IQBAL, KANT, McTAGGART AND WARD

Dr. Muhammad Maruf

(a) Iqbal and Kant

When Iqbal was studying philosophy, Kant had a very potent influence in the fields of epistemology and metaphysics. He, in fact, laid down the fundamentals of knowledge on which modern epistemology got its footings. Iqbal in the very beginning of his first lecture[1] endorsed the Kantian model of human know-ledge thus: '…knowledge is sense-perception elaborated by understanding'.[2] And again in the same lecture he brings out the conceptual nature of human knowledge thus: '…the character of man's knowledge is conceptual, and it is with the weapon of this conceptual knowledge that man approaches the observable aspects of Reality'.[3] Thus, human knowledge, in so far as it deals with (Phenomena' as stressed by Kant), is conceptual, i. e. involves concepts, and in the words of the Quran the superiority of man to other beings, including angels, lies in his capability to use concepts.[4] Again, what is really important in Iqbal is that according to him the model of all human knowledge, including the highest form of mystical or religious knowledge, is basically the same as the empirical knowledge.[5] This led him to reject the doctrine of patent `Pantheism' to which the final goal of human experience is `fama', the abnegation of one's own `individuality' and `personality' in the Individual and Person of the highest Being ; Iqbal affirms 'bags' as the final end of all human life and religion, as we have said before. In his model of knowledge, as that of Kant, the situation demands a necessary trio of elements, namely, (i) the subject, (ii) object, and (iii) the relationship of `sensing' to use a term from Spinoza. The same trio is involved even in the highest form of human knowledge. This position of Iqbal is really original.

Iqbal regrets that, like al-Ghazali, Kant 'failed to see that thought, in the very act of knowledge, passes beyond its own finitude'.[6] Kant's analysis of human thought or reason in his famous First Critique led him to the position that `human under-standing is limited to the phenomena of sensory experience',[7] and was forced by his own premises to the impossibility of "rational metaphysics"; though he tried on practical and moral grounds to re-establish the ideas of God, freedom and immortality in his Critique of Practical Reason as working hypotheses having their utility for practical purposes. He failed to establish them on purely rational grounds or on the basis of any direct experience of man. Iqbal regrets that this great genius failed to capitalize on his great findings due to the limitations imposed on his thought by the Western "climate of opinion" within which he had to move and think. He puts forward two very potent pleas against Kant's agnostic position regarding reality; (i) in the face of the more recent scientific developments the case for rational theology is not so hopeless and (ii) 'Kant's verdict can be accepted only if we start with the assumption that all experience other than the normal level of experience is impossible',[8] says Iqbal. Imam al-Ghazali undertook the same mission of curbing the excesses of reason centuries before Kant ; but unlike the latter, he sought positive aspect of knowledge in mystic experiences which rendered the knowledge of reality possible.[9] Iqbal, however, partly agree­ing with both, surpasses them in his view of knowledge of reality when he holds that it is not possible through any one single source only ; knowledge of the real, according to him, is possible through all the three sources amenable to man, viz., Nature, History, and `Qalb' (i.e., inner intuition), as said before. This renders his view of knowledge much more comprehensive and concrete.

In his later two Critiques, The Critique of Practical Reason and The Critique of Judgement, laid ample stress on the importance of value. In his former Critique he concentrated on the good will as the highest good, while in the latter Critique his discussion centered round the category of `numinosum,[10] the two great values in human life Lotze and the neo-Kanuans mostly based their thought on the axiological aspects of Kant's theory. Lotze held that our ultimate convictions are-of three kinds: (i) logical necessities, (ii) facts of experience, and (iii) the determina­tions of value.[11] For him these convictions are all independent; whereas, as seen before, for Iqbal values, facts and logical necessities all form part of the organic whole, and none can be under-stood independently. Both Kant and Iqbal agree that respect for humanity is.one of the highest human values as well as the principle of conduct. Although respect for humanity is one of the chief subjects discussed by Iqbal, both in his prose and poetry, he reproduces Kant's own for mula. In his lectures when he writes : `Treat humanity always as an end and never as a means only'.[12]

