Welcome back to the new Think Green. My name is David Barr. I'm usually not on the show, but I'm back this week for special one time offer and with me as always this my kid right now. It's pretty hard.
You all doing well better. I go less from the Coronavirus 19, a.k.a. the China virus. Yeah, that's what I call it in your household.
My house. But you told me that you refuse to get inoculated because all you needed is sunshine and you just open your mouth and you let the sunshine in your body. I've also been drinking bleach for years. I was doing well.
And is your daughter feeling better? She is not bad at an eye. And so she's great. And I had two days where I was the only sick person.
I just laid in a bed by myself while my wife razzled the kids. And now my eldest half is around. I'm just chasing a toddler around for five days. It's pretty exhausting.
It's a joy. It's a joy. It's a joy. Greg has kids.
Yeah. Well, so on from COVID to monkeypox. How are you doing Greg? Doing great.
Is that a jab at my mustache? No, no. So Greg has a mustache. She resembles a Keystone cop in the 80s.
He's staying out of hostile in Boston. True. Why? You're welcome from Boston.
By the way, I've recorded now from Kentucky, Georgia, Ohio, at least one other person. Where are you guys just North Carolina, DC? Colorado. Yeah.
I record from Italy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
You see him. Also, I thought he was backpacking through Europe. He said he was heading eastward towards Thailand. I don't know why Thailand, but the mustache gives me some.
I like a market there. It's free. You're what's known as a dink. Dual income.
No kids. And you could afford these nice hotels, but you're out of hostile. I really am in virtual for gallery. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So I think we're all excited about the episode today. Quite excited to reunite with an old friend.
So a classmate of Greg's at the University of Maryland. They both studied with Charles Butterworth. And when I was in the graduate, I got to sit in on some classes with him. I'm referring to was seen the dream El Reyes, who's an associate professor of political theory and constitutional democracy at the James Madison College in Michigan State University.
I think that's the honors college, right? Was he? No, it's a public affairs college. Oh, public affairs college.
Okay. So is it undergraduate? Is it undergrad? Is it undergrad students?
Correct. Undergraduates. Undergraduates. So what's seen is the world's foremost leading expert on even Cal doon and in his pro-logeminal to his his large work.
The history is called the history. We're just history. You mean about doing? Yes.
It's a history of the world and it focuses mostly on Northwest Africa. I can say something about it. But today we're talking about the Mucadima, which is his introverted option of history. We didn't have any parts of history, by the way.
So in terms of the plan of the work, it has three parts. A part about that develops the science of culture. Another part that deals with the history of the world, with the focus on the history of the Arabs. And then a third part, which is the history of the Berbers in Northwest Africa, the emazive in Northwest Africa.
The original introduction and the first book became lumped together into the introduction to the history. And it's about, so the Mucadima is about 1200 pages long introduction to the history of the world and Northwest Africa. I'm sorry, what's the introduction is 1200 pages? Yes.
And we're going to do a line by my life by Jesus tonight. Okay, good. So the Mucadima is many listeners might have heard of Cal doon, sort of in passing, certainly not studied him. But we're using, by the way, the Princeton translation from the Arabic by Franz Rosenthal.
This is a bridge by Enjay Dawood. It's from the Bolingian series. And I'm going to find the complete, the complete history, but this bridge in Bisma is available and I think it was reissued by Princeton some years ago. I wanted to read a quote from the back of the book by famous British historian, another guy with the synoptic vision of the world, Arnold Toynbee.
And so just so that listeners don't think that we're talking about something totally arcane so talk to be right, undoubtedly, we're in front of the new theme on, undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that has ever been created by any mind in any time or place, the most comprehensive and illuminating analysis of how human affairs works that has been made anywhere. So, take that around. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. So Alex has been so much time studying Aristotle and everything.
And here we'll see if we could begin with an opening question, like St. John's seminar, why has Alex dissipated so much of his scholarly life studying Herodotus and he could have been applying himself to Cal doon? Well, I'm a fan of Herodotus actually. So you will know, there is, I think it would be interesting to compare what Herodotus tries to do in his, in his history, with what even how to tries to do by looking at maybe the introduction of both works.
