Metaphysics and Logic (Hasan Spiker)

This course restores the meaning of metaphysics as a science—the ordered inquiry into being, cause, and demonstration—and traces its gradual unravelling through the revolutions of nominalism, empiricism, and ‘critique’. Through sustained close reading, students follow the movement of reason from the unity of first philosophy to its modern fragmentation, and the continuing possibility of its recovery.

The following ten weeks illustrate the approach taken throughout the twenty-six-week course. Week 1: The Meaning of First Philosophy Why metaphysics is “first”: method, causes, and the primacy of the intelligible. Plato, Republic VI–VII; Aristotle, Posterior Analytics I; Metaphysics IV (selections).

Week 2: Being and Intellect The hierarchy of being and the soul’s participation in the intelligible. Aristotle, Metaphysics VI & XII; Plotinus, Enneads V.1 & V.2 (selections).

Week 3: Exemplarism and Demonstration Knowledge as procession from the universal exemplar to the particular. Ibn Sī¯nā¯, Ilā¯hiyyā¯t I.5–I.8; al-Nafs (selections); Plato, Timaeus (excerpts).

Week 4: Nature and Light From emanation to illumination: metaphysics as the science of Light. John Scotus Eriugena, Periphyseon (Book I selections); Suhrawardī¯, Ḥ.ikmat al-Ishrā¯q.

Week 5: Causality and the Divine Act The relation of will and wisdom; occasionalism and its limits. al-Ghazā¯lī¯, Iḥ.yā¯ʾ ʿUlū¯m al-Dī¯n (Wonders of the Heart; Tawḥ.ī¯d sections); Fakhr al-Dī¯n al-Rā¯zī¯, al-Maṭ.ā¯lib al-ʿĀliya (selections).

Week 6: Logic as Discipline of Intellect Terms, propositions, and syllogism; the purification of meaning. al-Jurjā¯nī¯, al-Taʿrī¯fā¯t (logic entries); Mullā¯ Fanā¯rī¯ (on Isā¯ghū¯jī¯); Ibn Kemā¯l, ʿAqā¯ʾid epistle (selections).

Week 7: The Nominalist Disruption Universals, will, and the loss of formal cause. Duns Scotus (haecceity selections); Ockham, Summa Logicae (extracts).

Week 8: The Method and the Cogito The re-founding of certainty through the subject. Descartes, Meditations II–VI; Leibniz, Monadology §§ 1–30.

Week 9: Experience and the Eclipse of Form Empiricism and the collapse of substance into sensation. Locke, Essay II.1–2; Berkeley, Principles (Introduction); Hume, Enquiry §§ IV–VII.

Week 10: Critique, System, and the Aftermath Reason’s final attempt to ground itself, and the question of recovery. Kant, Prolegomena (core sections); Hegel, Encyclopedia Logic §§ 1–25; Shā¯h Walī¯ Allā¯h, Ḥ.ujjat Allā¯h al-Bā¯ligha (selections).

Reflection pieces are submitted in Weeks 6, 13, and 20. Final essays are due at the end of Term

2. The Bible, Early Christianity, and the Historical Critical Method (Paul Williams)

This component of the Diploma explores the theological and textual inheritance that shaped the Western world’s idea of itself—from the Church Fathers to modern criticism. It enables students to engage the Christian and post-Christian background of secular culture from within and to discern the profound convergences between modern biblical scholarship and the Islamic understanding of revelation.

Learning and Assessment: Weekly close-reading seminars with one-to-one tutorials. Three reflective essays across the two terms. A final integrative essay for each course.

Graduates emerge with a disciplined grasp of metaphysical reasoning, an internal understanding of Christianity’s intellectual inheritance, and the breadth to interpret modernity itself through the restored lens of first philosophy.

The following ten weeks illustrate the approach taken throughout the twenty-six week course. Students engage in close readings of foundational texts of the Western tradition, examined in light of the Islamic intellectual heritage, to uncover the metaphysical and theological assumptions that underlie the modern historical-critical method.

Week 1: The Bible as a Historical and Theological Problem Revelation, canon, and

history: divine speech and historical mediation. Readings: Qurʾan 2:75–79; 5:44–48; Luke 1:1–4; Galatians 1; Shabbir Akhtar, The New Testament in Muslim Eyes, ch. 1.

Week 2: Paul and the Formation of Christian Scripture Law, grace, and Abraham as a model of faith; the transformation of covenant and obedience. Texts: Paul’s Letter to the Galatians; Akhtar, The New Testament in Muslim Eyes, chs. 2–3.

Week 3: Augustine and the Interiorisation of Faith The inward turn of the soul and the union of the Platonic and Pauline. Readings: Augustine, Confessions VIII–IX; City of God XIX; comparison with Quranic and Islamic conceptions of nafs and fiṭrah.

Week 4: Spinoza and the Secularisation of Scripture From revelation to reason: the Bible as a human text. Readings: Baruch Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise, chapters 6– 7; discussion of the theological-political implications of secular exegesis.

Week 5: Hume and the Crisis of Miracles Faith, testimony, and the problem of the supernatural. Readings: David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion; Of Miracles; reflections on Islamic epistemologies of prophecy.

Week 6: The Enlightenment and the Moralisation of Religion Reason and revelation in Kant’s moral philosophy. Readings: Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone, Part I; analysis of the transformation of faith into moral autonomy.

Week 7: Luther and the Reformation of Faith The theology of grace, conscience, and authority. Readings: Martin Luther, The Freedom of a Christian; On the Bondage of the Will; discussion of the Reformation’s unintended metaphysical consequences.

Week 8: The Unintended Reformation Theological division and the birth of modern

pluralism. Readings: Brad Gregory, The Unintended Reformation, chapters 1–3; the loss of metaphysical unity in post-Reformation Europe.

Week 9: Revelation and Meaning in a Disenchanted World Late-modern attempts to recover moral coherence. Readings: Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, chs. 1–3; Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, chapters 15–18; Islamic perspectives on moral teleology.

Week 10: Revelation and Reason in a Post-Critical Age Toward reconciliation of history, faith, and truth. Readings: Shabbir Akhtar, The New Testament in Muslim Eyes, epilogue;

synthesis of biblical, philosophical, and Islamic insights.