Kemal Batak

In this paper, I examine whether the distinction between revealed theology and natural theology applies to Ibn Rushd’s (Averroes’) conception of Islamic theism. My analysis proceeds in two stages: (i) a structural–historical account of Ibn Rushd’s Aristotelian theory of religion; and (ii) its broader philosophical implications, especially how suspending that distinction yields a deistic form of theism. Whereas Thomas Aquinas distinguishes between revealed and natural theology, Ibn Rushd rejects a strict bifurcation and articulates a unified epistemological vision (the no-bifurcation thesis). Within this vision, Aristotelian demonstrative truths occupy a higher “religious” status, while literal/apparent beliefs have a lower status (the priority thesis). Unlike in Aquinas, natural theology is not the preserve of a philosophical elite: it is also open to ordinary people, whose faith counts as knowledge (ʿilm)—hence a natural theology of common sense. In Part II, I turn to Ibn Rushd’s Aristotelian deistic Islamic theism, where the “religion peculiar to philosophers” is understood as Aristotelian metaphysics, that is, natural theology in its narrow sense. On the identity thesis, Ibn Rushd makes Aristotelian metaphysics the knowledge peculiar to God and thus the philosopher’s highest religion, grounding revelation and regulating the literal religion.

In his Middle Commentary on Posterior Analytics, the great Aristotelian Commentator Ibn Rushd defines “knowledge” (scientific knowledge, epistemē, ‘ilm) as one of Aristotle’s five intellectual virtues and the faculty of reason, akin to the other virtues, in an Aristotelian way. Ibn Rushd defends the teleological argument, rooted in Aristotle’s teleological reading of nature and supports the modal strong epistemic status of this argument, which is part of the concept of knowledge, in his early work (Short Commentary on Metaphysics), middle period work (al-Kashf) and late work (Long Commentary on Metaphysics), all in harmony with each other. Ibn Rushd, constructing the teleological argument based on the definition of knowledge, which fundamentally articulates the necessary or essential qualities inherent in objects in defense of de re modality, takes a step that seems quite radical within the context of the Aristotelian epistemic tradition to which he is affiliated: The teleological argument, strongly associated with the concept of knowledge —one of the five intellectual virtues— is presented as a form of deductive inference accessible not only to philosophers but also to ordinary public. In other words, according to him, the argument is both a philosophical and a religious way. This implies, for instance, that natural theology, typically viewed by Aquinas as an activity reserved for the higher epistemic class with talent and leisure, is seen by Ibn Rushd as a robust epistemic activity accessible to ordinary people. This new element, which can be referred to as common sense natural theology, contends that ordinary public knowledge and philosophers’ knowledge differ in details such as whether it is a simple or complex deductive inference while remaining the same in terms of their knowledge status.

In this article, I explore the views of Ernest Sosa, a living analytic philosopher who developed a virtue epistemology out of the contemporary virtue ethics. Virtue theory in ethics is person- based rather than act-based; and sim ilarly virtue theory in epistemology is person-based rather than belief/ proposition-based. In this way, Sosa who has defended person-based theory of justification with the aid of intellectual virtue, developed a theory that can be an alternative to foundationalism, coherentism and post-Gettier problem s. The theory is a refined version of reliabilism and its roots can be traced back to Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes and Reid in classical epistemology and it also basically depends on epistem ology of Alvin Goldman in contemporary epistemology. One of the m ost im portant features of this epistemology is refrain from dichoto- m ies such as foundationalism / coherentism and internalism/ externalism and try to surpass polarization by reconciling them. Finally, virtue epistemology of Sosa defends epistemology as a normative discipline against Quineist radical naturalized epistemology.

In this article, I examine first Edmund Gettier’s criticism of the definition of knowledge within the traditional epistemology, then Ernest Sosa’s evaluation of Gettier problem. Ernest Sosa who is mainly known as a champion of virtue epistemology, had tried to solve Gettier problem before presenting this evaluation. I describe, therefor, here the views of Sosa regarding the problem both in the period of virtue epistemology and the period prior to the virtue epistemology. According to him, traditional account of knowledge as a justified true belief had collapsed with Gettier. Sosa have some solutions that are basically externalist and reliabilist. He thinks that traditional internalist account of knowledge have neglected causal connection between the fact that p and one’s belief of p, that must be rejected epistemic closure principle which is used in Gettier counterexample, that true belief can be counted as knowledge only if it is based on intellectual virtue and that our reasoning which take us to knowledge ought not include any falsehood.

According to many commentators, on the one hand, Aristotle elaborates the concept of happiness as an action in coherence with all virtues in the first book of The Nicomachean Ethics, on the other hand, in the last book of The Nicomachean Ethics, he consubstantiates happiness with only one virtue, which is philosophical wisdom. In this article, I examine parts 7 and 8 of Book 10 of The Nicomachean Ethics, which are probably the most interesting and unexpected passages in the the book. These parts are the most problematic areas which became a subject matter of many books for the clarifications of the issues. Aristotle obviously claims that there is a relationship between the best intellectual virtue and God, giving him perfect happiness, which indicates that there is an intersection point among metaphysics, epistemology, ethic and philosophy of religion. In this context, the main aims of this article are, first, to describe the contemplative life which is caused by the highest intellectual virtue and to claim that this life is in harmony with the inclusivist theory.