Now, I am not an expert in Greek, consulted many different translations of the opening line. I forgot now the translator. But the opening lines of Herodotus and Alex, you can go green, green, yes, it's a very colorful translation. And it is, you know, fundamentally what Herodotus sees his text as something that would serve future generations of understanding, you know, a critical history of the war between the Persians and the Greeks.
Underlines, I think, for me, I believe in fundamental morality now I'm getting into some areas that Alex might dispute, but the idea here that there is the premise is that future generations will have direct access to that text, you know, like the text itself will provide the context for that And I feel that even how to shares with Herodotus, the idea of fundamental morality, the idea that you can have an access to history, but that even how doing is aware of something that perhaps Herodotus was not aware of, at least even how doing himself claims that he's aware of something previous great historians are not aware of, and that you know the passage of time makes it difficult for us to understand the context of the text. You know, like that there is something about history, the changes in human social organization that would prevent us from have this direct access to the text, and that's why history, you need to understand something about how to read history in order to have a more direct access to the text. He is, but you know it's important for me that to underline that with what distinguishing from modern historicism is that the fundamental point here is that there is such a thing as a fundamental morality. So, but Alex, you had a question sorry.
Yeah, so what is that what is that difference it's an interesting claim because immediately my thought is well maybe it's a Quran right is the revelation that's a part of me is also maybe it's aerosol right because that's obviously a difference but now Greg and David have their own little one He says that previous historians at the first page of the preface of the preface of the introduction is he said previous historians have failed to probe history with the yardstick of philosophy. I just have a very basic question for the folks at home before, once he mentions into this much more interesting post-oppa question. You know we have an audience that even keldu means something for some of them for some of them like this is a name I've never heard before so and speaking about him in the same breath as rottis folks might be inclined to think that this is roughly the same time period as rottis and that's way off so I was just wondering if you could give me just like a question that David now looks just raised but like who's even keldu and where's he from? When's he writing?
Before you answer that I want to take Greg to task because how many damn episodes have we done where Greg waits around about 10-15 minutes and he's like I want to ask the basic question who's this guy I'm trying to do our you always do this to jump in early man we got the we got the ball rolling there's noosest flowing and whatever We're gonna have to probe you with the yardstick of philosophy soon correct promises promises no but what's the this is good at making chicken We can we can move this to the front of the episode. Oh, no. No, keep it in this way. Yeah.
Yeah, who was even called doing and and then just after that a very brief overview of the project in the movie team. Right. Okay, very good. So even Hal Doon is a historian slash philosopher and judge a politician.
He has, you know, many he wore many hats. He was born in 1332 in Tunisia. He comes from a family, a distinguished family that used to live in Spain. So even Hal Doon, even though he, his family migrated, you know, 100 years almost.
I think if I remember correctly before he was born, he refers to himself as the end of the sea and especially, you know, like, we, so he's the Iberian peninsula. That's where he identified emotionally culturally. He feels that he comes from that. He was born in Tunisia and to a learned family.
But in a very difficult time, a time of kind of political decline for a variety of reasons, but also the plague, you know, devastated North Africa around that time he lost many of his own family members. So even Hal Doon, you know, born in a time of uncertainty. And he was a very talented individual, a scholar, religious figure that many political readers wanted him to use his services, but never, maybe because of his intelligence, they didn't trust him. So he's kind of like a reputation of being somewhat Machiavellia.
In fact, many, many people compared him with Machiavelli. We can talk about that at some point. And his, he was very successful as a politician, but that puts him in kind of like danger and imprisonment. And he decided at one point that he no longer interested in politics and decided that he would focus his life on scholarship.
And he went in and lived in some nomadic setting in current day Algeria and started to write a history about Northwest Africa. The reason why he chose Northwest Africa is because in the history of Islam, most of the focus was on the East, the Arabian Peninsula, Asia, Asia, we know that history very well. But we don't know, we don't have a good record of the history of Northwest Africa, especially what he called the barbers today's emazir. And so he decided he wants to write a history of Northwest Africa.
But to write this, you need to contextualize it with the history of the world. So that's why he went back, you know, since the beginning of time until, and it's mostly the beginning of time is very religious. He keeps a very religious account of that history before he goes into the history of the Arabs and the Arab dynasties. After that, but in order to write that history, he decides I need to write an introduction about how to read history, how to verify historical facts.