Kant and Iqbal differ substantially on the concepts of space and time. Iqbal would certainly agree with him that we should approach them subjectively, and Kant was not without his sufi predecessors in the world of Islam in this regard. But for Kant both space and time were the "Forms of Sensibility",[13] the moulds which organize sense-data into rounded-off objects. He described them as both ideal and subjective. However, like other Westerners he takes them in a unilateral sense[14] Iqbal, though taking both space and time subjectively, treats of them as veritable "realities"; for him they are the aspects of divine life, as said before. He agrees with Bergson that time, in its real sense, is the stuff of which the reality is made.[15] One can refer to the saying of the Holy Prophet quoted (p.b.u.h.) before, according to which God is Time. Again, Iqbal rejects the unilateral treatment of Kant and his followers. He agrees with the Muslim scholars Jala-ud-Din Dawwani (1427-1502) in his book Zaura and Shaikh Fakhr-ud-Din al-Iraqi (d. 1287), the Sufi poet of Baghdad, that time and space are both "multi-lateral". They conceive `infinite varieties of time', says Iqbal, `relative to the varying grades of being, intervening between materiality and pure spirituality'.[16] Among the Muslim theologians and thinkers it was Imam Fakhr-ud-Din al Razi (1149-1209) who discussed time on multi-lateral basis in his book Eastern Discussions.[17] Again, they have conceived the concept of space on parallel multi-lateral basis, relative to the nature of the being or sphere to which it belongs. A similar view of time was advocated by Mir Muhammad Baqir;[18] especially his view of real time is instructive. However, as said before, Iqbal conceived time and space as the interpretations which thought puts on the creative energy of God Thus, space and time both are subjective according to him and in this respect he agrees with Kant.

Regarding the question of `immortality', Iqbal appreciates Kant's moral argument. He urges that in modern times the line of argument for personal immortality is on the whole ethical. Iqbal says, `With Kant immortality is beyond the scope of speculative reason: it is a postulate of practical reason, an axiom of man's moral consciousness'.[19] According to Kant, man pursues the Supreme Good which comprises both virtue and happiness, the two heterogeneous notions. As their confluence is not possible in the narrow span of an individual's ephemeral life, we are, says Kant, driven to postulate immortal life and the existence of God; it is the demand of justice that virtue and happiness must go together Iqbal remarks on this position; ' It is not clear, however, why the consummation of virtue and happiness should take infinite time, and how God can effectuate the confluence between mutually exclusive notions'.[20] However, Kant's theory implies that immortality is the lot of every individual human being (being a moral being) ; while as we have said before, Iqbal, like the great persian sufi poet Jalal-ud-Dm Rumi (1207-1273) believes in the doctrine of "earned immortality",[21] a concept not known to the West till as late as Dr Mc Taggart Again, for Kant and Iqbal both 'self' is a reality ; Kant calls it "noumenon" which is the subject of "rational psychology". And "rational psychology" according to him was impossible. Iqbal will agree with him on the unintelligability of the self when he admits that its reality is too profound to be intellectualized'[22] However, Iqbal takes refuge in the sentimental (intuitive) approach and holds that we can reach the self in us through direct "feeling" (i. e., the feeling of I,-amness', as he calls it)[23] which is both "ultimate"[24] and "spontaneous".[25] Thus for Iqbal `self' is not wholly unknowable as claimed by Kant. Also, both Kant and Iqbal reject the "simple substance theory" of the self, and, what is interesting, Iqbal follows his argument to show that self need not be a "simple substance" in order to be immortals.[26]

Iqbal appreciates Kant's rejection of the ontological argu­ment for the existence of God He uses his patent example of imagined one hundred thalers to prove that mere idea of a thing or being nowise leads to its existence.[27] This argument is well popular with the students of modern philosophy who have studied this German genius. His criticism of the argument under review is based on his criticism of Descartes' fundamental position: 'Cogito ergo sum' (his famous' saying which is also his basic philosophical proposition). Iqbal states his criticism in his lectures thus; The "I think" which accompanies every thought is, according to Kant, a purely condition of thought, and the transition form a purely formal condition of thought to onto-logical substance is logically illegitimate'.[28] He endorses his line of argument as thoroughly convincing and may rightly be called as final against any line of thought following the pattern of the Cartesian first principle.

