Husnain Bin Sajjad@husnayn_
To all the secularist philosophy book platforms in pakistan, a sincere question, why do you encourage the study of philosophy/knowledge/intellectual discourse? What purpose does it serve in your estimation or is it a good in itself, if yes then why so?
For muslims knowledge is essentially interlaced with tawhid & ethics, it has a cosmological meaning and serves an ultimate ideal, knowledge that doesn't aid ethical reformation in accordance with divine order is illusionary - knowledge in and of itself without a divine orientation isn't inherently virtuous, in the Islamic worldview it's perfectly integrated with the creation's telos and therefore is virtuous in reference to that.
How exactly does knowledge fair in the purely secular paradigm in reference to its utility or essence? if its utility lies in civilisation building for you and hence social development, then that doesn't depend exactly on philosophical discourse, modern societies can advance without that easily, in fact brute autocratic power coupled with economic sensibilities can aid that with little use of philosophy.
Should philosophy be studied for personal character development? That assumes having an idea of the ought in relation to ethics, what exactly is that, whose ought should ones' character develop towards and through whose methodology, kantian categorical imperative?, utilitarianism? emotivism? And as a muslim secularist, it pushes you towards the problem of meta-ethics, that would cause some issues for your islamic ethical commitments.
If philosophy is inherently virtuous? then what framework legitimises this value judgement for you? If the only aim it serves is social utility and survivalist interests (material growth and advancement in society) then just recommend machiavellianism and call it quite, because your interests around philosophy serve nothing but power and therefore should be portrayed as that only rather than some inherently virtuous packaging. In that case your intellectualism serves power (which in itself is also instrumental and serves other ideals, that you lack in the purely secularist worldview ), so you don't address the issue of its purpose , you just push it one step further.
If it's encouraged for the purpose of refinement of the intellect in order to understand the world better, shouldn't the divinely revealed axioms (as a muslim) be prioritised as they are held to be the utmost truth about the reality by you as muslims. And consequently If philosophy should be studied as ilm is encouraged in the Islamic framework, then you would have to study it precisely as Islam frames it. Beyond the divine context of knowledge or contemplating the workings of the world through revelatory truths/ideals, why ought one "love wisdom"?
So why exactly should hume or hegel or neitzsche be studied, either its instrumental for something (what is that? and why?) or its inherently virtuous (how is that?) how does the secular immanent worldview make these philosophers and the study of their ideas meaningful (more so, anymore than my local imam's ideas - not rhetorical)?
