54. Ibn Ṭufayl: Living, Son of the Awake
A Sourcebook in Global Philosophy - Mohammed Rustom
Taneli Kukkonen [+]
NYU Abu Dhabi
Description
Living, Son of the Awake is Abū Bakr Ibn Ṭufayl’s (d. 1185 CE) sole surviving philosophical work and one of the best-known texts in classical Arabic philosophy. A philosophical tutorial cast in narrative form, Ḥayy tells the story of a boy who grows up alone on an equatorial island, with no human company or community to shape his thinking. Ḥayy first achieves mastery over his physical surroundings, then reasons his way independently to the teachings of Arabic Aristotelianism. Ḥayy’s story culminates with a series of ecstatic visions that describe the supernal order of reality and the way the Necessary Being’s overflow of existence radiates from its eternal source. In an epilogue from which the translated text is excerpted Ḥayy at last encounters another human being at the age of fifty. What is at stake in the encounter is the relation between rational investigation and personal experience regarding the divine, on the one hand, and on the other the translatability of each of the two with what revealed religion teaches, both theologically and in terms of mandated religious duties. While the translated passage stresses the harmony between what natural reason discloses and what religion teaches, Ḥayy’s eventual encounter with urban civilization ends disappointingly.