However, what is fundamentally different between Kant and Iqbal is the former's rejection of metaphyscis as an impossibility. It was one of the ultimate conclusions drawn by Kant on the basis of his premises in the First Critique. He rejected the possibility of "rational Cosmology", "rational psychology" and "rational theology" which ultimately led him to the rejection of all metaphysical knowledge. But his conclusions were based on his initial supposed bifurcation between "Phenomenon" and "Noumenon", and that between, what he called, "sensible intuition" and intellectual intuition",[29] which led him to the dogmatic conclusion that the "Noumenon" was unknowable to the human reason. Iqbal, on the other hand, as said before, was led to emphasise the need for a rational or metaphysical basis for religion. He says, Science may ignore a rational metaphysics; indeed, it has ignored it so far. Religion can hardly afford to ignore the search for a reconciliation of the oppositions of experience and a justification of the environment in which humanity finds itself'.[30] Thus for Iqbal what religion lacks today is a metaphysical foundation, and herein lies the fundamental difference between Kant and Iqbal.

(b) Iqbal and Dr. McTaggart

John Mctaggart Ellis McTaggart, a British contemporary and teacher of Iqbal at Trinity College, originated an atheistic pluralismic idealism. He was rated among the top thinkers of Anglo‑American idealism. He expounded his religious ideas in his book Some Dogmas of Religion Where he basically differs from Iqbal is his belief that the existence of a personal God is not essential for religion. Macquarrie describes his system as "religious atheism" which sounds paradoxical. McTaggart discusses the ideas of God, immortality, and freedom. Of immortality he declared that there were arguments strong enough to justify such a belief. He rather refutes arguments against immortality of the self.[31] Iqbal, however, rejects his view that `the self is elementally immortal'[32] on the ground that it participates in the elemental eternity of the Absolute, that `the individual ego is a differentiation of the eternal Absolute...,[33] To this Iqbal objects, To my mind such a differentiation should give it only a capacity for immortality and not immortality itself. Personally I regard immortality as an inspiration and not something eternally achieved. Man is a candidate for immortal life which involves a ceaseless struggle in maintaining the tension of the ego'.[34] However, he appreciates Dr. McTaggart because he 'emphasised personal immortality, even at the expense of the transcendent God of Christian theology, at a time when this important belief was decaying in Europe,...'[35] Iqbal compares him even to the great Muslim mystic al-Hallaj in this regard. He regards his position on immortality as "almost apostolic".

Like Iqbal and other idealists, McTaggart believes that the self is differently constituted from material things. He wrote to Iqbal in 1919, 'I agree with you, as you know, in regarding quite untenable the view that finite beings are adjectives of the Absolutes. Whatever they are, it is quite certain to me that they are not that'.[36] Even if the body were regarded as a necessary accompaniment of the self, it might be the case that on the destruction of one body, the self passes to another body? He believed on the possibility of "a plurality of lives".[37] Like Iqbal he believe in the continuity of self and life: what is gained in one life may be strengthened, not only carried over, in the next life. However, unlike Iqbal, he believed in the "substance theory of the self".[38] According to McTaggart, selves are the ultimate reality, a real substance. Iqbal remarks, `All that I mean is to show how his mind tried to escape from the results of English neo-Hegelianism'.[39]