And that is what became the mokadima, the introduction to the history that the multi volume three volume in the English and the Arabic translate actually edition. That includes the development of a new science, according to him, which is the science of on run or culture that focuses on the study of human social organization in its to, in its distinct ways, the ways of the nomadic primary culture and the way of the civil development of civilised culture. He wrote, I think, he worked most of the finished work almost in some original fashion in in in in Algeria. It's an impressive work that includes discussions of nomadic living, civilised living, ways of life, philosophy, you know, all different kinds of sciences and arts and ways of living in in the both in nomadic and in civil culture.
And the impressive thing is that he did all of this work living in this nomadic setting without access to libraries. So he's really incredible. He then left to Egypt where he left and ended his life in in Egypt. There's more interesting things about his life.
He was at one more, more than one occasion, the Supreme, what we would call Supreme judge of the maliki with a maliki school, which is a part of the Sunni tradition. Anyway, you know, this is I don't know if this is kind of like just a no, that's perfect. I wonder if I could if the groups okay with it if we can talk about the introduction to the introduction. Since that's in at the end of the episode, we can talk about the kind of readings was seen at us consult because we didn't read the whole of the Mukatima, not even the whole of the abridged Mukatima, but parts of it.
I want to discuss his historical method in particular, but the beginning I have a general question with his his manner of writing indicates toward the end of the introduction. I think that their secrets that he has that if you pay close enough attention will unfold themselves, but right at the beginning, he seems to do something peculiar. So I brought up this quote that previous historians did not probe with the artistic philosophy or quote with the help of the knowledge of the nature of things. And so you expect, so this is on the very first page, so you would expect that this introduction to the introduction would proceed with examples of how previous historians had failed to probe with the artistic philosophy, but instead what he does is he gives examples of the most mundane things possible that they got the sizes of the army's wrong, or so and so was said to have like calculated with this person out of marriage, but we know that she's an honorable one.
So he's getting, he goes through a litany of errors that well known historians in his day and previous generations have fallen, fallen in, but none of them seem philosophically related. And I don't know if this was a slide of hand of his from the very beginning or if I'm reading things incorrectly. And he's a definitely a careful writer. So the word mokadima is an introduction is the original introduction is very short which it's the part that David is referring to where he begins by by complaining about the fact that there are previous philosophers by and large have not applied systematically some kind of like rational tools in examining history, you know, logic and understanding of the nature of human social organization and so forth.
He doesn't provide David is correct. He doesn't provide a very systematic analysis of this in the original introduction, because I think later on the first book, the book on on run on culture on the science of culture is the one that he demonstrates a kind of a more scientific approach. Just as a side note, there are certain things that even had done examines that does not sound too scientific. So, you know, like I just want to as a caveat, we have to be prepared sometimes for things that are surprising he talks about magic he talks about things that are not what we would not see as kind of like rigors.
The beauty I think of the introduction is that I think it highlights the major themes in a very brief, he's trying to build the case for why we should read his book. And I think in a way that is appeals to common sense, mostly, rather than philosophically and I think he does a fantastic job about it with it. But it's interesting when you begin to examine the particular story. So the first, the first, one of the first stories that he challenges is the number of the army of Moses.
I remember correctly, you know, like according to the Muslim historian who he admires, he called it, you know, 600,000. And of course, the majority copies it from what I think is Jewish sources, which everyone's very careful not to, you know, strangely he doesn't go to the Jewish sources. And if you read his history, he's actually surprised, you know, like the actual history you'll see that he has access to Jewish sources, you know unmatched by other Muslim historians. That's another subject.
And for example, he shows that it seems nonsensical from, like from a scientific point of view, but that it can also, there's another possibility that the figure of 600,000 is a miracle. And, you know, if it's a miracle, it's not something that he can reject. So he leaves it for you is it a miracle or is it wrong. So in each of those examples, at least, you know, I claim you will see something beneath the surface that is very worthy of philosophic reflection.
But on the surface, it's a very common sense arguments. I want to pick up on this common sense argument because it seems like a lot of the time when he's making those arguments occasionally takes recourse to aerosol, right. And, and it seems like these kinds of arguments aren't away because he says history is a subfield of philosophy early on. I think that's what David was referring to.
And it seems like he understands philosophy, at least a history belonging to the subset of political philosophy, because he'll reason about social organizations. He seems a lot like a social scientist in a way, right. So two questions I had. One is, to what extent is he, because he almost has like a times a kind of teleological developmental view, right about nomadic peoples and that cities and that luxury and decline and things like that.
