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HE Chool of Thens: Aphael

Plato and Aristotle are depicted walking through the colonnade of the Academy in Raphael's painting "The School of Athens". Plato points skyward to represent his focus on metaphysical concepts, while Aristotle points downward to represent his emphasis on material and empirical existence. Iqbal is not criticizing science itself, but is angry about how modernity has misinterpreted science by thinking it can explain all of reality, leading to a loss of transcendence. He aims to establish a mutually enriching relationship between religion and science by addressing their interface. Revelation and technology have been the two most powerful forces that have shaped human history, and their interaction will determine humanity's future.

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41 views11 pages

HE Chool of Thens: Aphael

Plato and Aristotle are depicted walking through the colonnade of the Academy in Raphael's painting "The School of Athens". Plato points skyward to represent his focus on metaphysical concepts, while Aristotle points downward to represent his emphasis on material and empirical existence. Iqbal is not criticizing science itself, but is angry about how modernity has misinterpreted science by thinking it can explain all of reality, leading to a loss of transcendence. He aims to establish a mutually enriching relationship between religion and science by addressing their interface. Revelation and technology have been the two most powerful forces that have shaped human history, and their interaction will determine humanity's future.

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Zee
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS

THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS


This is a scene from the famous painting of Raphael.
The master, Plato, and the disciple, Aristotle, are
entering the Academy. Look at the picture carefully
and try to work out the symbolism inherent in the
painting!
The lesson contained in the Raphael’s “THE
SCHOOL OF ATHENS”

The master, Plato, is walking arm-in arm through a


colonnade with his disciple, Aristotle, who is pointing
at the ground to signify concern for material existence
while Plato points to the sky, showing appreciation for
what lies beyond it.
• Both Heaven and Earth should be honoured
• Not to oppose Science but to create a re-
marriage of the worlds, the physical with the
metaphysical
Angry at Science?
A misconception that needs to be dispelled
is that Iqbal, in his The Reconstruction and
other writings, is angry at Science! That
would be to mishear Iqbal because Iqbal is
not putting the blame on either science or
scientists, as it may seem to a non-careful
reader. He is placing the blame on the
intellectual moderns who have misread
science i.e. Modernity’s Loss of
Transcendence/Reductionism. ‫فتنۂ عصر‬
It had slipped into thinking that because the
achievements of Science in the material sphere are
so great, it must be omnipotent –that it has the
tools to deal with values, meanings, and purposes
also. Give it time, it can deal with the whole of
life/ whole of Reality. That is the mistake Iqbal
is angry about– not science in its own domain or
scientists doing what they can do well.
In other words, he warns us that philosophy, like
other disciplines, had fell a victim to the
Colonizing effect of Modern Science and so
was the case of Theology/ Religious Studies.
It is true that the
Reconstruction is not a book
about SCIENCE RELIGION CONFLICT
but, nevertheless, this is the
underlying/overarching
question of the book which
permeates and informs every
discussion, analysis and
He is the exploring the possibility of a mutually
enriching and affirmative relationship between
Religion and Science. A large part of his
poetical and prose works is focused on the
deficiencies and shortcomings of the worldview
of Modernity and its radical departure from the
“human collectivity” with regard to the view of
Reality of which we can speak for the entire
Premodern world in the singular and may claim
that a common metaphysical “spine” underlies
the differences in the worldviews of the world’s
great religions or wisdom traditions.
With both of these forces as permanent
fixtures in history, the obvious question is
how they are to get along. Alfred North
Whitehead was of the opinion that, more
than on any other single factor, the future
of humanity depends on the way these two
most powerful forces in history settle into
relationship with each other, and their
interface is being addressed today with a
zeal that has not been seen since modern
science arose.
Revelation
Revelation has shaped human history more
than any other force besides technology.
Whether revelation issues from God or from
the deepest unconscious of spiritual
geniuses can be debated, but its signature is
invariably power. The periodic incursions–
explosions, we might call them– of this
power in history are what created the world's
greatest religions, and by extension, the
civilizations they have bodied forth. Its
dynamite is its news of another world.
Revelation invariably tells us of a separate
(though not removed) order of existence that
simultaneously relativizes and exalts the one we
normally know. It relativizes the everyday world
by showing it to be less than the “all” that we
unthinkingly take it to be, and that demotion
turns out to be exhilarating. By placing the
quotidian world in a vastly more meaningful
context, revelation dignifies it the way a worthy
setting enhances the beauty of a precious stone.
People respond to this news of life’s larger
meaning because they hear in it the final warrant
for their existence.
Even today, when traditional peoples want to
know where they are– when they wonder about
the ultimate context in which their lives are set
and which has the final say over them– they turn
to their sacred texts.
Modernity was born when a new source of
knowledge was discovered, the scientific method.
Because its controlled experiment enabled
scientists to prove their hypothesis, and because
those proven hypotheses demonstrated that they
had the power to change the material world
dramatically, Westerners turned from revelation
to science for the Big Picture.

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