NOTAS Y DEBATES DE ACTUALIDAD

UTOPÍA Y PRAXIS LATINOAMERICANA. AÑO: 23, n° 82 (JULIO-SEPTIEMBRE), 2018, pp. 441-445

REVISTA INTERNACIONAL DE FILOSOFÍA Y TEORÍA SOCIAL

CESA-FCES-UNIVERSIDAD DEL ZULIA. MARACAIBO-VENEZUELA. 

ISSN 1315-5216 / ISSN-e: 2477-9555  

Succession and Correlation of Ancient Greek, IX-XII Centuries. Central Asian and XIV-XVI Centuries European Philosophical Thought

Sucesión y correlación del griego antiguo, siglos IX-XII. Asia central y siglos XIV-XVI en el pensamiento filosófico europeo

Kurban B. SHADMANOV

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2287-0632

qurbonjonsh@gmail.com

Department of Languages, Bukhara State Medical Institute named after 

Abu Ali Ibn Sino, Bukhara, Republic of Uzbekistan

Marifat BARATOVA

Department of Languages, Bukhara State Medical Institute named after

Abu Ali Ibn Sino, Bukhara, Republic of Uzbekistan

Gulnoz KURBANOVA

Department of Languages, Bukhara State Medical Institute named after

Abu Ali Ibn Sino, Bukhara, Republic of Uzbekistan

Shahobiddin SHODIEV

Department of Languages, Bukhara State Medical Institute named after

Abu Ali Ibn Sino, Bukhara, Republic of Uzbekistan

Rohat KHAMRAEVA

Department of Languages, Bukhara State Medical Institute named after

Abu Ali Ibn Sino, Bukhara, Republic of Uzbekistan

This paper is filed in Zenodo:

DOI: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1513772

Recibido: 10-07-2018 ● Aceptado: 12-08-2018

Utopía y Praxis Latinoamericana publishes under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0). For more information go to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/deed

INTRODUCTION

Due to rapid development of science and technology, today the whole world is led to a process of globalization; we're witness of the fact that our globe has become a common house for all of mankind irrespective of race, nationality and convictions of peoples inhabiting it, in the meanwhile, there’s an urgent invitation to all cultures, both Western and Eastern, to contribute, each in its own way, to the mosaic of world civilization through mutual enrichment (Shadmanov, 2010). At present, as we hope, philosophers as well should work out problems and serve peaceful creative and smooth trends in global processes (Coseru, 2017, Shadmanov, 2003). Broadening and deepening of the latter leads to a multiple increase of contacts - oral and written. Throughout the world these contacts should solve common task and, at the same time, make communications easier. To cope with this task one must not sit in his recess, but widely communicate with colleagues throughout the globe. Globalization of world processes should be followed by globalization of communication. All the above mentioned requires necessity to form a new Weltanschauung, i.e. philosophical outlook, reconsidering at the same time the former values standards. So, what are the ways and means of new philosophical world outlook? How do we know whether the novelties will work in our lifestyle? What factors should be taken into consideration when making our choices?

In this paper we’ll try to find out appropriate answers to the questions put by sharing a bit of historical excurse into the history of the East-West philosophy succession and correlation. The focus is to discover a major contribution of classical Central Asian philosophy of the IX-XII centuries to further development of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance philosophical thought of Europe (Hoerz, 1986; Gow, 2016). The main concern here is to try to present that both Central Asian (IX-XII cc.) and European (XIV-XVI cc.) philosophical complexes were quite indispensable parts of the history of world philosophy. Central Asian philosophical thought and natural science of IX- XII centuries represented by such bright encyclopedically educated thinkers as al- Beruni, al-Farabi, Avicenna, ar-Raziis considered to contribute great in XIV-XVI cc. European philosophical outlook. Cultural-philosophical influence of that region on general evolution of world civilization and culture is, as is known, outlived the historical time itself. That is why Central Asian civilization, its culture, philosophy, spirituality, literature and science, which ensured its medieval renaissance, excites lively interest in our contemporaries. This traditional cultural-spiritual heritage of our greatest ancestors - scholars, enlighteners of the past - exert powerful, incessant influence on ideology of sovereign Uzbekistan in general, and its national consciousness which put forward new education strategies including also cardinal change or transformation towards philosophy knowledge as the most important component of universal and individual culture.