So you have a kind of teleological view there. Another question which is might is I noticed he refers to Aristotle's politics. I was a little bit surprised at that because I had always thought that up to a certain point, at least up until a very least, right. They didn't have Aristotle's politics.
That was the text that we're missing. So they supplemented it with pleasure. Do you know offhand when they got the politics because obviously it must have happened at some point, right. I don't think he actually refers to Aristotle's politics, but I think it's dependent on the translation about Aristotle and thinking about politics because that that mystery of the politics is also with even how to do it.
You know, like we at least from a scholarly point of view, it seems that there's no evidence that the Arabs had access to the politics. So I had in mind on page 45, he says the following, maybe I'm just listening to human social organizations something necessary to philosophers express this back by saying man is political by nature. Right, that's struck me as a maybe there's. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's actually no no no this is very good I. My reading of even how do make you know like I feel that he has familiar with the politics, but all scholarly evidence, you know, like we don't have that evidence but you know like I in fact, some of the stuff that he does. And examine it seems to me that he's responding to the politics. He doesn't say that he has access to the politics, and all, you know, people who saw the history of the of these of the, you know, like the, the text that we don't have the accent, the reluctant to say that he is, have the access to the politics but there is something strange in addition to this and I like the idea that man is political by nature I think it's familiar to more than just even it will do.
I think it would have been an idea that can be well known without necessarily knowing every you know like they're having access to the politics because they know that the politics existed but we don't know if they've read it, you know, like the himself does that. And he doesn't mention some of the students of Aristotle so maybe he got some quote from them that's a fair point. I was shot by that I was like they come across as someone sorry but anyways could you talk about the influence of Aristotle and him and so he has this kind of like a strange at least ostensibly. A kind of love hate relationship with Aristotle.
He criticizes Alfa Rabi because he thinks Alfa Rabi he says, he says, he's an imitator of Aristotle, kind of like even a blind imitator it's just kind of really not very complimentary view of Alfa Rabi. And that's he would have benefited that he spent more time with Plato than he did with Aristotle, you know, like somehow Aristotle ruined him. But, but there is also a lot of respect for Aristotle, Aristotle and logic, you know like it does that you know fantastic in his fantastic study the connection between the whole doing and also the end logic, or city and science and all of that. And so this is interesting and make me suspect that he maybe have more than just a passing knowledge of the politics is how it seems to me sometimes that the science of Amran appears as a corrective to the politics.
But again it's very hard to say that in with with the because so you know in the politics book one especially you know you have the city is every you know like the whole politics is centered around the city. And no interest other than just get it in passing a life before the city and after the city, it's just the city as the central, and here we have even shall do one that starts with nomadic or primitive or primary human social organization as central to understand politics in some ways, and he focuses on what is the center of his work which is dynastic or imperial politics of the you know of dynastic rule. So he goes beyond the city, free the city and beyond the city, and so much of his language is kind of like he appears to me as a corrective of of Aristotle. And so he spends so much time in studying those human social organization is his is his is this work the first of its kind, then I mean structurally structurally and just how he proceeds as a historian or their Islamic Arabic antecedents.
And a lot of what he's doing is quite creative and in fact we haven't discussed the breakdown of the schema but it, you know, book one, and then a lot of preparatory just you know they don't put one chapter one and then preparatory discussions. And then chapter two chapter three chapter and then there's chapter six and another preparatory discussion and so structurally he's doing interesting things but also substantively is this to what extent is this in the innovative or first of its kind, work that breaks some kind of mold and just as a side, question that I was shocking would it have been to people receiving it for the first time. So it's you know even how doing himself saw his book as unique. There is not you know a book like even how do you want to do more doesn't you know we didn't you know he's it's a person it's kind as you say David.
But the important thing is how you know he is the issue with with toin B the code that you began with toin B treats even how do as this unique genius in fact all of this plays of even how do it because he sees him as a unique genius nothing came before him nothing came after him. Not a product of a culture and civilization that produced him. So even how do was revolutionary in some ways but it's it was not a stranger. You know he himself even there's something about what he does that is unique and we can talk about this but he saw himself actually as a continuation of a tradition of great universal historians within them within you know within Islam.
