not so much confronte.dwith the order of nature, but with the will and command of hls creator.What IS primarily expected of a human being, withln the by God with mankind, is not knowledge or understanding (1.e. of the urnverse ), obedience and allegiance to God's commands.'Whoever obeys God H1s Prophet, shall without a doubt attain salvation' (Qur'àn, s. Just like the rest of the universe ('all who are in the heavens and all who are m the earth, the sun and the moon the stars and the mountains, the trees and the beast', Qur ' àn, s. 22:18), man as has to submit or surrender hlmself (in an.ac.t of "islam", you could say) to God's will.In rnan's case, though, that subrmsswn has to be voluntary, since of all creatures, man alone freely agreed to "carry the Trust", cf.s. 33:72: 'We offered the Trust to the heavens and theearthand the mountains, ,but they refused to carry it and were afraid of it.And the human being carried it'.
The sharpest test of thls Trust or Cövenant, in the three religions, Was of course God demanding Abraham (Îbrahîm), that he would kill and sacrifice hls own son -an order whlch from the point of view of human intelligence is completely incomprehensible, even repellent.The more so since there is no "rational" quidproquo, as is the case in Euripides' tragedy, /phigeneia at Aulis: king Agamemnon is required to immolate hls own daughter, in order that the winds might blow in the right direction, and he hlmself might uphold his leadership.According to the biblical story (in the Catholic Dutch translation it is called 'thls beautiful story'), Genesis, eh 22, at the last minute-Abraham already raised hls knife, 'in order to cut hls son's throat' (22.10)-God's angel intervenes and says (22.12): 'Now I know that you fear God, for you did notwant to withhold from me , your only son'.
In the Qur' àn as well thls sacrifice is presented as a true example of "islam", i.e. of putting one's trust in almighty God, s. 37:102-107: 'Abraham said to hls son: "My son, I have had a dream in which God has commanded me to sacrifice you.What do you say to this?" His son replied: "My dear father!Carry out the command of God.You will find me, if God so wills, compliant and forbearing".And so when they had both submitted their wills to God's command and Abraham had laid hls son on hls side, and brought the knife close to the boy's neck, We called out to hlm: "0 Abraham!You did not doubt the veracity of your dream.Thus do We reward those who do right.Thls was clearly a great trial".And we gave a large sacrifice to be immolated in place'.
Summing up: the principal human value, in the three religious traditions, is nót rational understanding or intelligence ( albeit that humans are • called u pon to learn God's signs, in order to know hls will), but the basic value is fidelity or faithfulness (amunah, in Hebrew; amana, in pistis, or "jaith ", in Greek), resulting in trustful and grateful submission (islam).Thls is of course a matter of human volition.The actual of the concept of the will, as being one of three faculties of the human psyche, was to be the work of the Latin Church Father, St Augustine.I said: "grateful ( submission) ".Alhamdu lilltîh!, 'all praise belongs to God'!In daily life, a Muslim uses this phrase frequently, thus giving voice to the basic ethos of his or her religion.Indeed, as Emilio Platti ( one of Belgium's .mostdistinguished experts on Islam) puts it: 'Islam is one of the world's most positive religious philosophies: Thank God!This way a Muslim experiences the profound meaning of his life.Islam is the opposite of an attitude of revolt against the disappointments and the ordeals (of life); the opposite also of a sorrowful or tragic view of this world' ... (p. 18, my translation).
'The opposite of a tragic view of this world': this is confrrmed by the British Muslim philosopher, Shabbir Akhtar (A Faithfor All Seasons, 1990, p. 160): 'it is no exaggeration to say that for both modern and classica!Islam, tragedy remains a foreign category of reflection', and 'the lack of a theory of tragedy within Islam is not accidental, being as it is a deliberate feature of a characteristically Islamic religious vision' (p.236 n. 32).
Ak:htar, however, is mistaken -at least in my view -when he characterizes the Christian religious outlook 'as being a supremely tragic one' .There may be pathos in the passion of Jesus Christ, but there is no tragedy.I am convineed that tragedy is not at home in either of the two religions, real differences between them notwithstanding.I would suggest that the tragic vision demands a naturalistic view of the world-be it that of ancient-Greek, so-called paganism or of modern secularism.

But what of Arabic Hellenism?
