The Concept of Scientific Progress in the Islamic World in Hussain Masoumi Hamedani’s Speech

9/19/2023 08:16

In this speech, which was delivered during a Summer School - entitled ‘The Notion of Progress: Discourses in Philosophy, Science and History’ - at the Iranian Research Institute of Wisdom and Philosophy in September 2022, Masoumi Hamedani discussed some salient points about the origins of the idea of progress and its transformation into the ideology of progress.

The Truths Are Immersed in Uncertainties

Mohsen Azmoodeh: One of the intellectual clichés among the enthusiasts for intellectual and cultural discourses in our age is that the notion or the idea of progress is one of the central and fundamental ideas of the modern world and no one thought of progress in pre-modern times. Hussain Masoumi Hamedani, a renowned researcher of philosophy and the history of science in Iran, in his speech opposes this notion and refers to the primary sources of eminent Muslim scientists and scholars such as Zakariyyā al-Rāzī , Ibn al-Haytham  and Abū Rayḥān Bīrūnī  in order to illustrate that they had a clear understanding of scientific advancements and even perceived the quantitative and qualitative progress in science at the time. Masoumi Hamedani discusses some salient points about the origins of the idea of progress and its transformation into the ideology of progress. This speech, of which a brief account is given as follows, was delivered in a Summer School - entitled ‘The Notion of Progress: Discourses in Philosophy, Science and History’ - at the Iranian Research Institute of Wisdom and Philosophy in September 2022.

It is better to use the phrase ‘the idea of progress’ instead of ‘the concept of progress’, since concepts are defined in a theoretical framework. Today, ‘progress’ is the term for ‘pishraft’ in Farsi and the word ‘tarraqī’ is no longer used; in the famous book of Fereydun Adamiyat , entitled ‘Andīsheh-yi Tarraqī va Hukūmat-i Qānūn- Asr-i Sepahsālār’ (English: The Idea of Progress and the Rule of Law – the Era of Sepahsālār), the word ‘tarraqī’ has the same meaning as the word ‘pishraft’ which is commonly used in everyday speech now.

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Ideas in place of Concepts

An idealist in philosophy has a precise definition, while a progressist cannot accurately define himself; we can only define him as a person who classifies things under ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and is willing to make sacrifices and interfere in the social affairs in order to attain the good things and avoid the bad ones; in addition, the meaning of progress and its criteria are also two controversial issues. For this reason, it would be better if we used ‘the idea of progress’ instead of ‘the concept of progress’. These ideas and notions of progress are not restricted to a specific branch of science, area of specialty or a social group, they are widely developed and presented by everyone, from philosophers and sociologists to scholars and scientists. Due to the ambiguity in the term ‘progress’, different social groups interpret it differently and apply it for various purposes; therefore, when we attempt to give a concise definition of ‘progress’, it loses its universality, turns into a concept and merges into a particular theory. For example, if we speak of ‘economic progress’, we enter into the science of economics and we have to consider some standard criteria for its evaluation. Thus the term ‘progress’ which was a key term in eighteenth century, was replaced with ‘development’ in some sciences such as economics and politics, since ‘progress’ is an ambiguous word whose real significance is unknown and is applied to areas of knowledge which are immeasurable. The other characteristic of the ideas which have no concepts is that they are motivating, i.e. they can persuade people to act and create strong beliefs. For example, as soon as we approve of the idea of progress, we are motivated to set some goals, make efforts to achieve them and state that we must make progress. For this reason, the ideas and thoughts are capable of becoming ideologies which are regarded as obnoxious. So, when it comes to the idea of progress, we might go beyond the belief ‘we must make progress’ and state that ‘inevitably, we make progress’! Progress, in practice, is a feeling which evokes the social activists as a result of making comparisons, for instance, they compare two societies or two situations and come to the conclusion that one is more progressed; but if asked what they mean in particular when the case in question is not about a specific subject or is immeasurable, they give general answers using synonyms of ‘progress’. The definition of ‘progress’ is hence the same as the definition of ‘existence’ in philosophy; however, a person who believes in progress and feels that he must make progress, provides compelling evidence for his claims, though it is not certain that two men offer the same evidence.

The Idea of Scientific Progress

When, at least at the stage of genesis, we consider that progress fits into the category of feeling, we can refute either the theories which do not basically accept the progress or the theories which talk about the ‘incommensurability’ of the scientific hypotheses. My hypothesis is that there is or at least there has been such an idea known as the scientific progress and the application of such an idea is acceptable. The historical reason behind my hypothesis is that there has been a feeling of difference in the field of science in some eras and this feeling has not been developed only in the modern era; it still exists despite the ideas of the contemporary philosophers, i.e. before the philosophers of science cast doubt on the principle of progress, the scientists had this feeling and believed in progress, either due to their simple-mindedness or any other reasons. This belief and feeling has two sides and the science philosophers who believe in progress have theoretically formed them as follows: 1. Scientists and the ordinary people who are influenced by the scientists’ suggestions believe that they know more than people in the past and they have more detailed knowledge (knowing that), 2. They held the belief that they knew better than their descendants and they enjoyed better theories (knowing why). This feeling was first developed in science, prior to the politics and the economics, i.e. before the idea of progress turned into an ideology or a motivation for action and be generalized to the whole society and civilization. For example, while living on death row in prison in the wake of the French Revolution, Condorcet, the French philosopher, developed the theory that all the human communities go through different stages of [continuous progress] of and wrote ‘Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind’, in which every stage is more developed than the former one. This concept took on a more essential and profound meaning later in Hegel’s philosophy. Later again in the second half of the nineteenth century, Auguste Comte attempted to expound the stages of progress based on the human intellectual development; there, not only the idea of progress but also the ideology of progress was formed on the basis of the scientific advancements. We can discuss progress in two ways: 1. progress as a fact, feeling or belief among a group of people, 2. progress based on research with the passage of time and also based on the criteria which are usually adopted from the humanities. For instance, the researchers might assume the protein consumption as a criterion for progress in nutrition and announce that during the eighteenth century, the Germans’ protein consumption has risen by 12 percent; this is not a tangible matter for the people of that era, because its measurement is either difficult or slow and gradual.