And especially there is this one fast most fascinating of historian called a masawdi and masawdi written so many books about history, a universal history that kind of situated Islam within universal history of the world. And I think even how do we want it to do the same thing the difference between even how do and and then Masawdi is that even how do I think he sees himself as being kind of working out. And then the system, the system by which you can read history read texts that can survive beyond his time in ways that I'm a so really you know like one of the critique of the story is one of the people that he admires but he says that people who came after masawdi didn't understand what he was doing so they became imitators because the time has changed. And the way we see things and read things from our context distort how we read texts and this is where you know I come back to Alex original question you know what you know about you know when I was comparing even how do and Herodotus.
It's not only you know even the Quran for even how do can be misread and he gives an example in that in his introduction to the to the history, because we don't understand how how we read the context. We supply the context to the text and that's a problem. So that's a very long way of answering your question David so he's unique in some ways but he is he's part of a you know it's not that unique genius coming out of nowhere he has his own context. Is the connection about something you said earlier about in relation to the question of the size of Moses is army right he says early on that he's he criticizes earlier historians that he's trying to get at the causes of events right now in a way philosophers like for that causes and this gets them into trouble but there and there's less of a vested interest in the you know the community of believers in philosophic and career first philosophy or something like that right that should be set aside to certain right you can just study logic and you need logic for jurisprudence but that's it right that would be.
But there's all there is a real vested interest in history right in the genealogy of the various calluses of the talks about works of the story that he thinks are just kind of boring or whatever. And it seems like to a certain extent history is a sort of is a useful veil right if you want to acquire it causes because you can start explaining ordinary events and you can be relying on Aristotle or Plato with philosopher but obviously he's going to run up against this core issue of reason or revelation. So just because we stumbled across this earlier. Do you want to share your thoughts on whether to what extent is he actually concerned with that issue is that a central part of his inquiry.
It's a lot of pages to write from a 1200 page introduction all this history to be solely concerned about so I don't want to be reductive but I do want to get your thoughts on how he handles that that question if you think he's actually thinking on that or fundamental level why he might focus on history without any any angle you want to take on that those are just some of the thoughts spinning in my head. It's a difficult question to answer I think he is concerned about the question it's clear about how he treats religion in many different parts of his mokadima but also in the in other in other writings. The mokadima the easier answer Alex would be trying to understand the centrality of religion to politics that's something that occupies him and it's clear you know like how to understand the origin of political power. And there are two things that we need to understand we need to understand for example material strength that comes from something he called a subia group feeling or tribal you know tribal feeling that makes the group act like one.
And the more nomadic the more primary the existence the stronger the group feeling is but group feeling by itself cannot lead to political achievement of greater political power unless it is united with a religious message. And he says that this is kind of universal. And you know the people can interpret this in different ways but even how to provide an explanation for example of why Islam flourished that does not only look at the miraculous. And in fact you know what we would like calls you know borderline materialist interpretation of why Islam flourished.
The nomadic Arabs of the primary existence were able to defeat two great civilizations the Byzantines and the Persians and control you know half of the known word in just few years. You can see it as a miracle but you can also understand it as in material terms Islam is essential to the story and he explains that. But it's not you know religion alone cannot achieve political power and tribal strength can itself cannot achieve political power so that's an address your question although it might have an implication you know like we can think about the implication of what he says. I you know I think one of the things that.
Even how do you is invested in is to have a more rational approach to history because the way we read history is the way we read our present in a way if we think of history in kind of like a very fantastical way you know extraordinary individuals or miraculous events. You know we will apply this to the to the present. Even how to was living in a time I think where that becomes manifestly problematic so by have a more rational understanding of the past means by implication a more rational understanding of the present. And what do you expect from politics and the limits of politics in the present.
I see my question for you you mentioned in passing a science of civilization. So two things one is what makes his inquiry scientific and to what is civilization or culture is that we said for those somehow not those aren't the same okay good. Science of culture. Is that that's the accurate phrase from the air.
That's what I had an article arguing that it has to be the science of culture. I agree with Matt D and a few others. Rosenthal translated as civilization. And I think that's why most of in the English English scholarship on every how to translate on run as as civilization.