It goes without saying that, in order to broach this subject within a limited timespan, I have to be extremely selective.So let me draw your attention to a fascinating figure, supporter of an 'integral rationalism' (Badawi): the Muslim physician, alchemist and philosopher, Abû Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyyä' ar-Räzî (865-925).Räzî was an outspoken nonconformist; later on, in the Muslim heresiographic literature, he was classified as a notorious zindiq or freethinker.Being conspicuous amongst medieval Arabic philosophers for his knowledge of Greek, Räzî concocted a philosophical system of his own.With its Five Eternals ( al-qudamtî' al-khamsa) -the Creator, the Soul, Matter, absolute Time and 1 absolute Space -, it was based on .theideas of different Greek philosophers, foremost Plato (his Timaeus) , Dernocritus (his atomism) and Epicurus (his ethics).In opposition to the so-called ('atheistic') Dahriyya, supporting the eternity of the universe, Räzî argued for the creation of the iri time and its final destruction.However he confronted the Muslim • mutakallimûn or theologians as well, and denied the possibility of a creation out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo).At the same time, though, Räzî integrated into his system a gnostic view of the world, i.e. he shared 'the gnostic condusion that creation tragedy or mistake' (Lenn E.Goodman).This 'world of ours', as Räzî calls it, is a. place of sorrow, i.e. (and I quote from the medieval Jewish philosopher Mrumomdes, The Guide ofthe Perplexed, III.12, pp.441-2 Pines, when writing about what he calls: Räzî's 'ravings' ): '(R.thought) that there is more evil than good in what exists; if you compare rnan 's well-being and his pleasures in the time span of his well-being with the pains, the heavy sufferings, the infirmities, the paralytic afflictions, the wretchedness, the sorrows, and the calamities that befall him, you find that his existence -he means the existence of man -is a punishment and a great evil inflicted u pon him'.
The creation of the world, i.e. the creation of this 'tragedy of horrors' (hè tragooidia toon foberoon, as the gnostic world view was earlier characterized by ancient philosopher, Plotinus, Enneads, II.9.13), was primarily due to the 1gnorance of the Soul (I quote from Näsir-i-Khosraw): 'out of ignorance, Soul fell in love with Matter and ... tried to produce forms out of Matter, in order to get corporeal pleasures'.Or, according to another souree (Abû Hätim): 'The Soul was overcome by lust and she was ignorant of the calamities that were awaiting Matter resisting the imprint of form by the Soul, God in his compassion and helped her.His creation of 'this world of ours' was motivated by his w1sh that Soul, 'having experienced the disastrous consequences of her act' (Abû Hätim), might learn (i.e.'pathei mathos', 'learning through suffering', as the Greek tragedian, Aeschylus, once wrote ), learn, that is, 'that she made a mis take, out of which this world came into being' (Näsir-i-Khosraw).As a matter of fact it is the responsibility of human souls, all having been endowed by God with reason ('aql), to emancipate themselves.I.e.'learning philosophy, (they have) to recognize their own world, to cause no one, if possible, sorrow, and to acquire knowledge', in order to be able to return.Once all human souls 'have become aware of this secret, thanks to philosophy' (Näsir-i-Khosraw), and once all of them will have returned to their proper world, then this material world will come to an end, 'Matter' getting liberated once again from its bondage.
So far Ràzî's cosmogonic myth and what we might call his tragic world view.The 'Gnostic-Platonic expedient of Soul' (Goodman) made it possible for him to argue in favour of the conceivability of creation in time, against the objections of the Dahriyya.Soul's ignorance and irrational desire, in particular, could explain why God at that particular time changed his (rational) will, i.e. 'from the will, not to create the world, to the will, to create it' (Nàsir-i-Khosraw).All this could suggest a basic psychology that is comparable to that of the ancient Greeks, but I wouldn't want to press this point.

Epilogue
Ràzî's case, of course, is not a typical one -he is not even representative of medieval Arabic philosophy as a whole -but my purpose with this paper was a very modest one.What I said should suffice in order to be able to conclude that historically as well in the matter of tragic vision, it is not simply a question of the West versus the East.towards the end of the author's life (384-322).The finishing .ofthis important treatise is obviously so rough that many critics believe that it contains simply lecture-notes taken by one of Aristotle's students in the Lykeion.The general form and style of the text confirm this point of view.However, there is nothing like the fate of this hook in all the human literary tradition.Although it is the only critica! and theoretica!survey of Greek drama from the whole antiquity, It goes from one misinterpretation into another through the different ages and till the present time.Noteworthy is that the Greek concept of tragedy and the Aristotelian concept are not precisely identical.In other wo.rds, the Aristotelian theory does not apply to every Greek tragedy.Prometheus Bound, Aias, Oedipus in Colonus and the majority of Euripides' plays are not Aristotelian, but they are highly rated tragedies throughout the successive ages.It is noteworthy, however, that Aristotle himself criticized Euripides bitterly for many reasons, but nevertheless described him as the most tragic (tragikotatos)l of all poets.This Aristotelian paradox can be naturally justified, if one remembers that when Aristotle gave his lectures on the Poetics, Aeschylus had been dead for more than hundred years.Sophocles and Euripides were dead for seventy years.So one must consider this gap of time between the Aristotelian theoretica! notes and Greek tragic performances, which are the subject matter of this theory as a whole.It is not acceptable to use the phrases Aristotelian tragedy and Greek tragedy as synonyms.The first link in the chain of misinterpretations is the application of Aristotelian rules as strict criteria to the Greek tragedies and to applaud this, or to banish that accordingly.This does not mean that dealing with Greek tragedies, one can do without Aristotle's theory, which has assured itself as the sine qua non of any well-balanced effort to understand Greek tragedy or the tragic as a whole.
it is not agreable to distortor to squeeze Aristotle's theory in order to apply It to every Greek tragedy.Perhaps it is more reasonable to begin by studying the Greek tragedies and performances before moving on to Aristotle, not vice versa.