Again, unlike Iqbal, McTaggart believed in a finite God. He discusses God's omnipotence in this connection. He argues, 'An omnipotent person is one who can do anything', including altering the laws of thought or the multiplication tables.[40] Now in this sense omnipotence is incompatible with personality (which requires some thing existing outside of its own will), and irreconcilable with goodness (in view of the presence of evil in the world). This leads him to the idea of a finite God who can be called personal, good, and even 'supreme' in the sense of having more power than any other being He goes on to reject the idea of God on the ground, 'If all reality is a harmonious system of selves, it is perhaps itself sufficiently Godlike to dispense with a God'.[41] Again unlike Iqbal, he believes that God cannot be a person or self, for no person can include another self. For him ultimate reality is eternal system of selves united in the harmony of a lose 'so direct, so intimate, and so powerful that even the deepest mystical rapture gives us but the slightest foretaste of its perfection'.[42] He compares this system to a college, whose members have more reality than the college itself. Iqbal urges that McTaggart's position on the mutual inclusion of egos is based on his idea of love as a passivity. He says, 'Love is no passivity. It is active and creative'.[43] Dr McTaggart's real difficulty stems from the position that the `self is unique and impervious. How could one self, however superior, include other selves ? Rumi, the mystic poet, felt the same difficulty. Iqbal concedes, `Perhaps it is not possible intellectually to conceive this ultimate unity as an all-embracing self. It is my belief, ... , that McTaggart's Hegelian inspiration marred the vision which was vouchsafed him'.[44] For Iqbal the ultimate reality is `a rationally directed life which, ... , cannot be conceived except as an organic whole,...'[45] He rather conceives God as an ego, what he chooses to call, "the Ultimate Ego".[46]

Again, time and matter are unreal for Dr. McTaggart. Iqbal subjects his concept of time to a searching criticism in his Lectures. He says, `Time, according to Dr. McTaggart, is unreal because every event is past, present, and future' . Thus each event `combines characteristics which are incompatible with each other'.[47] He begins his criticsm by saying that `the argument proceeds on the assumption that the serial nature of time is final... This is taking time not as a living creative moment, but as a static absolute, holding the ordered multiplicity of fully-shaped cosmic events, revealed serially, like the pictures of a film'.[48] Iqbal replies to him that `the future exists only as an open possibility, and not as a reality. Nor can it be said that an event combines incompatible characteristics when it is described both as past and present. When an event X does happen it enters into an unalterable relation with all the events that have happened before it. These relations are not at all affected by the relations of X with other events which happen after X by the further becoming of reality. No true or false proposition about these relations will ever become false or true. Hence there is no logical difficulty in regarding an event as both past and present'? Iqbal concludes with the remarks, personally, I am inclined to think that time is an essential element in reality, But real time is not serial time to which the distinction of past, present, and future is essential; it is pure duration, i.e. change without succession, which Dr. McTaggart's argument does not touch'.[49] Perhaps Dr. McTaggart's misconceptions regarding God and the ultimate reality stemmed from his defective concept of time.

McTaggart believes that religion needs `rehabilitation' which can be effected only on the basis of a complete metaphysics, proving that the universe is on the whole good.[50] Here he agrees with Iqbal who also embarks upon a Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (in his case), and looks for a metaphysical basis He says, `Indeed, in view of its function, religion stands in greater need of a rational foundation of its ultimate principles than even the dogmas of science'.[51]

Iqbal proposes the real test of a self to be its response. Does reality respond to us? His answer is "yes"; `sometimes by reflection, sometimes by the act of prayer which is higher than mere reflection. He remarks that `In McTaggart's case reflection took the place of worship'.[52] Iqbal adds, `The truth, however, is that neither worship nor reflection nor any kind of practices entitle a man to this response from the ulumate love. It depends eventually on what religion calls "grace".[53] As said before for McTaggart the self passes into another body after death, but he admits that there is no guarantee that this process will be end-less ; "it may be that the process will eventually destroy itself, and merge in a perfection which transcends all time and change". In this eventually', says Iqbal, 'we come back to the Absolute again, and McTaggart's system defeats its own purpose'.[54]

(c) Iqbal and James Ward

James Ward was the most important thinker as regards his impact on Iqbal. He was first a Fellow (from 1857) and then a Professor of Philosophy (from 1897) at Trinity College, Cambridge, through the period when Iqbal's was studying at Trinity for higher studies. As a result, Ward appears to have exerted one of the most direct and profound influences in determining the directions and main trends of Iqbal's thought; he may rightly be called among the Western progenitors of his thought. A comparative study of their respective systems will reveal the magnitude of impact which I am going to deal with briefly in this section.