The science of culture is trying to understand human social organization in all its modes. There's something universally links primitive primary culture and the more advanced civil culture. What makes it philosophic is applying a kind of the study he says the study of applying logic, understanding the nature of human social organization how people live together, why they live together. The material and the spiritual aspect of human social organization and that's why the world culture is I think is the more appropriate term comes from cultivation, but also from washer as in, you know, like in Latin.
So I'm not sure if this is Greg. What else to add to that I'm sorry. Okay, what what makes it scientific as opposed to merely history or something like that or why is history a philosophical discipline or maybe if I'm not. Yeah, what makes it so you have to, you know, like so to do this to understand what is scientific about the science of culture.
We need to understand how history more or less have been understood in in Muslim culture. It's narratives that are based on a chain of transmission. And even how do them sees a problem with these kind of, you know, these kind of narratives. We need to judge those, you know, we have the only thing we have is these narratives.
Before relying and trusting in the chain of transition we have to try and understand whether or not these events are likely or unlikely. And so we apply, you know, philosophical methods, as I said, understand the logic, the nature of human social organization, human nature. And these things will allow us to judge with it and an event is likely or unlikely. It's ultimately, ultimately just as important.
We cannot establish without a dog, whether or not an event happened, but whether or not it is likely or unlikely. Great. I just think a lot of modern notes. I just think a lot of modern scholars would, I'm not saying I agree with them, but they would balk at using the word science for that.
So just a couple of directions I would go. I think the idea of the emergence of anthropology as a field of study isn't our response to dissatisfaction with our ability to. You're right. All we have at our hands are these narratives.
And so this anthropology seems to me like a run around to try and go a different route to be a science of these human origins, as opposed to doing it philosophically like given Cal doing it. So it seems like anthropology would be another route. It seems like there would be implicit criticism of anthropology here in doing Cal doing. So I'll leave that as a possible thing to talk about.
I'll do it sidebar and I'll try to defend our own sociology in there too. Just a sort of. No, I think sure. Yeah, for sure.
Social science is generally. I wonder if so as you mentioned, Aristotle was aware of pre political social organizations, and he's aware of things bigger than or after the city. And so I don't think it was an obliviousness on aerosol part that he chose not to explore village life and or he does speak about imperial life but not a lot. And so I wonder if how might Aristotle risk me this isn't fair to ask you, but I suspect that therefore his choice to focus on the police is a philosophical choice.
And so this is the right size. This is the right form of political organization for human development. And his relative silence on these other forms somehow speaks to their human inadequacy. But what I'll do and find something very important for understanding human nature, it seems like in understanding pre political or the Berbers and these kinds of folks.
I don't know. I realize it's not a very good question. No, it's a very good question. Greg, I feel it's a difficult question to answer because we need to.
Or to give a kind of like a short quick answer to it. I think that it depends, you know, like that you have a worldview that centers the city as, you know, like, you know, like, center of the political analysis, the police. And then now with that with monetism, that word is completely different and requires a kind of a new way of of centering political analysis, you know, like whether or not we like it. In the time of even how doing the dynasty became the center unit of political analysis, and we need to understand it.
It's not a rejection of even of Aristotle. I think it's trying to understand how time have brought a new challenges in new ways of understanding that we need to grapple with. We cannot just rely on Aristotle without the intermediary of, you know, you know, something new. I know that I didn't say, you know, like there's more quick.
I know it's very good. I just want to draw for listeners, but I think there was a lot packed in that short answer. So I want to try to unpack it a little bit of folks. It seems like what you're saying is that, when you said this in passing, that monotheism has changed the character of political organization.
And what it's done, I took the simplicity of what you're saying is that it's now made because there is the there are accounts of a single God. It now means that there might be a way of organizing communities larger. The cities somehow are go evil with polytheism, if that makes sense. And that once there is now this emergence of a single true religion, you're going to try to group people under that single true religion.
And South Robbie's book, the religion, the opening passages of that. And that somehow manifests itself in dynastic rule. And so things are different now. That's very good.
If I can just add on to that, I think maybe the flip side of that point, Greg, is that Aristotle's already watching the polis go out of existence. But if you are concerned with the intersection of our political and rational natures and the degree to which both can be optimized at the same time, the polis seems to be the optimal, at least at the time, the optimal political entity, right? Because you're beyond necessary things. So you have the time to cultivate these faculties, but it's not so large that you don't allow for common deliberation.