The Confrontation between Progression versus Regression

It is commonly believed that the idea of progress dates back to the beginning of the Modern Age and that this beginning was simultaneous with the Renaissance; while Renaissance means ‘rebirth’ and it was primarily a time of revival and resurrection, the duality of the idea of progress is evident through it, i.e. while people considered the advancement of science and literature and the improvement of the human behavior and lifestyle, they showed intense interest and invited each other to return to the trends of the past and talked about the revival of the Greek and the Roman architecture styles too. I mean, the idea of progress shows, in many stages, a return to the past. For example, Hannah Arendt argues that in the French Revolution, they believed that not only must they not move with the troops which push the history forward, but also they must return; what has occurred in history, has led the society to destruction, so we must return to the conditions prior to this destruction and it is only possible through a revolution. So, there is a type of dialectic between the ideas of progress and regress which is not usually considered by the progress fanatics. This dialectical relationship in science prevailed until Newton’s period. For instance, Archimedes was a role model for Newton and we must return to the past. For example, many of the humanists supported the development of the Latin language in a sense that we must revive the language of Virgil and Caesar, the language which had not been destroyed by the Ecclesiastical or Church Latin.

From the Renaissance to the Scientific Revolution: from the More to the Better

What emerged in the Renaissance, the best interpretation of it has been stated in Francis Bacon’s essays, is the concept of cumulative progress, i.e. a type of progress which means we know more in its first sense. We have made no efforts yet to explain how it betters. This accumulation co-occurs with some events, for instance, at the time of the Europeans’ explorations and their great geographic discoveries, Tartaglia, Italian mathematician (1500-1557), wrote in his autobiography, “when I was born, the world was half the size it is now”. A large part of America and South Africa was explored during his lifetime. From then on, the desire to conduct research on different species of flora and fauna which were unknown before, increased. Thus we must not think of the Renaissance as a historical period which is the same as the so-called Scientific Revolution Era. When the Renaissance came to an end, a period of qualitative progress started, during which new frameworks were developed and knowing better gained more significance than knowing more. Better knowledge spontaneously paves the way for more knowledge and gives us more power of anticipation.                   

The Belief in the Idea of Progress among the Muslim Intellectuals

Has such a feeling or an idea prevailed in the Islamic era? There are two approaches; firstly, with regard to today’s criteria of the historiography of science, do we see any progress made in this era or not? Like the story of the rise in the consumption of protein in Germany in the eighteenth century. In the introduction of their book ‘The Way and The Word: Science and Medicine in Early China and Greece’, Geoffrey Lloyd, historian of ancient science and medicine, and Nathan Sivin have written: “Modern natural science is not the unilinear descendant of Greek natural philosophy. That myth evaporated long ago as historians came to understand the contexts of inquiry. Instead, they trace the ancestry of modern specialties to the cosmopolitan blend of Syriac, Persian, ancient Middle Eastern, Indian, East Asian, and Greco-Roman traditions that formed in the Muslim world. This blend entered Europe beginning about A.D. 1000, bringing many powerful components of which the Greeks had not even dreamt. It stimulated change that has accelerated up to the present day.” For this approach, clear examples can be provided – anyway, some events occurred and some developments were made during this era, such as the emergence of Algebra which influenced the philosophy of mathematics and the mathematics itself, but has such a feeling of making progress prevailed among the Muslim scientists? Dr. Sayyid Hussain Nasr, has emphasized more than anyone else that there was no progress made in the science of the Islamic era in its modern sense. Mr. Nasr used to seek the model of science in the occult sciences, alchemy and Ahkam-e-Nojoom (the orders of astronomy); from the Alexandrian period, there has emerged a sacred historiography in such sciences, whether one attribute them to the great paganists or the notables of Abrahamic religions or the Iranian dignitaries. Due to the perennial wisdom, the final cause of sciences and the scientists is to express a perennial truth. This is the opposite to the idea of scientific progress.              

Contrary to this approach, if we refer to the works of the scientists and scholars in the Islamic world, we will see that this feeling of making progress and advancements in science has prevailed among them. For instance, Abū al-Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī (973-1052 CE) in the introduction of his book, Maqālīd ʿilm al-Hayʾa - the keys to the “science of the figure (of the heavens)” or astronomy – states, “Having lived long through different ages, the man has reached this era which is the age of wonders when the opposites attract. The springs of knowledge are flowing and the people’s nature are prepared to absorb the information which is likely to be ending point or the perfection in science; and another sign of this era is the popularization of knowledge among the people and their power in understanding matters which were unknown and strange to their descendants.”   

In his Al-Shukūk ‛alā Batlamyūs, variously translated as Doubts concerning Ptolemy or Aporias against Ptolemy, Ibn al-Haytham (965-1040) asserts that, “Truth is sought for itself but the truths are immersed in uncertainties and the scientific authorities are not immune from error, nor is human nature itself; therefore, the seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency."

In summary, the feeling of progress has prevailed in our descendants and among the Muslim scientists, e.g. Abū al-Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī, Ibn al-Haytham and Samuel. The reality of progress has also prevailed. The other role of the idea of progress which motivates new works in the field of science has prevailed too. What has not existed, is the ideology of progress, i.e. the progress is inevitable and it occurs and never ceases. 

Resource: ʿEtemad Newspaper, Number 5391, Monday 2 January 2023