FEATURES OF DIFFERENT CULTURES

In the light of the above mentioned, a number of urgent problems become actual, and their solution is dealt with objective interpretation of history as the main source of formation of national ideology (Shadmanov, 2003). What we mean is, first of all, the necessity of adequate realization and preservation in modern spiritual culture and in our daily practice of a peculiar value of classical philosophical heritage including that of the European one, capable to influence fundamentally on formation of high spirituality process on individual level and on the level of a social group, nation and society (Shadmanov, 2010). This is a very important question put forward if we take into consideration the fact that the XX century was characterized by awfully active attacks from the side of philosophical dilettantism on really classical philosophy content and their numerous attempts to substitute genuine philosophical knowledge by its arbitrary subjective interpretations (Ströing, 2018). At the same time it is known far and wide that in globalization period the Central Asian culture and its philosophical-spiritual thought known as the Muslim Renaissance (IX-XII cc.) attracts deep attention of various specialists, scientists and broad sections of the public all over the world in the light of the succession and correlation as integral factor of development of world philosophy, in general, and fundamental basis of flowering of the modern Uzbek philosophy of the XXI century, in particular (Nazarov, 2004;Kondorse,1936; Skirbekk,1996; O'Shea, 1996; Akhmedova, 2004). Such an interest, in our understanding, is not considered to be accidental as ties joining modem culture with that of medieval are becoming much closer and strengthened. Image of medieval scholars, philosophers, their highly humanistic and spiritual qualities are of ever growing interest of the XXI century representatives. As a result, many traditional, many-sided investigated problems of the medieval culture, including philosophy, appear before us by their new aspects, which were hidden for observance during the totalitarian soviet regime period.

The Middle Ages Muslim culture, philosophy and natural science of Central Asia (IX-XII cc.) opens wide scientific investigation perspectives for those who’re interested in history and spirituality heritage of the Central Asian region. Comparative-historical analysis of the East-West culture takes an important place in the world comparative typological studies. The significance of such an analysis is particularly urgent in wide historical perspectives which stimulate generalizations of universal-historical character. From this point of view, the researchers of sovereign Uzbekistan pay a special and serious attention to comparative analysis of the East and West especially in the domain of the philosophy history. Some important principles of comparative investigation of objects of cultural-historical processes have been generalized by the Uzbek scientists in these very branches of knowledge starting from 1991. What we mean is, on the one hand, the differentiation of various types of comparative research depending on the source origin of objects under comparison; on the other hand, it is of urgent importance to know whether this generalization is conditioned by common origin, different interrelations or in the presence of some general functional laws, regularities and objects development (Belief, 2017).

Though a considerable progress in work-out of methodological issues of comparative investigation of philosophy history has been achieved in the last decades, there are still a number of fundamentally significant problems to be solved. Among them, first of all, is the question of comparing objects' equivalence. Urgent need for the solution of the abovementioned is clearly seen in comparative investigation of the East-West cultures, bringing to light their typological specificity.

Central Asian, mainly Avicenna’s, philosophical thought and science of the IX-XII cc. is considered to be a natural stage of development of European and the world culture in general; it was the stage with its peculiar unique typological specificities. In order to single them out the following factors may serve as important reference points i.e. the common character of stable linguistic situation and confession of faith within the limits of common statehood (though multi- ethnical by nature, Caliphate had one main ethnic nucleus - Muslims, and the Arabic language dominated in its cultural life) existed in the IX-XII cc. Central Asia; the only Muslim religion predominated there; the entire region was notable for its relative statehood stability and centralized rule. In contrast and to medieval Europe the eastern philosophical thought of the IX-XIII centuries was distinguished by its closer link with science and scientific ideas of the epoch. Besides, philosophy itself was notable for its bright spirit of rational way of thinking and common sense. Due to its geographical, ethnical and economical location Central Asia was a kind of peculiar 'golden bridge' between the East and the West; also, in cultural-philosophical development of Europe of Middle Ages it served a link between the East and the West, thus, leading to their mutually beneficial cultural synthesis (Shadmanov, 2010).

