Revelatory Ethics

Revelatory Ethics

An Islamic View of Greek Moral Philosophy A Hermeneutic View of bin Meskawayh’s “Tahdhib Al Akhlaaq”

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Mahdi Khazaaii
Mostafa Younesi
Abstract
Realizing the manner in which concepts are formed, transformed and transferred to other cultures and civilizations is a great undertaking in understanding notions. The present paper seeks to study the book “Tahdhib Al Akhlaaq” so as to provide a report, through a hermeneutic (analytic) approach, with regard to the manner in which the Greek ethical concepts have been transferred and transformed into the Islamic culture and ideology. The question that is raised is that “considering the hermeneutic method, how is it possible to understand the ethical concepts as explained by bin Maskawayh?” Tahdhib Al Akhlaaq is a book which contains ethical concepts and the foundations of this concept in its lexical-linguistic system. The type of language used in Tahdhib Al Akhlaaq can be found in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics which can be considered an intertextual characteristic of bin Maskawayh’s writing. The philosophical-ethical principles used by bin Maskawayh in the book “Tahdhib Al Akhlaaq” and the ones employed by Aristotle in his books are not the same. Concepts such as Polis (city-state), Phronesis (deed), Rhetoric (eloquence), Praxis (action), Dike (justice) are key concepts for the explanation of the principles of Aristotle’s moral philosophy.This is while issues such as virtue, felicity, wisdom, and civilization are the prominent concepts in bin Maskawayh’s ethical system. Though the Greek terminologies for these concepts have not been utilized by bin Maskawayh, he has presented the translation and conception of these concepts on which he has founded the foundations of philosophical ethics. The present paper is an attempt to understand the developments of ethical concepts in the area of Islamic ideology, in order to show the “possibility of the formation of the philosophical science of ethics” in the middle ages of Islam.    
Keywords
Aristotle
Ethics
Islam
Maskawayh
language
understanding
Hermeneutic
Greece

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