Book Introduction and Summary #1 | “A World History of Philosophy And Religion”
Introduction
In this article, I will explain the contents of a book in a different way from the usual. The book I will be discussing is “A World History of Philosophy and Religion” written by Haruaki Deguchi. First of all, let me say that I found this book very informative. This book is different from other philosophy books that are full of abstract concepts and technical terms. It explains philosophy in easy language for us beginners who do not know much about philosophy.
This book is thick, almost 500 pages, but it is a smooth read because of the interesting explanations of the history of philosophy and religion.
Philosophy is a very important subject for us who live in today’s rapidly changing world. You don’t fail classes unless you read this book, but you will lose something important that you need to live better.
In this article, I will focus on three main areas.
- Why we must learn philosophy and religion
- The history surrounding the birth and development of Islam
- Philosophy appeared at a major turning point in world history
The Reason Why We Must Learn Philosophy And Religion
Think about it, think about it, humans have conquered nature, created civilizations, and created cultures. At the same time, they have also created happiness and unhappiness. In every age, human beings have always been thinking. In particular, a small number of people with brilliant minds have created abstract concepts and ideas about the world, life, and the afterlife, and used them as a basis for living their lives. This was expressed in the form of philosophy and religion.
Some people may have trouble thinking about the world, life, and the afterlife. The majority of people probably live their lives thinking that way.
However, as long as human beings have reason (the ability to think) to spin dreams, hopes, and ideals, and as long as they have feelings such as love and hate, they will never run out of troubles and troubles. If so, philosophy and religion would have been sought after in every age. In this light, the question “Why should we learn philosophy and religion now?” is actually a question that humans have been asking repeatedly for quite some time. Currently, terrorism is becoming more frequent and the refugee problem is expanding around the world. Furthermore, the anonymous slander of others brought about by the development of the Internet has amplified prejudice and hatred toward human beings.
Can philosophy and religion help us in these times?
In various business circles, it is often the history and events of different worlds rather than knowledge and data in specialized fields that give us useful hints for our work or bring fresh ideas when we are stuck in our work. From this perspective, learning about philosophy and religion, which were born out of the struggles of human knowledge, can be beneficial to the everyday business world.
Many of you may be thinking that philosophy and religion are quite different.
The answer to this question is simple. All the great philosophers, such as Thomas Aquinas and Kant, spent a great deal of time and effort unraveling the relationship between philosophy and religion. It is a historical fact that philosophy and religion are inextricably linked.
What are Philosophy and Religion?
By the way, what are philosophy and religion? When asked again to define philosophy and religion, it is very difficult to answer the question. What is important here is a question that has been asked by man since long ago. In this book, they can be summarized in two ways.
- How did the world come to be and what is the world made of?
- Where do we come from, where are we going, and for what purpose do we live?
Philosophy and religion have answered these fundamental questions through repeated trial and error. Furthermore, natural science, which was derived from philosophy, also answered them. In this order, religion came first, then philosophy. So how are philosophy and religion defined in this book?
According to Kojien, which is the biggest Japanese dictionary in Japan, philosophy is the study of grasping and understanding things in a unified manner from fundamental principles. The word “philosophy” originally means “love of knowledge” in ancient Greek. Religion, also according to Kojien, means belief in God or some transcendent Absolute, or the beliefs, practices, and institutions related to sacred things that are separated from and forbidden by the profane. The word religion is said to have been formed by combining the prefix re, meaning “again,” and ligare, meaning “to bind”.
The History of Islam
With the Islamic State (IS) and others at the forefront, Islamism is creating a windstorm in the history of the late 20th and 21st centuries. In this section, we will look at Islamism with an eye toward its relationship to Christianity.
Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, is a monotheistic religion with Yahweh as its sole God. Good people who are saved at the Last Judgment will go to heaven, and evil people will go to hell. And Yahweh, the one and only God, is called Allahu Akbar. He is also called Allaah, but nowadays Allaahu seems to be more common.
Muhammad’s position in Islam is that of the last prophet. A prophet means one who is entrusted by God with a word and delivers it to the people. In other words, Muhammad is a human being. And in Islam, Jesus is also defined as a human being, as one of the prophets who appeared before Muhammad.
The Islamic equivalent of the Bible is the Qur’an, which in its original meaning means “that which should be recited. The Qur’an contains the words that Muhammad was entrusted by God. Second in importance to the Qur’an are the hadiths, which are records of Muhammad’s sayings and deeds — the so-called Sunnah. The Qur’an was compiled by recalling Muhammad’s daily teachings, which were entrusted to him by God. When the central figure who wrote the Qur’an completed it, he burned all other doubtful words of God. Thus, the Qur’an, like the Bible, has no external sources.
Also, although hadiths were completed later than the Qur’an, the route of transmission from Muhammad to the last oral traditionist (the one who propagates the teachings of his master) is also clear, and there seems to have been no confusion in their completion.
Forms of Islamic Faith — The Six Articles of Faith and Five Pillars of Islam
A major characteristic of Islam is that it does not have full-time followers (so-called priests or monks) like Christianity and Buddhism. In other words, there is no clergyman who runs a church or temple and specializes in proselytizing, weddings, funerals, etc. In Islam, for example, the owner of a grocery store doubles as a clergyman, and when necessary, he puts on his vestments, reads the Qur’an, and performs the rituals.
Thus, in Islam, there is no need to donate money for the clergyman’s livelihood. Temples and cemeteries, called mosques, are managed by local governments or non-profit organizations.
The core of Islamic belief is a precept called the “Six Beliefs and Five Elements. Simply put, it means to believe in six things and act on five.
- six articles: Belief in God, angels, the scriptures, prophets, the hereafter, and heavenly destiny.
