Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the ...

CHAPTER 15
Philosophy in the Land of Prophecy
Yesterday and Today
There is much that goes on by the name of philosophy today, but the
question is whether there are still living schools of philosophy in the
world that function in an authentic manner in light of the realities of
prophecy and the perennial wisdom that resides at the heart of the
messages of Heaven. In the West for several centuries philosophy has
become ever more separated from prophecy, and this secularized philosophy
in its various modes and currents, which claims that it alone
is legitimate philosophy as distinct from theology, not only dominates
over the Western world but also holds sway in academic philosophical
circles from Tokyo to Rabat. Even in the non-Western world where the
intellectual dimension of what has been revealed through prophecy is
still alive and more accessible than in the West, it is postmedieval Western
philosophy in its mainstream forms that dominates the academic philosophical
discourse as one can see, for example, in the 2003 World Congress
of Philosophy, which was held for the first time in the Islamic
world (in Istanbul), but as far as Islamic philosophy is concerned, it
might as well have been held in Boston, as was the 1998 Congress.
The domination of the type of philosophical activity that is divorced
from prophecy in most philosophy departments in universities
all over the globe does not, however, tell the whole story. In the West,
as already mentioned at the beginning of this book, the number of
those who call themselves Christian philosophers is on the rise as is
interest in Jewish philosophy as philosophy and not only as intellectual
history. More specifically, Thomistic philosophy, which witnessed
a revival in the twentieth century in the hands of such figures as
Maurice De Wulf, Etienne Gilson, and Jacques Maritain continues its
life in North America and various Catholic countries of Europe and
South and Central America. Even the philosophical schools of Buddhism
and Hinduism, both based on the possibility of illumination
and intellection that we have identified with the more universal meaning
of prophecy and revelation, are gaining some adherents among
Western philosophers.
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