You need this one over many. So it would seem like monotheism, as well as has with it comes part of parcel, this sort of demotion of common deliberation or something like that. What's in there trying to ensnare you and you just don't fall for this kind of stuff. I, you know, the difficulty that I'm having in answering this is because, you know, the way I see Aristotle, his treatment of Aristotle is complex.
It's not a complete rejection of what Aristotle teaches and centers his, you know, like the idea of the city. And in fact, so much of what he built he sees himself as building on Aristotle. But, you know, there is something about, you know, Islam and Christianity and I think Judaism, but you know, since it's not, you know, as a unique character, you know, they're both inspired by Judaism. The universal character that we all kind of like the created by by God, which means that your politics, you know, a proper politics need to account for that universal character.
It's a very cosmopolitan view that that the police does not allow for. You know, like I think that it does provide a big challenge of how we see, you know, ourself in the world, which requires us to go beyond just the the the police. There are, yeah, and it's just like I'm. It's something I'm still working on also, you know, trying to think through, you know, like that, that relationship and I'm now beginning to make no sense.
Sorry. No, no, no, this is great. It's good when you get a live question right on the table. Do we do we have other questions?
I'm kind of tapped out here. I was going to say, what's in it? If you have any concluding remarks on the team, or especially for first time readers, any signposts that you could provide, I think that might be interesting. And then let's, then let's transition to a little bit about your biography and your path toward philosophy.
So, you know, like I, I, I encourage people to be the mokkadema. I think they will find it to be an impressive, complex work. It will look also strange, which is kind of like the unfortunate. The unfortunate fate of medieval political philosophy.
The fact that they are actually much closer to us than the ancients. And sometimes the ancients look too modern. I'm fine. I think people need to.
It requires, you know, like I think patience and reading and to get familiar with the style. And you will see, I think beginning to see a link between, you know, reading the mokkadema is not the only text that I'm doing that. So much of the medieval political philosophy I would encourage people to read because who we are is in large part because of medieval political, I mean, you know, the medieval world so much of who we are. And reading medieval political philosophy, I think is essential for understanding something about where we come from.
But I'll leave it. Yeah. That's perfect. So, I see, talk to us a little bit and this is, this can be as brief as long as you wish.
What got you interested in the study of the great books and political philosophy in particular? And then are there teachers along the way who have aided you and nurtured this interest? I mean, you're at a wonderful university and so you were clearly had fine teachers somewhere along the way. So you talk a little bit about that.
Yeah, I think maybe that bad classmates too that sharpens your powers of explaining like Greg. No, Greg was a wonderful colleague. I think my my interest in political philosophy is, you know, familiar to all of you. It all begins with good teachers as undergrad.
I had Leon Craig, my, my professor as an undergrad in University of Alberta at Minto Canada. I was impressed by his teaching style. I read Plato's Republic with him and I fell in love with that text the first time. I found it to be, as I said before, a familiar text.
It's just something that's not strange. I spoke to me about things that I cared about, you know, the justice. And here we have, you know, someone in Portobox had proved that justice exists and it was wonderful as an undergraduate. I've also taken classes on, you know, Russell, Hobbes, Shakespeare, you know, many, you know, so, and as a result, I became interested in more than more political philosophy.
The thing that I interest me, you know, like I found that I would like to apply what I've learned. I did my master's on Plato's license. Please don't look it up. It's terrible now.
But so I love Plato, but I wanted to apply and what I've learned into medieval political philosophy because that's part of my tradition. And it happened that Leon Craig knew Charles Butterworth and at that time I didn't know how wonderful he is. And so I applied to University of Maryland and that was, you know, Charles Butterworth was the program for me. I've taken all sorts of great books and classes with him.
The first time I've read the Evangel doing in full the three volumes, I was with Butterworth. He did a class on it. He did. He did.
He provided us with funding to get the brilliant books and books. And very expensive. And he got the external funding for the students. I thought that we were paid very little for it.
So we read the whole thing with him. We also read the guy, you know, my monadies with him. It was wonderful. Red Tocville and other.
So, you know, I also had wonderful friends who made me kind of like interested and sustained my interest in political philosophy. So that's kind of like in terms of for me, Butterworth was sent to me. He continues to be a source of inspiration. So he returns your calls.
