Prof Sajjad Rizvi Inaugural Lecture - 'For the love of wisdom': Philosophy as a Way of Life in the World of Islam
Monday 13th May, 16:00 - 17:00 IAIS LT1 and 2 (or via MS Teams) with Drinks Reception from 18:00 in The Street Gallery In-person tickets are available on a first come first serve basis, however you will be able to join the lecture online (via MS Teams). The lecture will also be recorded and available to watch at a later date on our Inaugural Lectures webpage.
| An Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies lecture | |
|---|---|
| Date | 13 May 2024 |
| Time | 16:00 to 18:00 |
| Place | IAIS Building/LT1 |
| Provider | Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies |
Event details
The development of philosophy in Islam was inspired by earlier Greek models of the pursuit of sagacity and what Pierre Hadot called ‘philosophy as a way of life’ involving spiritual exercises and an ethical commitment. After tracing briefly the trajectory of that understanding of philosophy through the course of the history of philosophy in Islam, without reducing all philosophical activity and traditions to it, I suggest ways in which such a conception of philosophy may still be useful for us today, not least at a time when philosophy and the humanities more generally needs to be urgently rethought in terms of the realities of a global and plural context that no longer privileges the Eurocentred, which attempts to seek the universal without universalising the particular and which seeks to come to term with coloniality.
I propose taking one strand of the pursuit of wisdom from the last few centuries in Iran associated with the school of Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1636) seriously while acknowledging that ‘reducing it’ to our common notion of philosophy may diminish it and give one example of its role in ethical debates to demonstrate its abiding interest.
Location:
IAIS Building/LT1