FEATURES OF THE CULTURAL RISE OF THE MIDDLE AGES AND EUROPE

All the above mentioned allows as to conclude that due to the achievements of philosophy, spirituality and science in IX-XII cc. Central Asia as well as the East-West correlation and inter-conditionality, it naturally became possible to precipitate formation development and further evolution and cultural upraise of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance Europe(Kondorse,1936; Chaloyan,1979; Chikolini,1989). Historical inter-conditionality of traditions proves it to be true to the fact that the IX-XII cc. Arab scholars' works including that of the Central Asian thinkers, served as one of the main sources of learning philosophical and scientific knowledge gained directly or indirectly by all the prominent European philosophers of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance period. Getting to know the treatises written by the Arabic, mainly the Central Asian, philosophers of the IX-XII cc. by Europeans was a compulsory stage of assimilation of fundamentals of philosophical knowledge. For example, basic works of philosophical and scientific character of al-Farabi and Avicenna were existent in the IX-XII cc. libraries of the Oxford and Cambridge universities of England. The school of translators shaped up and flourished in Spain (VII-XII cc,.) contributed great to spread of the works of ancient philosophy of Greece and Rome; it, as a matter of fact, opened not only the majesty of the original Greek philosophy, but also propagated the science and philosophy of the IX-XIII cc. Maveraunnakhr scholars like al-Khwarizmi, al-Ferghani, al-Beruni, Avicenna, and made it the European property. Meanwhile, the Central Asian scholars of IX-XIII cc. preserved much of the science and philosophy of ancient Greece and Rome; they carefully translated and originally interpreted many of the Greek and Roman texts into Arabic. Many major Arabic scientific works thus were introduced into Europe and translated into Latin, the language of learning in the West (Laasik, 2017). As a result, achievements of philosophical thought of the Muslim East of the IX-XII cc. turned into the West’s intellectual-spiritual property: those were assimilated, developed further and raised to a much higher level.

During the 1100's the first European universities were established. In time, universities were to play a vital role in the growth of science and philosophy. And the Chartres and Paris universities, educational centres of Bologna, Padua, Genoa and especially the Oxford university of England and Roger Bacon, the Franciscan religious order member and the Averroes teaching follower, played such a vitally important role in further development and general evolution of science in the Medieval and Renaissance Europe. As its most distinguished representative Roger Bacon ranked as one of the leading figures in the development of science and philosophy during the Middle Ages, and he helped lay the foundation for the revolution of science and spirituality that occurred in Europe in the 1500’s and 1600's. Critical analysis of the works of Roger Bacon shows that Roger Bacon was greatly influenced by the Greek philosopher Aristotle, the Christian teologician Saint Augustine and Avicenna, the Central Asian philosopher. He urged the study of languages, esp. Arabic as he believed that such study would enable scholars to improve their interpretation of the Bible and to discover more about Arabic and Greek scientific-philosophical knowledge. 

CONCLUSION

Eastern Muslim scholar’s works exerted great and fruitful influence on the European philosophy development including such bright figures as Peter Abelard, Roger Bacon and Saint Thomas Aquinas. This powerful influence was disseminated by the three great philosophers of the East - al-Farabi. Avicenna and Averroes (Ibn Roushd).As to the philosophy of IX- XII cc. Central Asia itself, we may constitute that it, having been contiguous to the antique philosophy, primarily with that of the Greek one, became the successor of Aristotle teaching and the systematizer of natural sciences of the period. Philosophical thought and science of the Muslim period (IX-XII cc.), in our deep conviction, enabled mutual enrichment of the East-West cultures, and thus strengthened Renaissance humanism development as the common European phenomenon. Also, antiquity culture itself, to a certain degree, lived on the Eastern sources as the Mediterranean, joining together civilizations of Europe, northern Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, despite to their regions' peculiarities, was the common cradle in the history of the East and West nations. Concluding the paper, we strive to emphasize that deep search into the present-day philosophical-spiritual processes and prognosis making of future is impossible without maximal and full-range knowledge of the past and the methodology of interpretation of historical-philosophical knowledge enables us to cope with such a task. One more remark: we are to remind that the philosophical concepts we’re getting acquainted with have practical relevance to the ultimate goal, i.e. cultural adjustment and successful experience: once we are aware of how philosophy determines our life styles and behaviors, we are all in a better position to overcome our many borders.

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