Greg's still trying to get in touch with me. So who, sorry? No, Greg, he doesn't return Greg's calls or tax messages. Every time Greg sends him an email, he gets a response that just says unsubscribe.
It's impossible. But it was a response. I know I should not have said Charles is not a bit of an open. But even gentlemen have the limits.
No, no, Greg is a dear student of the, he always talks about him fondly. So, yeah. I know I will. Yeah.
So this is Greg's portion of the show. I was just going to ask if you have a, is it fair to say that even Calderon is your favorite philosopher? One of my favorites, I think I love Al Farabi. I think Al Farabi is fascinating for me.
It's very difficult to read. I think many people, you know, with very few don't know how to read him. But I just, I wish I could write more on Al Farabi. But the intensity of the reading is just unlike anything I've done.
So that's why I don't, I've written only one article about the book of religion that covers only, you know, maybe five pages. And it's not like, you know, it's not the most philosophical. But he is, yeah, Al Farabi fascinated me. It's been watched.
I'd like Al-Kazali, who's not, you know, like for different reasons. You know, there is even seen a, there is so much there out there. And of course, in terms of philosopher, you know, like Plato and Aristotle. You know, have their, their up their two place.
Yeah. Very nice. Well, then early on, any modern philosophers, strike at fancy. You were going to talk about, even if you're in Machiavelli, we kind of derailed that, but we're sort of.
Running a little run time, but. That is, you know, like I'm interested in, but I cannot say I am kind of like fascinated. And of course, we need to read the moderns and we need to understand and I don't think philosophy stops only with, they taught that stuff for me. But in terms of kind of the intimacy that you get with, with the.
Ancients and medievals, it's very hard to form with the moderns. You know, that's fair. But do you read much literature at all, wasn't it? Well, yeah, not as much as I would like to, but I have been, remember we had a Liberty conference one time on.
The Arabian Nights. The Arabian Nights. And so now I have been teaching a seminar for the past couple of years on the Arabian Nights. Oh, that's not a one night.
We would love to have you on the show to discuss. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, if you will. Well, yeah, I would love to.
It's a wonderful, strange, strange book. I wish it was, yeah, it's funny. Yes, yes. Hopefully.
But I don't have the, it is, it does have racial. Yeah, yeah. Elements of the Georgia boy to find those out. So, yeah, I don't think it is.
They're characters who are. Yeah, but it's surprising in terms of the only teas that I would say is that the Arabian Nights provide a perspective about medieval times that are actually, you cannot find in your philosophy text because it brings it to the level of the city. And so, you know, you're a little bit of a beautiful street and you get to get to see people. It's like the weakest of the week are able to express them, their self and be subversive.
So it's a completely different than everything else I do. Even though I know that there are some people different ways of interpreting the Arabian Nights. We could address that. That would be a lot of fun.
Yeah. Okay. So now that we've seen what seems, yeah, promise to come back. It's a good end to this wonderful episode.
Thank you so much. And I'm going to talk about the book that I did. Could you tell us the title or the working title of the book on Cal Dean? Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Against the politics of the Arabian Hal-Duan and the science of culture. Perfect. Yeah.
Well, thanks for coming on, Waseema. I hope folks at home really, this is a treat. We now have a pretty good series of episodes all around Arabic Islamic thinkers. So, I mean, there's a really good introduction of folks that they want to get into it.
So, don't forget the rates. Oh, of course. We're glad. And we got to have you come back on because I got to tell us about the time you had to escort the guy out of the classroom.
That's the time I'm telling that story. But we told that story before, but we haven't had you on to. No, no, we got to do it and embarrass himself. Yeah.
I think Greg told you, and then we had one of the most gentle, right? Reserves students, kind, reserved. Yeah, kind. Escort, this was the fanatic, right?
The political. The body slammed this guy out of the room, pushed him down. No, no, that's not true. That's a tradition.
He just asked Greg Coward in the corner. Yeah. You know that I have no direction. Yeah, we talked about this when we were preparing for the show, I don't remember this.
I have no connections. It's just found so many of them, but I can not. I don't know. I'm just so much.
So you know that my life has been forgotten now. You must be beating people up and throwing them out of places all the time to forget individual instances. Yeah. Very good.
Thank you, Wes. And everybody. Please rate, subscribe, and enjoy your show. See you next time.