Transcription
So thank you very much for the invitation, and I will try, in all brevity, because I have 15 to 20 minutes, to briefly address the relationship between aesthetics and ethics in Arab-Muslim thought, which, in my opinion, constitutes a problematic relationship, referring to complex philosophical, mystical, and intellectual questions. And in Arab-Muslim thought, of course, it requires a reflection other than the reflection developed by Orientalists.
Here, allow me, before getting to the heart of the matter, to mention two points that I deem important. The first point concerns the current world, that is, the relevance of this subject in today's world, which is torn, pulled apart by hatred, bestiality, animality, and the desire to establish love and living together. I think that the lack of aesthetics and the absence of ethics in its relationship with aesthetics remains, in my opinion, a subject that calls to us, that questions us all in the face of this situation that the world is experiencing.
Secondly, to establish what I call the platform for this subject, to explore this subject, it must be said that the subject of aesthetic ethics in Arab-Muslim thought has been marginalized and has not been sufficiently studied, given the Orientalist theses which remain hostile to this thought. In my opinion, they ignore the major conditions of philosophy and the major contribution of this thought to philosophy and the sciences.
I must say that to begin, I say that the thought on aesthetics and ethics has been developed by known philosophers, such as, I will start with Al-Kindi. And if we go back to Al-Kindi's texts, especially a work called "Treatise on Harmonic Proportion" in Arabic, and if we also examine his other work titled "Treatise on the Relations Between Music and Philosophy," and another very well-known work concerning, it is called "Treatise on the Meaning of the Human and Philosophy." The first work establishes what is called the relationship between music and the natural sciences and mathematics. And he was the first to do this. That is, he tried to move beyond the framework established by Aristotle and develop another vision that connects the spiritual with the technical, with music. Because he related music. Well, he defines music according to mathematics, as I said, and natural sounds. Music for him, as an aesthetic dimension, is not just an art of sound but a harmonic science that reflects cosmic order and acts profoundly on the human soul. And this thesis was adopted by all mystical tendencies and also by the Sophists, and throughout the world. He demonstrates that for him, music can be used as a spiritual therapy, especially as music restores the balances that constitute the balances that structure the cosmos. That is, the laws that govern the dynamics of the cosmos are the same laws that govern, that act, that shape or even frame the psyche of the other, the psyche of man. It is in this sense that, as he says in "Treatise on Proportions," music is a therapy for the individual.
Al-Kindi's thesis, it is important to insist on Al-Kindi. His thesis considers that virtue resides in the balance between the powers of the soul: the rational, the irrational, and the appetitive, according to a harmony analogous to that which music achieves between sounds.
And if we look at Al-Farabi, he is, as people say, the second master after Aristotle. Al-Farabi has a great work called "The Great Book of Music." In the introduction, he explains how to create a certain balance between the rational and the spiritual, and the laws that govern the world, the cosmos, as he says. And he repeats what he said, he more or less repeats Al-Kindi's thesis that music, that the beautiful, he even tried to define some concepts like proportion, the sublime, cohesion, and harmony. These concepts govern the creation of the world. When God created this harmonious world, it was created by mathematical proportion. This proportion is what governs, what controls, if I may say so, the existence of the individual, of man. So, for Al-Farabi, rationality can only be useful if it is a rationality present in spirituality. That is, spirituality does not contradict rationality. And this thesis was also... If we want to look at Muhyi al-Din Ibn Arabi, he also evoked this theme. And in "Fusus al-Hikam," he developed what Al-Farabi had to say.
So, there is another very important work called "The Revival of the Sciences of Religion" by Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali. And in this work, he tries to say that the proportion that characterizes a world, that is, in a state of harmony, demonstrates that spirituality is not obsolete. Spirituality also has laws. The laws of spirituality are the same as the laws of rationality. And there are people who disagree with this thesis. They say that rationality is rationality, and spirituality is spirituality. So, one should not confuse the two. So, it is Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, in his work, as I said, "The Revival of the Sciences of Religion," who first put forward this thesis.
Also, if we want to go back to Avicenna (Ibn Sina), he has a well-known book, and in this book, he tries to develop, if I may say so, a theory of beauty and ethics. This book is called "The Directives and Remarks." "The Directives and Remarks" is in four volumes. Avicenna draws the brain and tries to differentiate between the lobes in the brain that govern beauty and the lobe that governs the rational. And to say that Ibn Sina says that beauty is based on four fundamental principles: the first is proportion, the second is cohesion, the third is the sublime, the fourth is the spiritual. So, these four components constitute what is called human totality. We cannot understand human totality by isolating or neglecting one of these four components.
Furthermore, to address what Orientalists say, if we examine all these theses, they do not constitute a theory based on concepts, which is, of course, false. Ibn Hazm, if we consider "The Ring of the Dove," it is a very strong and profound book. If we contemplate, it is the first time that he tries to touch upon the thought of philosophers by trying to assess this thesis, saying that the concepts developed by Arab-Muslim philosophers are concepts that constitute what is called a line of reflection. At his time, this line of reflection cannot be called a structure, it cannot be called a theory, it is a line of reflection. And this line of reflection is a system of reflection, that is, a theory. And as for the concepts, they are the first to have developed strong concepts, as I say, proportion and the sublime.
At the same time, if we want to say that aesthetics, that is, the science of beauty, was developed for the first time by Baumgarten, I think around 1789. If we read Baumgarten's thesis, if we read what Hegel developed in "Aesthetics," the "Critique of Judgment," by Descartes, if we read, if we follow all these texts, we will feel that they do not go beyond. In my opinion, if we do this benchmarking of traditional texts and contemporary texts, I must say that the texts developed by these Arab or Muslim philosophers, they truly wove a theory with very well-defined concepts, and that the Western thesis, starting from Baumgarten, through Hegel and others, has not, in my opinion, created something that contradicts or something that does not present an equivalent theoretical standing with what was developed by these Arab-Muslim philosophers.
In conclusion, I think that the time has come, in conclusion, to develop other reflections on aesthetics and ethics, given that today the world is experiencing an absence of the reproduction of positive values, and that beauty today is industrialized through design, etc., and that artificial intelligence presents itself as an alternative to what is natural, what is spiritual, what is affective, what is lyrical, if I dare say so. So, I think we need to develop other frameworks for reflection, to delve into other avenues of thought, to make beauty and aesthetics a technological support through social networks, but a direct space where face-to-face, non-virtual communication with man creates the warmth that we need today, given the wars, given the bestiality and animality that continue to degrade man in our contemporary world.