Ward was `one of the most acute critics of naturalism and one of the most powerful defenders of theism,[55] says John Macquarrie. He constructs a world-view in which the ultimate reality, is "active spirit" — a surely vitalist position. He emphasises upon concrete and whole experience, and condemns the abstract character of natural sciences, and like Iqbal he says that sciences are one-sided fragmentary. The error of science, according to him, is that of 'ascribing objective existence to abstractions'.[56] Again, like Iqbal, Ward emphasises 'the essentially practical and purposeful character of experience, in which conation is more fundamental than cognition. The theoretical subject is a bare abstraction from the organic unity of experience.[57] Of experience Ward says, `in a word, it is life—life as it is for the living inoividual'.[58] Ward's emphasis on concrete experience underlies his criticism of the mechanistic naturalism. Both Iqbal and Ward agree that naturalism falls because it concerns itself with a partial aspect of the concrete reality known in experience, and sets up this partial aspect as the whole of reality.[59] Both assert that nature demands a spiritual interpretation. However, Ward holds that the requisit spiritual aspect is found in history; he claims that `the historical is what we understand best and what concerns us most'.[60] Only history can disclose to us a spiritual world of conative subjects striving for ends and realizing values'.7'.[61] For Iqbal, on the other hand, history is one of the three sources of knowledge amenable to man, the other two being Nature and "Qalb", i.e. heart which is a kind of inner intuition or insight,[62] he says. In other words, history, or for that matter any single source, alone cannot afford a complete knowledge of the ultimate reality.

Ward stresses the need for a spiritual interpretation of nature, which he believes, in company with Iqbal, is complementary to scientific interpretation. He says, `There is nothing in nature that is incompatible with a spiritualistic interpretation'.[63] He presumes that nature is continuous and there are no gaps or leaps in it.[64] This led both Ward and Iqbal to a doctrine of "pan-psychism". Nature is teleological and there is some sort of rudimentary spiritual life even in the dead matter. This leads him to remark that `nature thus resolves into a plurality of conative individuals'.4 Ward, however, refuses to rest content with a pluralism and, like Iqbal, he moves to reconcile plurality of the selves with the unity of one reality which is God in the case of both. He argues that the unity and order in the world point to a doctrine of theism. He holds that God is at once the source of the spiritual world and the end towards which it moves.[65] In this connection Iqbal quotes from the Quran which describes God as `the First and the Last…,[66] that is, the beginning and the end. As said before, God is not only the source of everything, but also the destination to which each thing will return. Again he agrees with Iqbal that God is personal, both immanent and transcendent (the doctrine of panentheism); that he has created free conative subjects and thereby has imposed a certain limitation on himself, but this by no means involves his own diminution for by bestowing more freedom on His creatures he has enhanced his own greatness.? In the same vein Iqbal admits that `the emergence of egos endowed with the power of spontaneous and hence unforeseeable action is, in a sense, a limitation on the freedom of the all inclusive ego. But this limitation', he adds, 'is not externally imposed. It is born out of his own creative freedom...'[67] They will both agree that men work together with God for the realization of his purpose, that is, men are co-workers with him : to use Iqbal's words, they are the 'participators of His life, power and freedom'.[68] Professor Ward also preached the doctrine of "meliorism" and held like Iqbal that men could better the world through love and their own concentrated effort; and in this mission, Iqbal adds, `God is a helper to man, provided he takes the initiative. It may be noted that one distinct feature of the thought of both Ward and Iqbal is their reconciliation between absolutism and personalism, monism of the Hegelians and pluralism of the thinkers like Dr. McTaggart. This has bestowed immense depth and richness to their philosophical systems.

NOTES