- five pillars: confession of faith, worship, joyous devotion, fasting, and pilgrimage.
The six articles of faith and five pillars of Islam seem to be observable by anyone. Some may think that fasting is a bit painful. However, it is also a healthy practice. In Islam, where there are no full-time priests or monks, it is thought that the strength of believers to be independent came from their own independent observance of the Six Beliefs and Five Actions, which are easy to observe and practice.
Islam was created by an ordinary merchant
Muhammad, the founder of Islam, was originally an ordinary merchant. Considering this, it is highly unlikely that he would have adopted extreme ideas and aggressive behavior that many people would find unacceptable. For example, the teachings of the six articles of faith and five pillars of Islam are not so unreasonable and reasonable in their own way. It is because business cannot be conducted by constantly attacking others.
There are many followers of Islam in Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, and Malaysia. This is because Arabic merchants wanted to bring a lot of their goods to Southeast Asia to do business, partly because of the trade relations with China. People in Asia would have looked at the Islamic merchants and thought that if they too believed in Islam, they would be able to do more business.
Prohibition of idolatry and memorizing the Qur’an in Arabic
Islam, even today, thoroughly avoids idolatry. Since ancient times, even in pictorial narratives depicting the biography of Muhammad, his face is not shown, for example, by covering it with a white cloth.
What, then, do Muslims pray to? The direction of the Kaaba temple in the true red is called Qiblah, and they worship in that direction. In mosques, the wall in the direction of Makkah is hollowed out in the shape of an arch to indicate the direction of prayer. Today, Muslims around the world continue to worship toward the qiblah.
Since the Qur’an is the text of the words of God given to Muslims by the angel Jibril and recited aloud, it is still a general rule that the Qur’an is recited aloud. Since Muhammad was an Arabic, he could only speak Arabic. Therefore, the Qur’an is also written in Arabic. And it should be noted that even today, Muslims all over the world recite the Qur’an in Arabic.
Since the word of God is unique, translating the Qur’an is not permitted by the faith. To memorize the Qur’an, one must master the Arabic language. This is an aspect of Islam that connects Muslims around the world. As a result, Islam seems to have become an easy religion to propagate.
Misconceptions about Jihad
There have been instances where some media outlets have referred to acts of terrorism by extremists such as the Islamic State (IS) as “Jihad”. Jihad is simply translated as “holy war” and is often misunderstood as characterizing the combative nature of Islam. However, the real meaning of jihad is to struggle to become someone who can act in an honorable manner. Honorable behavior in Islam is a way of life that values tolerance and mercy as preached by Muhammad.
Philosophy Appeared at A Major Turning Point in World History
The Overview of Hegel’s Dialectic
Hegel is famous as the German philosopher who proposed the “dialectic”. However, the dialectic itself already appeared in ancient Greece. At that time, it was used in the following sense.
“To continue asking and answering questions about a person’s assertion, and to make him realize the fallacies inherent in that assertion. To lead someone to a correct answer in this way is called dialectics or the method of question and answer.”
Hegel called the development of the above-mentioned theory of dialectics and reaching a new stage of it “cessation. Cessation is the English translation of the German word Aufheben. It means to fry after stopping, to progress without abandoning inherent precision or function.
Every existence contains a thesis and an antithesis, and the two continue in conflict and movement, culminating in a zinthesis and cessation. This movement continues forever, and existence continues to develop itself. This is the gist of Hegel’s dialectic.
To be honest, you may not understand it at all even if you hear only this. For example, consider the following.
Let’s say you have a specific example: “I love my mother. However, in the real world, he cannot marry his mother.” In this case, the fact that “I love my mother” is the thesis and the fact that “I cannot marry my mother” is the antithesis. In order to solve both conflicting problems, he comes up with the idea of “finding a lover who looks like my mother. This falls under the zinthesis.
Thus, the process of examining two conflicting problems and discovering a new solution or method while considering both problems is dialectics. Hegel used dialectics to construct a wide variety of theories.
Bentham’s “greatest happiness for the greatest number”
The English philosopher Bentham expressed human pleasure in numerical values. Bentham calculated human actions using pleasure values (so-called “human pleasure values”), and he claimed that the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people is achieved when the total score is high. He argued that aiming for this “greatest happiness of the greatest number” should be the basic policy principle.
Schopenhauer’s Theory of Happiness
Schopenhauer was a philosopher who rejected Hegel’s view of history head-on. He argued that what drives history is man’s blind will to live. Since humans are also animals, they must live to procreate. Therefore, the struggle for survival drives history. He argued thus.
Although an extreme view, his philosophy can be put simply: “History is full of conflicts, and the world is no fun. What then should we do? He replies, “Escape to the world of art, because great art can save the human heart. Why did he think this way? The gist of his thinking is as follows.
Man lives with the will and intelligence to identify with others. It is this that allows us to share our sorrows and sufferings. It is this that enables us to live.”
Schopenhauer’s thought was heavily influenced by Buddhism. Briefly stated, Buddhism teaches that one is reincarnated, that one is saved by attaining the state of wisdom called liberation from this world of repeated life, death, and suffering.
Summary
In this article, we briefly summarize “A World History of Philosophy and Religion” written by Haruaki Deguchi. The contents covered in this article are as follows.
- Why we must study philosophy and religion
- An overview of Islam
- Hegel, Bentham and Schopenhauer
Philosophy and religion are two of the disciplines that we must study in the rapidly changing present. This is only my personal view, but the main benefits of studying philosophy and religion are as follows.
- Learn about the values and justice of people in other countries.
- Understand the background of foreign news and international issues (in particular, it is not uncommon for religious issues to be involved in the background of international issues).
I hope that this article will spark your interest in philosophy and religion.
