Comparative Study of Shared Views of Muslim and Non-Muslim Scholars on Philosophy and Education

Preface

Throughout the history, there have been some philosophers and thinkers who have generously given the product of their philosophical thinking to the society. These works have initiated and inspired behavior of many people living in the society because in general, a person’s philosophical foundation can influence their behavioral and educational bases.

Although there have been many books and writings regarding the thoughts of such philosophers, the writings in which the viewpoints of the philosophers of different schools and religions have been compared are rarely seen. With such a comparison, that emphasizes the shared aspects of philosophical theories, it might be possible to generate philosophical theories that are comprehensive and global in their impact. This is the main aim of this book.

Philosophy, in the present book, has been considered as a discipline, which consists of branches such as - ontology, epistemology, and axiology. Anthropology has been considered as the subset of ontology.

Each chapter, of the book has a short introduction about the personality and biography of the two (or four) philosophers investigated in that chapter. Then their views about the branches of philosophy or their philosophical viewpoints have been explained. A conclusion about the comparison of their views has been reached at the end of each chapter. Finally the book is concluded with a general summary and conclusion.

The philosophers studied and compared in this book are as follows: Tusi and Aristotle, Ghazali and Aquinas, Ibn Miskawayh and Aquinas, Farabi and Spinoza, Avicenna- Ibn Sina and Edwards and Rumi, Saadi, Rousseau, and Dewey. Thus in all, the viewpoints of 14 philosophers and thinkers have been explained and compared in this book.

It should be noted that the chapters about Farabi, Ibn Miskawayh and a part about the ethics of Ibn Sina have been selected from Persian books titled: Theories of Muslim scientists about Education and its Principles - volumes 1 and 2, which have been written by Howzeh-University Co-operation Center and M. Beheshti, M. Abujafari and A. N. Faqihi respectively. These were then translated into English by the author of the present book (Dr H. R. Alavi).